Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	1,107	5	9.3710	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60611	A sermon preached on the fourth Sunday in Lent, in the Cathedral Church of Norwich wherein is represented the great sin and danger of neglecting the Holy Communion / by W. Smyth, D.D. ...	Smith, William, b. 1615 or 16.	1680 (1680)	Wing S4282; ESTC R17812	17,831	42

people are admitted to an equal share of honour with the greatest Prelate that stood by the side of the Altar and with the greatest Potentate that kneel'd at the foot of it There the highest Prince must descend from his Throne and the mighty General from his loftiest advance of power and with the lowest subject and meanest Souldier appear upon one level and kneel upon the same pavement shall be addressed to with the same kindness and treated with the same entertainment and with the same solemnities O how may such a prospect often repeated pull down the pride insolency and towring vanity of a scornful mind and dispose it to entertain that great instance of a Christian temper to be meek and lowly in heart according to Christs great example Fourthly the constant and conscientious use of the Blessed Sacrament was a defence to the Churches unity and a proper expedient that God provided to secure it from Schism and Division Had men kept close to that Sacred tye and contesseration as Tertullian calls it of our Communion they had not been so easily separated from their folds nor would they have so desperately become runagates into the herds of the devourers of Christs flock It 's very probable we had considerately continued in one mind and in one judgment and might have been at this day serving and praising God together with one mouth and one heart Fifthly As the constant use of the Sacrament kept up the unity of the spirit as to the Churches peace so it was the most successful expedient to preserve the social peace of common neighbourhoods and the lesser apartments of men It set up little Chanceries and Assizes in every village which commonly brought their disagreements to final determinations amongst themselves And if either part of the Litigants had made the agreement more difficult yet when they approached towards the Sacred office of the Communion they were there generally overruled to lay down first their stomach and then their gift before the Altar And the thought of what they were there to do so wrought their minds into a forgiving humble temper that no condescension on either part was thought too much to purchase the peace with which they knew God was so well pleased and without which they thought men could not safely be entertained at his Holy Table And thus they kept the devil of dissention and variance out of their quarters Now the dis-use of the Sacrament pull'd down those fences of common peace Passions had time to ferment heats long covered broke out into flames Families began to stand in a posture of war one against another Suspicion and jealousie taught them to be unkind and then little accidents improv'd that unkindness to open hostilities The places of Judicature are commonly to be the seat of the war Armies out of the neighbourhoods must be levyed at a great expence and trouble to end a difference which a soft word might have concluded and a meeting together at the Sacrament had certainly prevented Sixthly the constant use of the Holy Sacrament kept up a due veneration of God's Priesthood and of the Sacred offices of their holy calling upon the reputation of which the credit and consequently the practice of Religion so considerably depends For so long as the people believed the necessity of the Sacrament and that it could not be obtained but by the hand of a lawful Priest of God it kept up that respect and veneration which the devil was resolv'd to overthrow for otherwise he could never have succeeded in his design of confounding our Church and then of ruining Religion And for that end his Agents were imployed as they endeavour'd it by all other ways to rob them of whatsoever might support their reputation to overthrow the customary regard that the people had to the constant receiving of that Sacrament that is either to deter them from it as dangerous or to disswade them from it as being indifferent As for the Office of Preaching which was annexed to the Priesthood the people were soon wheadl'd into an opinion that forasmuch as that concern'd only the information of the understanding they might supply that part of the Priestly Office as well if not better themselves and by their own methods That is either by reading a parcel of Chapters at home or by the help of some little Officer of the family who might talk prettily of Religion at the Tables end and so save them the trouble of making an unnecessary journey to Church or they might go to a Barn where by some storms of passion now and then allay'd with some sweet similitudes they might be better edified By such resemblances as these of the Preaching office the people were more easily tempted to think that the Priesthood was unnecessary But while the Sacrament stood in reputation and usage they durst not adventure to make a mockery of that that was always too hot for their fingers The seventh and last loss and that which also gave a great blow to Religion in general by the neglect of the Sacrament was an undue and deplorable intermission of the solemn acts of Repentance The Sacrament was Ordained upon a mighty design of God to oblige men to frequent Examination of themselves and lives and to judge and condemn their former miscarriages and follies in order to future amendment as St. Paul intimates 1 Cor. 11. 28. That is it was Gods especial call to repentance By the other Ordinances they were only advised by this they were engaged The other might admonish them this necessarily constrain'd them to it The other Ordinances variously prevail'd according to the different skill of the Preachers but as to the event of this it purely depended upon a plain and an unvariable institution so that no difference of parts in the Administrator could make it a contingent or an uncertain blessing If therefore you have cause to complain of the unusual numbers of loose and impenitent men consider how much it 's to be imputed to the discontinuance and intolerable neglect of the Blessed Sacrament This the Last Thus have I shewn you the losses of almost all the considerable parts of Religion And as you may perceive how the very substance of Christianity it self was shaken and tottering and how it so continues where there is a profess'd neglect of a due veneration to and use of this Holy Sacrament O how can you acquit your selves before your good God unless you endeavour by your exemplary and constant attendance upon it and a greater zeal for it to bring men back to the exercises of those graces and necessary duties of Christianity which have been lost or impairing ever since those unhappy days that gave incouragement to its dis-use and discontinuance And now you have heard all these Arguments I shall make no other Application of them to you but only in the name of God I shall lay a general charge upon your Consciences from every one of them That is if no man can wilfully turn his back upon the Blessed Communion but he is a Rebel to an express command of his Saviour as to the first Argument Secondly If he cannot do it without a manifest resistance of the Counsel of God against himself as the Sacrament is a means of Grace and Blessing as to the second Thirdly If he cannot so depart from it but he must go away an unthankful wretch for the death of Christ and the inestimable benefits of it as to the third Argument Fourthly If he cannot so continue to do but he must separate himself from the Communion of the Catholick Church as to the Fourth And lastly If he cannot customarily turn away from it but he must so long stand guilty of the loss or the impair of those so many mentioned graces and necessary duties of Christianity I say if all these tyes of Conscience be put together then certainly if God Almighty hath required at your hands any thing that may be called Religion to be performed and done in order to your Salvation This duty must come under the same necessity and obligation From which there is nothing can dispense you but what Divine Providence may permit to be an insuperable bar against all possibility of receiving it And therefore none of those subterfuges and pretences that are ordinarily made use of can possibly acquit you that is no exception against the person of him that Administers it or against the company with whom you are to communicate or against the circumstantial manner of its administration when the substantial Institution is intirely observed or lastly when a continued unpreparedness is alledged I say none of these exceptions can possibly be admitted as such a bar unless you can be as fully assured that God hath provided for the innocency of your omission upon the account of any of them by as evident a declaration of his will in Scripture as that whereby he hath made the duty of Receiving the Sacrament to be absolutely necessary or that our Saviour intended not what he said when he had so positively and passionately published his Pleasure and Command with a Do this in remembrance of me FINIS Arg. I. 1. Cor. 11. Arg. II. Arg. III Arg. IV. Arg. V. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.