serious Reflections on his Death and Agonies and the Bitterness of his Passion It being spoken to our Souls not to our Bodies to take and eat this Body the Soul hath no other Way to feed upon it but by a pathetick Consideration of the Particulars of that Death and the End and Design of God in it and the Comforts and the Benefits that thereby redound to Mankind and such a Consideration as affects our Souls touches them to the quick and puts them on serious Enquiries into our wretched State and makes them break forth into Flames of Love so that though Christ's Body was crucified above Sixteen Hundred Years agone yet a pious Soul can eat it at this Day swallow the Charity which appears in it with her Thoughts consider who it is that is so wonderfully concerned for her Safety look upon him whom her Sins have pierced and take a View of that Man of Sorrows who was bruised for her Iniquities and wounded for her Transgressions and admire the Miracles that are to be seen in all this 2. To eat Christ's Body is to apply the Benefits of his Death and Passion to our Souls and to rejoyce in them as our greatest Treasure As he that eats with his Bodily Organs applies the Food he takes with his Hands to his Mouth and Body and converts it into Blood and Substance so the pious Soul is pleased with this Spiritual Meat is refreshed by it and applies the Benefits of that crucified Body to her self and with the Thoughts of Peace and Pardon and Salvation which are the Blessings that drop from that Tree arms her self against the Assaults of the Devil and the Terrours of Death and believing without wavering that those Mercies were purchased for her in particular and that she hath a Right and Title to them stands up in the evil Day and in the midst of Temptations boldly cries with the Apostle Who is he that condemns It is Christ that died Rom. 8. 34. 3. To make this crucified Body a Persuasive and Motive to Holiness and Obedience To conclude from thence that if he gave himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity then we must not frustrate his Expectation nor cling to that Iniquity which he came to free us from And if he died to purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous for good Works then we must not defile our selves after that nor wallow in the Mire any more with the Swine but cleanse our Minds from carnal covetous and lustful Thoughts our Wills from Perversenes and Stubbornness our Affections from Fondness of this present World and our Hands from Uncleanness His zealous Love to us must make us zealous for his Glory to him we must consecrate our selves and to be holy as he is holy must be the Business of our Lives and so to love him as to keep his Commandments must henceforward be looked upon as our bounden Duty He truly eats this crucified Body upon whom this Crucifixion hath that Power as to crucifie in him his known Lusts and Passions and to engage him to purifie himself from all Filthiness both of Soul and Body The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. IN all Writings both Ancient and Modern about this holy Sacrament there are various Rhetorical Expressions used which we must not understand literally but as Flowers strowed upon the Herse of our Blessed Redeemer and as Ornaments of Speech to represent the Greatness of the Mystery There is nothing more common among the Fathers than to call the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper the Body and Blood of Christ and the Cup the Vessel in which Christ's Blood is contained And many times Christ is said to stand at the Altar and all the holy Angels waiting at the Table that Christ offers his Body to be bruised by the People's Teeth and dyes them red with his Blood that the Elements are changed and become the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus and that after Prayer and Thanksgiving they are no more what they were before and a Thousand such Expressions besides From which the Church of Rome presently infers that they believed a Transubstantiation or a Conversion of the Elements into the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood than which nothing can be more absurd For if a Man compare these Saying of the Ancients with other Passages in their Writings it plainly appears that they meant no more than that the Elements are representative of all this and that the Expressions they use are nothing but Rhetorical Flourishes to raise the People's Affections and to render their Devotions brisk lively servent affectionate and vigorous We do the same at this Day when we tell you that you come to feast with Christ that in this Sacrament he is crucified before you Eyes that you may see his Blood run down that you hear him groan under the Burthen of your Sins that you see here his Body hanging on the Cross that you are to stand under the Tree and catch the precious Gore as Balsam for your Souls All which is true in a spiritual Sense and we do it to make you more attentive and set this Passion out in such lively Characters that your Souls may be touch'd and enliven'd and as Things represented in brighter Colours strike the Senses more so we speak of these Things as if they were visible and perceptible to the outward Eyes that your Souls may more chearfully feed on the Kernel that lies in those Shells and with greater Life embrace the glorious Benefits which come to you by that precious Sacrifice II. By the same Way that Man was lost by the same Way he must recover He was undone by eating He must be made whole again by eating By eating he died By eating he must come to Life again That Day thou eatest of this Tree thou shalt surely die saith God And the same saith God of this holy Sacrament That Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely live The Fruit in Paradise became a Savour of Death unto Death unto him The holy Bread in this Sacrament becomes a Savour of Life unto Life unto him That Eating brought him into Slavery This gives him a Title to the glorious Liberty of God's Children In eating that Fruit he thought to be like God and made himself worse than the Beasts that perish By eating of this Bread he is enabled to become like unto the Son of God by being changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory That Eating made him sick This is Health to his Navel and Maerrow to his Bones Prov. 3. 8. That brought the Plague This delivers from it That filled him with Wounds and Bruises and putrifying Sores This makes his Flesh come again like unto the Flesh of a little Child In a Word By eating God's Favour was forfeited By eating it is regained Let Israel rejoyce in him that made him let the Children of Zion be joyful in their King for the Lord takes pleasure in his People he will
of the Wheat Psal. 147. 14 so it s like they would not in their Passover in the Bread they used omit the commemoration of that Mercy and the same Bread which Christ made use of in the Passover we must suppose he made use of in the institution of this Sacrament This will give us occasion to enquire whether any other thing Men make use of instead of Corn-Bread may be used in this Holy Sacrament for it 's certain that in some Countries they have no Corn and divers Authors tells us how much the Bread differs in the several parts of the habitable World according to the nature of the Soil and temper of the Inhabitants The Egyptians heretofore made Bread of Millet and Milk and Water and in some part of the West-Indies at this day they make Bread of the roots of certain Trees which they dry and powder and then make up into Paste or Bread and so they do in divers parts of Africa And as it may be the lots of many Christians to be cast upon such places so the question may justly be ask'd Whether in the administration of the Lord's Supper being destitute of Bread made of Corn they may with a safe Conscience make use of any other And most Divines answer in the affirmative For tho' the Canonists among the Papists will allow nothing to be Bread but what is made of Corn yet whatever it is that nourishes like Bread made of Corn is Bread to them who are so nourish'd by it And since the reason of Christ's making use of Bread in this Sacrament was to represent the Spiritual nourishment of our Souls by application of the benefits of his death or as we commonly speak by his Body and Blood Why should not any Nation or People make use of that in the Sacrament to represent this Spiritual nourishment which serves them instead of Bread and gives the same nourishment to their Bodies that ordinary Bread doth especially where Bread of Wheat or Rye or Barley is not to be had Yet this is not to be applied to other Fruits of the Earth such as Pears and Apples and Figs and Melons c. as if they in case of necessity might be made use of instead of Bread for though they nourish too yet no Nation makes use of them as their Bread And since Bread is not only used by Christ but by all the Christian Churches in all Ages something that hath the nature and the name of Bread must still be used in this Holy Sacrament and all care imaginable taken that by making use of something else Men run not into Profanation of this Ordinance 3. As it was unleaven'd and wheaten Bread Christ made use of in the Institution of this Holy Sacrament so it was also substantial Bread not a Wafer as is now used in the Church of Rome That Christ used substantial Bread no Man ever doubted that understood what Bread the Jews made use of in the Celebration of the Passover and for a thousand years after Christ the Church was wholly ignorant of Wafers It 's granted that the Sacramental Bread was antiently called Host from the Latin Hostia a Sacrifice because the Bread represents the Body of Christ which was offered in Sacrifice for the sins of the World which name of Host the Church of Rome still applies at this day to their Wafers in the Mass but then it was substantial Bread or a whole Loaf they called by that name How these Wafers first came in is explain'd by Honorius Augustodunensis The report goes saith he that it was usual in former times for the Ministers of the Church when the Sacrament of the Altar was to be Celebrated to fetch a quantity of Meal or Flower from every House or Family in the place they lived in which Custom is yet observ'd among the Greeks and of that to make the Bread which was to be used at the Lord's Table and distributed among the Communicants But after the Church increased in number but decreas'd in Holiness it was order'd for the sake of carnal Men that those that could should communicate either every Lords Day or every Third Lord's Day or on the Festivals of the Year But the People not coming and there being no need of so great a Loaf as formerly it was thought good to use Wafers in the form of a larger Penny and that they might not want a Mystery for these new doings the People desired instead of Flower to offer every Man a Penny that thereby they might acknowledge how their Lord and Master was betraid for Thirty pieces of Silver So far he And it 's probable that from hence came the Easter-Offerings which as yet are usual in most Churches of the Nation And since these Wafers are the effects of so great no abuse which the wickedness of the times brought into the Church it can be no great encouragement for those that would preserve the solemnity of this Mystery to keep them up or plead in vindication of them It 's true the Wafers they use this day in the Church of Rome are made of Flower and Water But 1. There is not that quantity of Flower and Water in them as is required in substantial Bread Neither 2. Are they wrought or baked as common substantial Bread is Neither 3. When they are made are they design'd for any thing but to seal Letters withal I mean in the ordinary use of them before the Priest doth lay them upon the Altar which shews that they are not intended for nourishing Bread nor have they the right taste or smell or strength of Bread neither are they commonly sold for Bread nor doth any Man make use of them for his daily Bread thereby to strengthen his Body So that they do not answer Chrst's design and the Analogy that ought to be betwixt the thing signifying and that which is signified i. e. They being no substantial Bread cannot exactly represent the substantial Nourishment of the Soul and therefore have been most justly rejected by most Churches but by that which hath made bold with God himself with Scripture and the express Laws of our Saviour and substituted their own Inventions and Traditions IV. Why Christ made use of Bread in this Holy Sacrament is next to be consider'd Besides the general Reason I have already mentioned viz. To represent the Nourishment he intends our Souls by his Death and Crucifixion if we lay hold of it by an active and fruitful Faith there may these following Reasons be also given for it 1. To put us in mind that he was the Person prefigured by the Bread variously prepared and ordered under the Law and in the Temple and in the Rituals of the Jews The Shew-bread was to be before the Lord continually Exod. 25. 30. In the Original it 's called The Bread of Faces The Mystery of it was to shew that Christ was to be the great Mediator who should be always in the Presence of God behold his
Sacrament which is to consecrate our selves to God in Christ Jesus and that is not to be done without a very serious Use of this Ordinance in which we acknowledge with the deepest Humility that our Souls and Bodies and all the Gifts and Graces we have are the Effects of his Bounty and declare our unfeigned Purposes to speak and act and think as he would have us and dedicate our selves to his Service professing that we will use the Blessings he hath given us to his Glory and the Good of his People will resign our selves to his Providence and be content with the Lot and Portion he shall think fit to assign us and be thankful for Afflictions too as well as for Prosperity they being both his Gifts and Blessings and say and confess under the various Dispensations we shall meet withal Lord not as I will but as thou wilt And who can forget himself so much as to think that all this may be done without a serious Behaviour IV. The Church of Rome at this Day makes strange Work with Consecration of the Elements in the Supper of the Lord. And though they are told by one of their own Popes Gregory the Great that the Apostles consecrated only with saying the Lord's Prayer yet they boldly according to their Custom place Consecration in the Priests muttering these Words Hoc est Corpus meum hic est Sanguis meus This is my Body This is my Blood over the Bread and Wine Which Words partly by their own secret Virtue and partly by virtue of the Priest's Office immediately upon their being secretly pronounced change the Bread and Wine into the substantial Body and Blood of Christ whereof we shall have Occasion to speak more largely in the Sequel And this is their Consecration contrary to the Sense of the Primitive Church which was of Opinion that Consecration was performed by Prayer and Praises And though some think that Christ used a peculiar Form of Consecration which is either lost or the Church did not think necessary to preserve yet that Fancy is altogether needless since we are told by the inspired Writers that Christ gave Thanks In which he either observ'd the usual Form used in the Passover Blessed be God who hath created the Fruit of the Earth and Blessed be God who hath created the Fruit of the Vine Or Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who bringest forth Bread out of the Earth and Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who createst tbe Fruit of the Vine Or some other though it is more probable that he did not vary from the common Practice of the Jews in this Particular And what is this but Consecrating the Elements and Sanctifying of them For every Creature of God is good and not to be refused for it is sanctified by the Word of God and by Prayer saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 4. 4 5. The Greek Church at this Day lays the Stress of Consecration upon the Prayer of the Holy Ghost as they call it whereby the Holy Spirit of God is invited to come down and make a Change in the Bread and Wine In our Church we joyn Prayer and Praises and the Words of Institution which is the safest Way and such as no rational Person can find fault with though the Words of Institution are sufficient in this Case which we discover in our Practice when the first Consecrated Bread and Wine are spent and the Number of the Communicants require a new Consecration V. Though the Gospel tells us only in general that Christ gave Thanks yet we cannot but suppose that they were particular Things he praised the Divine Bounty for and it is very rational to conclude that he gave Thanks 1. For the Providence of God which watches over Mankind and brings forth Fruit out of the Earth to satisfie the Desire and natural Appetite of Man God the Creator of all Things provides Food and Sustenance for all his Creatures He causes the Grass to grow for the Cattel He sends the Springs into the Valleys which run among the Hills they give Drink to every Beast of the Field the Wild Asses quench their Thirst the Lions receive their Prey from him He it is that hath appointed Toads and Snakes to be proper Meat for the Stork and Flies for the Nourishment of Spiders for some Birds of the Air he hath design'd Variety of Seeds and Worms of the Earth for others He provides Leaves for Caterpillars and those Insects for the Use of other Animals and the young Ravens that make a noise and upon that Account are said to cry to him are fed and maintain'd by his Power He prevents the Crocodile from doing excessive Mischief by making the Ichneumon his Enemy and the lesser Fishes prove a Prey to the greater by his Order In all these Things the Divine Providence displays it self and because the rest of the Creatures are not endow'd with Reason to celebrate God for his Bounty he hath placed Man in the Earth and enrich'd him with an Angelical Soul to be the Trumpet of his Glory and to take notice of God's feeding his Creatures of all sorts and sizes and particularly the Children of Men and when he sees Bread before him the Staff of Humane Life to admire the Wisdom Power and Goodness of the Almighty And upon this Account it was that Christ as Man and Mediator gave Thanks and when he took Bread blessed the Author of it who had made it agreeable to Man's Nature and gave it Strength to nourish him sent the Former and the Later Rain to nourish the Seed in the Ground and gave his Sun-shine to warm and ripen the Corn into Perfection 2. It was not God's Providence alone that he gave Thanks for but for the more indearing Expressions of God's Love to Mankind too And this we need not wonder at when we read how at other Times he magnified his Father's Goodness to sincere Believers particularly Matth. 11. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the Wise and Prudent and hast revealed them unto Babes No Man ever saw the immense Charity and Goodness of God to the lapsed Progeny of Adam in those lively Characters that he did We can only speak of it with stammering Tongues and give some faint Descriptions of it but He felt it The Sense of that Love over-spread his Soul and he saw the Heighth and Depth and Breadth and Length of it He beheld the Miracles of this Love in all the amazing Circumstances and what it was for God to give a Son to redeem a Servant to expose a Lamb to buy a Wolf and to let an innocent Sheep be led to the Slaughter to ransom Swine He saw how that Compassion extended it self and what it was for the Word to be made Flesh and to run about to seek the lost Sheep and when he had found it to rejoyce over it and
any be desirous of a full Account of this monstrous Doctrine the best Way to know iâ— is to view the Recantation Pope Nicholas forced Berengarius to subscribe in the Year of our Lord 1059. which was this I Berengarius an unworthy Deacon of the Church of St. Maurice of Anjou knowing the True and Apostolick Faith do renounce and abjure all Heresiâ—s and that particularly for which I have hitherto been infamous and which teaches That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar are only a Sacrament after Consecration or a Representation and not the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and that they cannot sensually but only in a Sacramental or Representative Way be handled by the Priest and broken and bruised by the Teeth of the Faithful But I do consent to the Holy Roman Church and to the Apostolick See and profess with my Lips and Heart that I hold that Faith concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Table which our Lord and Pope Nicholas and this Holy Synod have by Evangelical and Apostolical Authority commanded to be held and prescribed to me viz. That the Bread and Wine which are place upon the Altar after Consecration are not only a Sacrament but the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and are sensually and not only Sacramentally but in truth handled by the Hands of the Priest and broken and bruised by the Teeth of the Faithful And hereunto I swear by the Holy and Individual Trinity and by these Holy Gospels This was the gross and absurd Doctrine of the Church of Rome in that Age so absurd that even their Champions who came after were afraid of it being sensible that Christ's glorified Body could not be handled and bruised and ground with the Teeth Which made the Glossator in Gratian reciting this Recantation adds If you do not take these Words in a sound Sense you will fall into greater Heresie than Berengarius Yet the Gentlemen of this Church are past blushing and though there be nothing more inconsistent with the common Principles of Mankind than this Transubstantiation yet they are resolved to maintain that with Noise and Clamour which they cannot do with Reason and Argument and though as they explain this Doctrine it be rather an Annihilation of the Bread or Substitution of Christ's Body than a Transubstantiation yet a Transubstantion it must be And that the Vulgar may not stumble at it abundance of Miracles are invented to support it How St. Anthony of Padua's Horse forsook his Oats to do Obeysance to the Body of Christ or the Wafer after it was Transubstantiated And how others have seen the Wafer bleed when by Jews and Infidels it hath been prick'd And how others have seen a Child appear to them instead of the Wafer How upon St. Gregory's Prayers the Wafer hath been changed into substantial Bloody Flesh How a Protestant denying Transubstantiation and saying that a Spider deserves as much Reverence and Adoration as the Wafer in the Sacrament they being both God's Creatures an huge black Spider immediately spun her self down from the Ceiling into his Mouth c. And these Miracles Bellarmine brings for Proofs and Arguments But to examine the Do rine it self how impossible it is that these Words should infer such a Conversion is evident from hence 1. Because no Reason can be given why these Words This is my Body should infer such a Change any more than the Words Take eat For the one as well as the other were spoken by Christ at the same Time and in one Breath 2. 'T is impossible that these Words should infer any such Change of the Bread into real and substantial Flesh For it would follow that Christ had spoken what was false and the Disciples that were present and to whom he spoke these Words might have easily convinced themselves of the contrary That before Christ's Ascension into Heaven they had no very Metaphysical Understandings nor very quick Apprehensions any one may guess that hath but read the Evangelical History They that had been present at so many Miracles Christ wrought and convinced themselves of the Reality of them by their Senses that if there had a Miracle been wrought in this Sacrament they would without Dispute have examined it by their Senses and having seen no real Conversion or Change of the Bread before them into his Natural Body would have disputed Christ's Assertion and given him an Account of the Reason of their Unbelief For they had seen the Miracle of his changing Water into Wine and convinced themselves by their Taste and Eye-sight that there was a real Change wrought and therefore if such a miraculous Change had been wrought here and they could not have perceived it by any of their Senses can any Man imagine they would have been silent aud not contradicted it There cannot be a greater Miracle than to change Bread into Flesh And if the Bread which was before the Disciples upon the Table had been changed into Christ's Body and they had perceived no such Thing by any of their Senses they would have been amazed more than the Virgin Mary at the Message the Angel brought her of conceiving without the Knowledge of a Man They saw Christ sitting at the Table they saw the Bread in his Hand they saw the Bread after Consecration they saw his Body and that Bread were different Things they did not see him vanish out of their Sight Christ continued to be as he was and so did the Bread and therefore could not but take these Words to be spoken in a spiritual Sense There was never any Miracle wrought but what was intended to convince the Senses of Men and they could either taste or see or smell or feel or hear it Nay the Design of a Miracle is clearly lost if it convinces not the Senses for the Design is to surprize or rather to persuade Men into Belief by their seeing that which they cannot but conclude is wrought by the Finger of God Except the Senses are convinced the Miracle is wrought in vain And that so great a Miracle as changing Bread into Christ's Natural Body should be wrought and no Creature be able to perceive it by their Senses is a Thing so absurd that it destroys the Nature of a Miracle Thomas one of the Twelve who was so difficult in believing Christ's being risen that he would not give Credit to Eye-witnesses and his Fellow-Disciples that had seen him except he put his Finger in the very Marks of his Nails and thrust his Hand into his Side how would he have believed this Transubstantiation if he had not seen the least Appearance of it or seen the Bread continue Bread and Christ continue sitting at the Table as he had done before Not to mention that if we must not believe our Senses what Assurance have we of our Religion the Stress whereof must be laid upon Christ's Resurrection and the Apostles and others seeing him
