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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	body_n	member_n	3,100	5	7.2395	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14239	A sermon preached before the Commos-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February. 1620. By Iames Vssher. Professor of Diuinitie in the Vniuersitie of Dublin, in Ireland; Substance of that which was delivered in a sermon before the Commons House of Parliament, in St. Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February, 1620	Ussher, James, 1581-1656.	1624 (1624)	STC 24554; ESTC S119955	33,194	56

vs his flesh to eate He must beware that he come not pre-occupied with such dull conceits as they were possessed withall who moued that question there hee must not thinke that we cannot truly feed on Christ vnlesse we receiue him within our iawes for that is as grosse an imagination as that of Nicodemus who could not conceiue how a man could bee borne againe vnlesse he should enter the second time into his mothers wombe but must consider that the eating and drinking which our Sauiour speaketh of must be answerable to the hungring and thirsting for the quenching whereof this heauenly Banquet is prouided Marke well the words which he vseth toward the beginning of his discourse concerning this argument I am the bread of life hee that commeth to me shall neuer hunger and hee that beleeueth on me shall neuer thirst But I said vnto you that ye also haue seene me and beleeue not And compare them with those in the end It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speake vnto you they are spirit and they are life But there are some of you that beleeue not Now obserue that such as our hungring is such is our eating But euery one will confesse that the hunger heere spoken of is not corporall but spirituall Why then should any man dreame heere of a corporall eating Againe the corporall eating if a man might haue it would not auaile any thing to the slaking of this hunger nay we are expressely told that the flesh thus taken for so we must vnderstand it profiteth nothing a man should neuer be the better nor one iot the holier nor any whit further from the second death if he had filled his belly with it But that manner of feeding on this flesh which Christ himselfe commendeth vnto vs is of such profit that it preserueth the eater from death and maketh him to liue for euer It is not therefore such an eating that euery man who bringeth a bodily mouth with him may attaine vnto but it is of a farre higher nature namely a spirituall vniting of vs vnto Christ whereby he dwelleth in vs and we liue by him If any doe further inquire how it is possible that any such vnion should be seeing the body of Christ is in heauen and wee are vpon earth I answere that if the manner of this coniunction were carnall and corporall it would bee indeed necessary that the things conioyned should bee admitted to bee in the same place but it being altogether spirituall and supernaturall no locall presence no physicall nor mathematicall continuity or contiguity is any way requisite thereunto It is sufficient for the making of a reall vnion in this kinde that Christ and we though neuer so farre distant in place each from other bee knit together by those spirituall ligatures which are intimated vnto vs in the words alledged out of the sixth of Iohn to wit the quickening Spirit descending downeward from the Head to be in vs a fountaine of supernaturall life and a liuely faith wrought by the same Spirit ascending from vs vpward to lay fast hold vpon him who hauing by himselfe purged our sinnes sitteth on the right hand of the Maiesty on high First therefore for the communion of the Spirit which is the ground and foundation of this spirituall vnion let vs call to minde what we haue read in Gods Booke that Christ the second Adam was made a quickening spirit and that he quickeneth whom he will that vnto him God hath giuen the Spirit without measure and of his fulnesse haue all we receiued that he that is ioyned vnto the Lord is one Spirit and that heereby wee know that we dwell in him and he in vs because hee hath giuen vs his Spirit By all which it doth appeare that the mystery of our vnion with Christ consisteth mainly in this that the selfe-same Spirit which is in him as in the Head is so deriued from him into euery one of his true members that thereby they are animated and quickened to a spirituall life We reade in the first of Ezekiel of foure liuing creatures and of foure wheeles standing by them When those went saith the Text these went and when those stood these stood and when those were lifted vp from the earth the wheeles were lifted vp ouer against them Hee that should behold such a vision as this would easily conclude by that which he saw that some inuisible bands there were by which these wheeles and liuing creatures were ioyned together howsoeuer none did outwardly appeare vnto the eye and the holy Ghost to giue vs satisfaction heerein discouereth the secret by yeelding this for the reason of this strange connexion that the spirit of the liuing creature was in the wheeles Ezek. 1.21 From whence wee may inferre that things may truly be conioyned together though the manner of the coniunction bee not corporall and that things distant in place may be vnited together by hauing the spirit of the one communicated vnto the other Nay if we marke it well we shall finde it to be thus in euery of our owne bodies that the formall reason of the vnion of the members consisteth not in the continuity of the parts though that also be requisite to the vnity of a naturall body but in the animation thereof by one and the same spirit If we should suppose a body to be as high as the heauens that the head thereof should be where Christ our Head is and the feet where we his members are no sooner could that head thinke of mouing one of the toes but instantly the thing would be done without any impediment giuen by that huge distance of the one from the other And why because the same soule that is in the head as in the fountaine of sence and motion is present likewise in the lowest member of the body But if it should so fall out that this or any other member proued to be mortified it presently would cease to bee a member of that body the corporall coniunction and continuity with the other parts notwithstanding And euen thus is it in Christ although in regard of his corporall presence the heauen must receiue him vntill the times of the restitution of all things yet is he here with vs alway euen vnto the end of the world in respect of the presence of his Spirit by the vitall influence whereof from him as from the Head the whole body is fitly ioyned together and compacted by that which euery ioynt supplieth according to the effectuall working in the measure of euery part Which quickening Spirit if it be wanting in any no externall communion with Christ or his Church can make him a true member of this mysticall body this being a most sure principle that He which hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Rom. 8.9 Now among all the graces that are wrought in vs by

