Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A49323
|
Du Moulin's Reflections reverberated being a full answer to a pernicious pamphlet entituled Moral reflections on the number of the elect : together with several arguments against transubstantiation of the outward elements in the sacrament of the Lords Supper, transubstantiated into falshood and absurdity : to which is added a postscript in answer to some passages in Mr. Edmund Hickeringil's scurrilous piece stiled The second part of naked truth / by Edward Lone ...
|
Lane, Edward, 1605-1685.
|
1681
(1681)
|
Wing L331; ESTC R10768
|
106,099
|
120
|
This appears to me pardon my Confidence an unquestionable rendring of the sense of these words and a manifest clearing of all Difficulties yea and of all Differences too which have been raised about them if men would but follow the conduct of Truth and Reason For let it be considered though we find a distinction of Gods Covenants with Mankind viz. the old and the new yet I ask Is not the Covenant of Grace the same now for Substance which it was from the beginning Was not the same Spirit of Christ in his Ordinances given unto the Fathers under the Law which is now given to the faithful under the Gospel excepting only in the Accidents and Circumstances of Effusion and Manifestation How else can Christ be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same yesterday and to day as it is said he is Heb. 13.8 and will be so for ever Had the Fathers a Saviour and Deliverer exhibited unto them in the Paschal Lamb otherwise more than symbolically than we have in the Lords Supper Did they not all eat the same spiritual Meat and did they not all drink the same spiritual Drink the same not only with and among themselves as Popish Writers would have it but the same with us Christians also For the Apostle addeth they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 Can any truth revealed in Scripture be more plain than this viz. that Christ was their Expectation their Comfort their Refuge their Rock in all their Troubles the Food and Sustenance of their Souls the Object of their Faith even as he is now in this time of the Gospel to all true Believers And consequently that this Sense which is here rendred of our Lords words is most true Well may it therefore be an Amazement unto all men as it is God knoweth unto me that such a pudder hath been made in the World about these words of our Saviour which do and can signifie no more in this case unto us than the Sacramental Form of Instituting a new Sacrament did necessarily require in Rome of the old Let therefore the vain words of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation and the Questions de modo sine modo as they have been well called of Christs Presence in his Sacrament about which this giddy Generation hath been quarrelling so long be for ever abandoned by us and let us for shame content our selves as becometh us and as the Fathers of old under the Law did with the Overtures of God's love in the Arbitrary Dispensations of his Grace for we never hear of such Annimosities and uncharitable Differences among them about this matter as have been among us and whatsoever is in it which for the present surpasseth our Understanding when we come to see God as he is we shall undoubtedly see more clearly the secret of his Covenant and have a more perfect knowledge of this Mystery than we can now be able to attain unto or than indeed is fit for us while we are cloathed with Mortality to reach at much less throughly to understand In fine the Judgment of Venerable Mr. Hooker concerning this point way well be accounted a ne plus ultra to all sober men His words are these The real Presence of Christs most Blessed Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy Receiver of the Sacrament And with this the very order of our Saviour's words agreeth first take and Eat then This is my Body which was broken for you first drink ye all of this then followeth This is my Blood which was shed for you I see not which way it should be gathered by the words of Christ when and where the Bread is his Body or the Cup his Blood but only in the very Heart and Soul of him that receiveth them As for the Sacraments they really exhibit but for ought we can gather out of that which is written of them they are not really nor do really contain in themselves that Grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to be stow If on all sides it be confest that the Grace of Baptisin is poured into the Soul of man that by Water we Receive it although it be neither seated in the Water nor the Water changed into it what should induce men to think that the Grace of the Eucharist must needs be in the Eucharist before it can be in us that Receive it Now the Reason hereof is in my Judgment beyond all exception For as in the Sacrament of Baptism all that the Minister doth or can do is to Baptise with water after he hath with solemn Prayer and Supplication set it apart from other water it is Christ himself that Baptiseth us with the Holy Ghost and with Fire Our Ministery is but very Wash in comparison of that which Christ doth unto us when we are Baptised So in that other Sacrament of the New Testament the Priest can do nothing but give the outward Elements after he hath by Prayer and reciting the words of Christ put a distinction between them and other ordinary Bread and Wine it is Christ only who by that means feedeth the Soul of a worthy Communicant with his broken Body and his Blood poured out for the sin of the World only as unless we be Baptised with Water we cannot ordinarily expect to be Baptised with the Holy Ghost so unless when we are invited unto the Lords Table we come worthily unto it and there Take and Receive the Consecrated Elements at the Hands of the Minister our Souls must want that spiritual nourishment from and by Christ which otherwise they might be sed with and made strong in the Grace of God Which being so as it is a truth not to be denied what need all those bitter Conflicts that have been and are about this matter We should rather say as that worthy Author had written a little before in the same Paragraph Shall I wish saith he that men would give themselves more to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of the Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many Examples that they of their own Disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less Importance and less Difficulty always apt to move Questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The Reason hereof is not dark to them who have any thing at all observed how the Powers of the Mind are wont to stir when that alone which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides Expectation Curious and intricate Speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed Motions of Delight and Joy as divine Graces use
