Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	blood_n	cup_n	testament_n	7,016	5	9.5158	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42451	Five captious questions propounded by a factor for the papacy answered by a divine of the Church of God in England by parallel questions and positive resolutions : to which is added an occasional letter of the Lord Viscount Falkland to the same gentleman, much to this present purpose.	Gataker, Charles, 1614 or 15-1680.; Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.	1673 (1673)	Wing G306; ESTC R24961	63,053	90

senses to be the instruments of our faith and the Bread and Wine are designed to be sensible Symbols of spiritual things even as the Water in Baptism is Briefly since our Blessed Saviour the Angels and the holy Apostles Luk. 24.39 Joh. 20.27 Mat. 28.26 Act. 10.41 1.9 1 Joh. 1.1,3 have made our senses competent instruments to assist our faith and reason in judging of the truth and presence of Christs Body even after the Resurrection and Christ hath not any where by himself or his Apostles limited the free exercise of our senses nor lessened the credit of their Verdict in the Sacrament of the Eucharist more then in Baptism is it not a horrid tyranny over Christians to require that we renounce both senses and reason and at the command of a Romish Priest believe that there is no Bread and Wine where all our senses almost conspire to inform us of their presence and the very nature of the Sacrament requires it and on the other side to believe that Christs Body is in every consecrated Host and in every crum whole and entire and continues one though divided from it self in a million of places when our senses can give us no information of this presence and our reason assures us that it is inconsistent with many Articles of our Creed But observe the confidence of this Factor who with a fore-head well rubbed tels you that Protestants require you to renounce your senses whereas we think that our Saviours command He that hath ears to hear let him hear holds by proportion in the rest Mat. 13.9 Apoc. 2.9 He that hath eyes to see let him see with assurance that the God of truth who fitted man with senses for the service of his Maker as well as for his own benefit doth secure him from deceit in the use of them about their proper objects in Religion as well as in civil conversation As for our Reason this he would perswade you must be renounced in the belief of the Trinity that you may renounce it for the easie swallowing the Camel of Transubstantiation Think what advantage this man gives to Heathens Socinians Anti-Trinitarians and indeed all the adversaries of the Gospel by confessing that the prime Article of our faith concerning the God whom Christians worship is more opposite to reason then the scandalous Monster of Transubstantiation The Doctrine of three Persons in one God is indeed a sublime mystery which is beyond the discovery of reason before it is revealed and incomprehensible by reason after revelation as many secrets in the very course of nature cannot be accounted for by our dark and narrow understandings Reason it self tels us that the infinite nature of God is not to be measured by the limited being of the creatures and also that the glory of the invisible God cannot be discovered but by his own manifestation of it and that according to his own good pleasure with different degrees of light as Gods wisdom thinks fit to impart unto man the knowledge of God And lastly Reason resolves that Gods Word especially of himself who like the Sun is seen by his own light is to be believed without dispute Since therefore God in his Word written hath clearly revealed that the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are one God it is a kindly office of enlightened reason to bring down every vain thought and weak reasonings that lift up themselves against the knowledge of God and to lead them captive under the obedience of faith But there is no cause why we should struggle with our reason and un-man our selves that we may admit the divelish figment of Transubstantiation whereof there is not the least shadow in the Word of God This subtil Sophister aggravates the difficulty that may be fancied in the Trinity to the greatest advantage of Atheistical cavillers but he would lessen the absurdities of Transubstantiation by an imperfect and false representation of his own Doctrine which hath no ground in Gods Word All that is with any colour alleadged out of Scripture to give countenance to the lie which we are required to believe is the sentence of Christ This Bread is my Body This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood Luk. 22.19,20 Mat. 26.26,28 or My Blood of the New Testament Mark now what a vast difference between the speech of our Blessed Saviour The Bread is my Body that is signifies and represents my Body as God himself says Ezek 37.11 These hones are the whole house of Israel and Ezek 25.3 Concil Tr●d Sess 13. c. 4. This to wit the Hair before-mentioned is Jerusalem and the definition of the Tridentine Fathers The whole substance of the Bread is turned into the whole substance of Christs Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the whole substance of Christs Blood Where is this Conversion recorded in the Gospel or Apostolical Epistles that we should offer violence to our reason to work our minds to the belief of it It is also false that you are required only to believe that Bread is turned into Flesh We do believe and that without renouncing our reason that Christ who could turn stones into Bread and did turn water into Wine could turn if he pleased Bread into Flesh and Wine into Blood as easily as he did Water into Blood in Egypt And if Christ should do this at any time the change would be as evident to the senses as it was in all miraculous conversions and the Flesh would be as visible as the Serpent was into which Aarons Rod was turned and the Blood as truly obvious to the eye as the sanguified streams of Egypt But Papists require your unreasonable belief of another thing to wit that the Sacramental Bread is turned substantially into the very Body of Christ which was before that born of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is now at the time of every conversion sitting at the right hand of God in glory above the Heavens By the way because it is not my business now to refute this false Doctrine remember that unquestionable Axiome of true Philosophy Nothing is before it is made or whilst it is in making But Christs Body was before the Sacrament and is already when the Priest begins the first syllable of his Magical murmur by which he pretends to make the Body of Christ You see the manifest contradiction which you are obliged by Papists to believe in this insensible conversion Now if you will to please a Papist renounce sense and reason that you may be capable of this rare belief I know no cause why you should not also take Ovid's Poem of Metamorphosis for a veritable History He fraudulently minces the matter again when he speaks of the easinesse of believing that one Body is in more places at one time I know that Thomas Aquinas in his Quodlibets says that the subsistence of one Body in more places at one time is impossible because that which is one in it self cannot