Blood is for the healing of Mens Souls or what a Vine is to Men on Earth the same am I to my living Members and what an Husbandman doth to his Vineyard the same doth my Father to the Branches that shoot forth from me or to my Followers 2. This is my Body i. e This Bread is my Body as the roasted Lamb is the great Festival of the Jews was the Passover i. e. The Memorial of it This Sacrament of the Lords Supper being instituted immediately after the celebration of the Passover as hath been often hinted the Disciples of our Lord being acquainted with that way of speaking could not wonder at Christ's expression for thus the Jews used to say of the Paschal Lamb This is the Passover as we may read Exod. 12. 11. And there was not any so rude among them but understood by this phrase that by eating that Lamb they were to remember the Angels passing by the Houses of the Israelites in Egypt to save them from Destruction This Sense they imbibed with their Mothers Milk and when the Father instructed his Children he told them that by these words This Lamb is the Passover was meant nothing else but this Lamb is the Memorial or puts us in mind of the Passover for so God had himself explain'd it Exod. 12. 26 27. So that our Saviour in saying of the Bread he broke This is my Body brought in no new way of speaking but what the Disciples and all the Jews were already sufficiently acquainted with in Sacramental Discourses which makes Christ add immediately to shew that he meant no more by it but a Memorial Do this in remembrance of me i. e. As the Lamb put the Jews in mind of the destroying Angel's passing over their Houses so the Bread in this Ordinance puts you in mind of my Body that shall be nailed to the Tree of the Cross for the Life of the World and tells you how by that Sacrifice offer'd for your Souls ye shall escape the Everlasting Wrath of God and the burning Lake prepared for the Devil and his Angels as they did the Destruction prepared for Pharaoh and his People 3. That Christ's Church is often called his Body none can be ignorant that peruses these passages Col. 1. 18. Ephes. 5. 23 Ephes. 4. 12. 1 Cor. 10. 16. 1 Cor. 12. 27. And though that Sense we have already alledgâ—d be the principal thing aim'd at in these words This is my Body yet to shew how little need there is to have recourse either to Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation rather than run into such absurdities we might very well say that the Bread is an Emblem or Adumbration of Christ's Body i. e. of Christ's Church For as that Bread is made up of many Particles so Christ's Church of many Members and as those various Crums are closely united to th' other so the various Members ought to be link'd together in Love and Charity according to the Royal Law given by our Master Joh. 13. 34. A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another But this we add to shew rather what little temptation there is to run our selves into inextricable difficulties in the explication of these words than to express the immediate intent of this expression All Churches agree in 't That Christ's Crucified Body is meant here only the difference is how the Bread is Christ's Body and how Christ's Body is present in the Sacrament we say it is there spiritually as the Bread is a Symbol a Figure a Sign a Representation and a Memorial of Christ's Body which was offer'd for the Sins of the World and this Interpretation is so easie so intelligible so agreeable to Sacramental expressions and to the Analogy of Faith that one would think it should be impossible for Men to contradict it except they were resolv'd to defend an Opinion right or wrong merely because it is their interest to do so The Romanists indeed have of late years endeavour'd very much to perswade the World that the Greek Church in the Levant is of their Opinion in the Sacrament but not to mention the rudeness and ignorance of those poor Churches which scarce understand the Principles of their own Faith if the Protestants had but taken the same pains with the Modern Greeks that the Popish Missioners do i. e. bribed and paid them for their assent and consent to their Faith they would have been Protestants in this Article of the Sacrament as some of them are Papists at this present Cyril who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 1622 where-ever he imbibed his Doctrine certainly was not for Transubstantiation and though by the endeavours of the Jesuits he was afterwards strangled yet that doth not make him an Heretick And though several Synods have been held by the Greeks of late years which have establish'd Transubstantiation yet it 's sufficiently known that it hath been by instigation of those of the Roman Communion who spare no cost that they may bring them to say as they do However such Greeks as are not yet corrupted by the Roman Emissaries are so far from believing Transubstantiation that they know not what it is and as a late ingenious Travellr hath observed wonder any Man should think them such Beasts as to believe such an Absurdity But what doth it signifie whether the Modern Greeks who are sunk into gross Ignorance and Barbarism be of our Opinion or no 'T is sufficient that the ancient Greek Church is and hath been of the same Belief with us The Churches of the Levant at this Day as Learning is become a very scarce Commodity among them so their Opinion in a controverted Point is of no great Consequence Where they can give Proof of an uninterrupted Succession of their Doctrine it may be of importance else not The Church of the Aethiopians or Habessines as they have for many Centuries continued in the honest Simplicity of their Doctrine so their Testimony in this Point of the Eucharist may be of some use and by what appears they seem to joyn with us in this Sacrament For though they pray in their Liturgy That the Holy Ghost may descend and come and shine upon the Bread that it may become the Body of Christ and that the Taste of the Cup may be changed and become the Blood of Christ yet by what one of their own Priests confessed they believe no other Change but a mysterious or representative one or a Change of the use of the Bread whereby from common it becomes sacred And so much appears from the Exposition they give of the Words used by Christ for they say expresly This Bread is my Body and This Cup is my Blood IV. From what hath been said 't is easie to conclude what it is to eat Christ's Body in this holy Sacrament 1. It is to contemplate Christ's crucified Body and the Cause and Reasons of that Crucifixion to view all this with our warmest Thoughts to make
his Heart for if that be as it should be it is indifferent what Matter the Cup is made of in the Administration of this Ordinance As to the Figure Form or Shape of the Cup Christ made use of Tradition saith It was a Cup with two Handles holding a Quart of Wine 'T is true the Jews in their Passover made use of such a Measure which was therefore called Robiit or a Fourth Part and Christ might possibly accommodate himself to that Custom the rather because it was a Cup that all the Disciples drank of according to Christ's Order Drink ye all of it yet this is still conjectural only and therefore the Christian Churches are in this Case left to their Prudence and Discretion Tertullian tells us and he lived about the Beginning of the Third Century that in his Days there was engraven on the sacred Chalice the Figure of a Shepherd carrying a Lamb upon his Shoulders an Emblem either of the Parable Luk. 15. 4 5. or of the Son of God who walked through the Wilderness of this World to seek those which were lost and having found them brought them back to the Fold again and to his Father's House But see how soon an innocent Custom draws on more dangerous Practices In process of time the holy Cup in the Sacrament began to be adorned with various Images and Inscriptions Such was the Cup which Remigius Archbishop of Rhemes who died in the Year 535. bequeathed to his Church with this Inscription Out of this Cup the People drink Life and Happiness through the Blood of Christ Jesus As Superstition afterward increased instead of Silver Cups the People made use of the Monks invented little Silver Pipes through which the People were to suck the holy Wine out of the Cup the Priest made use of which is the Reason why in the Rules of the Carthusian Monks this among the rest was one That they shall have nothing of Silver in their Colleges save only a Silver Chalice and Silver Pipes through which the Lay-men are to suck the Blood of Christ. These Things are hinted here to shew how necessary it is to keep up to the Primitive Institution of this Sacrament for if once Men presume to deviate from that Simplicity they know not where to stop and they will be tempted to hancker after new Devices and Inventions every Day III. That Christ gave the Cup to his Disciples as well as the Bread is evident from the Institution And the Reasons were these 1. To shew that this part of the Sacrament is of the same worth and value with the other and that we are to esteem the sacred Cup as highly as we do the Bread for as the former represented his broken Body so this his spilt and flowing Blood Nay if there be any Preeminence in the one above the other it must be ascribed to the Cup or the Blood of Christ represented by the Wine in the Cup for upon the Blood of the Son of God the weight of Redemption lies according to what the Apostle tells us Heb. 9. 11 12. But Christ being become an High-Priest of good Things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with Hands that is not of this Building neither by the Blood of Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he enter'd in once into the Holy Place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us And Without shedding of Blood there is no Remission as it is Vers. 22. And this shews how miserably the poor People are deluded in the Modern Church of Rome in that they are denied the Cup in this Ordinance for hereby they are deprived of that which should afford them the greatest Comfort and assure them of the Remission of their Sins For if the great Stress of Redemption must be laid on the Blood of Christ and they are deprived of that part of the Sacrament which properly and immediately represents his Blood which was shed for the Remission of their Sins it must necessarily follow that they are intolerably cheated And what Assurance can they have from this Sacrament that their Sins are or will be pardoned when they receive not that which must assure them of it So that the Laity in that Church are left in a most uncomfortable Condition Nor will it avail much to say that the People believe that they receive the Blood in the Bread for it is not Fancy or Imagination that will do any good here Christ certainly did not think so which made him appoint a distinct Symbol for his Blood and but that they are not to believe their own Senses in that Church their Eyes and Tongues might convince them that they do not remember the shedding of Christ's Blood for the Remission of their Sins by drinking of the Wine designed for that purpose For 2. Christ in giving the Cup to his Disciples as well as the Bread intimated thereby that those who received the one should receive the other also This hath been the Sense of the Christian Church for many Hundred Years after Christ The Greek from the Apostles Days to this Hour hath inferred and doth infer so much and even the Latin Church for above a Thousand Years was of the same Opinion 'T is true in the Church of Rome the Priest drinks of the consecrated Cup as well as eats the consecrated Wafer But what have the poor Sheep the Lay-men done that they must be excluded from the Cup The Apostles 't is granted were Priests but they received not the holy Sacrament as Priests but as Believers Christ at that time was the Priest that administred the holy Symbols to them and Children can tell that according to this way of arguing the People ought not to receive the holy Bread because the Apostles were Priests when they received it However to do even an Enemy right the Church of Rome is ingenuous enough in their maintaining of this Sacrilege for the Council of Constance expresly tells us That though Christ gave the Sacrament to his Disciples in both kinds and though in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by the Faithful in both Kinds yet notwithstanding all this the Fathers of that Council think it fit to abrogate that Custom and threaten the Priest with Excommunication that shall offer to give the consecrated Wine or Cup to the Common People And I confess this is plain Dealing but in the worst Sense as Men do justifie their Sins and boast of their Iniquities And with what Conscience any Person can be of that Church that doth assert and defend and obliges her Members to comply with such manifest contrariety to the Doctrine of Christ I know not This I know that Obedience to the Precepts of the Gospel is a commanded Duty and they are excluded from Christ's Favour and Friendship that will not keep his Words and all pretences of Love are rejected as Pageantry where obedience to his Commands is not the product of that Love and consequently
the Church of Rome at this day is nothing else for they keep it in Boxes or Chests that they may carry it about and promote the Adoration of it in the Circumgestation and when any great Fire or Wind or Tempest happens this is pretended to have great Virtue either to lessen or avert those evils It is pleaded commonly that the Laity may with greater convenience receive only in one kind and with as much profit to as if they received in both but that this is false appears from hence 1. Because nothing can be convenient for the Laity that is against Christ's Institution and Command and as the Bread is to lead them to the contemplation of Christ's Crucified Body so the Cup is to direct them to fix their Thoughts on the Blood he spilt for them And if this way of reasoning were just why should it not be as convenient for the Priest to receive in one kind as for the Laity 2. Because the Profit that is to be received by the Communion must be received in that method and order that Christ hath thought fit to dispense it and since Christ thought it most proper that this Profit should be received by communicating in both kinds to expect Profit contrary to Christ's design and intention is to deceive our selves Some of the Papists themselves grant and it was asserted by several in the Council of Trent That greater Grace and Comfort was to be received by Communion in both kinds than by Communion in one only and there were some of the Primitive Fathers that thought that the Bread extended its Virtue to the Body only but the Wine to the Soul and if this were to be allow'd of the Laity in the Church of Rome must be either supposed to have no Souls or that their Souls receive no Profit by the Sacrament since they are denied the Wine But however if Communion in one kind be so profitable for the Laity why should it not be as profitable for the Clergy V. Why Christ made use of Wine in the Institution of this Sacrament several Reasons may be given As 1. One great property of Wine is to give Man a chearful countenance and to make glad the Heart Psal. 104. 15. And surely this was to let us see what joy our Souls are to express at the remembrance of God's Compassion and Charity a joy which will appear very rational if we frame right apprehensions of our natural condition for let me take a view of the state of my Soul abstractedly from Christ's mediation and God's Love I shall appear to my self a creature forsaken of God destitute of Mercy deprived of hopes of Pardon an object of Wrath a scorn of Angels the sport of Devils a companion of Reprobates a prey to ravenous Birds an heir of the burning Lake a subject of Damnation a slave to the worst of Masters hated by Heaven condemned by mine own Conscience and in a worse condition than the Beasts that perish and let me suppose that I were surrounded by Wolves and Lions in a barren Wilderness Vipers and Serpents crawling about my heels every moment in danger of being torn to pieces and in danger of a cruel lingring and barbarous death and in these sad circumstances should some kind Deliverer leap from behind a Thicket or come riding toward from afar to rescue me from this impendent ruin how should I rejoyce at the unexpected and unlook'd for Providence My case by nature is much worse for wild Beasts may devour me and make an end of my pain but here I find my self beset with hellish furies so far from being willing to make an end of my life and pain together that they seem resolved to increase it daily and no Angel no Lazarus no Messenger out of the Clouds vouchsafes a drop of Water and therefore in so deplorable an estate to see the Son of God spriging in and flying to my rescue and crying I will heal thy backslidings and unto my Enemies round about me O death I will be thy Plague O grave I will be thy destruction what joy what gladness what comfort must this cause 2. By Wine he represented the everlasting joys he intended to purchase for his followers by his bitter death and passion he himself gives us a hint of this Matth. 26. 29. I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this Vine until the day that I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom i. e. Of this material Wine I shall after this drink no more in your company but when you are advanced to the Joys and Glories of my Father's Kingdom then I 'll Drink and Feast with you again and the Wine I will then give you to drink of shall be new Wine infinitely different from this Wine which shall have others effects and other operations Wine which the dull World is a stranger to Wine which Glutâ—ons and Drunkards shall never taste of Wine that shall fill your Souls with the purest Joy's with Delights purely Spiritual and Celestial so that these everlasting Joys may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wine fulfilled as St. Luke speaks of the Bread Luke 22. 16. And then the Wine may be said to be compleated and fulfilled when that which is represented by it is actually fulfilled and conferred on the person who are counted worthy of it The Joys above are the Wine of Angels this Wine is the clear vision of God or the Glorious sight of the Fountain of Light and Beatitude this inebriates their Understandings irrigates the Spirits of Men made perfect makes them drunk with Joy and their Reason is lost in Raptures and Extasies and therefore justly styled Joy which Eye hath not seen and Ear hath not heard and Heart cannot conceive The Souls of Men it seems are channels too narrow to hold those joys they over-run the Banks and as the flame of a Candle is lost in the brighter Sun-shine so the Divine Light in Heaven shining upon Souls they are as it were lost in that Glorious splendor 3. Wine is the Emblem of Wisdom too so much we may guess from what we read Prov. 9. 1 5. Wisdom hath built her a bouse she hath hewen out her seven Pillars she hath kill'd her Beasts she hath mingled her Wine she cries Come eat of my Bread and drink of the Wine that I have mingled So that we have reason to conclude that our Saviour in using Wine in this Sacrament would express the necessity of a vigorous application of our Minds to spiritual Wisdom even to that Wisdom which drives out sensuality expels the Wisdom of the Flesh despises the Wisdom of the World and values Christian simplicity above all words which human Wisdom teaches Wisdom which seems folly in the eyes of the World but is really an effect of the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding Wisdom which concludes If Christ hath done for me what the Scripture saith he hath laid down his life spilt his blood sacrificed himself given himself
