Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	christian_a	day_n	sabbath_n	12,184	5	9.9778	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84086	The eating of the body of Christ, considered in its principles. By John Despagne minister of the gospel. Translated out of French into English, by John Rivers of Chaford in Sussex, Esquire.	Espagne, Jean d', 1591-1659.; Rivers, John, of Chaford in Sussex.; Beau, Wil.	1652 (1652)	Wing E3257; Thomason E1309_2; ESTC R209023	55,931	203

is the washing with water such is eating and drinking Forasmuch as they are actions invariable and perpetuall Jesus Christ hath chosen them for Signes to the end that our Sacraments should not be subject to change and that the time might not make us forget a form CHAP. VII That our Saviour hath not prefixed any time for the Celebration of the Supper THe Passover could not be Celebrated but at a set time of the year But Jesus Christ substituting the Supper to the Passover advertiseth us that without distinction of time as often as we shall take this Bread and this Cup in remembrance of him we shall receive the Supper of the Lord. It is to be noted that the difference of Times of Places and of Persons to which God hath restrained the most notable Ceremonies of the Old Testament tended to the end which we have named to wit to facilitate their abrogation For he tyed the Sacrifices to one place alone whose possession comming to destruction all the Sacrifices ought to cease And consequently bound the Priestly office to one family alone which comming to be extinguish'd of it self as races are destroyed in time there ought to be no more a Priest The which is also come to passe For if at this day the the Jewes should recover and build again the Temple they would find no Priest according to the Law forasmuch as their Tribes having been confounded there is none left who can term himself of the family of Aaron Touching the distinction of times without speaking of Confusions which have since happened by the ignorance of the course of the heavens and of the continuall retrogradation of the Equinox the Jewes have lost the knowledge of the year of Jubilee one of the great points of the Law and know not how any more to find it But the Sacraments of the Christian Church were not subject to this inconvenience nor to divers others which followed the Mosaicall Ceremonies Our Baptism is not fixed to the eighth day nor our Lords Supper to the full Moon or to the Spring time or unto the Sabbath it self If some Christians should be under those Climats where one day dures many moneths and the night as long they would there have no week nor Sabbath day and nevertheless might celebrate the Supper of the Lord and his resurrection as well as wee upon Easter day CHAP. VIII Why Jesus Christ is represented unto us in the Supper as he was on the Cross and not as he is in heaven also why hee hath not Instituted a Sacrament which should represent him in his glory as he hath ordained two which represent him dead ALL the Sacraments speak of Death As for Baptism it is said that wee are baptized in the death of Christ Rom. 6. v. 3 4. As for the Supper Wee shew thereby the Lords death 1 Cor. 11. 26. And both were Instituted when Jesus Christ was yet mortall For no Sacrament was established by Jesus Christ glorified but onely he confirmed those which he had Instituted before his death Wee know then that in the Supper Jesus Christ is exhibited unto us as dead and not as glorified Now this serves to shew the falsity of the corporeall presence for which there is so much dispute For if the body of Jesus Christ be in the Host he is not there living sith that he is in this action as dead It makes us also see the nakedness of that which is called Concomitance and of the unbloody Sacrifice For the Blood of Jesus Christ is presented unto us as separate from his body This likewise makes unprofitable the exception whereby it is maintained that a glorious body may be corporally in divers places at one and the same time For were it so the body of Jesus Christ is not exhibited unto us as glorious nor yet as living but as dead as broken and his blood as shed Let this be said by the way For Orthodox divines have made these reasons of force enough But it may be demanded why Jesus Christ is represented unto us as dead and not glorified Is it there spoken of his Death and not rather of his Resurrection Why had he rather Institute a memoriall of his ignomious humiliation than of his glorious exaltation Why have we no Sacrament which represents unto us his body glorious as we have two which represent him dead For it is very true that the consideration of his humiliation excludes not that of his exaltation on the contrary it leads us to it But properly and formally the Body of Jesus Christ is not represented nor considered in the Supper but as dead brokē This question is easie to be resolved The Sacraments are Instituted in favour of men And the end of a Sacrament is to assure us of our good and salvation So in the Supper the intention of Jesus Christ was thereby to seal and ratifie that which concerns us not that which concerns himself And for this reason he presents himself in this action inasmuch as he procured the glory of others not so much as he possesseth his own Now it is by his death that he hath procured our glory True it is that his exaltation is also our Salvation But he hath received this Glory both for us and for himself whereas his Death was wholly for us Moreover it is by vertue of his Death that his Glorification is profitable unto us For that he hath taken possession of the heavens in our name and that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God all this comes from the merit of his Blood Heb. 9. v. 12. Furthermore Jesus Christ doth give himself unto us in the Eucharist inasmuch as he was delivered up for us Luke 22 v 19 20 Now it was in his Death that he was delivered So that he gives himself unto us as Dead Finally he would leave us a remembrance of the love which he bare us Now the greatest effect wherein this love appeared was that he gave himself to Death for us It is for this cause that he represents unto us rather his Death than his Exaltation From thence it is that in the Supper although wee ought to lift our hearts up to heaven where he is now living in full Majesty nevertheless his body broken and his blood shed are the proper and formall object of our contemplation And the act of our mind consists in this that we there consider his Death past rather than his present Glory This will furnish an answer for the following question CHAP. IX Why in the Supper Jesus Christ instituted not more illustrious Signes and why they are not miraculous THere is none of us who hath not this thought when he sees that this Sacrament as well as Baptism consists in such abject matters Our eye is astonish't to see nothing more glorious The Bow in the heaven which God made Noah to see for assurance that from thence-forth there should no more an universall deluge appear The Pillar of fire and

