Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	incline_v	keep_v	mercy_n	16,838	5	9.7242	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27562	A sermon concerning the excellency and usefulness of the common prayer preached by William Beveridge ... 27th of November. 1681.	Beveridge, William, 1637-1708.	1682 (1682)	Wing B2100; ESTC R974	27,675	46

The Lord be with you the other And with thy spirit And then immediately falling down upon our knees we adore and supplicate each person of the most blessed Trinity to have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us After which we address our selves to God in the words that he hath put into our mouths saying the Lords prayer which ended the Minister and People by turns lift up their hearts to God in some short and heavenly Ejaculations striving as it were to outvy each other in prevailing with the Allmighty to powr down his Blessings upon us And then in an humble and solemn manner we joyn together in supplicating his Divine Majesty for his Grace and Favour his Defence and Protection his Mercy and Blessing for our selves for the King for the Royal Family for his Church and for all Mankind And this we do ordinarily in the Collects appointed for that purpose But upon Wednesdays and Fridays upon which days the Primitive Church used to perform more than their ordinary Devotions as also upon the Lords day in the morning we do it in the Litany and in such a Litany as comprehends all and every thing that we can ever need to desire of Allmighty God either for our selves or others After this upon Sundays and Holydays we proceed to the Communion Service And therefore approaching to the Lords Table we begin it with his own Prayer And after another short Prayer to God to cleanse the thoughts of our heart by the Inspiration of his Holy Spirit we read the Ten Commandments which he hath enjoyned us to observe and after every Commandment we ask God Mercy for our Transgressions thereof for the time past and grace to keep the same for the time to come saying Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law And then after a Prayer for the King and the Collect for the day we read the Epistle and Gospel that is most commonly a short Paragraph taken out of the Cannonical Epistles and another out of one of the Holy Gospels which was the ancient way of Reading the Scripture before it was divided into Chapters And we do it now to prepare us the better for the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ therein revealed to us But seeing we neither do nor can read over the whole we repeat the substance of it in the Nicene Creed which it is very necessary we should do at this time that so we may demonstrate our selves to be Christians and so capable of receiving the most holy Communion He that all this while hath employed himself as he ought to do in the service of our Church cannot but find himself strangely edified by it Yet howsoever that nothing may be wanting that may any way conduce to our Edification after the Nicene Creed our Church hath appointed a Sermon to be preached which if sound plain and practical as it ought to be cannot but be very edifying too And now we may be well supposed to be so far edified as to be raised up to the highest pitch of Devotion that we can arrive at in this world and so are fit to be admitted to the highest Ordinance of the Church the Sacrament of the Lords Supper And therefore we now betake our selves to it But that we may not appear before our Lord empty we first offer up something to him of what he hath bestowed upon us to be disposed of to pious and charitable uses testifying thereby our acknowledgment of his goodness to us and that we have nothing but what we receive from him And to excite and encourage us to do this all the while that we are offering we have some select sentences of Scripture read to us wherein God either commands us to be charitable or else promiseth a blessing to those that are so And then we pray for Christs whole Church Militant here on earth whereby we profess our selves to be real Members of it and desirous to hold Communion with it in Christs Mystical Body and Blood And so we proceed to the Celebration of it in which the method is so clear so apparently edifying that I need not say any thing of it But shall only observe two things in general concerning it First That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper being the highest Mystery in all our Religion as representing the death of the Son of God to us hence that place where this Sacrament is Administred was always made and reputed the highest place in the Church And therefore also it was wont to be separated from the rest of the Church by a Skreen or Partition of Network in Latine Cancelli and that so generally that from thence the place its self is called the Chancell That this was anciently observed in the building of all considerable Churches for I speak not of private Oratories or Chappels within few Centuries after the Apostles themselves even in the days of Constantine the Great as well as in all Ages since I could easily demonstrate from the Records of those times But having purposely waved Antiquity hitherto I am loath to trouble you with it now But I mention it at present only because some perhaps may wonder why this should be observed in our Church rather than in all the other Churches which have been lately built in this City Whereas they should rather wonder why it was not observed in all other as well as this For besides our Obligations to conform as much as may be to the practice of the Universal Church and to avoid novelty and singularity in all things relating to the Worship of God it cannot be easily imagined that the Catholick Church in all Ages and places for 13 or 1400 years together should observe such a Custom as this except there were great reasons for it What they were it is not necessary for us to enquire now It may be sufficient to observe at present that the Chancel in our Christian Churches was always looked upon as answering to the Holy of Holies in the Temple which you know was separated from the Sanctuary or Body of the Temple by the Command of God himself And that this place being apppropriated to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper it ought to be so contrived as may be most convenient for those who are to partake of that Blessed Ordinance But it must needs be more convenient for those who are to enjoy Communion with Christ and in him with one another in this holy Sacrament to meet together as one body in one place separated for that purpose then to be dispersed as otherwise they would be some in one and some in another part of the Church Or in short it is much better for the place to be separate than the people Furthermore It is not only convenient but in some sense necessary for every Communicant to observe and take special notice of the several Circumstances which our Lord hath