Prophets were collected into one body of Oracles which was in trust committed to the custody of the Jews Rom. 3.2 But not Ezrah but Jehoshuah was then High Priest who no doubt was diligent in the discharge of his sacred office whiles Ezrah was active in interpreting that is translating the Law written in the Hebrew Language which was well-nigh lost with the vulgar in their long captivity who were accustomed to the common speech of the Chaldeans their Lords and rendring it intelligible in their familiar tongue and also in expounding and applying the Law to their present use and in assisting the Levites that they might be well instructed to perform their office of teaching the people Now this work of Ezrah did much help but not hinder or obstruct the common people in their private study of the Law and the use of their own particular judgment was fairly consistent with the attendance on the publick Ministery which was then sincere and uncorrupted but was not so throughout the whole course of the Jewish Politie And for this reason nothing can be concluded from Ezrah's age and actions to strengthen the pretended Infallibility of the Jewish Priesthood for ever Now the Jews indeed wanted the beneficial Art of Printing and this defect made the Copies of the Law less frequent then the Bible is now adayes Y●… such was the zeal and diligence of pions men in that Nation that the Law was not so rare a thing as this man would perswade you There was then no prohibition of the High Priest or Sanhedrim either to transcribe or to translate the Law and Prophets or to read them in their Original or translated no not in our Saviours Age when he sent his Auditors to the Scriptures to search for testimonies of him when indeed it had been in vain for the people to have made their recourse to the Scribes Pharisees Priests and Elders who through ignorance of the Scriptures denied Jesus to be the Christ and out of malice excommunicated all those that understood the Scriptures better then themselves and by their light were sed to own Jesus to be the Glory of Israel I hope you will apprehend this to be sufficient to vindicate your title to the Scriptune and your power to use it according to that judgement of discretion which every Christian that stands bound to give an account of his faith cannot be denied without usurping a dominion over faith the very suspicion whereof St. Paul 2 Cor. 1.24 although he were truly infallible yet did carefully decline The Querist treads the beaten path of Papists in debasing the holy Scripture and divesting it of the fitness and power to be a compleat Rule and an effectual instrument of faith that he may make room for a new Quack of which impious way to diminish the credit of Gods Word I leave you or any sober Christian that loves and reverences that invaluable pledge of Gods love to make a judgement without my further censure But give me leave to propound briefly some remarks of this Discourse 1. First I observe that he often joyns the Rule and Means of Faith together and confounds them so as if they were one and the same thing But the distinction of these two is of great importance to the preventing or to the ending of frivolous Disputes The Rule of Faith is that publick standard of Christian Religion which includes things of belief and practice both in the service of God and also in conversation with men The adequate Rule of Faith for Christians is the Word of God revealed by Christ or the Gospel which was first preached and then written by the instinct of the same Spirit Rom. 10.8 1 Pet. 1.25 The Gospel in this sence doth include in it the whole Scripture of the Old Testament the divine Authority whereof it affirms and confirms by the harmony of both Tertul. l. de ●…nd virgin speaking concerning the Creed Regula fidei una omninò est sola immobilis irreformabilis This Rule is one and immoveable and so entirely delivered by the Apostles that it is uncapable of addition and the attempt of addition or mutilation or any corruption makes the falsifier of this Rule liable to a dreadfull Anathema denounced by St. Paul Gal. 1.8,9 Now because the holy Scriptures in their fulness contain this Gospel therefore they are usually called by the ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin the straight unerring unswerving Rule of Faith that can deceive none and needs no correction This Rule contains and like a Light holds forth the object of our Faith and is not the less a Rule of Faith because this holy Scripture comprehends many other things of great use for our instruction and spiritual delight as a Carpenters Rule justly carries that name and serves the turn of measuring stuff and work though it be set out with ornamental and useful Tables You may now apprehend what we mean by the Rule of Faith But the Means of Faith signifie another thing For whatsoever by its nature and efficacy doth serve to bring man to the knowledge right understanding and full assurance of the saving Truth comes under this Notion the Means of Faith The holy Scripture as it conveys unto us the Gospel which it contains and preserves is indeed a principal instrument of God to work that faith which is his gift Moreover God hath in his wise government of the World and his Church appointed many means which according to the course of his providence contribute to the working of faith in our hearts There are some outward whereof the chief is the publick Ministry which is compared to a Candlestick that holds forth the light to the houshold of faith And not only Pastors are the means of faith but also Parents and Masters of Families and every good Christian which is as Christ says of his Disciples in general for the twelve Apostles were not then selected out of the multitude the light and salt of the earth Mat. 5.13,14 by communicating the Word unto others are very often the happy propagators of the faith Besides men some things as Books are instrumental to promote our knowledge and faith There are some inward means of faith as our sense and rational faculties in the exercise whereof if there be not an actual certainty allowed the whole frame of civil society will be dissolved into consusion and the foundation of Religion will sink since faith is a reasonable service and was first built upon their sight which were eye witnesses of the Gospel and now comes by hearing Rom. 10.17 which two senses are the instruments of Discipline Luk. 1.2 Act. 4.20 1 Joh. 1.1 Neither will I exclude Oral or Practical Tradition from being a means to propagate the faith But this is so slippery a way so changeable uncertain and liable to corruption and forgery as appears by the superstitions of Heathens and Jews for the divine Authority of all which Tradition was pretended that