come frequently too When you shall begin effectually to perceive the Benefit of your Communicating in the still new encrease of Piety and Holiness in all your Actions When being full with a constant Sense of the Love of the Blessed Jesus here set forth to us you shall find it to be the Desire and Longing of your Souls to come often to this grateful and pleasing Declaration of it When in a Word being accustomed to consider the Blessings and Advantages of that New Covenant our Blessed Master has sealed to us in his Blood and here offers to renew with us in this Sacrament you shall wish if it might be every Day to repeat it and think you can never enough declare your Desires of being admitted into the Conditions and Advantages of it And thus have I offered to you what I suppose may suffice for the full Explication of the Words before us And from the Account of which we may now easily see What is the true Nature and Design of this Holy Sacrament Namely that it was instituted by our Saviour to be a Sacred and Solemn Memorial of that Death and Passion which he underwent for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages which accrue to us thereby That as by the Paschal Feast among the Jews God perpetuated the Remembrance of his preserving them from the destroying Angel first and then delivering them from their Egyptian Bondage and engaged them to a constant annual Return of Joy and Thanksgiving to Him for so great a Blessing So by this better Passover should we in like manner keep up for ever in the Church a lively and affectionate Commemoration of that better and more glorious Preservation which our paschal Lamb the Lord Jesus has by his own Blood obtained for us and set forth to the whole World that grateful and vigorous Sense which we have of so wonderful and blessed a Deliverance Now this being the true meaning and Design of this Holy Sacrament we may from hence see How great and dangerous the Mistakes are which some have run into concerning it with reference both to Faith and Practice For 1. If this Sacrament as we have before shewn was instituted as a Memorial of the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ It is then plain That it is not our very Saviour Christ Himself neither in the State of his death nor in any other that is here presented to us There have been in the Church since the time of Paschasius Radbertus one of the first considerable Innovators that we meet with in the Doctrine of this Holy Eucharist among others two different Opinions concerning the Real or Corporal Presence of Christ in this Sacrament and both maintained with no small contention at this day One That the Bread and Wine are converted into the very Natural Body and Blood of Christ so that nothing of the Bread and Wine themselves at all remain but only in shew and appearance which is what they called Transubstantiation the other That the true Substances of the outward Elements the Bread and the Wine do indeed remain but that the very Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in an extraordinary and supernatural manner joyned to them so that in the Communion of them we do together with the Bread and Wine receive the true Body and Blood of Christ into our Mouths truly and really present which they call Consubstantiation Now however the latter of these be much the more pardonable Error of the two as neither doing any Violence to our Senses which evidently tell us That what we see and receive in this Sacrament is certainly Bread and Wine nor contradicting the many Passages of Scripture which declare to us the same thing yet are they both very great Mistakes The natural Body of Christ being not capable of existing in more Places than one at the same Time nor to be divested of the inseparable Properties of a Body such as Extension of Parts Space Figure and the like in which the very Nature of a Body as it is distinguished from a Spirit does consist But these Opinions do not only involve a plain Impossibility in the very Nature of the Thing it self but moreover do carry a manifest Incongruity to the Nature and Design of this Institution For if the End of this Holy Sacrament were as our Text shews to be a Remembrance of Christ a Sign and Figure of his Body broken and of his Blood shed for us then certainly as in all other Cases the Sign must be different from the thing signified so here the Sacrament of Christ's Body is not his Body but the Memorial of it the Sacrament of his Blood is not his very Blood but the Figure and Representation of it And thus these latter Words Do this in Remembrance of Me become the best and clearest Interpretation of the former This is my Body which is given for you and shew that we are to interpret it after the same manner as when we read in the like kind of Speaking in the Old Testament This is the Lord 's Passover i. e. the Memorial of that Action when the Angel passed over the Houses of the Children of Israel and destroyed them not when at the same Time he slew the Egyptians But here it may be asked Do we then exclude Christ altogether from this Holy Sacrament and leave only an empty Sign a meer ceremonial Remembrance of him and no more God forbid Nay but I dare say We esteem Christ to be no less present tho' in another manner than they Inasmuch as in this Sacred Ordinance he communicates Himself in the Benefits of His Passion in a more especial manner to every faithful Receiver of this Blessed Sacrament and makes the Bread which he eats and the Wine which he drinks become not indeed by any such needless and absurd Change as we