prove to us to be but as a Preface to their Writ de Comburendo for their merciless burning of our Bodies But blessed be God we have hitherto been kept out of their reach and blessed for ever of God be the Government which is set over us whereby under God we are still preserved Yet neither do we sleight the words of our Lord which he spake saying This is my Body God forbid that such a Thought should ever enter into our Hearts no but taking them in the sense which he intended they are the Crown of our rejoycing His Promise herein is the greatest Blessing that we can be capable of in this World It is our Life and without it we shall ever be dead in our Sins and Trespasses whatsoever spiritual Quicknings we have in us to heavenly things it is the Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ which we have Received into our Hearts by Faith that worketh them in us for we live not as the Apostle St. Paul said but Christ liveth in us It is the Body of Christ and it is the Blood of Christ which filleth the whole inward man inlightning the Understanding Rectifying the Will ordering the Affections putting courage into the Heart to encounter any Difficulties for Christ to suffer any Torments for his sake that can be inflicted upon us by Men or Devils Nay more It is the Body of Christ and it is the Blood of Christ separated each from other which were so taken and Received in the Lords Supper and which continue to be so in the Hearts of those that worthily Received that Holy Sacrament which fully satisfieth all their Hunger and Thirst as bringing a clear Evidence of Christs Death and consequently a full Assurance of the Pardon and Remission of their sins unto them the memorial of Christs Death being the main end why the Sacrament was ordained This in short is that real Presence of Christ in this Holy Ordinance which the Church the Spouse of Christ expecteth so as to be entertained by her Lord at his holy Table and which indeed is only to be desired as being most advantageous unto her As for that Presence of Christ in this Sacrament which Papists contend for let it pass for a Dream as it is It shall even be to use the words of the Prophet As when a hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth Is 19.8 but he awaketh and his Soul is empty And as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint and his Soul hath Appetite So shall their hoc est Corpus meum I mean their Doctrine of the Transubstantiation of the outward Elements in the Lords Supper into the Body and Blood of Christ prove to be unto them but a miserable Delusion Never never O my God let my Soul enter into their Secret nor be baptised with a Baptism that they are Baptised with And with this Confidence I do shut up this whole Discourse God Almighty give a Blessing unto it FINIS POSTSCRIPT BUt now it seems to strengthen the Popish Interest Hell is broke loose seditious Pamphlets now flutter about for the discrediting our Religion and our Church which hath been acknowledged the best Reformed Church in the Christian World such Pamphlets I say as are not only against the Doctrine of the true Protestant Religion but against the best Ecclesiastical Discipline also witness that scandalous and scurrilous Piece Gratum opus Agricolis Romanis atque Atheistis Entituled the Naked Truth Second Part whereas in many parts of it I say not in all it rather deserves the Title of impudent Untruth as shall be here made manifest past all Contradiction The Author thereof whom I care not to know being he is Prava Avis in Templis nigroque simillima Spectro begins his Epistle to the Reader with a colloguing Insinuation I had almost said with much Craft and Cunning in this manner No man does more Reverence good Bishops than my self and why so But because he does it may be account himself to be one it is an ill Bird then that will defile his own Nest nor saith he does any man less dread them with a slavish fear But non obstante all his Confidence I who am a poor inconsiderable man shall here take the boldness before I go with him a foot further to expostulate with him in this case Who Sir is there that doth so dread them I know a man who is in the seventy seventh year of his Age and in the fifty third year of his Ordination to the office and order of an Evangelical Priest yet in his full strength blessed be God at which Age fears do commonly as other weaknesses take hold of a man but although he hath in his time lived under the Inspection of many Bishops yet had he never such a fear of them upon him nor have I at this day for the plain truth is there neither was nor is any the least need of it Nor is there I believe any one of our Bishops who is willing to be so dreaded for if curteous Affability fatherly Instruction brotherly Condescention tender Compassion towards the weaker sort be to be found in them and that very frequently constantly upon all emergent Occasions presented before them as I know by experience to be in some of them what do these boasting words signifie but a vain-glorious hussing If they be not a most unchristian Suggestion and slanderous Susurration sufficient to make all that followeth in the whole Tract liable to suspition among wise Men. As indeed many other of his following words do I admire them saith he at my distance which he presumeth is not very great but I do not Idolize them and God forbid that he or any man else should I Honour them but I do not fall down and Worship them as if none could kneel unto them to crave their Blessing like dutiful Sons of their Grave and Reverend Fathers and as all good Subjects do to the King being so in Duty bound because he is Pater Patriae can none I say do this but they must thereupon make Idols of them and Worship them I can say saith he my Lord and not add my God But let me ask again does any do so or say so Sure there is not such a Polytheism to be found among us here in this Nation though there be God be merciful to us much Atheisin which is like to grow up to a more prodigious Height than it hath yet attained by the means of this and the like prodigious Pamphlets that are scattered among us The man goeth on in his Apology thus You will not find in this ensuing Inquiry the least tang of Bitterness or yellow Choler no not so much as one tart or harsh Expression being so far from justly disgusting any that I shall not so much as set their Teeth on edge so insipied and simple an Humour have I cherisht all-a-long through this whole Discourse for