Offence the Interest of the Subject is to keep the Law not to quarrel with the Sanction At this rate a Man might plead What great matter is there in opening a Window at Night to get into an House to steal some small inconsiderable thing in the House And shall this be made Felony without Benefit of the Clergy All wise Law-givers have their Reason why they inflict severe Penalties upon Offenders and 't is fit that an Infinite Majesty should both threaten and appoint Punishments suitable to his Grandeur Where the Law and the Sanction of it is sufficiently known Men do not accuse the Law-giver of of Cruelty if the Offender runs himself into Danger but rather blame the senseless and foolish Man who knowing the Severity of the Sanction might have easily denied himself in his sinful Purchase and secured his Life and Welfare And the less the Fault is for which a severe Punishment is appointed the more easily might it have been avoided and not to avoid it when the Forbearance was so easie is an Argument of strange Presumption so that the Contempt and Presumption are so severely punished and not the Fault it self Let us apply this to the Case in hand The Supreme Law-giver thinks fit to inflict Damnation on the unworthy Receiver Either this unworthy Receiving is a very littâ—e Sin or a very great one If a great one the Punishment cannot be thought too great for it is proportion'd to the Greatness of the Authority which is despised and to the infinite and incomprehensible Mercy which is slighted not to mention that unworthy Receiving is a Complication of many Sins and more than one go into the Composition If it be little it is more easily shunned and then the Presumption comes to be very great and that Presumption is justly punished with great Severity Besides Who can judge so well of the Contempt and the heinousness of it as he that knows all things and can best judge how great the Indignity is which is offered to God in the Sin Nay the Greatness of the Penalty discovers the Greatness of the Impiety the Foulness of the Crime the deep Dye of the Transgression and the dangerous Tendency of the Offence A Christian from the Greatness of the Penalty is to conclude there must be more in the Sin than appears to his Eyes and to infer that if the Offence were not greater than ordinary so severe a Penalty would not have been laid upon it So that at the same time the Greatness of the Punishment serves to fright the Sinner from continuing in his Sin against he comes next to the Table of the Lord and is a strong Engagement to him to take nobler Resolutions to come with greater Reverence and with better Purposes that he may escape Damnation 2. That which makes the Penalty just is the Reason the Apostle gives 1 Cor. 11. 29. Because he discerns not the Lord's Body And what is it not to discern the Lord's Body 1. The unworthy Receiver discerns not that the Bread and Wine in this Ordinance set apart for an holy Use and consecrated by the Words of Institution represents the Body and Blood of the Son of God Which Consideration should over-awe him into the greatest Reverence and Devotion He considers not that by laying his Hands upon the Body of the Son of God he vows Faith and Allegiance to him and therefore refusing that Faith and Allegiance in his Actions is supposed to look upon that Bread as common which God hath made representative of the greatest Mystery He considers not that by eating of this Bread his Soul at the same time pretends to feed on the Body of Jesus Christ and to apply the Mercies and Benefits of his Death whereby he brings himself under an Obligation to live as a Member of Christ's Mystical Body not according to the Lusts of the Flesh but according to the Will of him that bought him at so great a Price And being at the same time unresolved to do so he mocks the Lord Jesus Christ and plays with Vows made in a place where Angels give their Attendance 2. He discerns not he considers not what it is for God to take a Body upon him for a poor Sinner's sake to redeem him from Damnation For God to take a Body upon him is a thing so astonishing so miraculous that if the greatest Prince of the World should voluntarily make himself a Beggar and wallow in Dirt and Slime to deliver a Slave out of Prison in a Foreign Country it is not so much nor a thing of that great Consequence For God to take a Body upon him that he might die for the Sinner and make him capable of inheriting Everlasting Bliss is a Mercy which runs so high that Reason is at a loss and it is enough to make the Mind grow giddy at the Consideration and consequently it is so great an Engagement to devote our selves to the Service of that God who hath done this that no Obligation can be thought greater or more likely to prevail with Men of Common Sense and Ingenuity And therefore for the unworthy Receiver not to discern or consider this must be a Contempt that is without a Parallel 3. He considers not that it is the Body of his Lord and Master that is present in the Figure in this Ordinance even the Body of that Lord whose Servant he is and owns himself to be He discerns not that in eating of the holy Bread he acknowledges Christ Jesus to be his Lord and Master at whose Beck he means to run by whose Command he intends to act and by whose Will he designs to be ruled So that the unworthy Receiver runs himself into strange Contradictions He acknowledges at the Receiving of the Eucharist that Christ is his Lord and Master and yet is not willing to be govern'd by his Laws his Lust and sinful Desires still continue his Masters the Devil is still his Master the World is still his Master and Sin still reigns in his Mortal Body Christ is only his Master in shew these in good earnest he in Complement these in sober Sadness And when this Contempt hath all these Aggravations in it who can complain that God is unjust in inflicting Damnation on the unworthy Receiver if he turns not IV. But still they were only the prophane Corinthinians against whom this Judgment is denounced Men who came drunk to this holy Sacrament And since no Body in this Age can be presumed or supposed to come in such a Posture to this Sacrament why should the Penalty mentioned by St. Paul be enforced upon Men now living who are not guilty of the same Sin and in no possibility almost of committing it i. e. of coming drunk and disguised to the Lord's Table To which I answer 1. Not to mention that Whatever things are written afore-time are written for our Learning 't is a great Mistake that the Apostle restrains the Penalty to being drunk with Wine or any other
hast thou had of thine own Worth And how hast thou undervalued the Man or Woman that have had to no other Crime but Poverty Thou hast thought thy Inferiors scarce worth talking to How unlike thy Redeemer is this Pride and Haughtiness Were Grace an Inhabitant of thy Heart what low Thoughts wouldst thou have of thy self How readily wouldst thou converse even with the meanest Saint How wouldst thou learn to esteem Men more for their Holiness than for their Riches And how lovely would a Creature that hath the Image of God upon him look in thine Eyes Far more lovely than the greatest Monarch or Lady that have nothing to recommend them but their outward Splendor 15. And he said unto them With Desire I have desired to eat this Passover before I suffer HOW doth God long for our Happiness How fervent are his Desires to do us good Yet how little have these Longings prevailed with thee O my Soul Notwithstanding all these Desires of God to make thee happy how hast thou longed after the muddy Waters of Sensual Pleasures Nay longed to be for ever miserable when in despight of his Intreaties not to neglect so great Salvation thou hast longed for the stolen Waters of sinful Delights coveted Death and been enamoured with Destruction How hath God intreated thee to close with him upon his own Terms and how hast thou grieved him with thy Refusal How hath the Almighty beseeched thee by his Ambassadors to be reconciled to him and yet thou hast stood out and baffled the Stratagems of Mercy 16. For I say unto you I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God CHrist rejoyces that the Shadows are at an end and that the Substance or Antitype is approaching for as the Passover was a Sign of the Jews Deliverance from Egyptian Bondage so that Deliverance was a Shadow or Emblem of our Deliverance from Sin here and our Exemption from all Misery and Trouble in Heaven which was now to be effected by the Death of Christ. But O my Soul how hast thou hunted after Shadows and left the Substance unregarded What are the Glories of this World but mere Shews Yet how fond art thou of them and how strangely hast thou been enamoured with them These Shadows intimate that there are more substantial Glories in the Everlasting Mansions yet these thou passest by and the other thou art delighted with See how thou dotest on those painted Coronets those Butter-flies those Airy Nothings while with the Cock in the Fable thou tramplest on the Pearl even on the Pearl of Price to purchase which the Spiritual Merchant in the Gospel sold all he had 17. And he took the Cup and gave Thanks and said Take this and divide it among your selves HOW thankful is our Great Mediator for every Mercy he received from his Everlasting Father Yet how ungrateful hast thou been O my Soul to thy mighty Benefactor What Mercies hast thou received at his Hands and what strange Returns hast thou made for them Thy God hath been kind to thee and thou hast been base and unworthy How hast thou fed on his Blessings and ascribed them to thy Wisdom and Industry How hast thou lived upon his Charity and spurned at his Laws Foolish Creature Dost thou thus reward the Lord thy God Thou shouldest not eat a bit but send some Thanksgiving-Ejaculations to Heaven yet thou contentest thy self with a careless Grace and never thinkest more afterward of God How little dost thou mind the Providences that are sent upon thee And while thou considerest not the Operations of God's Hands how canst thou be thankful 18. For I say unto you I will not drink of the Fruit of the Vine until the Kingdom of God shall come INdeed Heaven hath the best and choicest Wine even the Wine of Angels This Wine is the ravishing Love of God This transports the Understanding and wraps up the Intellect in Extasies of Joy and Comfort A brutish Man knows not this neither doth a Fool understand it And hath not this been thy Case O my Soul How weary hast thou been of thinking of this Banquet How soon have thy Spirits tired with meditating of that Love How ready hast thou been to think of the World and the last Night's Revel and how backward to reflect on this richer Entertainment What a Weariness hath it been to thee to survey these Glories to walk about that Jerusalem and to behold the Towers and Bulwarks of it 19. And he took Bread and gave Thanks and brake it and gave unto them saying This is my Body which is given for you This do in remembrance of me HEre begins the happy Institution of the holy Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood and the great Command to remember the Death of Jesus and together with that an Item of the greatest Love that can be shewn to poor Mortals Yet how backward O my Soul hast thou been sometimes to come to this holy Sacrament Thou should'st have longed for an Opportunity to remember this Death with the People of God What is this Bread but an Emblem of the Communion of Saints and a Representation of thy Communion with the Great Head the Lord Jesus Yet how little Delight hast thou taken in this Ordinance How often hast thou come out of Formality only How little have thine Affections been moved with that stupendous Love Either Sin or Malice to thy Neighbour or some Worldly Trouble hath made thee stay away The Thoughts of this Love should have thrown down all thy Strong Holds of Iniquity and left thee in a calm holy spiritual Temper But how hast thou preferred thy little Concerns in the World before this Feast And what Hazards hast thou run of being doomed to a Spiritual Famine as those Guests against whom the Master of the Feast protested that they should never taste of his Supper 20. Likewise also the Cup after Supper saying this Cup is the New Testament of my Blood which is shed for you AT how dear a rate was the remission of our sins purchased The Blood of the Son of God was the Price Greater Love hath no Man shewn than that he lay down his life for his Friends but here is one that laid it down for his Enemies that they may be pardoned How hast thou looked upon this pardon O my Soul sometimes without standing amazed at the height and breadth and depth and length of the love of God! How cold hast thou been in thy desires after this precious Blood Thou should'st have stood under the Cross waiting for the drops that trickled down But the familiarity of the joyful news of it alas hath too often wrought in thee a dis-esteem of it Nay how light hast thou made of this remission and by making so light of it thou hast profan'd it too when thou hast sinned because God is willing to pardon sinners and hast made that pardoning Blood an encouragement to indulge thy self in thy carnal
Persecution The Danger and Imprudence of those who neglecting to receive it in Publick do not think of it till they come to lye upon their Death-beds What a mercy it is that we have Publick Churches where we may serve and worship God without fear or molestation Great Gravity and Devotion required in the Publick Worship of God The Prayer I. THat the publick Church is the most proper most warranted and fittest place to celebrate and eat the Lord's Supper in seems to have been the constant belief of the Christian Church and they have grounded their Belief on the Apostles Expostulation with the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11. 20 22. where speaking of their coming together into one place and distinguishing private Houses from the Church of God he intimates a known custom in that Age to meet in certain Oratories or places appointed for publick Worship and there receive the Holy Symbols That which is commonly objected of the great Improbability of publick Buildings and Edifices in times of Persecution such as the Apostles and the Christians for the first three Centuries had sad experience of seems to carry greater weight than really it doth for though we speak of places appointed for Publick Worship no Person of common Sense can imagine that we mean they had such stately and magnificent Buildings as our Churches are at this day the Effects of Ease and Peace and Plenty These came not in till Constantine procured the Churches Respit and Freedom from their former Bondage yet we may justly enough suppose that even in those days of trouble and calamitous times they either converted some spacious upper Room in a charitable Believer's House into a Church or some good Christian gave and dedicated his House for that Religious Use or the Believers by common consent turned it into a Place of publick Worship which is the reason that the Disciples are said to have met in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper Room Act. 1. 13. possibly the same which Christ celebrated the Eucharist in and who knows not that mention is sometimes made of a Church in such a Man's House as Colos. 4. 15. Salute Nymphas and the Church at his House Upon which words Oecumenus tells us He was a was a great Man for he had converted his House into a Church And though it is said Act. 2. 46. That the Believers continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking of Bread from House to House did eat their Meat with gladness of heart yet the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render from House to House as our Translators take notice in the Margent may as well be rendered in the House and then the meaning will be this That continuing daily in the Temple or frequenting the Temple daily they broke Bread in the House i. e. in the House by the Temple appropriated to the publick Christian Worship and particularly in that upper Room by the Temple where the Apostles and Believers used to meet in which place when they had broken Bread or received the Eucharist they went home to their own Houses and sat down to their private Meals with joy and great comfort II. The succeeding Churches observ'd this very Religiously and therefore call'd the Holy Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Convocation because they judged it meet the whole Church should be together when it was administred For this reason it was also call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liturgy which properly imports Publick Administration of an Office and therefore applied Rom. 15. 27. to publick distribution of Alms to the Magistrate's executing of his Office Rom. 13. 4 and to the Office of Teaching and Prophecying in the publick Congregation Acts 13. 2. And this gave occasion to Cyril of Alexandria to say in an Epistle to Coelosyrius That the Eucharist or Sacred Symbols ought to be offered no where but in the Churches of Believers and that he who attempts the contrary doth manifestly violate the Law of God meaning the Apostles practice before-mentioned which he supposes amounts to a virtual Command To this purpose the Council of Laodicea forbad all Bishops and Priests to celebrate the Communion in private Houses and Eustathius the Bishop of Sebastia as Socrates tells us among other reasons was deposed from his Place and Dignity for this because he had given permission to have the Lord's Supper administred in private Houses which was saith the Historian against the Ecclesiastical Rules Notwithstanding this it was customary at Rome to do so which makes St. Hierome in his Book against Jovinian find fault with the abuse and expostulate with them Why do they not go to Church to receive Christ's Body and Blood Are there two Christs one in publick another in private And indeed those Christians that insisted upon this publick Administration had the Jewish Church for their pattern for it being taken for granted that the Lord's Supper was succedaneous to the Passover as the Paschal Lamb was to be kill'd in the Temple and in publick so it was fit that the solemn Remembrance of the Death of that Lamb which was to take away the sins of the World the Antitype of the other should be celebrated in publick and in the Congregations of Christians That the Paschal Lamb which every Family among the Jews were obliged to eat of was killed in the Temple is more than probable for though Philo the Jew seems to take it for granted that every Master of a Family had Liberty to kill the Paschal Lamb at his own House yet as judicious Men have observed Philo being an Alexandrian and not having those opportunities of searching into the Jewish Rites that others had who lived at Jerusalem might easily run into a mistake the rather because Josephus and most Jews affirm the contrary viz. That every Master of a Family was obliged to bring the Lamb intended to be eaten at the Celebration of the Passover to the Temple to the Priests who were to kill it for him If it had not been so it is not easie to imagine how the Priests could have given so exact an account to Cestius of the number of the Jews that were come up to the Passover at that time for they gave in an account of 55000 and 600 Persons that had presented themselves at the Feast which in all likelihood they knew by the Lambs the People brought to them to be slain for their respective Families and though Jewish Customs lay no Obligations upon Christians yet where the Gospel gives a Rule a Jewish practice in a case not much unlike may serve for confirmation of the Observance III. The publick eating of the Lord's Supper doth certainly best represent the end for which Christ died and that is the Publick Good a Good which Caiaphas ignorantly acknowledged and confessed when he told the Jews Ye know nothing at all nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole multitude perish
gives Alms makes no pleasing Musick in Heaven but the poor Widow that without making a Shew throws in her Two Mites even all her Living into the Treasury is the acceptable Votary Therefore grieve not Christian because thou canst not bring a Thousand Rivers of Oyl or Ten Thousand Rams into the Temple of God Bring but an humble Heart and he will take more notice of it than of all the Pomp and Retinue of Bernice and Agrippa II. Since the Bread in this Holy Sacrament is to represent our spiritual Nourishment it must needs be worth our enquiring whether we find that spiritual Strength and Nourishment in our Souls which is promised and commanded in this Ordinance And there can be no better Sign of our thriving upon this spiritual Food than if 1. Our Corruptions do signally abate As in the Body if the ill Humours begin to be qualified and the Sharpness of the Blood be taken off and the Pains and Aches decay it is a Sign the Body advances in Health and Strength returns It is so in the Soul if our Envy or Pride or watchful Temper or our Laziness in God's Service or our Indifferency in Devotion or our Backwardness to Duties c. decays and dwindles away it is a certain Sign our Souls begin to be in an excellent Temper for these are the Worms that hinder our Trees from growing which if they faint and die away the Trees are like to come to their full Growth and Heighth and the Fruit of them to perfect Maturity 2. If our Delight in the Things of God doth increase our Delight in the Ordinances of God our Delight in Meditation our Delight in speaking and thinking of God our Delight in Obedience our Delight in doing good and being helpful to others it is as great a Sign the Soul thrives upon this spiritual Food as it is in the Body when a Man begins to look with a chearful Countenance and the muddy Complexion clears up and the once sickly Person goes about his Business with Alacrity 3. If we loath any thing that is offensive to our Blessed Redeemer As an healthy Stomach doth loath any thing that is prejudicial to the Body so the Soul is then in a good plight when that which is contrary to the Interest of the Cross becomes odious to her when it goes against her to do that which must needs be displeasing to him that died for her when it is a Grief to her to see the Sensualities Men wallow in and to hear God dishonoured and his Name profaned is to her as if a Sword were run into her as it was to David Psal. 42. 10. 4. If we do not content our selves with such Things in Matters of Religion as the Vulgar are satisfied withal but set the Examples of the greatest Saints before us resolving to come up to their Excellency and Zeal and Love If we do so our very Enemies must be Witnesses that we thrive and grow strong upon this spiritual Diet and make Preparation for Eating and Drinking with Christ at his Table in his Kingdom Luc. 22. 29 30. The PRAYER SWeet Jesu Who art Life to my Soul Balm to my Spirit and in the greatest Misery canst give Eâ—se I have fed too long upon bitter Herbs Sin that hath been sweet to my Taste hath proved very bitter to me in the End and what Fruit had I then of those Things whereof I am now ashamed No Fruit but Poison aud Darkness and Aversion from Goodness I have been led away by my sensual Appetite look'd up to the evil Tree beheld the Fruit that it was fair but without Consideration of the dangerous Effects of it and have eaten of it This hath made my Soul look pale and wan lovely indeed in the Eyes of Devils but deformed and homely in thy Sight I see I must change my Food else I perish And O my Lord What shall I feed on that I may recover Strength Thy Table affords the wholsomest Meat and Drink Vouchsafe me a gracious Look and bid me come Pass by my former Aversion from these Delicates Bid me sit down and feed on Thee Thou Lord I am the River of Paradise from whence Living Waters flow Oh let this Stream enrich my Soul that I may be like a Tree planted by the Rivers of Water which may bring forth Fruit in due Season no such Fruit as once it was black and shrievel'd and wither'd but which may be amiable in the Eyes of God and Man Fruit whereby thy Glory may be advanced Fruit whereby others that see and know me may reap Benefit Fruit wherein my Soul may rejoyce Fruit which may end in Peace in Peace of Conscience in Everlasting Peace Henceforward when I remember thee O dearest Saviour let me find such Vigour and Nourishment within that I may look like Thee altogether lovely Favour is deceitful and Beauty is vain but to be like Thee is Glory and Life and Bliss and Happiness I therefore eat at thy Table that I may be like Thee Oh speak thy Blessing upon that Meat and it will change me into thy Image from Glory to Glory even by the Spirit of our God Amen Come Lord Jesu Come quickly CHAP. VIII Of Consecration and what Consecration Christ used Of his Thanksgiving before he broke the Bread and our Imitation of him in that Particular The CONTENTS Of the Word Consecration what it imports and what Things were consecrated in Ancient Times Consecration anciently performed with Prayer and Thanksgiving The Virtue of Consecration wherein it consists Consecration of the Elements in this Ordinance performed sometimes only by the Lord's Prayer The Church of Rome deviates from that Rule Christ placed Consecration in Giving of Thanks Several Particulars we may suppose Christ gave Thanks for mention'd What Christ intended by Thanksgiving with respect to our Instruction specified Praise and Thanksgiving essential in this Ordinance The Way to arrive to holy Thoughts Why this Sacrament is by the Ancient Church called Eucharist The Prayer I. THE Word Consecration answers to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caddâ—sh and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chanach and to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to set a thing apart for holy Uses and in this respect it is the same with Dedication though Criticks make some difference betwixt Consecration and Dedication meaning that in the former Things profane and vulgar are set apart for an holy Use in general in the later vowed and assigned to a certain God a thing common among the Heathens while they continued in Idolatry In the Old Testament Consecration was used about Persons Things Times and Places 1. Persons Which is the Reason why Aaron and his Sons are said to be consecrated to God i. e. set apart and ordained to minister in the publick Service and Worship of God Exod. 28. 3. And upon this Account Moses Exod. 32. 29. bids the Levites consecrate themselves i. e. set themselves apart to