before mentioned but by Grace and Blessing by his divine Power and Spiritual Communication his Body broken and his Blood shed for us to all the Effects of Piety and Justification The Elements are not altered they continue not only after the Consecration but in the very receiving of them the same they were before Bread and Wine without any bodily Substance besides either veiled under those Appearances or received together with them But by Faith at the same Time that we take these into our Mouths we take Him also whom they represent into our Souls Not as bringing Christ from Heaven but raising up our Minds and our Hearts to that Holy Place where he is we unite our selves to Him and have all the Benefits of his Death and Passion communicated to us for the Forgiveness of our Sins for the increase of his Grace and Favour to us here and to be at once both the surest Earnest and the most effectual Means to bring us to everlasting Happiness hereafter This is that real but divine and spiritual Presence of our Saviour in this Sacrament which we firmly believe and which secures
but One God and one only Mediator between God and Man Christ Jesus But our New-Masters are not thus content They set up if not more Gods yet I am sure more Objects of their Religious Worship more Mediators than one and teach men to address their Prayers more frequently through the Merits and Intercession of their new Advocates to whose Patronage they have committed themselves than through His who is the true Christians only Advocate Christ blessed for ever * Christianity forbids us to make any graven Images the likeness of any thing in Heaven above to Bow down before it and worship it These false Prophets set up their Images in every Church and bow down to the work of their hands For this end they consecrate them with many Abominations And however some think fit to dissemble it yet others speak it boldly out as the Doctrine of their Church That the very same Religious Worship is to be given to the Cross of Christ that is paid to Him that suffered upon it * Christianity commands us to pray in a tongue which the Church understands that so the unlearned may be able to say Amen at our giving of thanks Our New Guides direct men to pray in a tongue which to be sure the people do not and which sometimes even the Priest too that officiates understands as little as they * Christianity is a Religion that teaches men to be meek and humble not to think of themselves above what they ought to think but when they have done all to say they are unprofitable servants But our new Teachers have not so learnt of Christ. They know a little better how to value their own performances Instead of saying they are unprofitable servants they teach men to value themselves on the account of their Merits to look upon Heaven to be but an equal recompence of their Piety nay yet more that they may live so as to make God a Debtor to them beyond all the Glories of Eternity and to merit a Crown both for themselves and others * In short for there is indeed no end of the contradiction Christianity commands us to take bread to bless it and break it To take Wine bless it and pour it out and eat and drink at the Holy Table in remembrance of that Death and Passion which our Blessed Saviour once for all underwent upon the Cross for us But what now do our new Instructors They tell us here is neither Bread nor Wine to be eaten or drunk that they are I know not how converted into the very Natural Substance of Christ's Body and Blood That he was not offered up once for all but is here again as truly offered as ever he was upon the Cross That thereby a new Expiation is made for the Sins both of the dead and the living and thô our Saviour has as expresly commanded both kinds as either yet they declare that one is sufficient for the people to partake of and accordingly they give no more to them Thus you see how very little a Knowlege of our Lord and his Religion will suffice to show that there cannot be any just cause for any one to forsake the Communion of our Church to plunge himself into such an abyss of Error and Superstition as this And then if he be but equally advanced 2 dly In Grace too this will certainly secure him that no base motive no danger or Interest shall be able to prevail with him so to do Let the Seducer display all the seeming advantages of such a change Let him with his Master the Devil set us up upon the high mountain of our own vain imaginations There let him shew us all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glories of them and to compleat the Parallel let him if he can add too All these things are mine and to whomsoever I will I can give them if thou wilt therefore renounce thy Faith and fall down and worship me all shall be thine By Grace we shall learn to despise them all This will convince us that there can be no true honour in dissembling a mans conscience and prostituting his Soul his Religion and his God to a little present advantage That the Riches of this world are but vanity that the true treasure is in Heaven In a word That the favour of the greatest Monarch is not worth the purchasing if to obtain that we must lose the favour of God for ever Let him shift the Scene instead of all these advantages let him set forth all the dangers that either the Devil can suggest or his own more furious Zeal invent By Grace we shall be able to despise even those too This will teach us that there is a God in Heaven who shall laugh them to scorn and whose Counsel it is that when all is done shall stand That if he