Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	blood_n	body_n	holy_a	11,079	5	5.1892	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02233	The honour of Christian churches and the necessitie of frequenting of divine service and publike prayers in them. Delivered in a sermon at VVite-Hall before the Kings most excellent Majestie on the eight day of December last being Sunday, by Walter Bancanquall ...	Balcanquhall, Walter, 1586?-1645.	1633 (1633)	STC 1237; ESTC S100539	18,198	32

God in it els we run upon certaine danger are you in this house to speake unto God by prayer be sure you make a curtsie low enough with David I am a worme and no man or if you will a little lower with Abraham Since dust and ashes have begun to speake unto thee els you may justly feare that your prayers shal be turned into sinne Are you in this house to heare God speake unto you by his Word read or preached Be sure you keepe your distance as the people were commanded at the hearing of the Law els you know your danger For if so much as a beast shall touch the smoaking mountaine it shal be stoned to death or thrust through with a dart Are you in this house to converse with God in the blessed Sacrament Use first a reverent preparation Let a man examine himselfe and so let him eat of that bread and drinke of that cup els you know the danger You shall be guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord. For observing this distance in Gods house I will but name unto you two reasons First we do not find in Scripture that God hath used to be familiar with any to entertaine them or be entertained by them unlesse they have observed this distance and first prepared themselves for that interviewe or parlie Before God would speake one word to Moses on the backe of Mount Horeb he first biddeth him put off his shoes because the place on which he stood was holy ground when God delivered his Law to his people from the top of Mount Sinai he first commanded them to sanctifie themselves three dayes before that all that while they might be the more reverently prepared to harken unto that which God was to say unto them so must we when we come into the house of God if we be to speake to him by prayer or to heare him speake to us by his Word put off our shoes that is all worldly thoughts and affections and sanctifie our selves that is put on all new and holy thoughts and affections The second reason is this We do not find that God hath ever yet suffered the unreverent handlers or lookers upon the places of his presence to go away unpunished Vzza did but irreverently touch the Arke of the Lord and the Lord presently killed him the men of Bethshemesh did but irreverently looke into the Arke of the Lord and the Lord presently slew fifty thousand of them How few be they in our times who by observing this distance do declare that they believe the Church to be Gods house how many that come in without preparing themselves at first by devotion and prayer How many who clap on their hats when God is speaking to them by his Word I meane in the time when the very text is reading Nay the servant who wil be uncovered before this master in his owne house will many times be covered before him in Gods house all which bewrayeth that many men do either take the Church not to be my house that is Gods or which is worse Gods house not to be so good as their owne Next if the Church be my house that is Gods then the zeale of the Church must eat us up to this we are warranted both by David and by Christ the Sonne of David The Zeale of thine house hath eaten me up saith David and in this Christ shewed himselfe truly to be the Sonne of David for we do not find that Christ in his life did ever use severity with his hands but once twice he did it but it was one and the same case the profanation of the Temple When he was apprehended bound buffered smitten mocked reviled scourged spit upon tortured crucified he bare all patiently and As a sheepe before the slaughterer is dumbe so he opened not his mouth but if he see the least indignity offered to his Fathers house his zeale bursteth out into a flame he setteth his hand to the whip and his tongue to the t●xt When his Disciples did see that fiercenesse of his in the 2. of Iohn they were astonished at it especially comparing it with his usuall meeknesse at other times when they thought there was greater occasion offered but at the 17 Verse of that Chapter they were easily satisfied when They remembred how it was written The Zeale of thine house hath eaten me up Now the best way to try whether we have this zeale towards Gods house is the comparative rule if we expresse more reverence in this house than in the house of any other man whosoever if we be more forward according to our places to punish an offence or irreverence in this house than those that are committed any where els if we can be contented to be at more cost for repairing and adorning this house than if it were our owne if not then certainly either we do not believe the Church to be my house that is Gods or which is worse Gods house not to be so good as our owne Thirdly if the Church be my house that is Gods then no humane power may take it from him his title is like the Character of his Priesthood indelebilis no time no prescription can prejudice it for if nullum tempus occurrit Regi if no time can prescribe against our King his title to the Patronage of a Church much lesse can it prescribe against his title who is the King of Kings Before thou buildedst a house to God the ground and the cost were thine own and thou mightest have done with them what thou wouldest as Peter told Ananias but when thou hast once given them to God it is no more thine but my house for as Gods gifts towards us are without repentance so ought our gifts towards God to be He who among us shall kill himselfe and become fello de se maketh all his goods Deodands and it is as true inverted he who hath made any of his goods Deodands and shall afterward do any act of resumption is fello de se a murtherer of himselfe and a destroyer of his owne soule Stories are full of their tragedies who any wayes went about to alter either the propertie or use of the Temple of Hierusalem we know what became of Antiochus after he set up the statue of Iupiter Olympius in it upon the Caldeans destruction of that Temple followed the losse of their Empire the Macedonians after their violation of it lost their Dominions Pompey after his comming up to the Sanctum or holy place which was not lawfull for him to do had never luckie day after no more had Cassius after his profanation of it They who have medled with the Christian Churches have not fared much better for they who have pulled downe these houses of God have found that withall they have pulled downe their owne houses and they who have built their own houses where Gods house stood have found that they have built upon sandy and sinking ground and that the Church-stones

