A14239:36
A sermon preached before the Commons-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at…A sermon preached before the Commos-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at…
A sermon preached before the Commons-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February. 1620. By James Usher. Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, in IrelandA sermon preached before the Commos-House [sic] of Parliament, in Saint Margarets Church at Westminster, the 18. of February. 1620. By Iames Vssher. Professor of Diuinitie in the Vniuersitie of Dublin, in Ireland
London: printed by I.Dawson for John Bartlett, 1624London: printed by I.Dawson for Iohn Bartlett, 1624
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
True it is indeed, these outward creatures have ⟨p. 25⟩no natural power in them to effect so great a work as this is, no more then the water of Jordan had to recover the Leper: but the work wrought by these means, is supernatural; and God hath been pleased in the dispensation both of the Word and of the Sacraments so to ordain it, that these heavenly treasures should be presented unto us in earthen vessels, 1that the excellency of the power might be of God. As therefore in the preaching of the Gospel, the Minister doth not dare verba, and beat the air with a fruitless found, but the words that he speaketh unto us are Spirit and life; God being pleased by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe: 2so likewise in the administration of the Lords Supper, he doth not feed us with bare bread and wine, but if we have the life of faith in us, (for still we must remember that this Table is provided not for the dead, but for the living) and come worthily,3 the Cup of blessing which he blesseth, will be unto us the communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread which he breaketh, the communion of the body of Christ: of which precious body and blood we being really made partakers, (that is, in truth and indeed, and not in imagination only) although in a spiritual and not a corporal manner; the Lord doth grant us, 4according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. For the Sacraments (as well as the Word) be a part of that ministration of the Spirit, 5which is committed to the Ministers of the ⟨p. 26⟩New Testament: for as much as by one Spirit, (as before we have heard from the Apostle) we have been all baptized into one body, 6