Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	holy_a	time_n	write_v	2,523	5	5.4531	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29341	The Christian sacrament and sacrifice by way of discourse, meditation, & prayer upon the nature, parts, and blessings of the holy communion / by Dan. Brevint.	Brevint, Daniel, 1616-1695.	1673 (1673)	Wing B4417; ESTC R23806	53,735	149

THE CHRISTIAN Sacrament and Sacrifice By way of Discourse MEDITATION PRAYER Upon THE NATURE PARTS and Blessings OF THE Holy Communion By DAN BREVINT D. D At the THEATER in OXFORD Anno Dom. 1673. The CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT Sacrifice At the THEATER in OXFORD To The RIGHT HONOURABLE The Lady ELIZABETH CARTERET THis is one of the many Tracts which I made at Paris on several Subjects at the instance of those two Incomparable Princesses who there for many years continually emploied me in their service What use they were pleased to make of them your Ladyship knows best being often admitted with some other Persons of Quality to their privat Devotions Therefore when I present you with these Papers I but repeat and ratify their gift and by this public Address pay that respect which I owe besides what is due upon other accounts to that singular Esteem and Kindness which they ever had for your Ladiship Those great and holy Souls had no desire more earnest then to contemplate and embrace Christian religion in its original beauty see it freed from the Encombrance which ordinary Controversies most commonly throw upon it And really tho they did understand all these Scholastic points as well or better then their Teachers especially the Princess of Turenne whose clear and quick Apprehension and neat and unartificial eloquence were wonderful yet they cared so little for them that they deplored very often the unhappy necessity that had filled the Church with such weapons and had so flanck't about to use here their expression Jerusalem with Bastions that one could hardly see the Temple I can assure you Madam that upon this account the holy Communion which is as the tree of life in the Paradise of God the most generous plant in his Vineyard of the Church hath bin the worst dealt with For as it was most despitefully treated by Popery the Protestants did spend most of their care this way to secure it whereby it could not be well expected that men thus taken up in raising fences in planting thorns and quicksets against wild Bores could have much time to dress and improve better plants Then came from Germany Anabaptists and from other parts Socinians who pretend that the best way of pruning luxuriant excrescencies is to cut up by the roots Here then Madam while the Romanists having made havock of the Vineyard and laid it wast the fatness of the ground brought forth that poisonous wild vine of the Roman-Mass and others left nothing but dead sapless branches and dry leaves the emty figures of fanatic Heretics I make it my endeavor to rescue it out of the hands of such Husbandmen and to restore all back again both to the full meaning and institution of Christ who is the Planter as well as the Master of the Vineyard and to the Practice of the Holy Fathers who for several hundreds of years dressed it and made it bear excellent fruit So here I take no more notice of either Papists or Sectaries no nor Protestants neither then as if the former had never appeared in the world to trouble and spoil the Church of God nor the latter to assert and redress it The holy Sacrament being thus set at liberty and enlarged to its full extent will appear presently attended with all its Duties and Blessings as the Ladder of Jacob did with ascending and descending Angels This may be soon perceived by any one who will but take the trouble to read this Book so he do it with some attention and distinctly in parcels a caution which I desire may be adverted to Chronicles or eloquent Discourses may best please when they are cursorily run over But Mysteries must be studied or they cannot be well understood and God knows how much more is here required at our hands besides bare understanding Therefore I have added to the Discours that refers to the advancing the mind in knowledg Meditation and Prayer the two usual attendants on devotion which being joined together are the only probable means of dealing succesfully with holy things and of attaining by the use to the true end of this Sacrament which aims at nothing less then a mutual Communion between us and Christ even here on earth while we seem to be absent from him and withall at such a reciprocal correspondency between God and his Church as may both open our hearts toward him in holy Duties and Performances and open his hand and bowels toward us in all necessary Mercies I know Madam that for the confirming of all this I need but appeal to your own experience And t is partly on this account that without so much as asking leave I have made bold to put your Name before this Book because it having bin first written for the peculiar use of two Persons whom God had sanctifyed in all respects much above the rate of these Times it seems to claim a special Title to their acceptation and reading who intimately knew the worth of those Princesses and walk after their steps at so neer a distance as your Ladiship doth to whom I am MADAM A most Humble and Faithful Servant DAN BREVINT Durham Jan. 24. 1673. THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT and Sacrifice By way of Discourse MEDITATION and PRAYER upon THE NATURE PARTS and Blessings Of the Holy Communion SECTION I. The Importance of well understanding the Nature of this Sacrament 1. THe Sacrament instituted by Christ at the eve of his Passion which S. Paul calls the Lords Supper is without controversie one of the greatest Mysteries of Godliness and the most solemn Festival of the Christian Religion The holy Table or Altar which presents this sacred Banquet may as well as the old Tabernacle take to it self the title of * Meeting since there the People must appear to Worship God and there certainly God is present to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tabernacle for appointed time meeting meet and to bless his People At the Place and during the whole Act of this Meeting with God the Christian Communicants are in a special manner invited to offer up to God their Souls their Bodies their Goods their Vows their Praises and whatsoever they can give and God on the other side offers to us the Body and Blood of his Son and all those other Blessings withal that will assuredly follow this sacred Gift For this must be granted then the holy Communion is not only a Sacrament that the Worshipper is to come to for no other purpose then to receive nor a Sacrifice only where he should have nothing els to do but to give but it is as the great Solemnity of the ancient Passover was whereof it hath taken the place a great Mystery consisting both of Sacrament and Sacrifice that is of the Religious Service which the People owe to God and of the full Salvation which God is pleased to promise his People 2. It may by this appear how far it concerns every Christian not to err in a Point that makes the