Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	case_n	christian_a	great_a	882	4	2.1333	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60584	A sermon about frequent communion preached before the University of Oxford, August the 17th, 1679 / by Tho. Smith ...	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1685 (1685)	Wing S4248; ESTC R39556	22,930	42

bloud were eaten and drunk by us and converted after the ordinary way of digestion into our bodily substance We have this assurance in his holy word but much more in the holy Sacrament because here is a more lively sensible and particular representation of it that is though I acknowledge and believe this to be one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel that Christ died for our sins that he appeared once in the days of his flesh to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and that at his ascension he entred in his humane nature into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us my faith grows stronger yet when I receive the sacred symbols into my hands and convey them to my mouth For then if I come with a due preparation it is as if I received from Christ himself and as if he still pronounced the same words to me as he did to the Apostles at the institution Now can we have too great too full an assurance of the favour of God of the pardon of our sins of our living for ever in the presence of God in the other world God knows we forfeit our hopes by our gross and scandalous relapses we lose the favour of God by our presumptuous disobedience we miss the sight of heaven by reason of the thick mists of our sins our onely comfort and support is that God upon our hearty repentance and amendment will be reconciled to us Here it is that we may recover our selves that God restores us to the joy of his salvation and upholds us with his free Spirit Here it is that the weary and heavy laden with the burthen of their sins may find rest and peace to their souls Here it is that Christ not onely commands but invites us to come and how can we but accept of such an invitation so that were the thing wholly arbitrary and indifferent yet the benefit and advantage is so great that this should prevail with us to come and to come often To draw to a conclusion with particular reference to this reverend and learned Audience If this obligation lies upon all in general how much more upon us who have the honour to wait at the Altar and administer in holy things and upon You who are designed to the same honour This was the pious intent of our munificent and glorious Founders and Benefactors in erecting and endowing these structures which are the envy and admiration of all foreigners and in providing so liberally for us several ages before we were born that being here trained up in severe exercises of piety and in the studies of sound and usefull learning we may the better be fitted to do God service in the Church defend the truth of our religion against all its subtile and malitious opposers keep up the belief and practice of Christianity in the minds and lives of the people be a credit to the Countrey and Age we live in and approve our selves not unworthy of the bounty and maintenance which we so happily enjoy Both God and man expect it from us that we especially should shew forth an exemplary piety to which nothing can conduce more than a frequent and devout receiving of the Sacrament This would take off our minds from idleness and vanity and confine us more to our selves and our studies and make us reflect on the true end of living in a College and the particular duty of the Priestly sunction This would confound all the scandalous imputations cast upon the Universities of late by Mr. Hobbs and his Atheistical Gallants by the Papists and Fanaticks in their scurrilous libels and Pamphlets who make it their business to bring a discredit and a disreputation upon us We cannot but be sadly sensible of the great contempt that is poured out upon Church-men and we justly esteem it as we have highest reason so to do an infallible mark and proof of the Atheism of the irreligion of the debauchery of the age But are we not too too much wanting to our selves would we retrieve and recover the honour due unto the Priesthood which seems in a manner forfeited at present there cannot be a better or more effectual expedient than this than to make others sensible by our example of this great duty of our Religion and of the necessity first and then of the blessed effects and benefits of frequent communion Such an exemplary strictness would help to re-establish and bring back the true Christian temper and spirit which are almost lost and shut out of the world I will not take upon me to prescribe precisely how often the blessed Sacrament is to be received Every one is best able to resolve himself in this case The Church of England out of the great care which she has of the souls of all such as live within her communion does oblige them to communicate three times at least in the year of which Easter to be one and this I find expresly determined in a Council held at Agatha a City in the south of France under Caesarius Archbishop of Arles in the year of Christ 506 with this farther addition that they who did not comply with this Canon should not be reputed Christians But this limitation respected secular persons onely and he is not generously pious that does but just come up to the bare letter of the Law which forbids that it should be longer neglected but is supposed to encourage the willing to more frequent approaches But we are under higher and more indispensable obligations The Persons concerned in the late disturbances and who by their furious preachments helpt to pull down the Hierarchy of the Church cannot but reflect one would think with shame and horrour enough upon the sad effects of their pretended Reformation how the giddy people whom they had insatuated were broken into many factions and sects and lost their reason and their religion and grew enthusiastical and mad It is but a sorry excuse to say that the hand of the Jesuite was in all this for they by their unreasonable schism and discontent and factious conventicling though coloured over with pretensions of godly zeal against the Papists as at this day wherein they are playing over the same game had created unjust prejudices in their minds had shaken them in their judgments from the established doctrine and service of the Church and had sitted them to be wrought upon by their subtile artifices and insinuations What a sensible decay was there of true Christian piety and devotion the blessed Sacrament being seldom administred Those Intruders who called themselves the University of Oxon. from the bloudy and fatal year of 1648 to the King 's happy restoration did not think fit so much as once to celebrate the communion together in this Church and a publick Sacrament was not seen in several College Chapels during the same space of time This was the holy discipline of those times and indeed men of such divided hearts and