the Things thereby represented may justly be supposed and piously believed to be the following 1. An Emblem it was of that barbarous Fact the Jews were like in a few Minutes after to commit against his Sacred Person viz. Breaking his Sacred Body by the Torments of a painful Crucifixion This Body of his spotless as the Sun harmonious as the Strings of a well-tuned Lute the miraculous Product of the Holy Ghost purer than Virgins Wax big with the richest and choicest Blood subject to no inordinate Desire was in a few Hours like to be the Scorn of Soldiers the Sport of Scribes and the Laughing-stock of supercilious Pharisees within a few Minutes this Body was to be lash'd buffeted beaten wrench'd and stretch'd out upon the Cross Here his Flesh was to be torn with Nails the Skin to be broken the Veins those precious Springs to be open'd and he that was fairer than the Children of Men was soon after to be without Form or Comeliness a Man of Sorrows rejected and despised of Men to be handled like a Slave treated like a Malefactor crucified like a Thief and used like the worst of Mankind Therefore he broke the Bread to represent this inhumane Attempt Such Pains did our blessed Master take with his Disciples to prevent their being surprized with his Passion He had frequently given them notice of it armed them against the fatal Hour and not only in general told them he was to suffer but here in this Action describes the very manner of it and in Breaking of the Bread hints to them how that noble that curious that excellent Frame would be disorder'd broken and destroyed 2. He broke the Bread to shew that Man for whom he was to suffer was in a broken forlorn and undone Condition a Condition which required an Almighty Saviour to put under his Shoulder to rescue the miserable Creature from the Thraldom of Damnation Mankind was indeed in a very broken State at that time not only with respect to the various Divisions that were among the Jews and in other Parts of the World but with respect to their Sins Errours and Corruptions Idolatry had not only over-spread the habitable World but was come to a prodigious Heighth many Sins which even the Law of Nature condemned were become Vertues And to that Impiety Mankind arose that not a few of their Vices were consecrated into Deities insomuch that to be lewd was Religion and Deified Vices had their Votaries Among the Jews who were Keepers of the Oracles of God the Great Seal of the King of Heaven though they went not a whoring after Idols yet the Religion that remained among them was turn'd into mere Formality and Outward Shew The Moral Law that Eternal Standard of Truth and Goodness was in a manner trampled under Foot The Traditions of the Elders enervated its Force and the false Glosses of the Pharisees made the Divine Commands of no Effect In a Word the Pillars of Religion were every where broken the very Foundation was undermin'd and both Jews and Gentiles were intoxicated the former with Hypocrisie the other with Profaneness How desperate both their Conditions were the Apostle shews at large Rom. Chap. 1. and 2. and more succinctly Rom. 3. 9 10 11 19. There is none righteous no not one there is none that understands there is none that seeks after God c. Christ broke the Bread therefore to shew how necessary it was for him to be broken on the Cross to redintegrate and make whole the broken and forlorn State of Mankind which makes him say afterward This is my Body which is broken FOR YOU 3. He broke the Bread to shew that he it was who was to break down the Partition-Wall that separated the Jews and Gentiles Till the Son of God was crucified for the Sins of the World there was so great an Antipathy betwext the Jews and Gentiles that the Hatred was thought Duty and the Enmity Religion and as the Heathen looked upon the Jews as the vilest of Mankind so the Jews were even with them and looked upon them as abominable and to eat and drink with a Gentile was counted a Crime and to make any Expressions of Kindness or Favour Impiety To shew him the right Way in a Journey or to lead him to a Spring of Water in case he were a-thirst or to lie with him or to contract Marriage with any of them was as detestable as to eat Swines Flesh. And it was a Maxim in the Jewish Divinity That the Holy Ghost could not rest upon an Heathen Which made the Jews Act. 11. 2 3. fall out with Peter because he went unto Men uncircumcised and did eat with them and preach the Gospel to them Christ by his Death and Resurrection was to destroy that Enmity and to make the Lamb lie down with the Wolf and the Lion with the Calf according to the Prophesie of Esay Chap. 11. 6. And so it came to pass after his Resurrection and the Effusion of the Holy Ghost Peter opened the Door of Salvation to the Gentiles and the Holy Ghost came down on the Uncircumcised as well as on the Seed of Abraham and both Nations became one Flock one Company and one People under the great Shepherd of the Sheep Christ Jesus and they who before hated one another mortally now fell into one another's Embraces and saluted one another with an holy Kiss Upon which Account the Apostle says Ephes. 2. 14 18. Christ is our Peace who hath made both one and broken down the Middle-Wall of Partition between us having abolished in his Flesh the Enmity even the Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances for to make in himself of twain one new Man so making Peace He broke the Bread therefore to signifie this glorious and charitable Act. 4. The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16. And this we may justly believe to have been our Master's Design in this Action for the Apostle received it of the Lord and what Christ had taught him he communicated to his Hearers And this Breaking both shews and commands our Union and Communion Though he broke the Loaf into several Pieces to give to the respective Communicants yet those Pieces were still Parts of that Loaf and this was to shew how near and dear we Christians are and ought to be to one another This speaks us Fellow members and how tender we ought to be of one another's Welfare as one Member is of the Safety of another So that though we are many Members yet we all make one Loaf one great Body whereof Christ is the Head 1 Cor. 12. 27. And this makes all Rancor Malice Envy Hatred Pride and Ill-Nature absurd odious abominable and intolerable among Christians not only at the holy Sacrament but in their Conversation too For how strange how surprizing would it be to see one Piece of Bread quarrel with the other of the same Loaf And
would to God it might be as surprizing to see one Christian fall out with the other 5. He broke the Bread to hint to us with what Hearts we ought to come to the Table of our Lord and to the Altar of the Cross even with humble broken contrite Hearts Such Hearts we might get if it were not for our Pride It was therefore prohibited in the Old Law to use Leaven in God's Sacrifices and Offerings Leaven was the Emblem of Pride which makes us unfit to appear before the humble Jesus I am broken with their whorish Heart which hath departed from me saith God Ezech. 9. 6. This was literally fulfilled in Christ And shall not we share in the Depth of that Sorrow Shall we see him bow his Head under the Weight of our Offences and shall not the Burthen appear heavy and insupportable to our Spirits Shall we see the innocent Lamb weep for our Stubbornness and be unconcerned at the Spectacle 6. He broke the Bread to let us see how ready he is to comfort the Contrite and Broken Heart Christian as great as the Agonies were thy Sins did put him to as great as the Torments were he felt upon thy Account as bitter as the Death was he suffered and tasted for thee yet if thy Soul relents and if that which made him die becomes loathsome and abominable in thy Sight if a deep Sense of thy Unworthiness fills the Chanels of thy Heart if the Fountain of thy Head runs with Water if thine Eyes gush out in Tears if the Weight of thy Sins presses thy Soul into an holy Self-abhorrency if his Passion can fright thy Sins into a languishing Condition abate their Courage and break their sturdy Necks and his broken Body proves a Motive strong enough and obliges thee to break loose from the Government of Hell behold those very Wounds thou madest shall be thy Balsam and the Blood thy Sinns did spill shall turn into Oyl to supple thy broken Bones with that precious Liquor thy Soul shall be washed and that which was his Death shall be thy Life and Antidote with that Offering of himself once made he will expiate thy Filth and perfume thy Services render them acceptable to God give thee a Right to Heaven comfort thee in all thy Tribulations and call to thy Soul Be of good chear thy Sins are forgiven thee 7. He broke the Bread to let us know that his Death would break the Wrath of God allay his Anger pacifie his Justice and satisfie for the Affront his Holiness had suffered from the Sins of Men and make way for the Penitent's Admission to God's Bosom This is St. Bernard's Observation and the Mystery is rational for by his Death he broke the Power of him who had the Power of Death Heb. 2. 14. This was the Devil who got that Power by Man's Apostacy which provoked the Almighty's Wrath and moved him to permit the Enemy to exercise that Power over Mankind who was therefore not only the Cause of Adam's Death but of all the Deaths that followed that for which Cause Christ called him a Murtherer from the Beginning Joh. 8. 44. And the Jews stile him the Angel of Death and if any extraordinary Judgments were inflicted on Men at any time he was still the Executioner Besides all this he had Power given him to fright Men with Death either violent or natural and the dreadful Consequences of it of all which Man's Apostacy was the Cause This Power given him by the Justice and Wrath of God against the Sins of Man was broken by the Death of Jesus who thereby gave all true Believers Power and Courage to undervalue these Fears and Terrours to look upon them as Bugbears and Things to fright Slaves withal since this wonderful Death brings Life and Pardon and Salvation to their Souls and makes their own Death a Passage to the full Possession of the Joys to come 8. He broke the Bread prophetically to fore-tell what Miracles would happen at his Death how the Veil of the Temple would rend the Rocks break and the Graves burst their Bonds and open even then when Men's Hearts would be harder than Flints more impenetrable than Stones more insensible than Adamants less tractable than the Earth more rigid than the Grave and less relenting than inanimate Creatures 9. He broke the Bread Why may not we think that hereby he signified the Breaches and Divisions that through the Passions and various Interests of Men would happen in future Ages in the Church upon the Account of this Sacrament What Strife what Bitterness what Contentions hath this Ordinance occasion'd betwixt the Eastern and Western Churches and in the Western betwixt the Papists and Protestants and among the Protestants betwixt the Lutherans and those that call themselves of the Reformed Religion Upon which Account I cannot but think of the bitter Language that both Luther and his Followers have given to the Zwinglians and Calvinists that differ'd from them in Opinion about the Supper of the Lord. Nor did the Fury stop here but in many Places where any of the Zwinglians were they were turned out imprisoned harrassed expelled driven into Exile and forced away to Sea in a severe Winter in Frost and Snow when the Winds blew hard and the Weather was exceeding tempestuous and all because they would not abjure these Six Propositions 1. That these Words Take eat this is my Body and Take drink this is my Blood must not be understood literally but typically and figuratively 2. That the Elements in the Lord's Supper are only Signs and Symbols and that Christ's Body is as far removed from the Bread in the Sacrament as Heaven is from Earth 3. That Christ is present in this Sacrament by his Virtue and Power and not with his Body as the Sun with his Light and Operation assists and refreshes the Creatures of God in this lower World 4. That the Bread in the Sacrament is the Emblem and Figure of Christ's Body and signifies and represents only 5. That Christ's Body is eaten only by Faith mounting up into Heaven not with the Mouth 6. That only true Believers do properly eat Christ's Body but wicked Men who have no lively Faith receive nothing but the bare Bread and Wine Those that would not abjure these Doctrines were used like Hereticks Fanaticks and Vagabonds By their usage one would have taken them to have been guilty of Sacrilege Murther Robbery Sedition Rebellion c. but the chief Crime it seems was because having imbibed Zwinglius and Calvin's Doctrine about the Eucharist they could not conform to the Lutheran Persuasion in that Point Wonderful Barbarity which one would scarce have expected from Heathens much less from Christians and Fellow-Protestants who together with them protested against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome Into such an unseemly Behaviour do Men precipitate themselves when they let loose the Reins of their Passions instead of becoming Repairers of Breaches they make them wider and
risen after he had been dead And how can any Man be sure there are such Words in the Bible as This is my Body if he may not believe his Eye-sight 3. This is my Body differs very much from This is Transubstantiated or Changed into my Body or Let it be changed into my Body This is my Body speaks what is already in Being not what may or shall be effective of something else To be and to be changed into a Thing are quite different Expressions And he that says a Thing is or hath a Being cannot be therefore supposed necessarily to say that it is changed or transubstantiated or shall be so for a Thing may be several Ways besides being changed That of which Christ affirms that it is his Body was the Bread he took in his Hand or that which he broke and that may be said to be his Body several Ways without being changed or transubstantiated into his Body Which very Thing hath made the wiser and more judicious Papists confess that these Words do not necessarily infer a Transubstantiation without the Decree Order and Explication of the Church upon which they chiefly build their Doctrine and Assertion And how ridiculous this Explication of their Church is any common Capacity may perceive that doth but understand Grammar and the ordinary Way of speaking in all Countries and Languages whatsoever For What can be more common than to say Such a Man is a Fox and Such a Person is a Lion and Such a Neighbour is a Beast and Such a Boy is a Tyger But doth any Man of common Sense infer from thence that such a Person is transubstantiated into a Fox or Lion or Tyger 'T is true God can do all Things but his Power is one Thing and his Will another and to believe he will do that which he hath no where said or promised to do is notorious Presumption And though we are not presently to reject a Thing because our Reason cannot comprehend it yet it is fit that what we cannot comprehend with our Reason we should be sufficiently assured of that God hath revealed it Such as is the Mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of our Lord and the future Resurrection c. And if we had but as good Ground for Transubstantiation as we have for these Mysteries not only God's express Revelation but the constant Doctrine of the Church no wise Man would dispute it Transubstantiation is a Thing which neither the Scripture nor the Primitive Church did ever acknowledge And there being nothing in the Word of God to establish it and being besides contrary to all Sense and Reason we must be first given up to believe a Lye as some 〈◊〉 it seems are 2 Thess. 2. 11. before we can give 〈◊〉 unto it It were endless to repeat here all the Contradictions and Absurdities that this Doctrine may be charged with for Mice and Vermine will eat the consecrated Wafer if it lies in their Way It destroys not only the Nature of Christ's Body but a principal Article of our Belief too which saith That Christ is ascended and sitteth at the Right Hand of God whom the Heavens must receive until the Time of the Restitution of all Things Act. 3. 21. Not to mention that the Apostle calls the Bread in the Sacrament even after Consecration Bread still 1 Cor. 11. And that this Doctrine crosses the Nature of a Sacrament and is confuted by Christ's saying Do this in remembrance of me which supposes that he is absent as to his Body which was crucified c. Nor will that Place Joh. is 55. My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed do any great Service to our Adversaries in this Controversie For if it be Meat indeed how doth that infer that the Bread must needs be transubstantiated into his Flesh since his Flesh may be Meat indeed several Ways For to all true Believers that take Comfort in his Death and are released from Sin and the Snares of the Devil by his Flesh that was nailed to the Cross he may be truly said to be Meat indeed and Drink indeed because their Souls are comforted by the Remembrance of it and preserved to Eternal Life and though he be only spiritual Meat to them yet he is so indeed and really and in a very good Sense As we say of a comfortable Word spoken to a troubled Conscience That that Word is Meat and Drink to it indeed and doth it more Good than all the Meat and Drink in the World would have done And that all that Discourse John 6. is to be understood of Spiritual Meat and Drink whereby the Soul receives comfort and refreshment Christ himself hath declared Joh. 6 63. II. As these words This is my Body do not infer a Transubstantiation so neither do they import a Consubstantiation a word as hard as the former and which hath been taken up by the Lutheran Protestants to express their Opinion that Christ's Glorified Body is in with and under the Element of the Bread in the Holy Sacrament or hid under it a Doctrine which they ground upon the Ubiquity of Christ's Body or being every where and in all places which Priviledge they fancy was communicated to Christ's Human Nature by its being joyn'd with the Divine a thing so irrational that hereby they confound the Divine Nature with the Human And to say that Christ had a Body which as all other Bodies must have Dimensions heighth and breadth and depth and length and yet to make that Body every where present is a conclusion so weak that I am apt to believe that if it had not been pitch'd upon by Luther in a heat or passion he would never have embraced it For indeed this was the infirmity of that excellent Man who tho' otherwise very much mortified in his desires after the Riches Honours and Glories of the World yet could not endure to be contradicted nor yield to another Man's Opinion tho' much sounder because himself was not the first inventer of it And by what I can see from History this was one great reason why he differ'd from Zwinglius in the point of the Holy Sacrament and embraced Consubstantiation which implies as is said already that the Body of Christ is hid under the substance of the Bread a Point that transported him into very great passion which made him afterward upon his Death-bed deplore That he had been too hot in his Controversie He that gave the first hint of this Opinion was John Gerson Chancellor of Paris who about the time of the Council of Constance not being able to digest the absolute Doctrine of Transubstantiation and finding that Assertion to be full of Blasphemy and Idolatry found out this expedient as he thought That Christ as he was a Creature and had a Body finite could not be at one and the same time in divers places yet being united to the Divine Nature in one Person the Human Nature by that conjunction had
beautifie the Meek with Salvation Let the Saints be joyful in Glory let them sing aloud upon their Beds let them praise the Name of the Lord for his Name alone is excellent his Glory is above the Earth and Heaven III. See here how rich a Meal God the Father prepares for our Souls even the crucified Body of his Son Shall we look upon that Celestial Food with dull and careless Thoughts Can we behold this costly Bread and forbear crying out Lord for ever give us that Bread Christian if thou meanest to be saved by the crucified Body of thy Lord thou must needs eat of it Not only thy Mouth must eat the Sacramental Bread and chew it but thy Soul must ascend and employ her self in eating of the crucified Body represented by that Bread Thy Soul thy Mind thy Will thy Affections must have the greatest Share in eating at this Table Thy Body hath little to do here that is only the Chariot that brings thy Soul to this Banquet Thy Soul not being engaged and busie here in Thinking Admiration Resolution Love and Joy the Cringes and Bowings of thy Body will be insignificant The End of our common Eating is Assimilation and in our ordinary Meals we therefore eat Food agreeable to our Bodies that it may be united to our Substance mingle with our Blood and become one with our Bodies So here our Souls must feed on the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus that we may become one with him All Creatures may be said to be one with Christ as he is God as he is their Creator in which respect he fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence and is not far from every one of us and in him we live and breath and have our Being Nay in a more particular manner every Professor of Christianity may be said to be one with him as he professes the same Religion which Christ taught his Disciples But this is not the Union aimed at in this Sacrament nor can the Union which respects our Profession only give any great Comfort to a Christian. The Union designed by this Sacrament is effected by the Spirit of Christ Jesus and the Soul that unfeignedly see◠here on the crucified Body of her Master gets the same Spirit that dwelt in her crucified Lord which produces the same Graces in her that shined in that great Shepherd of Souls and the same Mind the same Temper the same Disposition in substance at least though not in the same Degree is effected and produced in her by this Spirit as we see Rem 8. 11. Phil. 2. 5. And this is that Union every true Communicant is to aim at and from hence flows a Communion with Christ in all his Privileges and Glories whereby the Soul is raised up together with Christ and made to sit together with him in Heavenly Places though not by way of actual Enjoyment as yet but by getting a Right and Title to those Privileges as the Apostle informs us Ephes. 2. 6. By feeding on this crucified Body the Soul is nourished and gathers Strength against her spiritual Enemies becomes bold in Temptations resolute in Dangers couragious in spiritual Enterprizes The Soul that comes to feed on this crucified Body and comes not with this Intent comes in vain comes only to stare upon the Cross but not to be refreshed by it The Soul that after the Sacrament yields wilfully to the same Temptations it did before is ensnared by the same sinful Pleasure that ruin'd it before is led Captive by the same Lusts that intangled her before certainly feeds not on the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus because the Contemplation of that Crucifixion works no suitable Effects which if it did the Soul would unfeignedly destroy the Body of Sin according to the Apostle's Rule Rom. 6. 6. and offer up her Body a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God as it is said Rom. 12. 1. Make the Body obedient to Reason and Sense to Faith and the Flesh to the Spirit and it would keep under the Body and bring it into Subjection as St. Paul did 1 Cor. 9. 27. i. e. it would deny the Body those Satisfactions which are manifest Hindrances to the Things of the Spirit it would force it to Temperance to Hardships to Industry and Laboriousness in God's Service it would strive and take care that the Body might become a Temple of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. 〈◊〉 what the Soul doth in this Ordinance would leave such a Sense upon us as would not only enable but constrain us to glorifie God both in Body and Soul as the Scripture requires 1 Cor. 6. 20. These are the blessed Effects of eating the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus And the Soul that feeds on that Body will find these happy Consequences it will not go away empty from this Meal and though for the present it doth not see all these Effects yet there is that Impression made on her by this Eating that these Effects will afterward discover themselves in her Life and Conversation The PRAYER O My God! What Care dost thou take of my immortal Soul that it may not starve Thou hast made large Provision for my Body in the Earth in the Air and in the Water The Earth brings forth Herbs and Roots and Cattel to feed it The Air affords Fowl and Feather'd Creatures to nourish it The Water provides Fish for it But none of all these can satisfie my Soul that must have a spiritual Diet and rather than it shall want thou hast given thine own Son to be her Food O mysterious Love Can I after tbis have low and mean Thoughts of thy Goodness O sweetest Jesu if my Soul feeds not on thee if must die and be separated from thy glorious Presence for ever If it feeds on thee it is made for ever Oh! be thou my most beloved and most delightful Food Thy crucified Body alone can keep my Soul from fainting Thy Death must yield me Life Thy Sufferings must give me Joy Thy Agonies must afford me Comfort Thy Torments must work mine Ease Thy Nails and Thorns must be my Bed of Roses Nothing else can give my Soul Rest. When the Snares of Death and Hell encompass me I will lay hold on these Horns of the Altar here I shall be safe safer than in the Arms of Angels Thou that diedst for me livest for ever to intercede for me and having such an Advocate I may come boldly to the Throne of Grace O let me not survey this glorious Provision made for my Soul with carnal Eyes O let me ponder seriously not with flying and transient but with steady and fixed Thoughts how thou hast favoured how thou hast loved how thou hast dignified this miserable Soul of mine that I may rejoyce in thee for ever and ever Amen CHAP. XII Of remembring Christ in this Sacrament or doing what we do here in remembrance of him The CONTENTS The Death of Christ Jesus the principal thing to be
