Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	time_n	week_n	12,399	5	9.7424	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52862	The necessity of receiving the Holy Sacrament (that great test both of the Christian and Protestant religion) declared in a sermon, at a conference of the several ministers of the Deanery of Braughin, in the county of Hertford, appointed by the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry Lord Bishop of London, to be held at Ware, August 28, 1678 / by Robert Neville ...	Neville, Robert, 1640 or 1-1694.	1679 (1679)	Wing N523; ESTC R12405	14,625	32

daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking Bread at home did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart that is after they had daily performed their common Devotions with the Jews in the Temple they because the Jews would not then permit them to do it in the Temple went to their own Houses to tender a more peculiar Service to Christ by doing this in remembrance of him But the principal time for this Holy Exercise seems to have been on the Lord's Day for we reade Acts 20.7 that the Disciples were assembled on the first day of the week to break Bread And as in the Apostolical so in the next succeeding Times they often met together to do this and while the Spirit of Christianity was yet warm and vigorous it is more than probable they did communicate every day or as often as they came together to the Publick Worship insomuch that the Canons (g) Canon 9 Apostolical and the (h) Canon 2. Synod of Atioch threatned those persons with Excommunication who resorted to the Public Assemblies to hear the Scriptures and departed from them without this Spiritual Food This custom of communicating every day was of no short continuance in the Church and some Churches and particularly the Western did retain it longer than others And St. Cyprian assures us that it was practis'd in his time saying (i) Eucharistiam quotidiè ad cibum salutis accipimus Cypr. de Oratione Dominicâ p. 268. We receive the Eucharist every day as the food our Salvation The like St. Ambrose reports of Millain where he was Bishop And St. Hierom affirms that this custom was in use in his time at Rome And St. Augustin intimates that in the Age in which he lived it was not wholly disused and laid aside In the Eastern Churches this custom disappeared sooner than in the Western though more or less according to the ebbing or flowing of their Zeal And St. Basil (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil in 289 Epist ad Caesaream Patritiam positively affirms that in his time they did communicate four times a week namely on the Lord's day Wednesday Friday and Saturday and upon other days (l) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ibid. if the memory of any Martyr were celebrated upon them Afterwards as Religion began to be in her Wane and Decrease this Sacrament was more and more discontinued and from a daily was first changed into a weekly and then into a monthly Service and afterward performed but thrice a Year at Christmass Easter and upon Whitsunday and even at these three great Festivals it is now by many lukewarm Christians neglected and disregarded for to speak the truth we have much degenerated from the Devotion of the Primitive Christians and are taught of late to idolize Preaching and value our selve from our much Hearing being like that People called Corimandi whose Ear as Historians tell us covered their whole Body The Epidemical Disease of this Age being the Rickets of Religion or the having great Heads Heads swell'd and big with Knowledg falsely so called but their Legs weak and impotent not able to walk in the ways of God's Commandments Prayer and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper must strike sail to Sermons because Men are too feeble in Spirituals to prepare themselves for it they are unwilling to come to this holy Feast and perswade themselves that Superstition did eat out the heart of true Religion in the Primitive times and that then Men did come so frequently to eat with Christ at his Table only in a Complement and Complaisance and flatter and wheadle their Saviour with a superfluous and needless Devotion and therefore they will not do this once a year nay some of them scarce once in all their lives But let me advise such not to dare to neglect Christ's gracious Invitation nor disobey his Command of doing this in remembrance of him for not only Acts but Omissions are evil It is a Sin to contemn the Sacrament and a Sin not to receive it when we may the one leads to the other Neglect and Indifferency as we have seen by woful experience terminate at last in open Prophaneness If we had a true esteem of the Cup of Blessings we should thirst more after it but the truth is our thoughts are seldom or never imployed upon the consideration of those many Benefits and Advantages we receive by it And this brings me to the third Reason why this holy Action of Receiving the Sacrament in Remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion is a Duty incumbent upon every Christian And that is III. Because 't is fraught with many Benefits and Advantages this is not an empty barren Ceremony or an unprofitable Rite it hath a large train of Blessings attending on it And 1. It makes us participate of Christ and his Grace and Spirit The external Act indeed only declares Christ's Death in Rite and Ceremony but the worthy communicating of it makes us feed upon Christ and unites him to our Souls and makes us to become one Spirit according to those words of St. Ambrose (m) In similitudimem quidem accipis Sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequêris Ambros de Sacramento Thou receivest the Sacrament as the similitude of Christ's Body but thou shalt withal obtain the Grace and Vertue of the true Nature The Elements of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are not as some tell us only Symbols of mutual Charity Allegorical Admonitions of Christian Mortification and Rites instituted only to stir up Faith by way of Object and Representation this were to imbrace a meer Cloud instead of the true Juno the true Deity Those Names and Appellations which the Scripture gives them speak them to be more than so such as are the Body and Blood of the Lord the communication of his Body and the communication of his Blood all which intimate no less to us than a real change in the Elements and that Christ is really present there and though we must never hope to have our sight so acute as the Romanists tell us theirs is when through that strange glass of Transubstantiation they pretend to see and discern the very Flesh and Blood of Christ yet we must not entertain such mean thoughts of them as to think them only bare signs of what Christ did for us but firmly believe that they exhibit Christ himself to all worthy Communicants 2. A second Benefit or Advantage of the Sacrament is That it quickens strengthens and encreases our Faith All Habits are encreased by often repeated Acts Now this Sacrament requires frequent and great Exercises of our Faith by fixing it upon its proper Object a Crucified Saviour and it being as St. Cyril of Jerusalem tell us (n) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catech. 2. A Representation of Christ's Sufferings makes us seal to that Truth which he hath signed and sealed with his Blood and make a publick profession of our