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
A52862	The necessity of receiving the Holy Sacrament (that great test both of the Christian and Protestant religion) declared in a sermon, at a conference of the several ministers of the Deanery of Braughin, in the county of Hertford, appointed by the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry Lord Bishop of London, to be held at Ware, August 28, 1678 / by Robert Neville ...	Neville, Robert, 1640 or 1-1694.	1679 (1679)	Wing N523; ESTC R12405	14,625	32

is true indeed that the Apostles only were present at Christ's first Celebration and so the Command was directed to them But how not to the Apostles only as Apostles but also as Communicants as representing the People or else to the Apostles as Dispensers and to the People as Receivers For if the Officers and Ministers of the Church are bound to give it all Christians no doubt are bound to receive it and that they are obliged so to do St. Paul hath fully and plainly declared to us telling us in 1 Cor. 11.24 that when our Lord had given thanks he brake the Bread and said Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you Do this in Remembrance of me Here this Command Do this immediately refers to these words Take eat which the verse of my Text hath not and therefore it must there refer only to taking Bread giving Thanks breaking it and giving it to them in which the Apostles and their Successors were more immediately concerned and none can do this i. e. take Bread give Thanks break it and give it but they but in the other actions of taking and eating all Christians are concerned The Receiving the Sacrament is not a thing Arbitrary or Indifferent to be done or not done at our pleasure because it is under the Obligation of a Positive Command which our Saviour hath given us in these words This Do in remembrance of me that is Do this in remembrance that I put a cloud of Flesh upon my bright and resplendent Glory In remembrance that I who am the Light of the World suffered my self to be put into the dark Lanthorn of an Human Body In remembrance of my bitter Pains and Sufferings on the Cross In remembrance of the stretching out of my Arms on the Tree of Shame to receive and imbrace You In remembrance of the opening of my Side to make an avenue and passage for You to my Heart In remembrance of my pouring out Water to wash You and Blood to redeem You. Memorials of Dying-Men are of great account with all Men being placed among their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their most valued and esteemed Treasures And we usually say That the words of a Dying-Man make the strongest and deepest impressions in the minds of the Living Be pleased therefore to bribe your Fancy to suppose One who had always been a loving and indulgent Husband now lying upon his Death-bed and the very moment before his Soul is divorced from his Body and he from his Wife by Death making this his last and dying request to her I perceive the last Sand of my Glass is now running and my time of Departure is near at hand let me therefore beg this last favour of thee and desire thee to keep my Picture by thee when I am dead and gone let me desire thee to do this in remembrance of me Undoubtedly his Wife if she had but the least spark of kindness for him would keep his Picture by her as a most valuable Treasure and when ever she beholds it pay him whom it represents the just Tribute of a Tear The Church is Christ's Spouse and the Sacrament is the Picture of Christ's Death drawn to the Life and if Christ a little before his Death desires nay more commands his Spouse the Church for whom he was about to die and shed his most precious Blood to commemorate his Death after his Suffering and Crucifixion and break Bread and drink Wine in remembrance that his Body was broken and his Blood poured out call to mind his bloody Passion by that holy Action certainly if she hath any bowels of Compassion in her she cannot deny his so just and reasonable request she cannot disobey so obliging a Command If this Sacrament could have well been spared and Men could have kept the Law of the Inward-Man without it our Saviour who came to beat down all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Old Law would never have raised up this under the Gospel but he knew it necessary and therefore left it upon Record as binding as a Law 1 Cor. 11.25 This do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me As oft as ye do it implies a doing it often and does not leave it at large to our will and pleasure to be taken up at the discretion of every private person but supposeth that it must be done frequently as frequently at least as that Church whereof we are Members requires it of us Had our Saviour imposed upon us a heavy Yoke of Judaical Rites and laborious and expensive Ceremonies and crowded them in so thick and fast upon us as to employ and take up all our time and exhaust our strength we had had some tolerable Plea for our disobedience But when he hath freed us from the burdensom imposition of Judaical Observances and except that of Baptism hath recommended but one innocent cheap and easie Rite to our observation We are Monsters of Ingratitude if we take not and most chearful Obedience to this his peculiar Command A Command in so peculiar a manner His as no other is but that of Baptism For his other Commands are but inforcements of those Precepts that are either contained in the Old Testament or derived to us from Principles of Nature but this is his Peculiar his own proper Commandment and our Receiving the Sacrament in obedience to it is the proper Characteristical mark of a Christian the very Test of our Christianity for Christ is concernd in no piece of Worship so much as this This is more properly Christian Worship than any other Act of Religion Shall we not then observe this Mandate obey this Command and enjoy this Privilege properly belonging to his Disciples This this it was that caused the Christians of old when for their Sins they were debarr'd and excluded to lament their condition in large showers or Tears and sadly bewail their banishment from the Lord's Table This was esteemed the highest Honour the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could receive when after long attendance and strict examination they were permitted to commence and take the Degree of Fideles and admitted into the Society of Communicants into the Fellowship and Communion of Saints 2. This Holy Action of receiving the Sacrament in Remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion is a Duty incumbent upon every Christian because this was the practice of the most Apostolical and Primitive Times which is a good Comment upon Christ's Intentions and a clear discovery of the Obligatory Power of this Command They who were the immediate Auditors of Christ and his Apostles had certainly the best Notion of the import of this Command and the Notion they had of it made them as constantly do this as they assembled together either to eat drink or confer together in love and friendship And the 46th verse of the 2d of the Acts seems to intimate to us that the Church of Jerusalem receivd the Sacrament every day and that they continued

daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking Bread at home did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart that is after they had daily performed their common Devotions with the Jews in the Temple they because the Jews would not then permit them to do it in the Temple went to their own Houses to tender a more peculiar Service to Christ by doing this in remembrance of him But the principal time for this Holy Exercise seems to have been on the Lord's Day for we reade Acts 20.7 that the Disciples were assembled on the first day of the week to break Bread And as in the Apostolical so in the next succeeding Times they often met together to do this and while the Spirit of Christianity was yet warm and vigorous it is more than probable they did communicate every day or as often as they came together to the Publick Worship insomuch that the Canons (g) Canon 9 Apostolical and the (h) Canon 2. Synod of Atioch threatned those persons with Excommunication who resorted to the Public Assemblies to hear the Scriptures and departed from them without this Spiritual Food This custom of communicating every day was of no short continuance in the Church and some Churches and particularly the Western did retain it longer than others And St. Cyprian assures us that it was practis'd in his time saying (i) Eucharistiam quotidiè ad cibum salutis accipimus Cypr. de Oratione Dominicâ p. 268. We receive the Eucharist every day as the food our Salvation The like St. Ambrose reports of Millain where he was Bishop And St. Hierom affirms that this custom was in use in his time at Rome And St. Augustin intimates that in the Age in which he lived it was not wholly disused and laid aside In the Eastern Churches this custom disappeared sooner than in the Western though more or less according to the ebbing or flowing of their Zeal And St. Basil (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil in 289 Epist ad Caesaream Patritiam positively affirms that in his time they did communicate four times a week namely on the Lord's day Wednesday Friday and Saturday and upon other days (l) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ibid. if the memory of any Martyr were celebrated upon them Afterwards as Religion began to be in her Wane and Decrease this Sacrament was more and more discontinued and from a daily was first changed into a weekly and then into a monthly Service and afterward performed but thrice a Year at Christmass Easter and upon Whitsunday and even at these three great Festivals it is now by many lukewarm Christians neglected and disregarded for to speak the truth we have much degenerated from the Devotion of the Primitive Christians and are taught of late to idolize Preaching and value our selve from our much Hearing being like that People called Corimandi whose Ear as Historians tell us covered their whole Body The Epidemical Disease of this Age being the Rickets of Religion or the having great Heads Heads swell'd and big with Knowledg falsely so called but their Legs weak and impotent not able to walk in the ways of God's Commandments Prayer and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper must strike sail to Sermons because Men are too feeble in Spirituals to prepare themselves for it they are unwilling to come to this holy Feast and perswade themselves that Superstition did eat out the heart of true Religion in the Primitive times and that then Men did come so frequently to eat with Christ at his Table only in a Complement and Complaisance and flatter and wheadle their Saviour with a superfluous and needless Devotion and therefore they will not do this once a year nay some of them scarce once in all their lives But let me advise such not to dare to neglect Christ's gracious Invitation nor disobey his Command of doing this in remembrance of him for not only Acts but Omissions are evil It is a Sin to contemn the Sacrament and a Sin not to receive it when we may the one leads to the other Neglect and Indifferency as we have seen by woful experience terminate at last in open Prophaneness If we had a true esteem of the Cup of Blessings we should thirst more after it but the truth is our thoughts are seldom or never imployed upon the consideration of those many Benefits and Advantages we receive by it And this brings me to the third Reason why this holy Action of Receiving the Sacrament in Remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion is a Duty incumbent upon every Christian And that is III. Because 't is fraught with many Benefits and Advantages this is not an empty barren Ceremony or an unprofitable Rite it hath a large train of Blessings attending on it And 1. It makes us participate of Christ and his Grace and Spirit The external Act indeed only declares Christ's Death in Rite and Ceremony but the worthy communicating of it makes us feed upon Christ and unites him to our Souls and makes us to become one Spirit according to those words of St. Ambrose (m) In similitudimem quidem accipis Sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequêris Ambros de Sacramento Thou receivest the Sacrament as the similitude of Christ's Body but thou shalt withal obtain the Grace and Vertue of the true Nature The Elements of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are not as some tell us only Symbols of mutual Charity Allegorical Admonitions of Christian Mortification and Rites instituted only to stir up Faith by way of Object and Representation this were to imbrace a meer Cloud instead of the true Juno the true Deity Those Names and Appellations which the Scripture gives them speak them to be more than so such as are the Body and Blood of the Lord the communication of his Body and the communication of his Blood all which intimate no less to us than a real change in the Elements and that Christ is really present there and though we must never hope to have our sight so acute as the Romanists tell us theirs is when through that strange glass of Transubstantiation they pretend to see and discern the very Flesh and Blood of Christ yet we must not entertain such mean thoughts of them as to think them only bare signs of what Christ did for us but firmly believe that they exhibit Christ himself to all worthy Communicants 2. A second Benefit or Advantage of the Sacrament is That it quickens strengthens and encreases our Faith All Habits are encreased by often repeated Acts Now this Sacrament requires frequent and great Exercises of our Faith by fixing it upon its proper Object a Crucified Saviour and it being as St. Cyril of Jerusalem tell us (n) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catech. 2. A Representation of Christ's Sufferings makes us seal to that Truth which he hath signed and sealed with his Blood and make a publick profession of our