pleases to protect us 't is not all their malice that can do us the least injury But that should he either for our Punishment or our Trial expose us to their rage yet still we ought with Moses to esteem the reproach of Christ beyond all the treasures of Egypt and chuse rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season This was the brave resolution of the Saints of old They were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection When Nebuchadnezzar commanded the three Children in Daniel to worship the golden image which he had set up they regarded neither the Majesty of the King nor the Threats of his fiery furnace They told him plainly That they were not careful to please him in that matter that their God if he pleased both could and would deliver them out of his hand But if not yet Be it known to thee O King that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up And the same has been the spirit of our forerunners in the Faith they have overcome all the fiery darts of the Devil whilst that Blessed Saviour who first gave the Command has ever since inspired his followers with strength and resolution to fulfil it Fear not them who can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but fear him who can cast both soul and body into hell-fire yea I say unto you fear him Here then let us exercise our selves Let us be stedfast to our Faith and that we may be so Let us grow in grace and in the knowledg of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Seducers amongst us are many they are diligent and watchful by any means to draw us into their Nets and God knows both their Religion and their Arguments are but too much adapted to our Passions and our Interests and may therefore be but too likely to prevail upon us But Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye know these things before beware Behold I have
on that one most just and reasonable Method never to leave our own Faith till we can be clearly and evidently convinced that we have a better offer'd to us in the stead of it and then we shall either free our selves altogether from the Attacks of our Adversaries who seldom care to meddle with honest and understanding Men or I am sure we shall not run any great Hazzard by their Attempts But above all Thirdly Whilst we thus contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints let us be Followers of their Lives as well as of their Doctrine This is that which must save us when all our Disputes will otherwise stand us in no stead To believe aright will do us but small service if we do not live so too And I am persuaded would we but be prevailed with to do this as we ought it would not only most effectually secure us in the Truth but be the most likely means in the World to draw over others to it And indeed what pity is it that a Chureh which has in all other respects so many admirable Advantages above its Adversaries that it is defective in no other mark of being truly Primitive and even in this is less defective than others should not be blessed with this too Consider I beseech you that we rely upon none of those broken Reeds which others lay so much stress upon to make you happy in another Life though you are not upright and holy in this If there be then any concern for your own or your Church's honour if any value for your Immortal Souls if you desire the Blessing of God now and the benefit of his Promises in the World to come if these Motives which one would think should be of all others the most considerable may be allowed to have any influence at all upon you think then upon these things and fulfil ye our Joy in the practice of that Piety whereunto ye are called Be as Good as ye are Orthodox as free from all Corruption in your Manners as God be thanked you are from Error in your Belief Accomplish that great Work which Heaven seems at last to have begun among us And as we are now apparently more concern'd for our Religion than we have perhaps any of us heretofore been so let us go on in well-doing more and more Let us grow in Grace and then we shall also grow in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ till finally we all come in the Vnity of the Faith and of the Knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect Man to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. OF THE Nature and End OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE Lord's Supper A SERMON Preach'd at St. PAVL's COVENT-GARDEN Decemb. 30. 1688. 1 COR. xi 24 This do in Remembrance of Me. THese Words are part of that Solemn Form in which our Blessed Saviour first celebrated the Holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood anâ— establish'd it as a sacred Institution to be continued for ever in his Church in remembrance of that Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for it Whether our Apostle recounted the History of this great Institution according to what some of those who were present at the first Celebration of it had delivered it unto him or whether as seems most probable he had received the manner of it by some extraordinary Revelation from our Saviour Christ himself This is plain that what he here reports to them of this matter was no idle Story no vain Account of his own Invention but a true and exact Relation of what the Blessed Jesus then did when in the same night in which he was betray'd he took Bread and when he had given thanks brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which is broken for you This do in Remembrance of Me. So that our Text then you see contains a