Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	life_n	word_n	8,188	5	4.1373	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82006	The great duty of communicating explain'd and enforc'd, the objections against it answer'd, and the necessary preparation for it stated With devotions to be us'd before, at, and after the Lord's Supper. By the author of The duties of the closet.	Dawes, William, Sir, 1671-1724.	1700 (1700)	Wing D455B; ESTC R229669	29,052	50

of the holy Spirit to teach and enable us to obey we shall be abundantly convinc'd of the advantage and benefit of it to us By this means we have the same strength and nourishment convey'd unto our Souls which the outward Symbols Bread and Wine convey to our Bodies We are made one with Christ and Christ with us and nothing but our own wilful disobedience shall be ever able to part us more from him This is a true and faithful account of the Lord's Supper which I think may be fairly summ'd up in these few and plain words It is a Foederal Feast or Feast of Covenant between God and man instituted by Christ himself and perpetually to be observ'd by all Christians where by partaking of Bread and Wine in commemoration of Christ's Body given and his Blood shed for them they on their part acknowledge Christ for their Saviour and Redeemer Lord and Master and God on his part grants and confirms to them under the Symbols of Bread and Wine the Body and Blood of his Son Christ Jesus that is all the blessed effects of his Body broken and his Blood shed viz. pardon of past sins promise of eternal happiness upon future obedience of the Gospel and Grace to direct and enable them to perform this obedience And this Feast is therefore call'd the Lord's Supper because it was instituted by our Lord at Supper time From what has been said I think our obligations to receive this Holy Supper do abundantly appear For First We have here a plain command so to do Do this in nomembrance of me a command as has been already shewn you which reacheth to all Christians and will oblige them even to the end of the world So that it is meer trifling with God our Saviour and the World to call our selves Christians and yet live in a wilful neglect of this plain command of Christ Why call ye me Lord Lord saith our Saviour and do not the things which I say to what purpose do ye in words acknowledge me to be your Master and yet when I call upon you to do this plainly declare by your actions that you do not regard me Better had it been for you that you had never taken my sacred name into your mouths than that you should thus abuse and blaspheme it Be not deceived I will not be mock'd but I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sydon at the day of Judgment than for you Secondly This command of our Saviour is attended with a multitude of Circumstances which do every one of them very much add to its force and obligation and render the neglect of it more and more unpardonable For First It was his dying Command that very same night in which he instituted this Holy Supper was he betrayed into the hands of the Jews in order to be mock'd and derided buffeted and scourged and at last sacrificed upon the Cross for our sakes And can our dying Saviour require any thing of us that we will not do Can he speak and shall not his last words be minded by us What answer do ye think ye should have given him had ye heard him speaking in this manner to you My dearest Children who I love so well whose miseries I am so deeply concern'd for whose sins I am so very desirous to get a pardon for that behold I am just now going to dye an ignominious death upon the Cross for you that so by the Sacrifice of my self I may take away all your sins and make you heirs of eternal Glory My best and dearest Children dearer to me than my life itself Hearken to the last words of your dying Saviour I have but one thing more to require of you Oh let not that be neglected by you Let me intreat you with my last breath that breath which I am contented to part with for your sakes to preserve this my last Commandment inviolable I would ye not all have said Distrust us not O blessed Master we beseech thee command whatsoever thou seest good and we will cheerfully obey tho it be even to death itself Our hearts are affected with the sense of thy approaching kindness that we can no more forget thy dying words than we can refuse to accept thy dying Love Secondly It is a very easy Command take Bread and Wine bless them and then eat and drink of them ●n remembrance of me is a Commanndment as little ●rievous as our hearts could wish for so that they ●…ho neglect it have nothing to say in excuse for ●hemselves but seem to sin purely for sinnings sake ●nd this is the very height of wickedness Blessed God ●hat ever the Devil should so far get possession of mens ●earts as to keep them from doing their duty even ●…here there is no hardship in doing it How can ●hese men in reason expect that our Saviour should ●e at any pains to save them who are resolv'd they ●…ill be at none to obey him Or rather how can ●hey not expect to be made the unhappy instances of ●is wrathful displeasure who will not do even this ●mall thing to please him Thirdly This is a Command in which our obedience to ●hrist is more peculiarly try'd In most other of his ●ommands there are other obligations besides those ●f his Authority as in all moral duties obligations ●rom nature reason or the like so that it is not ●ery easy to tell by mens complyance with these ●…hether they are true Servants of Christ or no be●ause they may nay and it is plain they sometimes ●o comply with these Duties upon principles of ●ature or reason when yet they have no true sence ●f their obligation from Christs authority But in the ●uty before us there being no obligation but Christs ●ositive institution they who perform it as they ●ught must certainly act upon a true Christian prin●iple viz. a sense of the obedience they owe to Christs ●ommands This then being a plain Test of our ●eing true Christians it is certainly our duty to let ●ll the world see by our compliance with it that ●…e are so and that the obligation of Christs Autho●ity when alone is abundantly sufficient to com●…and us whithersoever it pleaseth Fourthly This command is a more than ordinary Tryal of ●ur gratitude and Love to Christ because it commands ●othing but what we are bound even by the meer ●aws of Love and Gratitude to be most ready to per●orm For supposing Christ had had no authority to ●ommand us any thing but had only requested of us that we would perpetually observe this his Supper in commemoration of him yet considering wha● great unspeakably great things he had done for us we should have been most inexcusable if we should not have answer'd this his request The Laws o● Love and Gratitude are founded upon reason and therefore ought to have a powerful influence upon reasonable creatures and certainly all that Love and Gratitude can oblige us to we must be

