Selected quad for the lemma: body_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	blood_n	break_v	shed_v	10,145	5	9.7147	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30350	Four discourses delivered to the clergy of the Diocess of Sarum ... by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1694 (1694)	Wing B5793; ESTC R202023	160,531	125

there was not any one sort of things which the whole World knew better than all that belong'd to Sacrifices At the time of writing the New Testament they certainly were more accustom'd to it and understood it much better than we generally do now in Ages in which those practices have so long ceas'd that the Memory of them is quite extinguished It is indeed very probable that many particular Phrases belonging to them might have been by a Poetical Liberty extended to other Matters for things of the sacred'st nature are by Poets and Orators made use of to give the liveliest Illustrations and raise the strongest passions possible yet after all an entire Thread of a sacrificatory Style was a form of description that the World must have known could belong only to an Expiatory Sacrifice that is to some person or thing that was devoted to God by a Sinner in his own stead and upon the account of his sin and guilt was to be some way destroy'd in sign of what he own'd he had deserv'd and this was to be done in order to the reconciling the guilty Person to God the Guilt being transfer'd from the Person to the Sacrifice and God by accepting the Sacrifice was reconcil'd to the person whose sin was upon that account forgiven This being thus laid down let us look next to the whole strain of the New Testament particularly to those parts of it in which this matter is more fully treated about Here I will again follow the method that I took upon the former Head and not enter so particularly upon the Criticisms of some passages but will view the thing in gross that seeming to be both the most convincing way in it self and the best suited to my present purpose I must further observe that this was a point of vast Consequence as being that which concern'd men's Peace with God the pardon of their sins and their hopes of God's Favour and of Eternal Happiness Therefore we ought not to imagine that Rhetorick or Poetical Forms of Speech could be admitted here to the aggravating of so solemn a piece of our Religion boyond its true value so that we must conclude that here if in any thing the Apostles writ strictly besides that their manner of writing is always plain and simple When then they set forth the Death of Christ with all the Pomp of the sacrificatory Phrases we must either believe it to be a true Propitiatory Sacrifice or otherwise we must look upon them as warm indiscreet men whose Affections to our Saviour heated them so far as to carry them in this Matter out of all measure far beyond the truth Those who oppose this Article believe that Christ only died for our good but not in our stead that by his Death he might fully confirm his Gospel and give it a great Authority that so it might have the more Influence upon us they also believe that by his dying he intended to set us a most perfect pattern of bearing the sharpest Sufferings with the perfectest Patience and Submission to the Will of God and the most entire Charity to those at whose hands we suffer and that by doing this he was to Merit at God's hands that supream Authority with which he is now vested for our good that so he might obtain a Power to offer the World the pardon of sin upon their true Repentance and finally That he died in order to his Resurrection and forgiving a sensible Proof of that main Article of his Religion That we shall all be raised up at the last day therefore he was to die and that in such a manner that no man might question the truth of it that so his Resurrection might give a most demonstrative Proof both of the possibility of it and of our being to be raised up by him who was thus declared to be the Son of God by his Rising from the dead On the other hand we believe that God intending to pardon sin and to call the World by the offers of it to Repentance design'd to do it in such a manner as should both give us the highest Ideas of the guilt of sin and also of his own Love and Goodness to us which he thus order'd That after that Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word had sufficiently opened his Doctrine and had set a perfect pattern of Holiness to the world he was to be fallen on by a company of perfidious and cruel men who after they had loaded him with all the spiteful and reproachful Usage that they could invent they in conclusion Crucified him he all the while bearing besides those visible Sufferings in his Person most inexpressible Agonies in his Mind both before and during these his Sufferings and yet bearing them with a most absolute Submission to his Father's Will and a perfect Charity to those his Persecutors and that in all this he willingly offer'd himself to suffer both upon our account and in our stead which was so accepted of God that he not only raised him from the dead and exalted him up on high giving to him even as he was Man all power both in Heaven and Earth but that upon the account of it he offer'd to the World the pardon of sin● together with all those other Blessings which accompany it in his Gospel and that he will have us in all our Prayers for pardon or other favours claim them through that Death and owe them to it These are two contrary Doctrines upon this Head Now let us see which of them come nearest the Manner and Style in which the Scriptures set it out in the New Testament Christ is said to have reconcil'd us to his Father to be our Propitiation to have born our sins and to have been bruis'd for our Iniquities to have been made sin for us to have been accursed for us to have given himself for our sins that he might redeem us from all Iniquity he is said to have died for or in the stead of our sins to have given his life a ransom for us or in lieu of us he is said to have born our sins on his own body he has appointed a perpetual Remembrance of his Death in these words That his body was broken for us and that his blood was shed for many for the Remission of sins Remission of sins is offered in his name and through his blood God laid upon him the iniquities of us all he was our justification our peace and our redemption He is called the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World His Death and intercession are very copiously compared to the Expiation made on the solemn day of the Atonement for the whole Nation of the Iews on which after the Sacrifice was offer'd on the Altar the High Priest carri'd in the Blood to the Holy of Holies and set it down before the Cloud of Glory as that which reconcil'd that people to God This is done in so full a