positive Command of our Saviour Christ himself of something which he ordered his Apostles to do with reference to this Holy Sacrament And my business at this time shall be to consider what that was and how far we at this day are to look upon our selves to be concerned in it I shall reduce what I have to offer upon this occasion to these two general Considerations I. Of the false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words Which having done so far as may be necessary to the following Discourse I will then II. Shew what indeed it was that our Blessed Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them All of us to Do in Remembrance of Him And by that time I have clearly examin'd these Two Points I presume I shall in some measure have laid open the whole Nature and Design of this Holy Sacrament and in that have answer'd the End of these Solemn and Extraordinary Assemblies And first I am to consider I. That false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words It is the Opinion of those of the other Communion That our Saviour Christ here spoke to his Apostles not as the Representatives of the whole Body of the Church but as those whom he was now about to consecrate to the peculiar Office of the Ministry in it And therefore that commanding these To Do This He did at once both command them to continue this Holy Sacrament for ever in his Church and also at the same time invest them with a Power to Consecrate and Take and Distribute it to others as he had done to them To which if we did add their other Notion of this Sacrament viz. that in the Celebration of it there is a true and proper Offering made for the Sins and Satisfactions both of the Dead and the Living we shall then find the full import of our Text according to their sense to be this DO THIS that is Receive the power which I hereby give you of consecrating i. e. of converting these Elements of Bread and Wine into the true and proper Substance of my Body and Blood and having so done Offer them up to my Father as a true and real propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins and Satisfactions for the Punishments and all other the Necessities of all my faithful Disciples whether they be alive or dead whether they be yet on Earth or gone to Purgatory Such is the Account which those of the Church of Rome give us of these words And in this they are so very confident that they not only Anathematize all those who shall say either that Christ in this Command did not institute his Apostles Priests or that he did not Command that they and other Priests should in like manner offer up his Body and Blood but have also made it the very Form of Ordaining Priests at this day in their Church having delivered the Patin and Chalice into
to us all the Blessings and Advantages which the others can hope for from their ungrounded and unwarrantable Opinion of a natural and corporal participation of Him 2. From this Account of the Design and End of this Institution it follows in the next Place What an Abuse they have made of it who from a Remembrance of a Sacrifice turn it into a Sacrifice it self and instead of esteeming this Sacrament a Memorial of that offering Christ once for all made for us suppose Him to be again as truly and properly offered in it as ever he was tho' not in the same manner that he was once upon the Cross. I shall not now insist so long upon this Point as to shew not only how contrary such an Opinion is to the express Authority of Holy Scripture which declares That Christ was to be offered once for all that by his once offering himself for us he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified and much more to the same purpose in the ixth and xth Chapters to the Hebrews but how derogatory to the Honour of our Saviour whether we consider his former Sufferings or his present Glory This is plain that if the Design of this blessed Sacrament were as our Text declares it to be a Remembrance of our Saviour's dying for us then it is not a new offering of Him there being nothing more absurd than to say of the same thing that it is both the Memorial of what was done many Ages ago and the very same thing again done in Memorial of its self 3. From the same Principles it will follow That if this Holy Sacrament be no more than a Remembrance of our Saviour Christ that then certainly those must have very desperately abused it who pay to it that Honour and Worship that they would do to our Saviour himself were his true and natural Body there present I need not say any thing to prove what the Superstition of the Church of Rome is as to this Matter They here freely own it themselves and censure us for not joyning with them in the same Service They elevate their Host in the Mass for the People to adore it They have instituted a solemn Feast every Year to be observed in Honour of it They dedicate religious Societies thereunto they set it forth upon their Altars to bless the People there assembled to its Worship If they carry it abroad whether to the Sick or upon the occasion of any solemn Processions they put it under a Canopy born all the while over it Candles and Tapers are carried before it and a Bell is rung all the Way that it passes to admonish all that are in sight of it to fall down and adore it And by all these and many other of their Actions they oblige all Persons to pay the supreme Honour that they give to God to this Holy Sacrament It were easie to shew how dangerous this Adoration is even upon their own Principles whether we consider the Impossibility of their being