Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	angel_n	body_n	spirit_n	8,316	5	5.4481	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77522	Letters between the Ld George Digby, and Sr Kenelm Digby kt. concerning religion.	Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1651 (1651)	Wing B4768; Thomason E1355_2; ESTC R209464	61,686	137

it be once admitted that by such tradition there can be had in all ages a compleat and true knowledg of what Christ taught it cannot be denied but that it is an easier and better rule to guide our understanding in the affairs of Religion then to resort for that end to the Scripture alone And that such tradition is infallible I have endeavoured to prove in another discourse which your Lordship hath so that I will not trouble you here with any repetitions upon that Subject Now when I wrote to your Lordship my opinion of the use to be made of reading the Fathers relying upon them more for what they were taught then for what they teach it was as taking them for faithful Collectors of the tradition that they found general through the Church in their times and sincere conveyers of them to us And this course you shall finde even among the ancientest of them When St. Austin will establish the doctrine of praying for the dead he telleth that it hath been the practise of the whole Church from the Apostles time The like he doth against the Pelagians and upon several other occasions and directeth us to enquire what faith is professed in the Churches established by the Apostles from whom he reckoneth on the uninterrupted succession of Pastors unto his time And by them he deriveth the present Doctrine from the first preachers who had it immediately from Christ Tertullian when he prescribeth against Heresie giveth you a Catalogue of the Bishops of several Churches from the several Apostles that planted them and with the successions of the persons urgeth the succession in those Churches of the Doctrine he seeketh to establish Irenaeus doth the like and generally all of them which they do not onely when they use those formal positive words that the whole Church hath received from the Apostles and holdeth generally such and such a Doctrine but at other times also when they do but intimate it in their discourses which intimation is such as is easily perceptible to whosoever of judgement shall read them impartially Therefore to summon up as short and as plainly as I can the use as I conceive is to be made of reading the Fathers I say that letting pass what they writ as Commentors upon the Scriptures and as Phliosophers and all which is but as Divines and Schollers we are generally to take hold of what they deliver us as Pastors of the Church which appeareth chiefly by what they writ against those they brand with Heresie which they could not do were not those points which they censure against the known and general tradition of the Church And next when they deliver us dogmatically and professedly any doctrine in such sort as we may reasonably conceive they intended we should take it as matter of faith not giving it as conceptions of their own which they bring onely learned arguments on texts of Scripture to maintain In all which a free good judgement will easily discern by reading them which way to incline which I knowing your Lordship to be do beseech you to apply it a little industriously to collect throughout their sense and by what they say to frame a model of the Government Beleif and practise of the Church wherein they lived and then tell me whether it be like yours or ours It is worth the while Criticks labour to get some knowledge of the manners and customes of Ages long since past by little fragments of antiquity that have hardly scaped into their hands And Lawyers get a knowledge of the Government and frame of the State in Kings raigns long agoe by broken and disjoynted Records that they meet with scattered in several Files And these maimed evidences by chance fallen into their Hands do serve to beget a fairer body of knowledge when they know how to make a right use of them and such as will convince an indifferent and equal hearer much more certainly the Fathers works that handle professedly and at large the affairs of the Church and Religion and whereof we have such plenty will fairly inform a rational and discoursing man of the true state of them in their times and what they conceived and had been taught imported Heaven or Hell in mans belief and practise which I am sure your Lordship will allow to carry a great stroke in ours and from which it is madness if not impiety to depart upon less grounds then a demonstration to convince the contrary Though I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience by my tedious Letter yet I may not conclude it till I have said a word or two to the foure instances your Lordship giveth toward the latter end of yours First for the use of Images I doe not conceive it to be a precept given by Christ but since introduced by the Governors of the Church as a thing convenient to raise devotion in the people Now things of that nature may be convenient at one time and unfit at another When I dolatry was fresh in the memory and practise of the world it was dangerous to admit it therefore in the primitive times Justin and Tertullian might have reason to cry it down But because there was no precept of Christ in that behalfe conserved in the Church you see they urge not the authority of Tradition of the Church to beat down their use but arguments of their own and Texts of Scripture produced by them whereas now in times secured from that danger and a great good appearing in them they being as a Father said the bookes of unlettered persons to beget knowledge and stirre up devotion in them as strong arguments and as pregnant Texts of Scripture are produced for their use and to justifie the Governours of the Church in recommending them to the people Your second instance is of Tertullians affirming Christs descent to free the Patriarkes which I conceive not onely he but all the Fathers that ever spake of that particular deliver it in a matter of faith and so it hath been ever held by the Church which word of Descent I take it is to be understood as we all doe the Article of the Creed He descended into Hell that is by his power and operation at least by which he confounded the damned comforted the soules in Purgatory and brought to the sight of God those in Abrahams bosome that is a place of rest where yet they enjoyed not the beatificall vision For to give other motion and place to a soule is a question in Philosophy and concernes not faith and such was the assertion of the Angels copulation with women for many or rather most of the Fathers were of opinion that they were not pure Spirits but had very subtile immortall bodies the contrary of which was never yet delivered as matter of faith howbeit by force of Argument now the corporiety of Angels is exploded out of the Schools and thus supposing that opinion the way is obvious enough in commenting