care and indeavour constantly is to be understood by all as far as the subject will bear In the pursuit of what I intend I mean by Gods help to proceed in this order 1 I shall discourse with all convenient brevity and plainness the Nature and design of the Lords Supper and 2 Give the General Reasons to inforce the Duty under which head I shall apply my self to two sorts of Refusers viz. Those that neglect 1 on the account of pure carelesness and stupidity and 2 Those that stand off upon the score of mistakes of Conscience In treatting with the former I shall shew that their obstinate refusal takes off all pretence they can have to Christianity and puts them into the state of Infidels and Heathens yea into a worse condition than that of meer unbelievers As to the other sort viz. The dissatisfied in Conscience I shall consider their Reasons against Communicating with us according to the way of our Church and shew that they are no justifiable grounds why they should refuse to join with us in that solemn part of Christian worship CHAP. II. I Begin with the First The Nature of the Lords Supper Concerning this there hath been an infinite diversity of opinions and disputes The effects of which differences have been much Noise and many Tumults Schisms and Wars with a vast heap of mischiefs and calamities to the Christian world I shall not therefore trouble you with any thing of needless controversie or notion on this argument but state it so far only as it relates to practice And I shall take all I have to say about it from the Word of God the best Rule to guid us in the Enquiry And if disputing men would have been content with its declarations in this matter all the trouble and mischiefs had been avoided But this hath been the misery some govern their thoughts of this Holy Institution by corrupt and novel Traditions and others by meer vain and arbitrary phancies Yea Those who have been right in the main have yet so mingled the plain truth with allusions and spoken of it in such a phantastical and uncertain way that ordinary understandings have been confounded and those that are for down-right sence without the mixtures of imagination have not been able to tell what to make of that which they heard described in such a phanciful and various fashion This particularly hath been my own case I had heard men preach so humoursomely and so diversly about the Sacrament So much out of their own heads and so little out of the Oracles of God That I was quite bewildred and lost and come at last to that pass that I knew nothing at all of it which ignorance and confusion of thoughts was the natural effect of such discourses For when men once ramble in the way of phrases metaphors and conceits as they loose themselves so they perfectly dazzle and amaze those others whom they should instruct I therefore betook my self to the plain expressions of Scripture concerning this matter In them I found an easie account in the nature and design of this divine Ordinance And whither shall we go to enquire after it but to the words of Institution themselves These I shall consider first and then gather together those other passages of Scripture which tend to the further explication of it 1. The words of Institution are Mat. 26. Take Eat This is my Body v. 26. and Drink ye all of it For this is my bloud of the new Testament v. 27. 28. To which is added in the Gospel of St. Luke Do this in Remembrance of me Luke 22. 19. These words I shall severally explain and then infer from them what is the nature and design of the holy appointment Take Eat This is my Body and This is my Bloud Here I take notice That Body and Blood do not relate to the bread and wine But to the actions Eat and Drink as appears plainly in the Original ' This not this bread and this wine are my body and bloud but this Sacramental eating and drinking of it In this Christs body and bloud viz His Incarnation and sufferings are represented to us And yet by a Figure The consecrated Elements may be call'd his body and bloud also so the Form at the eating the paschal Supper was This is the bread of affliction which our Fathers did eat in Egypt Not the very same but a Memorial of it and the State of bondage from which they were deliver'd Thus 1 Cor 10. 3 4. Manna is called spiritual bread and the Rock spiritual drink and that Rock Christ Not that they could possibly be so in the Letter but they signified that spiritual food and were tokens of Christs Prefence And thus the Sacramental Bread and Wine may be call'd his Body and Bloud that is Figures and Representations of them and that not barely of his sufferings but as the Father notes of all the Misteries of the Incarnation which are signified and included Thus anciently the Elements were call'd Figures Symbols Images sensible things instead of spiritual and we know 't is in common use to call the Picture by the name of that it represents as this is a man and that an Angel So that there is no ground for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in these words as the Roman Church pretends But I wave disputes and come to the next expression to be consider'd This is the New Testament or Covenant in my Bloud viz. The Sign and Seal of the Covenant made in his Bloud a Covenant wherein God ingageth to bestow on us pardon of Sin and eternal Life and we promise faithful and sincere obedience Thus in the eldest times Eating and Drinking were Covenant Rites as we may see in the compacts between Isaac and Abimilech Gen. 26. 