Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	blood_n	body_n	efficacy_n	860	5	10.4794	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

Bloud on the account of which such Butcheries and Burnings of Men alive have been committed that the so mis-stil'd Barbaritie and Inhumanitie of the Test-Act compared herewith is not only Mercie andHonor to the Persons concerned but a Monument of greatest Equitie and Philanthropie or Love to Humane Nature to endeavour to extinguish out of the Nation the very Principles of so much Bloud-Guiltiness and Bloud-Thirst of the greater heinousness becaus if the Bishop be to be credited in the Case it was for not believing a Transubstantiation which it was Morally impossible for those Martyrs to know and such abstrusities which they neither did nor could nor indeed ought to understand 4. To press and force a litteral Sense upon the Holy Scriptures Free Familiar Condescension to our Weakness in expressing things of a high Spiritual Nature in such Language as we in Humane Bodies most easily take things into our minds by as in the Sacrament the real Spiritual Union and Communication of the Value Vertue and Efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself and in the Union of and Communion and Communication of his Spirit to us is express'd by eating his Body and drinking his Bloud Now I say to force a litteral Sense upon this is such a piece of Rudeness Barbaritie and Ingratitude that if the same measure were meeted to all other parts of Scripture would even in the Judgment of those very Men who are either Atheists or Bigots in this matter not only turn it into Horrible and Abominable Burlesque but even Martyr and Murther those two Witnesses as some have expounded them To vindicate therefore those Sacred Volumes the Pandects of our most Holy Religion from having to do with so mid-night and Sphingian a Riddle in so plain and merciful an Institution so humble and even Domestic in a spiritual Sense as the Lord's Supper is a Riddle set on work to so much Cruelty and Bloud-shed is worthy the Spirit of a truely Christian and nobly English Senate and to set the danger of its return into use at the utmost impossibility Humane Providence could attain without the expectation of Miracle For what is meant by Transubstantiation the Bishop himself says is altogether unknown and uncertain especially to the persons chiesly concern'd viz. the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation and which they neither do can nor ought to know What obligation can they then have to believe it except with such a blind Faith as all Religion and Reason abhors However if they have no Faith concerning so fugitive a thing that like a shadow cannot be catch'd or like the Phantom of a Body that hath no flesh and bones to be seen and felt as all Bodies have and as Christ as it were prophetically expos'd his Body to the Experiment of when it was really there that no such Imposture concerning it should be palm'd upon the World I say if the Nobility and Gentry have no Faith of such a thing why may they not profess and declare they do not believe it For the Bishop seems either not to be awake or to dissemble a slumber that his Discourse of mens swearing to any thing his Burlesque on the famous Burgesses of Oxon and his Appeal to the Honourable Members concerning their Idea's of Transubstantiation and the Babel thence arising the whole Notion is indeed a Babalism or pertaining to Babylon the Great had been very good if the Test had requir'd them to declare their belief of such a Transubstantiation But now his Arguments hunt counter and impeach the Roman Tyranny of horrid Murthers upon persons for not believing what they neither do can nor ought to know what they can so hardly pronounce the sound of much less hammer the sturdy sullen Notion it self For who can know what there is no knowledge of But what more innocent than to declare when lawfully requir'd though before the Searcher of Hearts a man does not believe what he cannot nor ought to know nor so much as anvil a Notion of If it were never so true real knowable and worthy to be believed any one might without guilt when justly demanded to do so declare he did not believe it while he knew it not so as to find reason to believe it it were double Hypocrisie to do otherwise and all the Bishop's arguing and storying can never make it otherwise Indeed the whole recoyles upon himself and dashes out the brains of all he hath writ upon it which sure he crasly oversaw or thought all his Readers were such Fools as to be couzen'd with the gloss For if the infidelitie were ever so culpable it were a Dutie when adjur'd by a Law to declare it but how can the infidelitie be blam'd when after the Bishop's hunting down the Notion through the whole Historie of the Controversie He hath prey'd only upon a Ghost miss'd of all comprehension and he pronounces the summ and result of all to be what is meant by that Transubstantiation is a thing altogether uncertain and unknown and there is no one thing in which Christendom more both agrees and differs all Parties agree in the Thing and differ in the manner Now it so happens the Test was so sagaciously compos'd though it might lawfully have done much more that it modestly leaves the Thing free and requires only to declare a Belief of such Manner of Transubstantiation as of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Bodie and Bloud of Christ and requires the Declarers own Belief alone and nothing of censure upon any others Belief in this branch of the Test which surely any man may lawfully make that makes it truly and seeing the whole Issue of the Notion is Scepticism the Bishop himself being Judg and what can the man do that comes after the ishop may not every man then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not comprehend it therefore I do not believe it Indeed if there were Revelation for it like what there is concerning the Father Word and Spirit one God concerning the Incarnation and Hypostatic Vnion of the Eternal Word with Humane Nature leaning not on figurative expression but plain assertion wrought into all the discourse and whole Argument of Scripture all Disputes were silenc'd But when there is no pretext of Revelation but such a manner of speaking as if it were press'd alike into a literal sense through the whole Book of God it must overthrow all Theologie To refuse then a Figure there where it is so absolutely necessary that else Christ must eat his own flesh while it remain'd entire before the Apostles and drink his own bloud while it was circulating in his Veins and no amaze nor so much as question upon it is such a setting the Scripture to be broken upon the Wheel such a Barbarity as exceeds a thousandfold all the Barbarities and Inhumanities spoken of throughout the Bishop's whole Book Especially when our Lord declares in a like manner of speaking and doubts upon it His words were spirit and