a ransom for me a mercy without which I could neither have been safe nor happy and a share in which must needs be more to me than the wealth of Kings What can be more reasonable than that he should be my Master and I his Servant that he should command and I obey that he should govern and I submit that he should prescribe Laws and I act according to those Laws whatever Danger whatever Trouble whatever Inconvenience I put my self to This is the Wisdom of God or rather infused by God into the Soul and if any sort of wisdom were hinted by Christ's using Wine in this Ordinance it must be this Wisdom for this is gratitude and ingenuity and an argument that we receive not the grace of God in vain 4. Wine hath briskness and spirit in it and might not this be an Item to tell us how lively and vigorous our Love should be to Christ Jesus and how like new Wine our Love should be ready to burst the bottles at least vent it self in some such ejaculations Oh Jesu how sweet how lovely how amiable art thou how full of Beauty how full of Glory how full of Majesty in the midst of all thy pain and sorrow Thy wounds look dismal yet was never any thing more medicinal never did any thing afford greater virtue for they can cure sin they are preservatives from Hell and the surest Amulets against inffection from these the costly Balsom flows that must restore my wounded Soul Oh how I love thee Oh how I prize thee Oh how I esteem thee Thou art more to me than Father or Mother more than Lands or Houses I read of Fountains that flow'd with Oyl when thou wast born but that 's no comfort to me Thy wounds are the springs that send forth an Oyl precious and sweet and odoriferous whereby the diseases of my Heart are expell'd This is the Oyl of gladness anoint my Head with it and from thence let it run down to the skirts of my cloathing that my whole Man may be thine and my Soul and Body and all I have may participate of thy grace and compassion 5. Wine is cleansing too and might not this be an hint of the purifying quality of the Blood of the Holy Jesus Surely that Blood cleanses us from all sins it washes whiter than Snow Fullers-Earth is not to be compar'd with it Though the Sinner wash himself with Nitre and take much Soap to purifie his Soul yet that will not take away one spot still his iniquity will be mark'd before God but the Blood of Christ will make him clean so clean that God will spy no iniquity in Jacob and no perverseness in Israel so clean that no wrinkle shall appear in him one would think nothing could have been more filthy than some sinners have been yet upon their Repentance the Blood of Christ hath so purified so cleans'd so beautified their Souls that even Angels have fall'n in love with them VI. That Christ made use of a Cup in the distributition of the Wine we have already taken notice of but whether there might not be some mystery in his making use of a Cup and no other Vessel is a thing worth our consideration And. 1. The Prophets had spoken of a Cup of trembling and of a Cup of God's fury Es. 51. 17. Jerem. 25. 15 17 18. This Cup the Jewish Nation was to drink of their Commonwealth and Policy was to be destroy'd and inexpressible Calamities were to light on them and the second Captivity was to be worse than the first as their Sins that caused the second were greater than those which occasioned the first Miseries so great that when Christ beheld the City he wept over it and said The days will come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation Luk. 19. 41 43 44. This was the Cup of astonishment that unhappy Nation was to drink of so that his making use of a Cup was an allusion to that misery for now the time drew near and they were going to do that which would hasten their ruin viz. kill the Lord of Glory and their greatest Friend 2. Himself was to drink the Cup of the Lord's fury to atone for the Sins both of Jews and Gentiles and of this the Cup he took was an Emblem He had generously and freely undertaken to open to Mankind a way to God's Favour This way could not be made considering the Decree of God but by his Sufferings and and accordingly we find him drinking so deep of this Cup that in the Garden of Gethsemane he falls into an Agony and his Sweat was as it were great drops of Blood falling to the ground Luk. 22. 44. That which made this Cup so bitter was the greatness of the sins of Mankind and the dreadful wrath of God they had deserv'd particularly the monstrous sins of the Jewish Nation to whom the first offers of Grace were made and the unspeakable temporal calamities which were to come upon them for their perfidiousness and contempt of the greatest mercies and their total desolation and destruction for their hardness and wilful stupidity These as they were represented to his Mind in a lively manner so it caused prodigious Grief in his Soul insomuch that he profess'd his Soul was sorrowful unto death This was a Cup the most loathsome that ever mortal did take and therefore he calls it by that name Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Luke 22. 42. He takes therefore a Cup here that his Followers in future ages might think of the Cup he had drunk of with so much terror and consternation A Cup he took to let us see that the Cup he took in this Sacrament was the true Cup of Salvation we find mention made of a Cup of Salvation and of a Cup of Consolation Psal. 116. 13. and Jer. 16. 7. But the Cup in this Sacrament is of a far greater virtue The Cup of Salvation among the Jews was either the Cup of Wine they made use of in the Passover or the Cup they drank of at Festivals or Feasts when they rejoyced with their Friends after some signal Mercy and Deliverance The Cup of Consolation was properly that which they gave to Mourners at Funerals especially where People took on excessively for the death of their near Relations or were ready to sink with Grief But the Cup in this Sacrament is a Cup of Salvation and Consolation in a sublimer Sense By the Blood of Christ Mankind was made capable of inheriting Life and Eternal Salvation which is beyond being saved from Egypt from the Midianites from the Assyrians and from the Chaldeans so that he that drinks of this Blood contain'd in the Sacramental
it it must stand and last as long as those assaults do last The Apostle therefore makes mention of sincere Christians that will be alive at Christ's coming to Judgment 1 Thess. 4. 17. And consequently the Church will last till then and if the Church is to last to the Worlds end the Marks of that Church must last as long It 's true Holiness of life is one Mark but that 's not all the Marks the Christ's Church must have The Sacraments are Marks too and Marks whereby it may be better known than by Holiness not but that Holiness is the principal Ornament of the Church but as those that are to joyn themselves unto the Church are generally more inquisitive after the Constitutions and Ordinances of it and the means whereby that Holiness is effected than after any thing else so this Sacrament being part of those means and therefore one of the necessary Marks it must last to the end of the World as much as the Church it self and as long as there is any probability of Mens joyning themselves to the Church and by this means Holiness of Life is signally promoted as experience sufficiently witnesses As Christians in general so the Church of Christ or the respective Societies of Christians professing Christ's Doctrine and imitation of his life are compared to a City set on a Hill and which cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Not that Christ's Church must always appear outwardly Magnificent and Glorious thereby to attract the Eyes of Spectators no but that the purity of Doctrine and sound Preaching of the Word and the due administration of the Holy Sacraments together with innocence of Life must make it visible and this it may be under the greatest persecution and when a severe Tempest falls upon her by these Marks she may still be known and if these are her Marks these Marks must last as long as the Church it self III. The term therefore to which this Holy Sacrament is to last even Chrst's coming to Judgment may very justly be taken into consideration in receiving of the Blessed Eucharist I hinted so much Ch. 1. Fa. 9. But must upon this occasion enlarge upon it For 1. This consideration will help to encourage us to Patience under reproaches Injuries and Mens unrighteous dealing with us It serves to quiet the Soul to think that Christ knows my Sufferings aud the Injuries that are done me and sees my Integrity and Innocence and will clear me in the last day before the whole World What need I resent such an affront when the Son of God takes notice of it and if I am patient under it will in that great day plead my Cause set the Sinners Transgression if he repents not before his Eyes and confound him not that I am to wish that confusion of the offender but my consideration that Christ will actually do it may promote my contentedness under that affliction What need I revile my Persecutors when he for whose sake I endure that persecution will sufficiently vindicate me in that day for it is a righteous thing with God to recompense Tribulation to those that trouble you saith St. Paul 2. Thes. 1. 6 7 8. This Judge will at last discover how Men were mistaken in us how unjust there Censures were what sinister Constructions they put upon our Actions how malicious their Slanders were how unjust the Punishments they inflicted on us how inhuman how contrary to Charity all their ill Lauguage was He shall bring forth our Righteousness as the Light and our Judgment as the Noon-day Psal 37. 6. and this consideration must needs be very effectual to promote Patience 2. This Consideration will help to increase our confidence and arm us against distrust and diffidence for if the powers of darkness would fright us from laying hold on Christ's Merits because he will be a very severe Judge in the last day the timerous Christian may answer thus True he will be my Judge but he hath promised to be a Father too to those that fear him He 'll be my Judge Indeed but he is a Judge of my Flesh and of my Bone and who will have regard to my infirmities He 'll be my Judge but he is my Head withal who will be tender of his Members He 'll be my Judge but he is a merciful High Priest withal who will be my Advocate and answer the Objections I cannot confute I will cling to his Precepts I will not wickedly depart form him I will express my Love to him in Holy Obedience I will dread his Judgments and make his Mercy a motive to Purification I will not give place to the Devil I will fight against his Temptations I will stand upon my watch I will not lie asleep in the Bed of Sin I will get up if I chance to fall I will rise again when I am overtaken in a fault I will accuse my self and beg his pardon I will endeavour to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith I am called with all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering I will not take part against him with his Enemies This is the work I have resolved upon according to this Rule I will walk and such a Soul I know this Gracious Judge will not cast away nor condemn what inadvertencies I may run into I will not justifie but strive against them and I doubt not but his Cross will cover them while my Heart is sincere and my Soul is ever toward him This Judge will absolve me he will deal favourably with me as with a person whom he hath redeemed I will look upon the Promises and apply them He hath promised that he will not take away his kindness utterly from such as love him while I live I will love him and I question not but as severe as he is to the obstinate and untractable he will visit me with everlasting kindness The Preceding Considerations improved and reduced to Practise I. O Let us admire the Goodness of God and his marvellous care of our everlasting welfare He sees how slippery our Natures are how fickle how mutable how changeable how apt to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered to them and therefore he ties us in Bonds in Covenants and in Sacraments of of Virtue whereof the Lord's Supper is the strongest the greatest and most Sacred and therefore the best defensative and guard against the encroachments of Temptations insomuch that he who can break through this Mound and will not be kept in by Arguments drawn from the Death of Christ but in despight of the Blood of the Covenant he hath drunk and sealed his Promise with will plunge himself into known sins that Man's case is desperate that Man is truly resolved to be miserable and will die though the Lord Jesus call to him from the Cross Live in thy Blood live He that can Swear and Vow to God in this Sacrament vow upon the Body and Blood of Christ that he 'll be Drunk no more and Swear no more
Ordinance in thy Church and ordained it as a means whereby thy loving Members may come in the unity of the Faith unto a perfect Man It shall be established for ever as the Moon and as a faithful witness in Heaven Give me O give me perseverance in the use of it O Jesu Thou art the promised Seed the promised Messiah the promised desire of all Nations Thou art the fruitful Vine and by the precious Liquor that drops from thee innumerable Souls are cherished and refreshed Thy Sacred Name is as Ointment poured out I smell the rich composition My Soul doth gather strength and life from that perfume I am the wounded Man that 's fallen among Thieves O let thy Blood heal me of my Plagues Thou hast been lifted up to the Cross that the Enemy of Mankind might be troden down O let me participate of the Virtue of that exaltation that I may trample upon his Temptations Thou hast been lifted up to draw me after Thee and to withdraw my Heart from worldly Desires and Affections O lift me up from the Earth that I may relish the comfort of thy Exaltation Thou wast lifted up that thou mightest be beheld by all O let me look upon Thee whom I have pierced by my Sins that I may mourn for them bitterly Thy Holy Arms were stretched out that thou mightest embrace all that come unto Thee I come Lord Take me into thy Arms and love me O let thy Cross be my security against all my Enemies Let thy Wounds be my refuge in the hour of Temptation Let that innocent Blood that dropt from thy Hands and Feet and Side wash away the spots and stains of my abominable Actions Henceforward my Hands and my Heart shall be lifted up in Prayer and Praise and Love and Devotion O direct me and give me grace to obey thy Directions and leave me not till I am past all danger O see me safe through the wilderness of this World that I may for ever Admire and Adore Thee in thy Everlasting Kingdom Amen CHAP. XVII Of Eating and Drinking unworthyly in this Ordinance and the Guilt the unworthy Receiver incurs thereby The CONTENTS Both good and bad Men frighted witb the thoughts of Eating and Drinking unworthily but the good without just cause Wherein unworthy Eating and Drinking doth not consist shewn in Thirteen particulars with the reasons of the assertion and wherein it doth consist The danger of unworthy Eating and Drinking proved to lie in making our selves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. How Men involve themselves in that guilt discovered A great difference betwixt Receiving unworthily and being not worthy to Receive The great imprudence and Weakness of those that are loath to depart with their Sins and therefore are unwilling to come for fear they should make themselves guilty of the Death of Christ and of Damnation The impudence and boldness of others who come to this Sacrament receive unworthily and are not concerned at their danger The Joys and Comforts which arise from Receiving worthyly The Prayer I. THough from the Premises the Reader may easily guess what is it to Eat and Drink unworthyly and though in Ch. 4. some general notions concerning it have been laid down yet since it is a point which frights not only bad Men but even some of those who are otherwise piously inclin'd from coming to the Lord's Table it will be necessary to give a distinct explication it that neither the bad may think they gain any thing by abstaining nor the good be discouraged from coming As bad Men have no sense of Spiritual things which makes them live merrily in neglect of commanded Duties so not a few of those whose hearts are tender are apt to discompose their minds with needless scruples whereby they too often deprive themselves of the comforts they might reap from God's Ordinances and besides expose themselves to strong Temptations of the Devil who takes pleasure to see good Men in confusion hoping that one time or other they may fall into his net and when they know not how to extricate themselves out of their Labyrinths will shake of the Yoak of all Religion and become his Votaries run into the the other extream and turn either careless or Prophane To prevent these and other dangers it will be convenient to discourse of this Eating and Drinking unworthily first Negatively what it is not and secondly what it is and wherein the sin consists And therefore II. To Eat and Drink unworthily is not 1. To Eat and Drink at this Table with a weak Faith By a weak Faith I mean such a belief of the truth and necessity of the things commanded in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as makes the Soul ready and willing to do the things required of her but is attended with great fears and doubts with wavering and inconstancy and this weakness proceeds not so much from want of will to submit to Christ as from want of understanding either the extent of the Grace of God or the nature of the Gospel of peace or the design of God in his Providences or the Latitude of true Christian Liberty which defect must needs cause great mistrusts of our safety danger of being scandaliz'd with little things and unsteddiness in Holy Duties as we see Rom. 14. 1 2. c. yet this weakness of Faith doth not make a Man an unworthy receiver 1. Because Christ is willing to receive such into favour and he express'd this willingness in his kind behaviour to the Man we read of Mark 9. 22. Who believed indeed but waveringly and soon after cryed out and said with Tears in his Eyes Lord I believe help thou my unbelief The Disciples of our Lord upon their first adhering to him were at the best but weak in Faith and therefore Christ calls to them so often O ye of little Faith yet he doth not therefore reject them He cherishes the very Seeds of Faith and when it is no bigger than a grain of Muster-Seed he makes much of it Though the Branches of it be but tender yet he doth not Root up the Tree or Command the Husbandman to cut it down lest it should cumber the Ground or throw it into the Fire To which purpose there is an Excellent Character given of him Esa. 40. 11. He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd and gather the Lambs with his Arms and carry them in his Bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young There are Lambs in his Flock as well as Sheep and as these two require various management so both may be confident of his tenderness All Stars do not shine alike yet even those that give not so great a brightness shall be preserved as well as the greater Luminaries Love is an acceptable present to him and though in some like fire under green Wood it burns but dimly yet he 'll quench it no more than he will the more blazing Flames But then when I say he will
can judge so well of the Convenience and Inconvenience of Things as Christ himself If Christ thought it convenient to give it him who shall say it was not so Nor could the Disciples be much surprized at it when they had so often heard their Master say that the Tâ—râ—s and Wheat must grow together until the Harvest and that the Kingdom of Heaven or the Church-Militant was like a Net containing good Fish and bad And though the Words Christ used in this Sacrament This is my Body which is given for you and This is the New Testament in my Blood which is shed for you for the Remission of Sins cannot be directly applied to Judas yet since these Blessings are promised conditionally in other places of Scripture they might belong to Judas conditionally in case he repented or brought forth Fruits meet for Repentance as they belong'd to the other Disciples absolutely because their Hearts were sincere and without Hypocrisie Nor is it strange that Christ should say in the presence of Judas I will not drink henceforth of the Fruit of the Vine until the Day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom For there is nothing more common in the Writings of the Apostles when they address themselves to a whole Church than to apply to them in general the Promises of the Gospel though true Believers only have a Right in them We remember without ceasing your Work of Faith and Labour of Love and Patience of Hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sight of God and our Father Knowing Brethren Beloved your Election of God and ye became Followers of us and of the Lord c. saith St. Paul to the whole Church of the Thessalonians 1 Thes. 1. 3 4 6. in which we may suppose there were divers Hypocrites to whom these Elogies could not properly belong And therefore when Christ spake these Words to the Disciples Judas being present it was enough that they belonged to the major part of them and those that were qualified for that Mercy might appropriate it to themselves It is confessed that Christ Matth. 7. 6. saith Give not that which is holy unto Dogs But it is evident from the Connexion of the Words that that Saying is to be understood of Reproof or Fraternal Correction which is to be superseded where Men are incorrigible and Mockers of Religion and after several Admonitions instead of being better become worse and scorn the Truth of the Gospel a Precept of the same Import with that of Solomon Prov. 9. 8. Reprove not a Scorner lest he hate thee If it were to be understood of publick Ordinances it might be applied to the Preaching of the Word as well as to the Sacrament and it would follow that wicked Men were to be banished from the one as well as the other which is absurd and contrary to the practice of the holy Apostles And what if Christ calls Judas a Devil Joh. 6. 70. Devils 't is true are incapable of Receiving this Sacrament yet we must not think that he calls him so upon any other Account but his Hellish Qualities For which Reason he says of all other wicked Men that they are of their Father the Devil Joh. 8. 44. Nay in his Reproof to Peter who was against his Suffering he calls him Satan or Devil because to be against his Suffering was to joyn with the Devil who of all things dreaded that Death as the Ruine of his Empire So that Judas was still a Man though a wicked Man yet not so wicked but that he was still capable of Repentance and in giving him this Sacrament he declared him so And though he received nothing but the external Elements yet in being admitted to the external Symbols he had an Item given him that if he had come with unfeigned Faith and Repentance he should have received the Promise too And that Christ offered him these Symbols was to tell his Followers how it would be with their Congregations in time to come and how Wolves as well as Sheep would present themselves at this Table But it is usually pleaded that if it be granted that Judas was present at this Sacrament yet still he had a good Out-side he was far from being a scandalous Sinner so that the Congregation could not be offended But this Argument is of no weight at all for whether he were a scandalous Sinner or no as long as Christ had declared him a Devil and a Traytor it was as much as if he had been a scandalous Sinner and the Disciples might be as confident of it as if they had seen him run into Excess of Riot So that Judas being present at the Sacrament and his Presence not interfering with the worthy Receiving of the other Disciples it follows that another Man receiving unworthily cannot make us that come with suitable Vertues unworthy Receivers And yet after all this I would not be understood as if scandalous Sinners were not to be separated from this holy Table by those whose Office it is to forbid and hinder them For tho' Christ suffered Judas to be present thereby prophetically to fore-tell how in future Ages notwithstanding all the Care that should be taken Hypocrites and Sinners would mingle with the Good and Sincere in this Sacrament yet this contradicts not the Commission he gave to the Apostles to do all things decently and in order of which orderly part this is one great Rule 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such an one no not to eat 'T is confessed that this is to be understood of common Meals However the Consequence is very easie if we are not to eat with such at common Tables we are to forbear eating with them at the Lord's Table But then 't is fit withal that the Church should excommunicate such Persons first that there may be a Mark set upon them whereby we may know them to be so and avoid their Company If the Church either by reason of the Multitude of such Sinners or for want of sufficient Information cannot or through Neglect doth not a private Christian is not therefore to be scandalized at such Persons when they come to the Sacrament nor think himself therefore an unworthy Communicant because such are present there being no publick Mark set upon them whereby he is authorized not to eat with them The Church indeed doth as good as formally excommunicate all such when in her Admonition or Exhortation before the Sacrament She declares Therefore if any of you be a Blasphemer of God an Hinderer or Slanderer of his Word an Adulterer or be in Malice or Envy or any other grievous Crime repent you of your Sins or else come not to this holy Table lest after the Taking of this holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you as he enter'd into Judas and fill you full of all Iniquities and bring