were in Atrio came the penitents such as did penance but no further the third place was the body of the Church which we may call Sanctum and whither the people came to bee partakers of Gods worship and the fourth was as it were the Sanctum Sanctorum the inclosed place where the Altar or Communion-Table stood into which none did enter but such as were in holy Orders and had power to consecrate the blessed Elements so great followers were the Primitive Christians of antiquity rather than incliners unto novelty Now to move our times in which some pull down as fast as our Fathers built and deface as much as they did decke a little to looke to Gods houses and buildings I shall briefly offer two things to your consideration First the great estimation which God hath of these houses next the high esteeme in which men have had them so that if we either feare God or reverence men there can no argument be wanting God his estimation of Temples appeareth by his delivering unto Moses the patterne of the Tabernacle even to the least pin which was to be but a patterne of the Temple by not giving way to David his building of the Temple although a man according to Gods owne heart onely for that exception of bloud which God had against him and not of bloud unlawfully shed but in lawfull warres and undertaken by God his owne commandement for this exception was laid against David before the matter of Vriah by his accepting the Temple at Salomons hands in the very time of the dedication of it filling it so with his presence in the cloud that the Priests were interrupted in performing the rites of consecration by promising to put his name there for ever and to fix his eyes and heart there perpetually by performing this his promise of presence for many times he appeared betweene the Cherubins and in that Temple did inspire diverse with the spirit of prophesie by ordering that the most precious and holy things should be kept in it the Arke of the Testament the Tables of the Law Aarons rod the heavenly fire Vrim and Thummim c. By threatning the destruction of that Temple as the greatest judgement that should ever befall them as indeed it was for after the destruction of that Temple they ceased to be any more a people And as by God so by men this Temple of all buildings had in the highest esteeme Hierusalem in regard of it counted the joy of the whole earth to this Temple came all the people once in the yeare and when they did not come they powred forth their supplications with their faces towards it you know David his one wish although it was not granted him that All his life long he might dwell in the house of the Lord and visit the beauty of his holy Temple he accounted the Sparrowes happy which might but hop and sing and lay their young about the Altars of it he accounted the meanest officer even a doore-keeper in it happier than they that lived in the Pallaces of Princes In a word consider the revenge which Christ who was God taketh here upon the profaners of the Temple and the vast expence laid out upon it by David and Salomon who were men and we must needs see that high esteeme in which that Temple was had both by God and men But what is all this will you say to our Christian Churches Very much for they are come in place of that Temple as the Christian Religion is come in place of the Iewish that Temple was but a type of our Churches as all that service was a type of our Christ We have an Altar saith the Apostle and therefore a Priesthood as that Temple had there was the Arke of the Testament our Churches are the Arkes of two Testaments of theirs which was the old Testament and of another better than theirs the new Testament in our Churches are the daily sacrifices of praise and prayer the two Tables of the Law and they expounded and vindicated from false gloses and interpretations by our Saviour in the 5 of Math. which that Temple had not in our Churches is Aarons rod that is Ecclesiasticall discipline Vrim and Thummim in our Priests and above all in our Churches is celebrated the commemorative sacrifice of the most precious body and bloud of the Sonne of God no doubt then to be made of Gods high esteeme of Christian Churches built unto him Now how they have beene honoured by men witnesse the infinite cost bestowed by our fore-fathers in fabricke and maintenance of them the infinite priviledges granted by Christian Princes unto them although the beginning of our age did scatter as fast as the former age did gather and the later lawes of taking no more from the Church were farre more necessary than those former lawes for giving no more to it Whose charity then can bee straitned when a house of God is to be inlarged when either it is to be built or being built is to be kept from ruine Can men have summer and winter houses and the Temple of God lie so as it keepeth out neither summer Sun nor winter weather the Temple of God I say a name so glorious that even the most glorious all the persons of the Trinity delight to be called by it God the Father Revel 21. 22. Iohn saw no Temple in the holy City For the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe are the Temple of it God the Sonne his person the Lambe in that place is called a Temple by Saint Iohn his body by himselfe Destroy this Temple and I will build it up againe in three dayes The Holy Ghost although he be not called a Temple yet Temples he hath and delighteth to dwell in them even our bodies Know ye not that your bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost The summe of all is houses are to be built unto God and being built are highly to be honoured because they are his houses by propriety which I told you was the second particular in the Church its name and is now the next point to be spoken of My house My house that is mine by propriety and if so then we must looke to three things First if the Church be Gods house then Take heed to thy foot when thou enterest into it Eccles. 4. 17. do not rush rudely nor rashly into it but be sure you keep your distance els you may be turned back with shame enough and sent home unjustified as the Pharisi● was because he kept not the Publican his distance who stood afarre off and would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven How fearefull saith Iacob is this place the Lord was in it and I knew it not it is nothing els but the house of God and the very gate of heaven The truth then is if the Church be my house that is Gods we must observe a reverend distance in all our approaches which we make to