ever sure that their Host is indeed consecrated as it ought to be or that if it were yet at least the Accidents of the Bread and Wine which are Creatures and yet make up a Part of the Sacrament are by consequence joynt partakers of all their Worship But alas what I have now been speaking shews a great deal more Not only that the Accidents of the Bread and Wine have their Part in being Objects of this Worship but that our Saviour Christ indeed is not at all concerned in it They pay their Adoration to the inanimate Creatures of Bread and Wine and commit an Idolatry not much less gross in the Opinion of some of their own Writers if we are indeed in the Right than those who fall down before a Piece of red Cloth and pay their Adoration to a Tile or a Potsherd But 4. If our Saviour Christ in our Text plainly commanded his Apostles and in them all of us To do that in Remembrance of Him which he had there done before their Eyes if what he required in order to this Commemoration was That we should take Bread and Wine and bless and give and receive these in Memory of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us it will then follow in the Fourth place That those who do not do this have plainly departed from our Saviour's Institution and do not remember him as they are commanded to do And this alone is sufficient to confute that great Corruption of the same Church in Communicating the People only in One Kind And whatever Pretences they may offer for their so doing had they as just reason otherwise for altering the order of this Sacrament as God knows 't is plain they have not any at all yet this would still remain a perpetual Exception against it That our Saviour here expresly commands them to Do this i. e. that which himself then did in Remembrance of Him Who gave the Wine as well as Bread to his Apostles and repeated the Command after the one as well as the other and not what they should at any time after think fitting to do And these are such consequences as concern others rather than our selves who God be thanked are again delivered from all these Corruptions and have no otherwise any cause to remember them than as they serve to confirm us in our Pure and Holy Doctrine and Practice in this matter and ought to raise up our Souls to a grateful acknowledgment of God's Mercy to us who has freed us from such great and dangerous Errors and in which he still permits so many others to continue But there are yet some other Conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing Reflections and in which we may perhaps find somewhat that will be of a more near and direct concern to us For 5. If our Saviour Christ has here commanded us to Do this in Remembrance of Him that is to come to the Holy Table and receive this blessed Sacrament and make our publick and solemn Acknowledgments to him for his great Mercy in dying for us What then shall we say of those who despising this sacred Ordinance do either totally absent themselves from this Memorial or come but very seldom and negligently to it This certainly must needs be a great fault as it is evidently contrary to the express Command of our Saviour in the Text before us And if we may make any Judgment of Christ's resentment of it either from the Nature of the thing it self or from the severe Punishment God threatned unto those in the Old Testament who should neglect the like Memorial of the Paschal Feast one of the greatest Provocations any Christian can almost be guilty of If we consider the thing it self what does he who despises this Holy Sacrament and neglects to partake of it but in effect despise Christ himself and tread under foot the Blood of the Covenant by which we must be saved And how
commanded to Remember the Day in which they came out of Egypt and to keep the feast of unleavened bread seven daies And then and there solemnly to declare to their Children the Cause of it namely That they did this because of that which the Lord their God had done for them when they came forth out of Egypt To which end it was the Custome of the Jews at this Solemnity to have their Children propose to them the Question What the meaning of this Solemnity was And thereupon the Master of the House gave a full Account to them of the History of their Deliverance and which from thence they called the Haggadah the Annunciation or Remembrance Because of their using it at this Time to commemorate or shew forth that wonderful Deliverance which God had wrought for them Such was the Nature of that Remembrance which God commanded the Jews to continue in their Paschal Supper of His bringing them out of Egypt And the same is the Remembrance which our Saviour here commands us by this new Feast to continue in his Church of his dying for us We are to celebrate it as a solemn and Publick Memorial of that great Deliverance which our Blessed Lord has wrought for us and to declare to all the World thereby what a Sense we have of his infinite Love and Mercy to us Nay but this is not yet all we are to do if we will answer the full extent of the Duty here required of us We must not only make in this Holy Sacrament our Publick and solemn Recognition of Christ's Death and Passion but we must do it with that Affection that Joy those Resentments that become so great and excellent a Memorial So these kind of Expressions in Holy Scripture are for the most part to be understood and so it is plain we must take the Word in this Place And this is the other thing remaining to be considered for the full understanding of the Text. viz. II. With what Affections we