importunity Not the later but the former makes the Communicant an unworthy Receiver For 1. Hereby the Holy Spirit is excluded from taking possession of our Souls a Guest the Soul hath reason to make preparation for and from whose Presence it may date its fruitfulness and happiness Serious Thoughts invite him to our House and are the best attractives of that Glorious Light These are the Bed where he sows his noble Seed and on these he moves more powerfully than he did on the Waters of the first Creation by these we caress illapses and court his kinder irradiations As God's Majesty is described Psal. 104 3. That he makes the Clouds his Chariot and walks upon the Wings of the Wind so it may be said of Holy Thoughts in this Sacrament they are the Chariot and Vehicle on which the Spirit of the Holy Jesus makes his entrance into our Soul These dispose the Soul for his Gracious Communications and put her into a capacity of being Blessed and Enlightned by him where he spies these he addresses himself to the Soul in the language of the Spiritual Bridegroom Cant. 5. 1. I am come into my Garden my Sister my Spouse I have gathered my Myrrhe with my Spice I have eaten my Hony-comb with my Hony I have drank my Wine with my Milk Eat O friends yea drink abundantly my Beloved Which are nothing but Rhetorical Expressions of the Gracious Influences the Spirit of God is willing to confer on the Soul that makes preparation for him sweeps the House of the Rubbish of vain Imaginations and by Pious Contemplation makes the Chamber ready for his Entertainment and tho' these Expressions run all in the strain of the Perfect Tense yet in Holy Writ the Perfect and the Future Tenses are used promiscuously and as the Future many times stands for the Perfect so the Perfect Tense very often stands for the Future and the future Blessings are expressed by what is past to assure us of the certainty of them and that the Soul hath no more reason to doubt of them than if it did already actually enjoy then 2. Want of serious Thoughts is a kind of prophanation of this Ordinance Profanation of Holy Things consists not only in reviling and reproaching or actual perverting them to what is ill and forbidden but also in not using of them with that decency and seriousness which ought to be the proper Concomitants of them The Jews therefore Mal. 1. 12 13. are said to profane the House of the Lord not because they turned it as their Fore-fathers into a Den of Thieves or Mansion of Idolatry but because they did not bring suitable Oblations and those they brought were brought with an unwilling Mind and they look'd upon the Service of God as tedious and wearisome and did not offer such Incense as was pure nor such Sacrifices as were whole and sound and without blemish And certainly not only he prophanes God's Name that tears it with his Oaths and Curses and Blasphemies but he also that gives it not the Honour that is due to it Profanation of the Lord's Day is not only to sit Drinking and Revelling at home or to spend it in Play and Sports and Pastimes and Rioting and Drunkenness but not to sanctifie it by publick and private Devotion and if so not to bring Holy Thoughts to this Ordinance to the Altar of God and to the Cross of Christ must be a Profanation of these Mysteries as he that puts no Oil to the Lamp extinguishes its Light as much as he that blows it out Holy Thoughts are part of that Honour and Veneration we owe to this Ordinance and as Men count it an affront not only to be beaten but not to have that respect given them which is due to their Rank and Quality so God hath for greater reason to look upon it as a profanation of this Sacrament where Men bring not with them Thoughts pertinent to the Majesty and Holiness of the wonderful Things manifested and represented here and he that profanes this Ordinance cannot be supposed to Eat and Drink worthily IV. But it is not enough to give an exact description of the Sin the danger of it is the next thing we must speak of And this St. Paul says 1 Cor. 11. 27. is making our selves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. A great guilt certainly to be counted a murtherer of the Son of God and to be reckon'd among Jews and Infidels that embru'd their hands in the Blood of the ever Blessed Jesus for so much the Apostle's words import and if the unworthy Receiver incurs this guilt he needs no other argument to discourage him from his Sin and Impiety The Charge is dreadful nor must we therefore think that it is only spoke in Terrorene to fright People as we terrifie Children with strange things not that there are such things in being but to make them desist from their unlucky Enterprize or Frowardness No God need not make use of Bugbears nor must we imagine that what he saith hath the least shadow of untruth As dreadful as this Charge is he means what he says and speaks what he thinks and unworthy Receiving is neither more nor less than making our selves guilty of the Body and Blâ—â—d of the Lord Jesus And how this is done by him that Eats and Drinks unworthily deserves consideration 1. He that Eats and Drinks unworthily makes himself guilty of denying that the Body and Blood of Christ was sacrific'd for him As they that dishonour the Christian Râ—ligion by their covetousness and unrighteousness and lewd practices are said To deny the Lord that bought them 2 Pet. 2. 1. because they live as if Christ had not bought them or had not redeem'd them from Iniquity So the unworthy Receiver being loth to mortifie his known and voluntary Sins even in the act of Receiving denies that Christ was Sacrific'd for him His unwillingness to reform is a tacit denial of the Mercy and a Sign that he doth not believe it heartily For the Holy Ghost supposes that he who believes it with any seriousness will be affected with it and stand amaz'd at this Act of God even at this infinite immense unsearchable and incomprehensible Love that he who needs not the society of Men or Angels and can be Etenally happy without them should yet have that value and respect for Mankind who were his Prisoners and had forfeited their Lives to his Justice were the objects of his Wrath and had justly deserv'd to be banish'd from his Gracious Presence for ever as to find out a remedy whereby they might be restored to his Favour freed from their slavish Condition and admitted to his Bosom and such a Remedy as might at once assert his Justice and declare his Mercy and in order thereunto freely generously and without compulsion part with the Eternal Son of his Bosom prepare a Body for him a Body which might be capable of Dying and fall a Sacrifice at once
assert God's just Anger against Sin and keep off the fatal blow from Man at once defend God'ds Right and establish Man's Felicity and thereby put the poor miserable Worm in a capacity of becoming Heir to the Riches of God who was an Heir of the Treasures of Wrath and a companion of Blessed Spirits who had deserv'd to howl with Apostate Spirits a Child of Light who was a Son of Darkness and a Servant of Righteousness who was a Slave of Sin I say the Holy Ghost supposes that he that seriously believes all this will think nothing too good for God will not stand out against so great a Mercy will fight no more against so great and so good a Master but will submit to him be ready to run at his Commands give himself up to the Will of so great a Benefactor and will be hearty and sincere in serving him Now the unworthy Receiver being so far from doing this so far from turning to God with all his heart and with all his mind that he refuses the Dominion of God will be a Slave to his Sin still and had rather obey the Devil than this most bountiful Master who hath done so much for him by doing so denies that Christ's Body and Blood was sacrific'd for him for if he believ'd it he could not do as he doth and tho' he may protest by all that 's Good and Sacred that he believes it yet Words and Compliments will not absolve him and if talking were believing no Man that professes Christianity would ever be damn'd What doth a Malefactor's pleading at the Bar that he is not guilty signifie when the Evidences are strong and the Matter of Fact is prov'd against him Belief that doth not touch the Heart or renew the Mind or spiritualize the Affections is mere Infidelity and where this Belief is not to be found the Sinner is accused of denying the Mercy he pretends to believe And to this purpose saith the Apostle They profess that they know God but in their works they deny him Tit. 1. 16. So that the unworthy Receiver i. e. He that receives and yet will not reform whatever his Profession may be in his Actions he denies that Christ was Sacrific'd for him and therefore makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 2. He Eats and Drinks unworthily makes himself guilty of jesting with the Body and Blood of Christ As the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis speak He plays with the most tremendous things for in coming he seems to confess that by the Death of the Son of God his miserable Soul was redeem'd and a Pardon purchas'd for him and the Heavens made to bow to him and the good Will of God procur'd to save him for ever and yet he doth not think all this worth forsaking a sinful Lust or shaking a pleasing Dalilah from his Bosom and what is this but playing with the Body and Blood of Christ Should a Man make a very curious Harangue in commendation of his Neighbour compare him with Salomon for Wisdom with David for Sincerity with Jonathan for Faithfulness with Josiah for Piety for Generosity with Moses for Chastity with Joseph for Patience with Job with St. Paul for Courage with St. Peter for Zeal with Absolom for Beauty with Zacheus for Charity with Abraham for Hospitality nay with Angels for clearness of Understanding and for Purity of Life with Seraphim And when he hath done abuse and reproach him or do that which he cannot but know must be offensive and irksome or prejudicial to him gives the Spectator just occasion to think that all that flanting Panegyric was only a jocular thing design'd rather as an essay of Wit than as any real affection to the Virtues of the commended Party The unworthy Receiver doth in effect the same for his coming to this Sament is a tacit Commendation of Christ's Crucified Body and Blood whereby he seems to applaud the wonderful Works that Christ hath done for him and to proclaim to all the standers by what an Obligation that Death is to mortifie the body of Sin and to be true and faithful to him that did not count his Life dear to do him good and yet having no real purpose within whatever external Declaration he may make to become a new Man but after he hath been at this Table when temptations assault him temptations to his former sins yields to them as easily as ever plainly declares he was in jest when he seem'd to magnifie this Munificence of his Saviour and from hence it must follow that he is guilty of playing with the Body and Blood of Christ. 3 He that Eats and Drinks unworthily seems to wish that Christ may dye again and upon that account is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord for in that Christ's Death is not efficacious to pull down the strong holds of Sin in him or rather in that he will not let that death prevail with him to the mortifying of his sinful Lusts he seems to wish for an iteration of that Death which may be more powerful and have a greater influence upon the destruction of his Sin It is a Declaration as it were that the Death of Christ as the case stands doth no good upon him and therefore since the Death of the Son of God must be the means to break the power of Sin in him he stands in need of another death of that Saviour which may do greater miracles upon his Soul or sinful Temper Christ's Death indeed must break the reigning power of Sin but then a Person in whom this effect is to be wrought must apply that Death think upon it warm his Heart with the Consideration of it ruminate upon the Motives of it and upon the greatness of his own Sin that occasioned it and upon the vast Advantages that flow from that Death and be restless with God to make it effectual to his Soul For to think that this Death will do the work without our Labour or Industry or pondering the weight and moment of it is to imagine that God will deal with us as with Brutes that have no understanding As Christ died once in the end of the World so his Death spreads his Virtue to all Penitents from the beginning to the end of the World But wherever it works a serious Reformation it must be improv'd by Faith and Thoughts and Prayer and Contemplation and should Christ dye a thousand times if these means be neglected his dying so often would signifie little to the inconsiderate Spectator This is the monstrous Fancy of some Men that they hope the Mysteries of Religion will or must change their Hearts without any trouble of their own which Conceit must needs make them contemptible in the sight of an All-wise God who sees them neglect the Powers and Faculties he hath given them The unworthy Receiver therefore finding no good by this Death of the Lord Jesus for it makes no alteration in his
Life for the better looks as it were for a new Sacrifice for Sin and since he will not be purged from his known Sins by the Blood of Jesus which hath been already spilt if he hath any hopes of being purified from his Sin in order to the obtaining of Eternal Happiness seems to desire a more effectual Death of that great Mediator which may against his Will drag him away from his sinful courses and thereby would have Christ suffer and be kill'd again and consequently makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 4. He that Eats and Drinks unworthily kills the Lord Jesus You will say This is impossible Christ being in Heaven and incapable of any such Act of Violence No more could Saul if you understand it according to the Letter persecute him after he was glorified yet the voice that came to him in his way to Damascus said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Act. â— 4. The same may be said of an unworthy Receiver he cannot strictly speaking kill the Lord Jesus yet being unwilling to venture upon a change of Life under all the Abjurations of a bleeding Redeemer that stubborness is Death to Christ as God said to the Jews Ezek. 6. 9. I am broken with your whorssh Heart So may the Saviour of the World cry to the Communicant that comes to remember his Death and will not die to his known Sins Thou piercest thou woundest thou killest me by thy obstinate and refractory temper as we say of a tender Father that the ill course his disobedient Son takes is death to him because it is as grievous to him as if one should attempt to take away his Life The unworthy Receiver by being loth to conform to the Rules of the Gospel in his Practices even while he beholds as it were Christ Crucified for his Sins does an Act so unworthy so disrespectful so injurious that it is as much as if he made attempts upon his Life nay he kills the preventing Grace Christ affords him and slays the good motions whereby Christ lives in him Christ is said to be in us as we are Christians and the unworthy Receiver being desirous and willing to maintain and keep his darling Sins doth thereby drive Christ out of his Heart and kill him in his own Soul for Christ and Love to a sinful Life are inconsistent and incompatible things These destroy his Life in the Soul and therefore in this Sense also the unworthy Receiver makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 5. He that eats and drinks unworthily consents to the Murther the Jews were guilty of when they killed the Lord of Life and approves of that barbarous and inhumane Act and therefore is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. He is supposed to consent to that Murther that is not sorry for if And how can he be sorry for it that is not sorry for his Sins which were the principal Cause of it The unworthy Receiver being supposed to be one that doth not heartily shake hands with a sinful Life and is loth so to renounce his known Sins as to tear them from his Heart we cannot imagine that he is heartily sorry for them for his Sorrow hath not those Effects which Godly Sorrow is said to have 2 Cor. 7. 11. For this same thing when ye sorrowed after a Godly sort what Carefulness it wrought in you Yea what clearing of your selves Yea what Indignation against Sin Yea what Fear i. e. of offending God! Yea what vehement Desire Yea what Zeal Yea what Revenge The Tree is known by its Fruits And if Sorrow for Sin must be discovered by such Effects and these Effects appear not in the Communicant as he cannot be thought to eat and drink worthily so in not being sorry for his Sins he doth not appear sorry for the Murther the Jews committed upon the Body of our Saviour his Sins being the Cause of that Murther And doth not this look like Consent or Approbation of that Murther You will say How can any Man be sorry for Christ's Death when that Death is our greatest Comfort and what Consolations the pious Soul feels it feels by virtue of that Death Shall a Man be sorry for that which God had ordain'd appointed and design'd for the Relief and Redress of our Misery If Christ had not died we had been ever wretched and unhappy and must have looked for no Friendship from above and therefore to charge Men with being guilty of his Death because they are not sorry for it seems to be both against Scripture and Reason Is any Man sorry for a Treasure he finds in the Field Or sorry for an Estate that falls to him by the Decease of a Relation Or sorry for an Act of Oblivion which a gracious Prince imparts to Offenders whereof himself is the Principal But to this the Answer is very easie for the Benefit of Christ's Death and the Mercy God intended Mankind by it must be carefully distinguished from the Instrumental Causes whereby Christ was brought to his Death which were partly our Sins and the barbarous Cruelty of the Jews The Benefit that came by the Death of Christ a Christian most certainly ought not to be sorry for but hath reason to rejoyce in Day and Night But that he was so inhumanely murther'd by the Jews and that our Sins were such abominable things in the Sight of God that to expiate them God was moved to give up his own Son to the lawless Rage of those cruel Enemies this requires our Grief and Sorrow That the Jews did commit a very heinous Sin in crucifying Christ is evident from St. Peter's Discourse or Sermon to the Murtherers Act. 3. 17 18 19. For though God hath decreed that Death as an Expedient to reconcile Man to himself and decreed not to hinder the Jews in pursuing their wicked Designs and Purposes but to make that Death an Antidote against Everlasting Death yet that doth not excuse the Jews from the Guilt of Sin in killing of him whose Cruelty God was resolved to turn to the Good of all true Penitents and sincere Believers nor a Christian from an hearty Sorrow that his Sins were the deserving Cause of it So that a Christian may at once rejoyce in Christ's Death and be sorry for it rejoyce in the unspeakable Mercies procured by it and be sorry that those stubborn Wretches did with that Cruelty dispatch him or rather that his Sins did arm those desperate Sinners to put the Lord of Life to death for the Jews could have had no power to murther him but that the Sins of Mankind crying aloud for Vengeance enabled them and gave them Strength and ministred Occasion to do it So that he that is not heartily sorry for his Sins is not heartily sorry that the Jews did murther him and therefore the unworthy Receiver not being heartily sorry for the Sins he hath lived in consents to that Murther of the Jews and upon