Discourse and with such a variety of Expressions that it is not easy to imagine how any thing could be more plainly told He is call'd the High-Priest that was consecrated to offer up Sacrifices for the people it is said That he has entred into the Holy Place by his own Blood having obtain'd Eternal Redemption for us his Blood purges our Consciences from dead woks to serve the living God he hath put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself and was once offer'd to bear the sins of many we are Sanctifi'd by the offering of the Body of Christ once for us all and after he had offer'd one Sacrifice for sins he for ever sate down on the right hand of God having by that one Offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified so that we enter into the holiest by the Blood of Iesus He is also compared to the Sacrifice that was burnt without the Camp and that he might Sanctify the people with his own Blood he suffer'd without the Gate and he is call'd that great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant Now let it be consider'd That as this Argument is in some places closely pursu'd in many chosen and strict Expressions so it returns in a great variety of Phrases through the whole Epistles in so many different places and on so many several occasions that nothing can appear plainer in words than that the Apostles cosider'd this as the Capital Article of their whole Doctrine and the Main Point given them in Commission In their preaching to all Nations they inculcate it chiefly they repeat it often and for ought I have been able to judge they have not left one single Phrase that belong'd to Sacrifices in the Old Testament which they have not appli'd to the Death of Christ in the New It is true they mention his Resurrection often as the Great and Eminent Proof of Christ's being the Messias but they never apply that with those lively and inflam'd Expressions to men's Consciences that they do his Death and Sufferings The Merit is plainly put there the Resurrection being the Glorious Reward and Consequence of it Upon his Death and Cross it is that they dwell the most they set an infinite Value upon his Loving us and dying for us Now if he had only di'd for our good tho it is not to be deni'd but that this was a great Evidence of perfect Love yet the world was full of Stories of men that had di'd for their Country so that barely the dying for our good if it had not been likewise in our stead could not have born such a sublime Strain as that is in which they set this out If our Saviour had only been to endure those bodily Torments how violent soever it does not give any extraordinary Character of him that the very night before he was so exceedingly amaz'd at the prospect of what he was entring upon that he became sorrowful even to the death and was in such a bodily Agony that his Sweat fell down as great drops of Blood which shews that his Mind was then in a much more unconceivable and unsupportable Agony so that an Angel was sent from Heaven to comfort him Now if there was no more in his Sufferings than that which we see here is a depression far below what great Heroes have express'd even during the most extream Sufferings and yet it was at a distance from them only upon the prospect of their coming on All the while before our Saviour knew they were coming and yet till then no Agony is heard of which intimates that there was somewhat peculiar in it which some Churches have in their Liturgies call'd very properly his unspeakable and unutterable Sufferings They are so indeed for we who have only a Notion of vast Agonies in the Mind when Rack'd with the Horror of guilt it cannot bear the apprehensions of the Wrath of God and the reproaches that arise from a wounded Conscience cannot apprehend what could have rais'd such amazing Sorrows in so pure and unspotted a Soul that was conscious to it self of no sin and so could fear nothing from a just and good God therefore we must not pretend to explain what we cannot understand But to return to the main Argument When this whole Collection of the ways in which the Death of Christ is propos'd to the World in the New Testament is laid together we must conclude that either this Death was a propitiatory Sacrifice or we must for ever despair of finding out the meaning of any thing that can be express'd in words Nothing could be plainer said nor oftner repeated in a greater variety of Expressions proper to signify this and not proper for any thing else I do not deny but those who would turn all this another way have found to every one of these passages somewhat that seems to favour the diverting them to another signification but as it was observ'd before if some of the Sacrificatory Phrases have by some Authors and upon some occasions been brought down to a signification less important it will not from thence follow that Discourses that are a contexture of those Notions and Forms of Speech should be so wrested from their natural Signification to a sense so far below the genuine and receiv'd Importance of the words And indeed I do not see what we can make of any part of the New Testament or how much of it we can receive with any degrees of Esteem if we do not believe the Death of Christ to have been a truly Expiatory Sacrifice offerr'd up to God in our stead Nor does this at all contradict the freedom of the Grace of God in pardoning sin which is so much set forth in Scripture since there is matter enough for Free-Grace to exert it self notwithstanding the Atonement made by Sacrifice For God might have in the strictness of Justice demanded satisfaction from our selves so his commuting the matter and accepting of it in the person of another is a very high Act of his Grace then our Saviour's offering himself up so freely for us was a signal as well as an undeserv'd Act of Love in that he died for us while we were yet Enemies and tho this Act belong'd to his Human Nature yet the Union between it and the Eternal Word that dwelt in him may very well entitle God to it so that in that respect this also may be call'd an Act of God's Grace The offering this to us on such easy terms and the exacting only a sincere obedience as the condition of it without insisting on an entire Obedience is another part of the Grace of it and finally The proposing such vast Rewards to our poor services and the conveying the knowledge of this to some Nations when others are left in Darkness and Ignorance are very great and undeserved Acts of Love and Mercy so that the sense of our Saviour's dying for us as our Sacrifice does not at