Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	doctrine_n	rome_n	transubstantiation_n	3,441	5	11.1236	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43450	The case of eating and drinking unworthily stated, and the scruples of coming to the Holy Sacrament upon the danger of unworthiness satisfied being the substance of several sermons, preached in the parish church of S. Hellens, London / by Henry Hesketh ...	Hesketh, Henry, 1637?-1710.	1689 (1689)	Wing H1607; ESTC R14433	108,608	240

whose immediate service Religion is will not only offer the Sacrifice of Fools but of somthing worse not only defeat the end and acceptance of their worship but turn it into guilt and an argument against them 2. It is not only a service of Religion but the highest and most solemn service of it so it hath been alwaies accounted in the Christian Church and for that reason she hath used to consummate and end all others with it it is her most august and Solemn Sacrifice the great and chief rite of Prayer and her most devout and solemn Eucharist and expression of praise And let me add if it may signifie any thing with this Generation it is the only band and testimony of our full communion with the Christian Church our Baptism admits us into the Church gives us a right to all the priviledges and blessings of it and our going to Church and ingaging into the standing Services of Religion may procure us the Name of Christians and cause the World to repute and take us for such but it is this Holy Sacrament that makes us to be in full Communion with Christs Church It is a vain thing for Men to say they are no Papists no Sectaries c. they are Protestants of the Church of England when they do not communicate in Sacraments with her they may be of any Church or of no Church for all they do without this and for any thing I know to the contrary they do as actually cut off themselves from the communion of the Church by the neglect of the Holy Sacrament where they may have it as they can do so by Heresie Apostacy schism or can be cut off by the highest censures of the Church herself This is a thing that ought to stick fast upon some Mens thoughts for if there be no Salvation out of the Church of Christ and those be not in this Church that do not join in her communion and those do not do this who do not communicate in her Sacraments then some Mens conditions must be very hazardous and then we may assert the necessity as well as duty of the Holy Sacraments in order to Mens Salvation the necessity I mean of them where they may be had Nay I know not why I may not say more viz. that the neglect of this Holy Sacrament doth as really forfeit Church membership as the want of Baptism doth hinder it and those that live and dye amongst us without receiving the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper are no more true members of our Church than they that dye unbaptised those that have been admitted into the Church and come not up to the terms of its communion may forfeit that membership as truly as they who were never admitted into it cannot pretend to it For though Men may enter their names into a society yet unless they submit to the Laws and usages of it they will neither be accounted members of it nor suffered to injoy the immunities and priviledges thereof 3. I add it not only is and hath ever been accounted the highest service of the Church but that in which we are thought to have a nearer access unto and a more intimate communion with God than in others I do not urge its being so lively and visible a representation of that which is the most affecting meditation in Christian Religion and that upon this reason the Apostle tells the Galatians that Christ had been set forth before their Eyes and Crucified among them Gall. 3.1 though that alone were argument enough to ingage Men to all reverence in it But I argue it upon another reason namely that herein we are admitted to the Table of the Lord where we not only feed with him but feed upon him we eat his Flesh and drink his Blood we partake of him and are incorporated into him we are made one with him and he with us we dwell in him and he in us as our Church speaks I do not here undertake the dispute about Transubstantiation that hard word and that worser thing which the Church of Rome hath taken upon her to teach as an article of necessary faith contrary to the nature of a Sacarament to the plain sence of Scripture to the doctrine and beliefe of the Primitive Church and Fathers of it and to the common sence and reason of all Mankind It is a doctrine that came forth with the doctrine of their infallibility and methinks 't was very fit those two monsters should be born together to let the World see how Gigantick the faith of a Romanist is and I will say those that can believe the infallibility of their Popes after so many instances of their having erred and contradicted one another may believe the doctrine of transubstantiation contrary to all and the plainest evidences of things that it is possible for Mankind to have But I am not for admitting dispute or controversie into this discourse and therefore let that Doctrine pass as a thing more monstrous and abhorrent to humane reason than any that is to be met with even in the Pagan Poetick Theology And yet notwithstanding all this I add and still assert that we do as truly and to all real effects partake of Christ in the Holy Sacrament as if we did literally eat his Flesh and drink his Blood our advantage is as real and true by the one as it could be by the other The Church of England is for a real presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament but it is that real presence which the Primitive Church and good Fathers of it were for and meant when they spake to that purpose viz. a real Spiritual presence a conferring all the great effects and benefits of his Body and Blood as truly as if they themselves were actually present there A Spiritual presence is as real a presence as a Bodily and the effects and benefits of Christs Body and Blood are real things too So that the Body and Blood of Christ may be said to be really and truly there where all the effects and Blessings of them are really bestowed and the Church of England doth truly say that they are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper when all the real benefits and effects of them are taken and received by them This I am pretty well assured is all that the Primitive Church and Fathers meant by the real presence and this is sufficient both for our faith and comfort too and while we are satisfied and assured of this we neither need more nor are obliged to puzle our selves about any further questions Now this surely is such an argument and obligation to reverence and devotion in this service as can never miss effect upon them that entertain the thoughts of it For if we do thus discern the Lords Body and take the Bread and Wine in the Holy Sacrament not only to be the signs and symbols of our Lord's Body and Blood but in a Sacramental