that Account makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Our Church therefore in her Confession before the Sacrament obliges all those that come to receive to say We do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our Mis-doings Now he that is heartily sorry for his known Sins will watch and strive against them and take heed he doth not through Carelesness rush into them again which the unworthy Receiver not being from the Heart resolved to do involves himself in that Guilt we speak of The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. HEre I cannot but take notice of the great Errour of the First Council of Toledo celebrated about the Year 400. after Christ which made a Canon that he who had no Wife but instead of a Wife a Concubine ought not to be kept or debarred from the holy Communion provided that he content himself with one Concubine and add no more 'T is evident that such a Conjunction is Filthiness and Uncleanness condemned by the Apostle Gal. 5. 19. Marriage it is not and Carnal Copulations without it are mere Fornications as we see Heb. 13. 4. And therefore such Persons if admitted to the Communion could not but eat and drink unworthily Nor doth it mend the matter that Leo I. Pope of Rome approved of that Canon for that only shews that Popes are as fallible as other Men nay more subject to mistake as they are very jealous of their Riches and Grandeur and Temporal Interest Bellarmine to excuse this Fault alledges that by Concubine in that Canon was meant nothing but a lawful Wife only married and taken without a Portion or publick Solemnity But this Conjecture must be false because both in the Civil and Canon-Laws Concubines are Persons distinguished from lawful Wives and but a better Name for Whores And as that Concil did very ill to admit such Persons that were known to live in such Sins to the Sacrament so they did as ill to prohibit Ministers Widows if they married again or took a second Husband the use of the Communion as if an honst Marriage were more scandalous than Fornication And though a Bishop or Pastor of the Church is ordered by the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. 2. to be the Husband of one Wife yet how doth it follow from thence that his Widow when he dies must never marry again II. There is a great difference betwixt Receiving unworthily and being unworthy to receive Every Man that thinks himself unworthy to receive these Mysteries is not therefore an unworthy Receiver Alas If we go to the Worthiness of the Person that comes to this Table Who of us can be said to be worthy to come before so holy so jealous so great a God Or Who of us is worthy of that incomprehensible and diffusive Love represented to us in this Ordinance If we reflect on the marvellous Purity of the Divineâ—Nature Who of us can be thought worthy to approach it The best of us have reason to cry out at the sight of that Tremendous Holiness Unclean Unclean There are few of us who have not reason to complain to use the Words of Thomas de Kempis that they are yet so carnal so worldly so unmortified in their Passions so full of disorderly Motions of the Flesh so unwatchful over their outward Senses so often entangled with vain Thoughts and Fancies so vehemently inclined to external Comforts so negligent of the Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit so prone to immoderate Laughter and Immodesty so indisposed to Tears and Compunction so strongly inclined to the Ease and Pleasures of the Flesh so dull to Strictness and an holy Zeal so curious to hear News and to see gaudy Sights so slack to embrace what is humble and low so covetous of Abundance so niggardly in giving to pious Uses so close in keeping what Providence hath bestowed upon them so inconsiderate in speaking so unbridled to Silence so loose in Manners so covetous after Gain so greedy after the Meat which perishes so deaf to the Word of God so apt to sit still so slow to labour so watchful to idle Tales so drowsie in God's Service so hasty to make an end of their Prayers so inconstant in Attention so cold in Devotion so undevout in the holy Communion so quickly discomposed so seldom wholly gathered into themselves so suddenly provoked to Anger so ready to take Displeasure at their Neighbour's Actions so prone to judge so severe in Reprehension so jolly in Prosperity so impatient in Adversity so often purposing much Good and yet performing little There are very few of us who have not reason to deplore such Defects as these and then Who can be worthy to feast with the King Invisible Immortal Blessed for evermore But it is God that makes us worthy He will not count us unworthy if we strive against these Errours if we labour to conquer them if we will not be Friends with them if we proclaim War against them if we are resolved whatever we venture to be rid of them if we will not hug them in our Bosoms if we will open the Everlasting Doors and let the King of Glory come in if we will hate what he hates and love what he loves and will continue our Hostility against those Lusts which interfere with his just Right and Prerogative He will not go to the utmost rigour with us He will deal gently with us liker a Father than a Judge To let us go on in our Offences without Remorse or a serious Care to please him he cannot and such is his Holiness that he must not He considers our Frame that we are Dust and therefore will not take advantage of every accidental Miscarriage But he considers withal that he hath given us his Gospel and Everlasting Motives and his Holy Spirit whereby we may certainly master the Corruptions we find stirring in us though not immediately yet by degrees if we are but willing and labour and wrestle and are active and do not suffer our selves to be overcome by Laziness and the Satisfactions of this present World And upon these Terms he is willing to count us worthy Receivers O Sweetness incomparable O Condescention ineffable beyond all that Kings and Princes express to their Subjects What Christian that is acquainted with this Frame this Spirit this humble and tractable Temper this Resolution and this Willingness and that feels these Characters in his Soul can after all this forbear coming upon a pretence of being unworthy Coming to this holy Table with such Purposes with such Designs with such Qualifications let him be confident that his Father his Saviour his Redeemer will bid him welcome This spiritual Frame Christian will make thee worthy Thou comest not to this Sacrament to give God any thing but to receive a Blessing from him Thou comest not hither to contribute any thing to his Happiness but to open thy Mouth wide that he may fill it Thou comest not hither to proclaim thy
Perfections but to have thy Imperfections supplied Thou comest not hither to boast of thy Cleanness but to be washed from their Sins Thou comest not hither to glory in thy Merits but to receive an Alms at thy great Master's Hands his Grace his Love his Compassion will make thee worthy Thou comest not to give him an Account of thy Riches but as an hungry Beggar that wants Bread to feed on the hidden Manna All that is required of thee is to look upon thy Redeemer as thy greatest Friend and to use him like a Friend to make his Friendship an Enforcive to love him and so to love him as to hearken to his Counsels to be govern'd by his Directions to bid farewel to all things that will destroy that Friendship to repent of thy Unkindnesses to him and to prefer his Advice before that of Flesh and Blood to hearken to his Instructions more than to the false Suggestions of the World and so to remember that thy Sins have contributed to his Crucifixion as to punish them with Frowns and Mortifications If thou art willing to this he will supply thy Defects he will satisfie thy hungry Soul he will feed thee from his Storehouse and make thy Soul Partaker of his purchased Possession Let not thy Unworthiness discourage thee 'T is confessed thou art a poor vile Worm a Sinner a wretched Creature not worthy of the least of all his Mercies not worthy to be taken notice of not worthy of the least Glimpse of his Favour but still if he is pleased to count and esteem thee worthy it is Contempt of his Love if thou dost not accept of this gracious Offer and come and liâ—t up thine Hands towards his holy Oracle If thou wilt but look upon thy Sins as Enemies and if they do assault thee wilt vigorously oppose thy self against their Attempts and if they do surprize thee once or twice wilt renew thy Courage against them and do any thing rather than yield to them and set up this Resolution in thy Heart that the Lord shall be thy God thou shalt be worthy he will give thee Grace which shall make thee worthy His Flesh shall nourish thy Soul his Blood shall enrich the Ground of thy Heart his Presence shall give thee Life his Assistance will make thee spiritual his Spirit will enable thee to rejoyce in him that made thee make thee a worthy Conqueror worthy of the Tree of Life and worthy of that Pardon he hath purchased for thee on the Cross when in his own Body he bore thy Sins upon the Tree that thou being dead to Sin mightest live unto God III. Among the various sorts of Persons that are loth to come to this holy Sacrament those betray strange Imprudence as well as Obstinacy that are loth to part with their Sins and therefore are loth to come for fear they should eat and drink unworthily and make themselves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and eat and drink their won Damnation But O Generation of Vipers Who hath told you that this is the way to escape the Wrath to come Who hath been so wise as to inform you that this way you may flee from the Indignation of the Lord In what Scripture have you read that your not coming to this Sacrament because you are loth to prophane it by your Sins will save you from Perdition 'T is very true and you are in the right when you suppose that your Refractoriness to Reformation and Amendment makes you unworthy Receivers But can you imagine that you are ever a whit the safer for not coming Will not the Sins you live and continue in do your Work for you and make you Heirs of Damnation The wilful Neglect of this Sacrament is a damnable Sin And can you think that your not coming will make your Condition more easie and tolerable 'T is true you pretend you will not prophane it and therefore do not come You are sensible it requires Reformation and because your Circumstances will not permit you to lead better Lives you are loth to add to your Danger by eating and drinking unworthily But when your not coming to this Sacrament makes you miserable as well as your coming and receiving unworthily 't is strange that the Point of adding some Grains to the Bulk of your Misery should make you afraid of coming I will not deny but Eating and Drinking unworthily doth in some measure aggravate the Evil a Man lives in because he adds Scorn to his Impiety but as long as his Impenitence without coming and his coming unworthily do both involve him in the Danger of Damnation it is a foolish Plea to preted you dare not come for fear of aggravating your Condemnation as if Damnation were tolerable and the Degrees of it only intolerable But we see what you drive at You hope some time before you die and when you will not have those Opportunities of sinning that now you have you may receive it and save your Souls at last But to hear Men talk of what they shall do hereafter when they have not one Minute of their Lives at their Command is so ridiculous that it needs no Answer This is certain your Sins are sweet and your evil Lives make you fit to live in the World and therefore you will not come But will this Argument hold Water do you think when God shall plead with you Surely your Sins are very precious things that you dare refuse coming to this holy Ordinance for them The Scripture calls them Filth and Poyson for so they are in the Eyes of an holy God And are they dearer to you than the Love of God They are perfect Leprosie And had had you rather be full of Sores and Boyls than come hither to be made clean They crucified your Saviour And will you keep that which murther'd him They are the Disgrace and Reproach of your Souls And will you delight in your Infamy They are the things that separate betwixt a glorious God and you And will you uphold that fatal Distance and Separation They exclude you from the Kingdom of Heaven And will you be content with that Exclusion Are you wise and understanding Men And will you not open your Eyes and see your Danger What do you call Contempt of God if this be not it What do you call slighting of Incomprensible Mercy if this do not deserve that Name Can you hope for God's Pardon at last that refuse to accept of it in this Ordinance Do you believe you have Souls and that it is your Interest to secure them against Mischief And will you prefer a few airy volatile Joys before their Safety Sinner When is it that thou dost intend to reform Is it when an angry God looks thee in the Face and an evil Conscience upon thy Death-bed presages thy future Torments Is it possible that an offended God will then fly into thy Embraces whom thou didst not care for all thy Days Behold in this
Sacrament the Son of God doth not only offer to reconcile thee to thy God but shews thee the way too how it shall be effected to thy Content and Satisfaction Here he offers to enrol thy Name among the Friends of God but it is impossible to make thee God's Friend while thou maintainest thy Enmity against him To leave thy Sins and to come to this Sacrament are one and the same thing these two are inseparable to divide them is to divide Light from Fire which implies Impossibility Oh think therefore Till I come to this Ordinance God will be my Foe and should I be snatch'd away while God is so who will plead for me when I come to appear before God I will arise therefore and go to my Father c. IV. As squeamish as some Sinners are there are others that dare come and receive unworthily and be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and be no more concern'd than if they had committed any trivial or indifferent Action Such are they who are the same after they have received as they were before vitious before and vitious after revengeful lascivious unclean malicious proud Boasters intemperate Back-biters implacable unmerciful before and after too nor doth the threatning that they make themselves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus fright or discompose them Lord How stupid a thing is Sin How hard how insensible doth it make the Heart What Venom doth it shed upon the Soul Who would imagine that Men could be so perverse Men that live under the Gospel too as to be guilty of murthering Christ Murthering of Christ You will say Who can murther him now he is in Glory What Bug-bears are these to fright poor silly ignorant People with So easily do Men slide from Hypocrisie into Prophaneness and from Prophaneness into the Scorner's Chair But What if Christ be in Heaven and out of the reach of thy Baseness and Malice If Christ interpret thy Continuance in known Sins after thou hast been viewing his Death and Crucifixion in this Sacrament as murthering of him how great how heinous and of how deep a Dye must thy Sins be What Guilt what Loads what Mountains of Wrath must we suppose dost thou lay and pull down on thy Shoulders Who can tell so well the venomous Influences and Tendencies of thy Sins as he that perfectly understands the poysonous nature of it If he saith that it amounts to murthering of him Will thy laughing at the Conceit excuse thy Folly when his Anger shall be kindled Need he value thy Flouts and Jeers that hath Flames and Vengeance at command to lash thee into better Manners It is impossible he should be mistaken in his Verdict of things And wilt thou say he doth not speak what is true Art thou wiser than he Or dost thou see farther into things than he Must his Wisdom be modell'd by thy shallow Reason Or shall a Creature dispute the Oracle of its Creator If he sees and knows that thy wilful Impenitence runs so high as to make an Attempt upon his Life again wilt not thou believe him or darest thou charge him with a Lye The Holy Ghost speaking by St. Paul protests so much And wilt thou add sinning against the Holy Ghost to all thy Offences Believe it Sinner 't is Death to the Lord of Life to see a Creature for whom he took such pains wallow still in those Sins after Receiving which he was supposed to abjure in Receiving 'T is Death to him to see thee more tender of keeping thy Word with a Man that must die than with him that lives for ever 'T is Death to him to see thee wilful in breaking that solemn Promise thou madest under his Cross and didst seal with drinking of his Blood Thou dost in this Sacrament make a Covenant with him and oblige thy self as thou hopest to have a share in his Merits that thou wilt be guided and governed by him who to the Astonishment of Men and Angels died for thee and there cannot be a more sacred Tye and to see thee violate that Oath and break through that Vow into Damnation into that Damnation from which he came to rescue thee this is Death to him and a new Attempt upon his Life and if thou darest be so barbarous so inhumane as to do so Heaven and Earth will be Witnesses against thee and that very Blood which thou prophanest will be a Witness against thee and all the Saints that see thee prophane that Blood will be Witnesses against thee and it is enough to make the Lord repent that ever he died for such a Wretch O then play not with these Mysteries for it will be hard for thee to kick against the Pricks But V. Let the worthy Receiver rejoyce in the midst of all these Terrours These Thunder-bolts do not reach him These Threatnings do not concern him He is safe under all these Storms They will not fall on him to crush him These Hail-stones will not bruise his Head This Weight will not sink him He can pass through all these Messengers of Death and fear no Evil Even he who sees greater Comfort in a crucified Saviour than in this gaudy World and can admire the Mercies purchased by his Death while others stand gazing on stately Buildings and sumptuous Palaces Even he who makes Conscience of performing what he promises to a glorious God and feels Desires in his Breast to be more and more conformable to the holy Life and Example of Christ Jesus and to whom no Interest is so dear as that of a crucified Saviour who loves as he loves without Hypocrisie or Dissimulation Let such a Soul be glad in the Lord and believe that God will command his Loving-kindness in the Day-time and in the Night will cover him with the Shadow of his Wings Let him not be disquieted nor think God hath forgotten him when his Soul is bowed down to the Dust and his Belly cleaves unto the Earth Christ the Son of God will certainly manifest himself unto him be present with him pour Grace into his Heart and Comfort into his Soul give himself to him be his Hiding-place compass him about with the Songs of Deliverance and say unto him I will instruct thee and teach thee in the Way which thou shalt go I will guide thee with mine Eye Such a Person receives Christ indeed receives him with all his Blessings and with all the Spoils he recovered of the Enemy He receives him with all the Wealth he hath fought for and purchased with his Bâ—ood He receives him with all the precious things he hath laboured for in the Sweat of his Brows He receives â—im laden and abounding with glorious Promises which shall by degrees be all fulfilled in him for they belong to him they are his Right they are his Portion Christ will make him worthy to receive them He shall ask and his Master will give He shall seek and find too He shall knock and
day insomuch that if many a Man's sickness and weakness of Body and not living out halfe his days were throughly examin'd and look'd into it would be found to proceed in a great measure from this Cause even his unworthy Receiving of the Holy Symbols II. If we enquire into the Reasons why God makes use of Sickness and weakness of Body to lash the unworthy Receiver in this Life we must conclude that considering how all Afflictions and Judgments of this Life are curative and intended to work a change in the Offender for the better the Reasons why God makes use of Sickness particularly in punishing the unworthy Receiver are these following 1. Sickness weakens the Flesh abates and lessens its violent desires whereby it comes to pass that the Spiritual part gets from under the slavery it lay enthrall'd in while the Flesh prevail'd and puts the Sinner upon serious Thoughts for now it gets leave to exercise its Authority which before was over-aw'd and crush'd and oppress'd by the usurping Tyrant and thereby occasions terror and consternation in the whole Man about his unworthy Receiving While the Flesh is predominant and bears Rule Faith and Reason are mere prisoners and whatever they suggest is not hearken'd to The Flesh still baffles their Arguments and admits of nothing but what pleads in favour of its brutish Appetite Sickness coming and weakning the Flesh and rendring all the delights of the World insipid and unsavoury the Soul recovers her freedom and is now at liberty to think of her former Life to survey the Actions of her past Practices and among other Errors to reflect upon her unworthy Receiving to aggravate this particular Offence and thereby to incline the sinner's Eyes and Heaâ—t to penitential Tears for now the Man having no hurry of business no noise of vain company no external Gayeties no Musick of sensual Pleasures to call him away from minding the things that belong to the happiness of his Soul he is more at leisure to ruminate upon what he hath been doing and the dreadfulness of his Sin viz. feeding irreverently at this Table and not discerning that the Body of the Son of God was offered to his Soul and if any thing will melt or turn him this is very likely to effect it 2. Sickness puts the unworthy Receiver in mind of Death for he that falls sick knows not but his Illness may end in Death and there are few Men but are of this opinion when once they take their Bed fear that they shall or may dye makes them seek out for proper Helps and Remedies send for Physicians if they be able and sometimes for Divines too think of making their Wills set their House in order and after all leave nothing untried whereby they may prevent the stroak of Death Sickness being of that nature and having this influence on men may therefore be suppos'd to put the unworthy Receiver in mind of his Death and as it puts him in mind of Death so if he have any sense of Religion left it minds him also of an approaching Judgment and suggests to him that for ought he knows he will shortly be in another World be summon'd to give an account of his Life to God and appear before the Judge of Quick and Dead even before Christ Jesus the Son of God whose Death hath had no influence upon his Life whose Blood he hath trampled under foot whose Sufferings he hath not much thought of whose Love hath made no great impression upon him whose Charity hath wrought in him no considerable tenderness to his Neighbour whose Presence in the Sacrament he hath undervalued and whose entreaties to become Wise unto Salvation and meek and humble and serious and blameless he hath stopt his Ears against and how little Mercy he must expect of that Judge whom to please he hath not been much concern'd This Kindness Sickness may be supposed to do to the unworthy Communicant viz. to put him in mind of his Death and future account and the Judge whose Body and Blood he hath profan'd and his anger and indignation against such Profanation and what can be supposed more effectual to promote Repentance and Godly Sorrow and new Resolutions to awake from the Dead that Christ may give him Life And therefore God makes use sometimes of Bodily Sickness to afflict the unworthy Communicant But where Death seizes on the unworthy Commnicant either before he can bethink himself or before a previous lingring Sickness hath melted and wrought his Heart into a Spiritual Life there the Man's case is deplorable indeed for to think that God will accept of his Death as a Satisfaction for his Sin and save him however is to make a new Divinity and to erect Principles which the Scripture knows nothing of 'T is true in some Cases where God cuts off a young Man in 〈◊〉 Flower of his Age a young Man I mean whose Liâ—e hath been blameless attended with holy Fears and a Conscientious Behaviour at home and abroad his untimely Death may be said to be a Temporal Affliction for some accidental Miscarriages and single Inadvertencies such as never swelled into an Habit or setled Approbation by which Affliction he is saved and freed from the greater Condemnation according to the Apostle's Rule 1 Cor. 11. 32. But when we are judged i e. with Temporal Judgments such as Sickness Weakness and Untimely Death whereof he had spoken Vers. 30. we are chasten'd of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World In this Case i.e. in Accidental Miscarriages God may be said to accept of the lesser for the greater Judgment upon his Account who died and rose again for those who hear his Voice But where the Sin is habitual rooted in the Heart hath invaded the Complexion and is allowed of and thought harmless and void of Hurt there an Untimely Death is no Security against Condemnation no Shelter against the Wrath to come How far it may abate or qualifie the future Indignation I am not able to say but it is no Deletory no Fortisication no Charm against that Storm III. But here a Difficulty will arise How a Person may know that the Sickness or Weakness of Body that is upon him comes upon him for his unworthy Receiving To which I answer 1. There is not a more ready Way to know it than by ransacking our Life and particularly our publick Devotions If in our present Sickness we find upon Examination that when we came formerly to the Supper of the Lord we came without any sincere Intent Desire or Resolution to be wrought into Love and Obedience to Christ Jesus by the Sight of his Cross and Death and Charity that we came and went away unconcerned unmoved untouched at this Medicamentum Immortalitatis this Physick of Immortality as St. Dennis calls it or that we thought that the Blessings promised to the Faithful and to those who strive and fight the good Fight would fall to our share and