the Cloud which witnessed the presence of God among the Israelites The going back of the Sun to confirm the faith of Ezekias had a more famous appearance than our Sacraments Wee will say as it is true that the elements whereof they are composed are more important to man For the use of water eating and drinking are more necessary for us than the sight of more majesticall objects Now it is that God would represent unto us benefits necessary for the soul under the image of those which are most necessary for the body I omit the other reasons for which it was necessary that the Eucharist should consist of Nourishment of which I have spoken here above and could also allege them for the Water of Baptism But we think further wherefore were not those Elements used in some extraordinary fashion or why are they not sent us from Heaven as the Manna or produced miraculously as the Wine at the Mariage in Cana Or why was there not some Miracle shewed as in the Loaves which Jesus Christ multiplyed for the satisfying of many thousands of persons Or why hath not the bread of the Holy Supper the vertue of sustaining us forty dayes after without eating or drinking as that which God caused to be brought to Elias And likewise why did not an Angell descend into the water of Baptism as in the pool of Bethesda for to heal corporall maladies Why was Naaman healed of his Leprosy in the water of Jordan and nevertheless if a Leaper be Baptized his Leprosy is not wiped away To all this may be given one common answer touching the causes of the Cessation of miracles But there are particulars touching our Sacraments by name touching the Supper The end of a miracle is to shew the greatness and power of God On the contrary the end of our Sacraments particularly of the Eucharist is to shew the infirmity the death and humiliation of Christ Now the disgrace could not be represented by a glorious spectacle and full of splendour nor the weakness by tokens of infinite power such as miracles are nor the death and passion by acts of an unchangeable life nor the humiliation of the Humanity by the glorious demonstrations of the Divine Nature Therefore it is that our Saviour who had multiplied the bread and turned the Water into Wine at other feasts and for other occasions hath done nothing so in this here but makes use of Bread and Wine produced naturally and such as they are in their ordinary proprieties without adding thereto any thing miraculous This ought to render the tales which men make of apparitions and other wonders seen in the Eucharist altogether suspected For it is credible that if our Saviour would have authorized it by miracles he would have rather employed them in the first Supper when the establishing of the New Sacrament was in agitation Finally as the Sacraments which were instituted to be ordinary and perpetuall in the Judaicall Church viz. the Circumcision and the Passeover had nothing supernaturall So the Sacraments which at this day take place of those and which are ordinary and perpetuall in the Christian Church ought not to consist in extraordinary and miraculous signs or operations Moreover the Eucharist succeeded the eating of Sacrifices which was truly a sacred action but wherein no miracle did intervene And lastly because men have used to turn into idols the signs whereby God hath produced some wonder witness the Brazen Serpent or to make a stay there as if the Grace and power of God were there inclosed if he had given us Sacraments of a more illustrious appearance or if some miracle had been done thereby long agoe Superstition would have deified them which yet is not left undone The Fourth Sect. Wherein are handled certain points concerning the practice of a Christian in the receiving of the Supper CHAP. I. Of our ignorance or errors in some Cirstances of the death of Christ THe doctrine of the Roman Church bears in its consequences That a man may eat the body of Jesus Christ without knowing or thinking of it For it may happen that an host fallen into the hands of such an one who knowing not that it was consecrated may swallow it down and remain ignorant of its being Jesus Christ And though he should think it he would not know how to make it evident sith that if he should put it into scales against one that were not consecrated this would be found to weigh as much as the other Finally a mouse which devoures the host thinks not to eat a Sacrament But this is an assured Maxim to us That the flesh of Jesus Christ cannot be eaten without knowing of it or thinking of it From whence follows that whosoever knows not Jesus Christ is incapable of this eating Now I need not repeat that which is notorious to all whereto at the least ought to extend the knowledge of a Christian but only to speak of that which I have laid down in chief The end of the Supper is that we declare the death of the Lord. This requires the historicall intelligence of the particularities of it whereof none is of any small importance For it is not enough to know in generall or summarily that Jesus Christ is dead but we must have a distinct knowledge of the place time and other circumstances of his death It is not in vain that the Holy Spirit hath so carefully marked them They are all as so many stars to guide us in the search of our salvation and have every one some particular influence Nevertheless if a Christian comprehend them not exactly this ignorance so that it be not wilfull will not hinder but he may communicate to salvation It is a point which imports us to know how long our Saviour was on the Cross The durance of his last sufferings is considerable in all sorts It is also represented more than once in holy History viz. in St. Mark 15. v. 25. 33. and in St. John 19. v. 14. Nevertheless all Christians understand it not For some with more ground hold that Jesus Christ was upon the Cross for the space of three hours Others double the time and believe he remained there six hours Now as t is known this difference comes from this that the Evangelists having used divers terms to express the same thing expositors have taken them diversly But if we did know perfectly all the circumstances of this death wee should not know all the particular reasons nor all the mysteries there contained As for Example upon that which was observed that our Saviour gave up the Ghost at the hour of the Evening Sacrifice there are few who think of that which is said in the 9. of Daniel v. 21. to wit that the hour wherein the Angell declared the time of the death of Christ to come many ages before was that of the Evening Sacrifice which is to be admired and full of Consolation Now our ignorance in such matters is no