Bloud as a perpetual and visible representation of it He still presents himself before us as hanging upon the Cross his Body rent and torn with wounds and his pretious Bloud gushing in a plentifull stream out of his side Thus he is evidently set forth before our eyes crucified among us still Gal. 3.1 as it were in Effigie These memorials he has left us of himself till his second coming to put us continually in mind how much he suffered for us This was the grand Reason of the Institution the better to imprint it on our minds that we might always have before our Eyes a lively Image and Figure of his Sufferings the mysterious Rites used in the celebration being for this very end and purpose and the whole Action solemn and fully significant For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lord's death till he come I shall comprize the full sense of these words in these four following Propositions I. That the holy Elements after Consecration retain their own proper Essence and Nature without any Physical and Substantial Change made of them It is Bread that we eat and Wine that we drink but with a distinction and note of Dignity and Honour it is this Bread and this Cup that is of ordinary and common they become mystical and sacramental they are altered and changed as to their use and effect and condition and not onely a divine Signification but a divine Virtue is imprinted upon them II. That the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Lord doth very fitly and fully represent and set forth his death III. That it is of perpetual Use and Observation and to be continued till the end of the World ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come that is till he come to judge the World at the last day and to put an end to the present state of things IV. That all who profess their Belief in a crucified Saviour and exspect the saving benefits of his Passion are obliged to a frequent celebration of this holy and tremendous Mystery which is here plainly supposed as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup. Which last Proposition I intend to make the Argument of my Discourse at this time Now the Reason and Necessity of the Obligation will appear if we consider these two things I. The End and Design of the Institution of the holy Sacrament II. The blessed Consequences and Effects of frequent Communion 1. The End and Design of the holy Sacrament is that it might be an everlasting Memorial of the Death and Passion of our Lord and Saviour He was pleased after the Consecration of both Elements to add particularly and distinctly not in the way of Advice to be followed if we think fit our selves but in the way of a peremptory and absolute Command v. 24. This doe in remembrance of me and v. 25. This doe ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me It is certain that we ought to remember the Death of our Blessed Saviour at other times as when we are upon our knees at our Prayers He gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Ephes. 5.2 by virtue of which our Prayers wing'd with a lively Faith in his Bloud and with Zeal ascend like a Cloud of Incense into the Holy of Holies and find acceptance with God We cannot employ our Thoughts and Meditations better when we are upon our Beds or when we are in private and especially upon our Days of Fasting and Penitence when God onely is witness to these spiritual Exercises No Argument can make us more and better sensible of the defiling and damning nature of Sin than the consideration of a crucified Saviour that his Bloud was shed on purpose to expiate and attone it This will make us reflect upon our sins with a hearty sorrow and regret which brought the Son of God to so sad and shamefull an end How ought I to abhor and loath my self when I consider that the sins which I have committed though so many hundred years after contributed to his dying and make me an accessory of the guilt of the Jews who were the cruel Instruments of his Murther Nothing can more and better inflame our Zeal and Love to God and to Christ than frequent Meditation on our Saviour's Death that God should contrive this admirable way of our Redemption by the Death of his onely Son whom he sent out of his own bosome on purpose to be a Sacrifice for Sin and whom he set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his bloud for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God Rom. 3.25 and that Christ should willingly undergo all this for our sakes O blessed Saviour how can we recompense this thy infinite Love towards faln Man Jesu God! I cannot doe I cannot suffer enough in the way of a just acknowledgment of thy inexpressible Kindness and Pity to my poor Soul which thou hast redeemed from the nethermost Hell and from the Wrath of God which would have been the more intolerable The reading also of the Narrative and History of our Saviour's Sufferings and Death as they are recorded in the holy Gospels together with a reflexion on the several circumstances of them must needs leave deep impressions upon our memories This tragical story wherewith the Heathen of old used to upbraid the Christians as Votaries and Worshippers of a crucified God was so universally diffused throughout the World that it was impossible that it should be forgotten and the sight of a Cross which assoon as the Roman Empire turned Christian became an Ensign and Trophy of Honour every where to be met with in their Banners and upon their Bucklers and Helmets upon the Diadems of the Emperours upon their Medals upon their Churches and Spires of their Towers and in their solemn Processions would quickly refresh their memories and put them in mind of the great Saviour of the World whose Hands and Feet were nailed to it and his Armes extended upon it to receive and embrace all who fly to him for refuge from the assaults and pursuits of offended Justice But Christ who knew the best and most effectual method to keep alive for ever the Memory of his Passion and Death has ordained this holy Sacrament as the most proper Instrument to make us truly and really sensible and mindfull of it It is not then a matter of mere indifference whether we will receive the Sacrament or no we cannot with any pretence or shew of Reason take a liberty of dispensing with this Law of our Religion as if it were wholly in our power to come and abstain as we please For certainly all Laws were given with an intent that they may be observed and obeyed If they oblige to a Duty and require any thing to be done the Omission is culpable and is more or less aggravated