vvith Idolaters by countenancing or any vvay ioyning vvith them in their vngodly courses For that this is the maine scope at vvhich S. Paul aimeth in his treating here of the Sacrament is euident both by that vvhich goeth before in the 19. vers Wherefore my deareby beloued flee from Idolatry and that vvhich follovveth in the 21. Yee cannot drinke the Cup of the Lord and the cup of diuels ye cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the table of diuels Whereby vve may collect thus much that as the Lords Supper is a seale of our coniunction one vvith another and vvith Christ our Head so is it an euidence of our dis-iunction from Idolaters binding vs to dis-auovv all communion vvith them in their false vvorship And indeed the one must necessarily follovv vpon the other considering the nature of this hainous sinne of Idolatry is such that it can no wayes stand with the fellowship which a Christian man ought to haue both with the Head and with the body of the Church To this purpose in the sixth of the second to the Corinthians we reade thus What agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols for ye are the Temple of the liuing God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walke in them and I will bee their God and they shall be my people Wherefore come out from among the be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the vncleane thing and I will receiue you And in the 2. Chap. of the Epistle to the Colossians Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seene vainely puft vp by his fleshly minde and not holding the head from which all the body by ioynts and bands hauing nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God In which words the Apostle sheweth vnto vs that such as vnder pretence of humility were drawne to the worshipping of Angels did not hold the Head and consequently could not retaine communion with the body which receiueth his whole growth from thence Answerably whereunto the Fathers assembled out of diuers prouinces of Asia in the Synode held at Laodicea not farre from the Colossians did solemnely conclude that Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God and goe and inuocate Angels and pronounced an anathema against any that should bee found to doe so because say they he hath forsaken our Lord Iesus Christ the Sonne of God and giuen himselfe to Idolatry declaring plainly that by this idolatrous inuocation of Angels a discession was made both from the Church of God as they note in the beginning and from Christ the Head of the Church as they obserue in the end of their Canon For the further vnderstanding of this particular it will not be amisse to consider what Theodoret a famous Bishop of the ancient Church hath written of this matter in his Commentary vpon the second to the Colossians They that defended the Law saith he induced thē also to worship the Angels saying that the Law was giuen by them And this vice continued in Phrygia and Pisidia for a long time for which cause also the Synod assembled in Laodicea the chiefe City of Phyrgia for bad them by a Law to pray vnto Angels And euen to this day among them and their borderers there are Oratories of Saint Michael to be seene This therefore did they counsell should be done vsing humility and saying that the God of all was inuisible and inaccessible and incomprehensible and that it was fit men should get Gods fauour by the meanes of Angels And this is it which the Apostle saith In humility and worshipping of Angels Thus farre Theodoret whom Cardinall Baronius discerning to come somwhat close vnto him and to touch the Idolatry of the Popish crue a little to the quicke leaueth the poore shifts wherewith his companions labour to obscure the light of this testimony and telleth vs plainely that Theodoret by his leaue did not well vnderstand the meaning of Pauls words and that those Oratories of Saint Michael were erected anciently by Catholicks and not by those Hereticks which were condemned in the Councell of Laodicea as he mistooke the matter As if any wise man would bee perswaded vpon his bare word that the memory of things done in Asia so long since should be more fresh in Rome at this day then in the time of Theodoret who liued twelue hundred yeeres agoe Yet must I needs confesse that hee sheweth a little more modesty heerein then Bellarmine his fellow-Cardinall doth who would make vs beleeue that the place in the nineteenth of the Reuelation where the Angell saith to Saint Iohn that would haue worshipped him See thou doe it not I am thy fellow-seruant Worship God maketh for them and demandeth very soberly why they should be reprehended who doe the same thing that Iohn did and whether the Caluinists knew better then Iohn whether Angels were to bee adored or no And as for inuocation of them he telleth vs that Saint Iacob plainly prayed vnto an Angell in the 48. of Genesis when in blessing the sonnes of Ioseph hee said The Angell which deliuered me from all euill blesse those children Whom for answere we remit to Saint Cyril in the first Chapter of the third booke of his Thesaurus and intreate him to tell vs how neere of kinne hee is here to those Hereticks of whom S. Cyril there speaketh His words bee these That hee doth not meane in that place Genes 48.16 an Angell as the HERETICKES vnderstand it but the Sonne of God is manifest by this that when hee had said The Angel he presently addeth who deliuered mee from all euils Which S. Cyril presupposeth no good Christian will ascribe to any but to God alone But to come more neere yet vnto that which is Idolatry most properly An Idoll we must vnderstand in the exact propriety of the terme doth signifie any Image but according to the Ecclesiasticall vse of the word it noteth such an Image as is set vp for religious adoration And in this later sence we charge the adherents of the Church of Rome with grosse Idolatry because that contrary to Gods expresse Commandement they are found to bee worshippers of Images Neither will it auaile them heere to say that the Idolatry forbidden in the Scripture is that onely which was vsed by Iewes and Pagans The Apostle indeed in this place dehorting Christians from Idolatry propoundeth the fall of the Iewes in this kinde before their eyes Neither be yee Idolaters saith he as some of them were And so doth hee also adde concerning another sinne in the verse following Neither let vs commit fornication as some of them committed As well then might one pleade that Iewish or Heathenish fornication were here onely reprehended as Iewish or Heathenish Idolatry But as the one is a foule sinne whether it bee