ought to come to this Holy Table and Do this in Remembrance of Him It were too much for me here in the close of my Discourse to resume the whole Consideration of this great Sacrament and enter again upon a particular View of it and shew what kind of Affections we ought to raise in our Souls proportionable to the several Parts and Respects of it If we are indeed so sensible as we ought to be of our Saviour's Love to us in thus giving himself to the Death for us If we have so seriously weighed as becomes those who are called to this Feast the mighty Benefits and Advantages which are derived to us thereby what Miseries we have escaped to what Blessings we are entituled by his Sufferings the Sense of all this will soon teach us what Motions and Affections ought to fill our Souls that may be suitable to so great and blessed a Memorial For indeed who can be so ignorant as not to know without my Remark when he comes to the Holy Table and there beholds the Minister of God setting forth as S. Paul speaks evidently before his eyes Christ crucified for Him when both his Words and his Actions call upon Him to consider How the Son of God humbled himself even to the death for our Redemption and submitted his Body to be broken his Blood to be spilt as He there sees the Bread broken the Wine poured out in this Celebration that here certainly he ought with the greatest Ecstasie of Love to contemplate this Love of his Saviour to Him and break forth into the highest Expressions of a grateful Thanksgiving for this mighty Demonstration of his Favour and Affection to Him When from this He begins to reflect on that wretched Condition in which we all of us must have been had not the blessed Jesus thus graciously undertook the great Work of our Redemption and by dying for us delivered us from that Death to which we were condemned and raised us up to the Hopes of Eternal Glory Where is the Soul so dull so un-affected with the Contemplation of such a glorious Change as to be able to keep in his joyful Resentments of so wonderful a Deliverance and not rather burst forth into new Songs of Praise and Gladness for all the Benefits which God and his Redeemer have been so wonderfully pleased to do unto Him But above all who can think on that Value which the Blessed Jesus has put upon our Souls that he thought the Salvation of them to be a Price worthy his own Death and Sufferings to redeem them and then consider That even these very Souls for which Christ died will yet be exposed to the hazard of a greater and worser Damnation than that from which they have been delivered if we shall still go on impenitent in our Sins And not presently resolve here to sacrifice all his Passions at this Altar to lay down all his Lusts at the Pedestal of the Cross and vow Himself entirely to the Obedience of that Saviour who as S. Paul tells us for this very End gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all Iniquity and purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Such Resentments as these will naturally arise in every pious Soul when he comes to this Sacred Feast and therefore I shall not need to give any particular Directions concerning them Only I would take occasion from this last Import of the Remembrance to which our Text calls us To exhort you when you come to this Holy Institution that you would take Care to raise up all these Affections and Resentments to as great a Heighth as you are able and having done this that you would then cherish and improve them that being not only warm and vigorous upon your Souls at the present but also rooted and engrafted into them they may not easily cool again but become operative upon your Lives may encrease your Love and confirm your Faith and enflame your Devotion and keep you firm and steady to your Duty till some new Occasion shall again call you to a new exciting of them This will be indeed to render your Remembrance such as your Saviour here requires of you And the frequent Returns which by the Blessing of God you here enjoy of this Memorial beyond most Christians in the World shall not only put you in a Capacity of coming still with better and more affectionate Resentments to this Holy Sacrament but shall by the Blessing of God prove a most useful and excellent Assistance to the promoting of all the other Parts of your Duty you shall live as becomes those who know what mighty Engagements their Saviour has laid upon them to what Hopes they are called and by what means their Redemption was purchased for them And as this Exercise will be the best means to prepare you to come worthily to this Remembrance so will it be also the most powerful Motive to engage you to
reveal them unto her yet since he has no where promised that he will do this nor encouraged us to call upon her to this End we think we cannot in this manner pray to her without either great Folly or great Impiety Without great Folly if not believing that she do's certainly some way or other understand our Requests we yet neverless address to her Without great Impiety if in confidence that she has such an Ability we ascribe the most peculiar Prerogatives of God to her viz. Immensity Omniscience Omnipresence and so make her every way equal with God But were she now upon Earth where we could either speak to her our selves or otherwise entertain any certain Correspondence with her we should be far from discouraging any to beg the Benefit of her Prayers or thinking them worthy of Censure for so doing When we stand at our Altars and celebrate the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ and set forth the Lord's death until his coming We cannot indeed allow our selves to do this to the Honour and Veneration of any other than of him only whose Death and Passion we commemorate But even here also we do the utmost that we can to Honour her We name her at the Holy Table we recite there the History of God's Favour to her and magnifie him with her upon the account of it In a Word when we confess our Sins and absolve our Penitents if we commend either our selves or others to God's Mercy In these and the like Cases we think it an Impiety to joyn the Daughter of Anna with the great God the Lord of Heaven and Earth If we give Thanks for any Blessings we have receved we chuse rather to follow her Example and cry out with her My Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour than with others to divide the Glory between God and her and say Glory be to JESVS and MARY If we vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear by his Name we neither think it fitting nor lawful to joyn God and the Blessed Virgin together lest we should thereby seem to make her the Searcher of Hearts as well as him and a powerful Avenger of such secret Sins If we speak of Her we readily give her any Attribute that either the holy Scripture warrants or her Nature allows of But to call her a Goddess and our selves her Suppliants to style her Queen of Heaven and Mother of Divine Grace the Refuge of Sinners and the Ark of the Covenant the Sovereign Lady of Angels Archangels Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and all Saints and as such beseech her That she and her Son would bless us this we think is to carry the Complement too far and a Strain much fitter for some poetical Heathen Goddess than for a Christian Saint But let these and the like Superstitions be laid aside and which a Virgin so humble on Earth cannot sure be supposed to be so much altered for the worse as to aspire after in Heaven let Religion and the Worship of that be exempted as the peculiar Due of that God who made both her and us and whom alone both she and all of us therefore ought to adore and then what farther remains to proclaim her Blessed shall as freely be allowed and paid her by us as it can be justly claimed of us Now the sum of all such Honour may be referred by us to these two general Considerations 1. Of that just Esteem and Value and Opinion we have of her And 2. Of Actions suitable to such Opinions As for the former of these 1. That Esteem and Value and Opinion we have of her It is certainly as great as any sober Christian can desire it should be We believe her to have been a most pure and holy and vertuous Creature That her virgin Mind was clean and spotless as her Body Chast and immaculate and that she was upon the Account of both the most fit of any of all her Race or Sex for the Holy Ghost to overshadow and for the Son of the most Highest to inhabit When we consider the firmness of her Faith the fervour of her Devotion the excellency of her Humility we cannot but acknowledge a Grace extraordinary in her working all those eminent and Divine Qualities And tho' we are not so curious as to enter on those nicer Speculations in which so many have in vain exercised themselves Whether she was Conceived in Sin And if she was How far it was restrained in her at first and at what instant totally extinct in her afterwards Whether she was Sanctified in the Womb of her Mother And to what degree And at what time Whether before she was Animated or after And Whether this Sanctification was such as to keep her from ever committing any so much as Venial Sin Yet as the common condition of Mankind does not permit us without all warrant from Holy Scripture which they confess is here wanting to them to exempt her from all Sin so neither do we pretend to accuse her of any And for her present state we do not at all question but that God who shewed her such favour on Earth hath also very highly exalted her in Heaven So that among all the Race of Adam next unto him who was God as well as Man we think it very probable that she has obtain'd the chiefest place in God's Kingdom who brought forth the Son of God into the World And here then let these our Accusers who say that we are not of the number of those of whom the Blessed Virgin in my Text prophesied That Behold from thenceforth all Generations should call her Blessed tell us if they can Wherein is it that we are defective in our Opinion concerning the Mother of our Lord Is it that we deny her Immaculate Conception and suppose her to have in this been submitted to the common condition of all others since the Fall of our first Parents Christ only excepted But then they must not forget that this is no more than what their own Brethren of their own Infallible Church deny as stifly as we do And if there have been Saints and Popes and Visions and Miracles for it yet we know there have been also Saints and Popes and Visions and Miracles against it too And at this day there is Order against Order School against School about it And as if the Spirit of Infallibility had in this Matter forsaken their Church it could never yet be finally determined either by Council or Pope which Side is in the right Is it that we suspend our selves as to the Point of her Actual Sins And see no cause to conclude why the Blessed Virgin though a most pure and holy Creature yet should not have been as capable of committing Sins as well as all others Christ only excepted here also we think must be allowed to be But yet in this we do but follow some of the greatest