30. and between Iacob and Laban Gen. 31. 44 46. So that the Sacrament is not a bare Sign but 't is the Seal of Gods gracious Covenant made with us in his Son Do this in Remembrance of me It hath always been usual to commemorate and remember Benefactors and great Mercies by Feasts and Festivals The Heathens had their Feasts in memory of their Heroes And the Passover a Type of this Supper was appointed to preserve the memory of the Israelites deliverance out of Egypt Exod. 12. 14. The Lamb was eaten with bitter herbs to commemorate the bitterness of their servitude the Red Wine was a Remembrance of their bloud which Pharaoh spilt and the unleavened bread to remember them that they carried such out of Egypt at their departure and thus our blessed Saviour hath appointed this holy Rite to imprint upon us the memory of what he hath done and suffered for us that we might not forget our Deliverance by him from a bondage greater than Egyptian And now from these main passages thus explain'd 't is easie to infer That The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a Memorial Feast appointed for a solemn Remembrance of Christ our
Lord and a Seal of the Covenant that God hath made with us in him Two things then it is principally designed for 1 To Remember us of our Lord and Saviour and 2 to be a Seal of the Covenant of Grace of each briefly 1 'T is for a Remembrance not only of his Person or only of his Sufferings or any other particular part of his Ministry But we are by it required thankfully and affectionately to call to mind All that he hath done and all that he hath suffer'd His Life Doctrine and Laws His Passion Resurrection and Ascension His Victory over Sin Death and Hell and the gracious Covenant that God hath made with us through him These are all included in his Body and Bloud as I intimated before of which the Holy Sacrament is a Sign and Memorial And the remembrance of these which we are call'd to by the Divine Institution is not only some slight and passing thoughts but a solemn and most serious fixing of them upon our minds in order to the inflaming our affections with love and our wills with resolution that we may live answerably to that excellent Religion of the Holy Jesus which we profess 2 'T is the Seal of a Covenant The new Testament in my bloud The Covenant is That God will give pardon of Sin and eternal Life upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance This He seals to us in the Sacrament and assures us that he for his part will make good his Promises and we on ours seal that we will endeavour to perform the conditions So that the Lords Supper is a Sacrament by which we confirm those ingagements we are entred into at Baptism Then our Sureties undertook for us that we should be faithful in the Convenant and in this holy Ordinance we take all those obligations upon our selves and in our own persons promise to act according to them This plainly and in short is the nature and design of the Holy Sacrament concerning which there are some other expressions in Scripture which I shall consider briefly in order to the further explication of the sacred Mystery The chief are these 'T is called 1 The Cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 The communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ 1 Cor. 10. 16 and in the duty t is said 3 That we shew the Lords Death 1 Cor. 11. 26. 1 The Cup of Blessing viz. of Praise and Thanksgiving Our Saviour Matth. 26 gave thanks when he took the Cup. The Jews used to conclude their paschal Supper with a Cup of Wine at which time they sung an Hymn and therefore call'd it the cup of praising and blessing And the Heathens also after their feasts had their cups of Praise to their Gods which some take to be the Cup of Divils mention'd by the Apostle I Coa 10. 21. So that by this we are taught to remember our Lord at his Table with praise and grateful acknowledgements And therefore the Ancients from hence call'd the Lords Supper the Holy Eucharist namely a Feast of Thanksgiving and the Solemnity was always attended with an hymn of Praise 2 Communion or Communication of the body and bloud of Christ viz. The Sacrament is a sacred Rite in which God communicates and imparts to all worthy Receivers the Benefits of Christs Incarnation and Sufferings He doth then ratifie confirm and solemnly exhibit them to those that duly attend upon that Divine appointment 3 As often as ye eat ye do shew the Lords death viz. 1 Declare unto men with joy and glorying that we believe he dyed for such purposes and that he hath procured inestimable benefits for us by his Death That therefore we will adhere and stick unto him and that neither death nor life shall seperate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord. And 2 Imports our shewing and declaring