upon them that they make some attempts and use some trifling endeavours to resist but as this resistance is not an effect of an active Faith but only of slavish fear so it doth not preserve them untainted and undaunted in the hour of Temptation which is an Argument both of Spiritual Weakness and God's Judgment because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge as St. Paul speaks Rom. 28. 2. Spiritual Sickness the signs of which are as follows 1. Want of relishing the Things of God and the Mysteries of Religion By this we conclude that a Man is sick in his Body if the Bread or Wine or Apples or Meat he swallows seem to him Food or Drink different from what they appear to sound and healthy and by the same Argument we may infer that a Man's Soul is very sick when the Promises Precepts Commands Mercies Privileges and Immunities of the Gospel are insipid and unsavoury to him and his Soul finds no sweetness no agreeableness no juice no life no pleasantness no delight no pungency in them If these appear to her as common things and affect her no more than what the Great Mogol doth in the Indies or what Men talk on the Coast of Guinea If they raise no wonder no admiration no affection no appetite no strong desire in her if she can hear them read of them survey them think of them without being touch'd with the consequence and importance of them the Soul is infallibly under some great distemper and the whole Head is sick the whole Heart is sick grievously sick and the wound is dangerous and that this Spiritual sickness discovers it self too often in unworthy Receivers we need no other proof but what their known aversion gives us I mean their aversion from good Thoughts and Discourfes after they have been at the Table of the Lord. Reading the Word digesting it and endeavouring to see wondrous things in that Law and meditating of some part of it day and night is irksome to them tedious and when something savouring of Heaven and Eternity is propos'd to them they stand upon Thorns all the while nor can the goodness of God prevail with them to deny themselves in any thing they have a mind or strong inclination to a certain sign of their being sick and of God's Judgment upon their Souls 2. Another symptom of this Spiritual sickness is When a known Sin becomes habitual and the few single Acts pass into temper and come to be incorporated with nature and turn into constitution and complexion In this case the Soul may be judged very sick as sick as the Body that is troubled with the Stone or Gout and where the distemper or Morbific Matter is so dispers'd through the Mass of Blood and Joynts that tho' it admits of respite and lucid intervals sometimes yet as the Humours that feed it gather strength again so the Distemper returns And this sickness doth evidently discover it self in unworthy Receivers who were formerly but Punies and Novices in certain sins but after their unworthy Receiving harden themselves in the practice of them commence Graduates and drink them in as the Ox doth the Water and they become their Darlings their Benjamins as dear to them as their Right Eye as dear as their Foot or Hand than which there cannot be a surer sign of their being spiritually sick and lying under the weight of a spiritual Judgment 3. Spiritual Death And this also is to be known by symptoms which are these 1. When the Conscience smites no more When it gives over striving with the Sinner he is dead as that Body in which the Pulse hath left off beating So it was with the Prodigal of whom Christ expresly saith Though his natural life was sound and whole that he was dead No remorse no regret appear'd in his Soul All was still as in a Charnel-House no noise within to fright him All was turn'd into the silence of the Grave He delighted in his nastiness in his Mud and Dung and Filth and Swinish Desires nothing prick'd him nothing stung his Heart And that this Death is to be found in some unworthy Receivers is manifest from their Actions for they become stupid in their Errors and having bafâ—led their Conscience laid that inward witness to sleep and hush'd it into a fatal slumber It stirs not it moves not and they know not when they sin and when they do not To that insensibleness they bring themselves that when God calls they cannot see with their Eyes nor hear with their Ears nor understand with their Hearts 2. Another Symptom of this Spiritual Death is When the Sinner begins to look upon Religion either as a trick of Divines or Politicians or a needless thing This excludes all sense of another world the only thing whereby the Soul lives and therefore that being gone the Soul is dead and that he who hath the power of Death even the Devil hath killed and mortified all the good Seed that lay scattered in his Breast Indeed this is such a degree of Death which unworthy Receivers do not very ordinarily arrive to yet sometimes they fall even into this Gulph for what should hinder them from tumbling down so low that have lost their hold in a Crucified Saviour from whose Arms they have broke loose unwilling that he should have any thing to do with them but just to save them if he pleases The Bands of Love and Obedience are the only things that preserve the Soul from Death and the unworthy Communicant having made a shift to throw those Cords from him being loth to be tied and held by them he sinks into contempt of these things and from thence into scorning of Religion it self In all which the Judgment of God is clearly to be seen for though God doth not call by an audible Voice from Heaven that it is so nor set a mark upon the unworthy Receiver as he did on Cain whereby spectators may know that this is a sign of the Divine Judgment upon him yet it 's enough that we are told in the Word of God Woe to them when I depart from them Hos. 9. 11. III. And from hence it 's easie to guess how God inflicts this spiritual Judgment upon unworthy Receivers 1. By a gradual withdrawing his Holy Spirit from them This Spirit is called Oyl Heb. 1. 9. and Unction or Anointing 1 Joh. 2. 27. Whatever the quantity of that Oil was that was put in their Lamps as that abates so the strength of their Soul abates and from hence comes Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death The Spirit of God is the Pillar that supports the House if this Prop be removed the Inference is easie that the House will not be of any long standing There are general Gifts of the Spirit of God common to good and bad Men under the Gospel and there are some that are peculiar to those that walk after the Spirit and as in an unworthy Receiver we can suppose
some farther Prospect than this present Life and that he uses the Word not only to terrifie the unworthy Receiver with Sickness and Weakness of the Body and a Spiritual and Temporal Judgment but at the same time bids him take heed that in case any of the former doth not for Reasons best known to Providence light upon him or in case the Thoughts of the former do not work upon him and transform him into a better Man he doth not run himself into Hell-Fire and Eternal Misery It is plainly to tell him that since the Word includes both Judgments Temporal and Eternal he hath no reason to flatter himself that it will be only a Temporal judgment but may justly fear he shall in our God's Everlasting Indignation And therefore our Church retains both Significations of the Word in her Exhortation before the Sacrament So is the Danger great if we Receive the same unworthily for then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour we Eat and Drink our own Damnation not considering the Lord's Body we kindle God's Wrath against us we provoke him to plague us with divers Diseases and sundry kinds of Death II. How an unworthy Communicant eats and drinks Damnation to himself is the next thing we are to explain And this he doth this following Way 1. He makes himself obnoxious to the fierce Anger of the Judge that is to decide the Controversie of his Life and Death to all Eternity and this Judge is the Son of God Christ Jesus who hath protested that Not every one who saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and therefore will say unto them in the last Day I know you not depart from me ye Workers of Iniquity And there is nothing more certain than that the unworthy Receiver is resolved not to do the Will of his Father which is in Heaven whose Will is that Men should honour the Son as they do the Father Joh. 5. 23. i. e. believe in him as they do in the Father and come to this Sacrament like Persons redeemed from their vain Conversation resolved to war against the Lusts of the Flesh like Soldiers of the Cross and to remember the Death of the Son of God here with that Respect and Devotion they owe to God resolved to live and die with him like Persons who have listed themselves under his Colours with an Intent to fight against his Enemies and to take heed they do not dishonour the Son of God by an evil Heart of Unbelief in departing from the Living God This is the Will of God and since Christ the Judge of the World is the Person appointed to examine whether this Will of God hath been obeyed the unworthy Receiver dying in Impenitence and coming before him and it appearing that he hath nothing less than the Will of God professed indeed that he would do it pretended Service and Obedience to him and yet done his own Will though exhorted and moved to do the Will of God by numberless Arguments Arguments big with the greatest Charms what can his Obstinacy cause but Anger in the Judge Anger implacable since he would continue dead and unconcerned under the lively Oracles of Heaven and under the most lively Representations of the Love of God The Effect of which Anger is the Sentence of Everlasting Condemnation Depart from me ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire c. Matth. 25. 41. And for this Reason the Psalmist calls to all Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the right Way when his Anger shall be kindled but a little Psal 2. 11. 2. He puts himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Sinners are in to whom is reserved the Blackness of Darkness for ever And that State and Condition is Wilful Disobedience to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what the Consequence of this State is St. Paul explains 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power And that this is the unworthy Receiver's Condition is manifest from hence because he knows not God i. e. he will not know him nor obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He might know that God is an holy God and hath called him to Holiness and is not to be put off with blind lame and slovenly Devotion and yet he will not nor doth he obey the Gospel which obliges him by virtue of the Grace of God appearing to all Men to renounce Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts. This Ungodliness and these Worldly Lusts he retains and cherishes and makes much of notwithstanding his coming to the Lord's Table and so putting himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Men are no wonder if he makes himself liable to the same Damnation 3. He makes himself fit Company for the Damned and the Sufferers in Hell Those that are in that miserable State did as he doth and he doth as they did They suffer'd the Profits and Pleasures of the World to justle out a serious Sense of Religion so doth the unworthy Receiver They had a Form of Godliness and denied the Power thereof so doth he They some of them at least came to this Sacrament with unmortified Lusts with unsubdued Passions of Anger and Pride and with ungovernable Desires after the World and had no real Intent to become Proselytes of Righteousness so doth he They did not think that the holy Sacrament was such an Inforcive to a Change of Life as Divines talked of so doth he They made no great matter of this Ordinance but thought it expedient to comply with the Custom of the Country and the Usages of the Church they lived in and that was all and so doth he They made nothing of promising and breaking their solemn Promises to God no more doth he And being like them in Manners no wonder if he be like them in Torments too Being their Companion in their Sins 't is just he should be a Companion with them in their Misery Having been their Associate in Hypocrisie 't is fit he should have his Portion with Hypocrites III. But here the Sinner I know will be apt to clamour and say What Justice can there be in it that God for eating a Piece of Bread and for drinking a few Drops of Wine irreverently and unworthily without observing some Punctilio's and Nicer Rules of Divinity should inflict Eternal Damnation upon a poor Creature To which I answer 1. Every supreme and absolute Law-giver hath liberty to set what Penalties he thinks fit upon the Breaches of his Law If he will appoint a Punishment that is very dreadful for a certain
mighty Hunger and Thirst after thy Love in my Soul Such an Hunger and Thirst that I may be unsatisfied with any thing but thy Love Let thy Love work upon me with that Efficacy that I may think my self afflicted and poor and miserable till I love thee fervently VI. Blessed Jesu Who would not love thee Who would not wish to be enamour'd with such Charity as thine is to the Sons and Daughters of Men If we love thee not it is because we do not know the Vehemency and Power of thy Love Had we a clear Sight of it our Souls would run after thee and nothing could stop them from clinging to so amiable an Object Lord give me that lively View of thy Love that nothing may charm me more than thy Love VII Great King of Saints pity me I would love thee but thou seest what Impediments come between thy Love and my blockish Heart Innumerable Temptations my perverse Will my Self-love my Passions and my other Imperfections Oh how these hinder me from loving thee O my Gracious Master Let me detest and abhor all these Enemies that would hinder me from loving thee Stretch forth thy mighty Arm and destroy these Foes that I may entirely love thee VIII O Jesu Thou art all Love all Goodness all Charity And Oh what Opposition do I find in my self to love thee O Love Divine Where is thy Strength thy Force and thy uncontrollable Power O my Lord Why dost not thou shew it Why dost not thou exert it for my Help Why do not thy Celestial Flames consume in me all that is contrary to thy Love Oh! When wilt thou establish the Life of Love even that Divine Life in my Soul IX O Omnipotent Love I leave my self to thy Management Enter enter into this frozen Heart and erect thy Kingdom and thy Empire there Undo what thou pleasest and build up what thou pleasest Let every Desire of my Soul become subject to thee Subdue every Imagination that would refuse to be at thy Command And make me willing to submit to any thing so I may but love thee X. Most lovely Saviour Shall any thing hinder me from loving thee Shall my Body I will subdue that Beast Shall my Sins I will drown them in thy Blood Shall the World or the Creatures here below No no I will renounce my Love to them I will despise them all They have too long excommunicated thee from my Soul I will make no more Account of my Praises of my Pleasures of my Vanities I will look upon them all as Dreams and Smoak and I will hate them as much as they have hated thee Great Centre of my Soul XI Great Sovereign of my Love Thou hast sent me into the World on purpose to love thee What a noble what an excellent what an holy End is this Think of the Honour think of the Favour think of the Dignity O my Soul that God hath laid upon thee That he that could have eternally enjoyed himself in his own Love should speak a Creature into Being and ordain that Creature to love him Oh how happy am I that God hath given me an Heart to love him O my Jesus Let me die a Thousand Deaths rather than lose thy Love XII O Love Divine Be thou the Life of my Life the Soul of my Soul the Spirit of my Spirit Let me think of thy Love and speak of thy Love and do Acts worthy of thy Love and let all my Conversation savour of the Love of Jesus Whatever I do let me do it for thy sake Let thy Love put me upon Acts of Charity and let every Vertue I exercise be the Product of thy Love XIII O Jesu Thou art my All All other things are nothing in comparison of thee And I would love nothing but in thee and for thee I would see thee in all things and love thee in every thing I do Thou art my greatest Friend my only Friend Thou art my Brother my Father my Husband and my Chief Thou art All in All to me And Oh that my All might be consecrated to thy Service XIV My dearest Saviour There is nothing in Heaven or in Earth so worthy to be loved as thou Oh how amiable art thou Yet the World doth not so much as think of thee They think of nothing but offending thee They hope to be saved by thee and yet do what they can to dishonour thee Let this very Consideration inflame my Love to thee Oh that I could love thee as the whole World ought to love thee XV. Great Son of God! I was bound to love thee as soon as I came to the Use of my Reason Yet how long hath it been before I thought of loving thee O my Lord how late do I begin to love thee How long have I hated thee How many Years together have I despised thy Love When I think of this I have reason to wish for a Sea of Tears nay for Tears of Blood to wash away my monstrous Ingratitude XVI O Beauty Eternal and Infinite If I were to live eternally here on Earth I were bound eternally to love thee How much more then during my short Stay here on Earth O my Lord consecrate my Life to thy Love Let every Day and Hour of my Life be employed in thy Love and make me ambitious of nothing more than to love thee to all Eternity XVII O thou Everlasting King At the Price of thy precious Blood thou hast bought every Moment of my Time that I might employ it in loving thee How much of that Time have I employed in loving the World and the Creatures How much of that Time have I lost in loving things I should not love 'T is time that I begin to employ my Hours about that for which they were designed And since they were given me to love thee Oh transform all my Desires into Aspirations and Breathings after thee XVIII O my Jesus Thou art so perfect and so lovely that if all Creatures in Heaven and in Earth should joyn their Forces together to love thee they could not love thee sufficiently and if I had a Thousand Hearts they would all be little enough to sacrifice to thy Love O then how am I oblig'd to employ that little Strength I have to love thee Oh that all Mankind might love thee Oh fill them all with a Sense of thy Love Draw them attract them unite their Hearts that they may love thy Name XIX O God of my Life Thou hast been always employ'd in loving me Thou didst create Heaven and Earth to testifie thy Love to me All that thou ever didst in this World for me was to shew how thou lovest me All the Spiritual and Temporal Blessings thou hast sent upon me tell me that thou lovest me But what greater Testimony of thy Love can there be than thy Dying for me As thy Love is perpetually exercised towards me so let mine be continually exercised towards thee And let me glory and
rejoyce in nothing so much as in this that I love thee XX. O my bountiful Saviour O my loving Redeemer When when shall it be that I shall love thee perfectly Here on Earth I must not hope for this Happiness but in Heaven I shall O Heaven Heaven How desirable art thou Where the Love of Jesus shall eternally reign in my Soul Where my Love shall be perfectly pure perfectly Seraphick perfectly Extatical and Eternal Ages shall not alter it At present I am in Prison encompassed with a Mortal Body and must sojourn in a wicked World Oh when will that Day that Hour that Minute that happy Time come that I shall be delivered from this Dungeon and translated to that place where Love is all in all where Love knows no End no Decay no Period where it is pure without Mixture invariable without Changes eternal without ceasing Come Lord Jesu Come quickly Particular Acts of Devotion at the Acts of Consecration and Receiving of the Consecrated Bread and Wine At the Minister's pouring out the holy Wine into the Cup. O Jesu Who can think of the flowing of thy Blood without being desirous to be washed with it Or I fancy I do at this present stand under thy Cross and see thee bleeding for my Sins Or Oh. Let thy Blood flow upon my wounded Soul that I may become a sound Member of thy Mystical Body At the Minister's laying his Hand upon the Bread O Blessed Saviour Lay thy Hand upon my Soul that all my Distempers may depart from me Or Oh lay hold on my Soul as the Angel did on Lot Save me from the Flames and let me escape into the Mount of God that I perish not At the Minister's Breaking the Bread Lord Jesu In suffering thy Body to be broken for my Sins I see the Vehemence the Strength and Fervour of thy Love Oh make me all Love all Fervour all Charity Or Oh break the united Forces of my Sins scatter them by thy mighty Arm. Gather the broken Planks of Vertue in my Soul unite them make them whole and strong and secure against the Fury of Winds and Tempests At the Minister's pronouncing the Words This is my Body Lord Let me look off from these material Things and shew me Things invisible and Heavenly Or O Lord The Benefits of thy wounded Body my Soul longs for Oh say They shall be thy Portion At the Minister's touching the Cup. Lord Touch my Soul that it may feel the Power of thy Super-abundant Charity Or Oh! Touch me as thou didst the Blind of old that I may see the Bowels of thy Compassion and rejoyce in the glorious Sight At the Minister's pronouncing the Words This is my Blood Lord My Soul wants Wine of another nature than is in this Cup Oh wash it and cleanse it and purifie it in thy Blood Or Lord Speak thou to my Soul and say I will be thou clean At the Receiving of the Bread Lord Let thy Death be my Life And the Bread represented by this Bread feed me into Everlasting Life Or Lord As thou hast provided Food for my Soul so give me a Taste and Relish also of this Food and a Tongue to praise thy Name for ever Or Lord As thou hast given thy Body for me so I freely offer my Soul and Body as Living Sacrifices to thy Majesty At the Receiving of the Cup. Lord Nothing is more precious than thy Blood Oh! Let it warm my Heart that it may comply with thy Will wlthout wavering Or Lord Bid me look upon thy Blood and in thy Blood upon the Reconciliation wrought by it to the Comfort and Edification of my Soul Or O Lord I am heavy laden and my Pollutions are great And as thy Blood alone can remove that Burthen so free me from those Spots and Wrinkles which make me look deformed in thy Sight CHAP. XXVIII Of the proper Acts of Devotion after we have Received The CONTENTS The Time that is left after our Personal Receiving before all have Communicated not to be spent in Gazing or Looking about Acts of Devotion to be used after Receiving and relating to the Wisdom Mercy Liberality Love Goodness Greatness and Majesty of God to our own Vileness and Unworthiness c. IT falls out so often that when we have Communicated and our Souls have been fed at this Table a considerable Space of Time remains before the united Praises and Thanksgivings of the Congregation begin again This Time be it more or less must not be spent in looking about or in sitting still or in thinking of what Objects our Fancy is pleased to offer and present to us but in holy Aspirations And that the Communicant may know how to employ himself in that Interval it may not be amiss to set down some pious and proper Ejaculations whereby he may exercise his Mind according as Time will permit I. O God! Thy Love in Christ Jesus deserves to be praised admired and magnified There is all that in it which can engage a Soul to break forth into Praises and Hallelujahs There is Beauty Wisdom Condescention Mercy Liberality Sweetness Power Greatness Majesty in it and all these in the highest Degree which would force even a dumb Man to speak of thy Glory II. I adore thee O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity for that infinite Care of my immortal Soul which I see in all thy Proceedings and Transactions and particularly in the Cross of my dearest Redeemer Here thou seemest to empty all thy Stores and pourest out thy Grace abundantly upon the Heads and Hearts of thy Servants Behold Bless ye the Lord all ye Servants of the Lord which by Night stand in the House of the Lord Lift up your Hands in the Sanctuary and bless the Lord. The Lord that made Heaven and Earth hath blessed us out of Zion III. O Charming Son of God! I alone am not able sufficiently to praise thee and therefore I wish that every Drop of the Ocean every Grain of Sand every Leaf of the Trees of the Field and every Sprig of Herbs and all the Creatures that ever were or are or shall be might be turn'd into Seraphick Tongues to praise thee IV. O Jefu When I behold thy wonderful Love how it hath bowed how it hath stooped to so mean a Creature as I am the Thoughts of it force my Soul into the humblest and deepest Prostrations Thou art Beauty I am Deformity Thou art Wisdom I am Ignorance Thou art Light I am Darkness Thou art Omnipotence I am feeble Thou art Purity I am Filth and Dung Thou art rich I am Poverty it self Thou art happy I am Misery it self Thou art Perfection I am Weakness Thou art All in All I am nothing V. O Blessed Saviour When I see how Men fall in love with a mortal and fading Beauty which to Day shines bright as the Sun to Morrow by Sickness or Death is all tarnish'd and decay'd how do I blame my self that I do not love thee better whose