obliged to in behalf of him who has done more to engage our Love and deserve our thanks than all the Friends that we ever had in the world put together Base and ungrateful wretches then must we needs be if when he only desires any thing of us we do not make hast to fulfil his desire but most especially base and ungrateful if when he desires of us only that we would meet together now and then to commemorate all his kindness towards us we refuse to hear or regard him as tho he were unworthy our remembrance Fifthly This is a command to do a thing vastly for our own good So that we must be Fools as well as Rebels if we omit to do it Of how much advantage the receiving the Lords Supper is to every faithful Christian you have already seen and from thence may judge how much it is your interest to receive it And certainly where your duty and your interest are so closely link'd together it must be a strange Spirit of contradiction and rebellion or at least a strange degree of carelessness and supineness that can make you forget or neglect your duty You must have a mighty mind certainly to quarrel with our Saviour who will rather forego your own interest then obey his commands Sixthly This is a command in which the honour of God and our Saviour are in a very extraordinary manner concern'd and which therefore we ought to be most particularly careful to observe For since the Holy Supper was instituted on purpose for the solemn commemoration of the great loving kindness of God and our Saviour in Redeeming us and for showing forth to the World their great Power Wisdom and Goodness 〈◊〉 the Redemption of us and likewise the new Title ●…ey hereby acquired to our service and obedience ●…e cannot possibly do any thing more for their ho●our than to attend this solemn commemoration ●nd join with our fellow Christians in acknowledging ●ll Glory service and obedience to God who hath ●av'd us not according to our works but according to his ●wn purpose and grace and hath bought us with a price ●nd likewise to our Lord Jesus Christ who was slain and ●as redeemed us to God by his blood And the refusing to ●o this looks as if we did not really believe Christia●ity but counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith we ●re sanctified an unholy thing And how high an affront ●his must needs be to God and our Saviour your own ●earts will tell you Seventhly This is a command which tends mightily to ●rocure and promote love and unity amongst Christians as has ●een before prov'd and upon that account challengeth a very particular regard and respect from us Every member of a Society is in an extraordinary man●er obliged to pay a most exact obedience to those Laws which do more immediately concern the well-●eing of that Society of which he professeth himself ● member and consequently every Christian must ●ye under more than ordinary obligations to obey ●his command of Christ concerning his Supper because the good of the Christian Church in general is very much concerned in it It was design'd and is very fit to unite and bind the members of Christs Church closer and closer together and so to streng●hen the main body and those who will not joyn ●n this design plainly betray the trust repos'd in them and as far as they are able defraud all their fellow-members of those blessings of love peace mutual ●riendship c. which must have been the natural effects of their obedience in this point Lastly This is a command which we are often put in mind of We hear of our obligations to it both from the Desk and from the Pulpit we read of them in the Church Catechism and have a sensible remembrance of them every now and then at the Communion Table We are frequently exhorted intreated and in the name of Christ commanded to attend his Holy Supper we are told of the great danger of neglecting it and both the mercies and terrors of the Lord are made use of to draw and compel us to it And now if after all this we still continue obstinate and undutiful what can we expect but a punishment answerable to our obstinacy a punishment that shall no more relent than we have done but being deaf to all our prayers and crys for mercy shall with the same continued torments prey upon us and be to us the sad remembrancers of our fatal obstinacy to all eternity CHAP. II. Of Preparation for the Lord's Supper IN discoursing on this head it will be convenient from the very beginning to distinguish betwixt necessary preparation without which no man ought to come to the Lords Supper and such as is only expedient or adviseable under certain circumstances it being plain from experience that for want of this distinction men have been strangely confounded in their notions about this matter To the necessary preparation no doubt those words of St Paul refer'd Corinth 11.28 Let a man examine try or prove himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup because this is laid down at large as a general rule to all Christians and it is here plainly supposed that no man ought to to eat of that bread and drink of that cup who has not first examined himself Examined himself as to what Our Church tells us in few words whither he repents him truly of his former sins stedfastly purposing to lead a new life has a lively faith in Gods mercy through Christ with a thankful remembrance of his death and is in charity with all Men. In which words three things are propounded as necessary qualifications for the worthy receiving the Lords Supper First a sincere and compleat Repentance which shall not only look backwards with unfeigned sorrow for our sins past but likewise forward with stedfast purposes of leading a new life for the time to come Secondly a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ such a firm and hearty persuasion and assurance of God's having redeem'd us from sin and death by the death of Christ and of his having made him our Lord and Master and promis'd eternal life to us upon condition of our obedience to him as shall work in us a readiness of mind to serve and obey him in all things and more especially shall dispose us to commemorate his death with the highest gratitude and most affectionate Thanksgiving Lastly An universal Love and Charity which shall extend to all men even our very enemies and make us not only forgive all their trespasses against us but likewise bless them pray for them and in one word do them all the good we can Now that every of these is really a necessary qualification for the worthy receiving the Lords Supper will most evidently appear by considering them a little apart And First as to Repentance it is plain even from reason that without this we must needs be unfit to joyn