so upon composing our thoughts and preparing our selves for the due performance of it Our minds being thus brought into a right frame and temper for it we all both Minister and People prostrate our selves before the most high God confessing upon our knees the manifold sins and wickedness that we have committed against him Which Confession is so contrived that all and every person in any Congregation whatsoever may joyn in it For it runs in general terms And yet so too that every particular person may and ought in his own mind to confess and acknowledg his own sins which he knows himself to be guilty of As where we say We have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done At the saying of this every one should call his own sins to remembrance what Duties he knows himself to have omitted and what Vices he knows himself to have committed and confess them accordingly unto God And when we have thus confessed our sins to God we presently implore his Mercy in the pardon of them and his Grace that for the future we may forsake them And whilst we are thus upon our knees humbly confessing and bewailing our sins before the Lord our God the Minister stands up and in the Name of God declares and pronounceth to all those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe his Gospel The Absolution and Remission of all their sins Which though spoken also in general terms yet every particular person there present ought to apply it to himself so as to be fully perswaded in his own mind that if he doth but sincerely repent and believe the Gospel he is perfectly absolved from all his sins by God himself according to the promises which he hath made to Mankind in Jesus Christ our Lord. And now looking upon our selves as absolved from our sins upon our Repentance and Faith in Christ and by consequence as reconciled to God we take the boldness to call him Father humbly addressing our selves to him in that Divine Form of Prayer which he himself hath given us Which done we lift up our hearts and voices unto God for his assistance of us in what we do in the words of David the Minister crying out O Lord open thou our lips and the People answering And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise The Minister again O God make speed to save us the People O Lord make haste to help us And then immediately we all lift up our bodies too stand upon our feet and so put our selves into a posture of praising and magnifying the Eternal God Father Son and Holy Ghost for his infinite goodness and mercy towards us for which purpose the Minister first saith or sings the Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost and the people to shew their consent answer As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end Amen But not thinking this to be enough the Minister calls upon the people again saying Praise ye the Lord and the people answer The Lords name be praised and then we go on to praise him together saying or singing the 95 Psalme Venite exultemus Domino O come let us sing unto the Lord let us heartily rejoyce in the strength of our Salvation c. and so proceed to the Psalms appointed for the day After every one of which to testifie our belief in the most sacred Trinity and our acknowledgment of that infinite love and goodness which every one of those Divine Persons hath manifested to us we repeat that incomparable Hymne Glory be to the Father c. Our hearts being thus raised up to God in praising and admiring of him we are now in a fit temper and disposition to hear what he shall speak unto us And therefore have a Chapter read out of the Old Testament and that in its ordinary course except upon Sundays and Holydays when more people attending the Publick Worship of God then can conveniently come upon other days we read some Select Chapter proper for the day and such as is judged most edifying to all that are there present And having thus heard God speaking unto us in his holy Word we presently fall upon praising of him again for so unspeakable a mercy saying or singing in the Morning the Te Deum one of the most Heavenly and Seraphick Hymns that was ever composed by Men or else the Song of the Three Children which is nothing but a Paraphrase upon that which David sang so often upon Earth and which the Holy Angels sing continually in Heaven even Hallelujah Praise ye the Lord. Wherein we being all sensible how far short we our selves come of praising God sufficiently we call upon all the Creatures in the World to do it Bless ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever In the Afternoon we sing either the Magnificat or else the 98 Psalme both which being taken out of Gods own Word cannot but be very pleasing and acceptable unto him After this our Souls being got upon the wing again and soaring aloft in the contemplation of the Divine perfections we are now rightly qualified to hear and receive the Sublime Mysteries of the Gospel And therefore have a Chapter read to us out of the New Testament After which we being revived with the good Tydings of the Gospel and filled with admiration at the infinite goodness of God therein revealed to us we break forth again into praising and adoring of him in the song of Zacharias or else the 100 Psalm in the Morning and at Evening either the 67 Psalm or else the Song of Old Simeon still concluding with the Gloria Patri Now having thus heard some part of the Word of God read to us and expressed our thankfulness unto him for it to signifie our assent not only to what we have heard but to the whole Scripture we all with one heart and voice repeat the Apostles Creed wherein the summ and substance of it is contained And so profess our selves to continue in the number of Christs Disciples and that as we were at first Baptized so we still believe in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost God Blessed for evermore Hitherto we have been mostly taken up with confessing our sins to God imploring his mercy in the pardon of them hearing his most holy Word acknowledging his goodness to us and praising and magnifying his name for it By which means except we have been extreamly wanting to our selves our hearts cannot but be so united and fixed upon God that we are now rightly disposed to make known our wants and present our Petitions before him This therefore is the next thing we set upon But seeing that neither Minister nor People can possibly do it aright without the assistance of God himself therefore each of them first pray for his special presence with the other The one saying