this also unto God and pleading it with him for his pardon and his grace for the sake of that meritorious Passion which we set forth and commemorate These passages fall under the Account I have before given of the Ordinance and shew how we are to Remember our Lord in it and what we may expect in so doing Thus briefly of the Nature and design of the Sacrament I might have run the matter into a large Discourse but I resolve all convenient brevity In what I have said you will find all things that are necessary and essential to the Ordinance For the niceties and disputes that are about it you need not trouble your selves with them But so much of it as I have represented I mean in the substance of the particulars 't is fit you should know And therefore I intreat you especially those of the more ordinary understandings to return back and fix your thoughts a while upon those periods and read them over and again till you have a clear and distinct apprehension of the Subject they explain I know the thoughts of most are very confused and much in the dark about it and while they are so they cannot demean themselves as they ought in the performance of the Duty nor receive those benefits that otherwise they might from it I beseech you therefore not to content your selves with a single and running reading Many Divine Truths will not enter into our minds at first sight or if they do they are gone as soon as they are received Though they are never so plainly exprest yet they many times seem dark till we look again Or though they strike our minds fully yet they pass out of Memory except we reflect and think them over I hope therefore you will do your selves this right And I thus urge you to consideration of my accounts not as if I fancied I had made any discoveries in them which were not made before No These are known things among the Intelligent sort of Christians But I do it because I speak to the meaner and less improved understandings And perhaps from the Representation of the affair which I have given the others also may receive the advantage of a clearer order and method to their thoughts and be deliver'd from many unnecessary and uncertain notions that they have imagined to be of great consequence to be believed and known when either they are not true or not considerable CHAP. III. I Come now to the main thing I design viz. II To urge this great duty which I have thus explain'd and to do what I can to persuade you to the conscientious practice of it Now there are two things that commonly oblige men to action namely Considerations of Duty and of Interest And there are both here in the highest degree to ingage us I shall discourse of each 1 We have the Motive and Reason of Duty and Duty in such circumstances as have the greatest obligation in them A Lord who hath all right to our obedience both by nature and by dear purchase hath commanded us to do this And A Saviour who hath rescued
us from the Jaws of Hell and Earth and hath procured for us endless life and glory hath required it of us Here is the Authority of just Power and the Obligation of astonishing Love We are bound by the submissions we owe a Sovereign Lord and by the gratitude we owe an adorable Benefactor The Son of God the King of both the worlds The Redeemer of Men 't is He that commands and his commandments are not grievous had he put upon our necks a yoke heavier then the Iewish ceremonies had he injoyn'd a greater number of costly and laborious Rites than those and required so many of such services from us as would have taken up all our time and imployed all our strength and wearied all our powers Yet these we ought to have observed without repining and thought all but small homage to his Greatness and small acknowledgment of his Love All these had been nothing in compare with what he hath done for us freely without merit or obligation Nothing to his leaving the bosome of the Father and the glories of the upper world and the Hallelujahs of the blessed Nothing to his descending to a world of Infamy and woe Nothing to his suffering the scorns and contradictions of Sinners the Death of the Cross and the wrath of God So that we had been wretchedly ungrateful should we have stuck at any of these or as much as murmured at them But our Lord hath not given us any such tryal of our Love and obedience He hath deliver'd the world from the Yoke of Ceremonial bondage And besides Baptism hath appointed but this one Rite for us to observe A Rite that is neither troublesome nor costly tedious nor laborious And what Prodigies of baseness shall we make our selves if we refuse to take notice of this his gracious Institution With what face can we look up and call our selves by his name How shamefully are we upbraided by the practice of those we count barbarous Let us look abroad into the world and consider the most brutish Idolaters They will cut their beloved flesh and burn their dearest children and sometimes suffer themselves to be crush'd to death by the Carriages that bear their Idols because their Infernal Gods require and are pleased with such testimonies of their homage Hath the Devil such obsequious servants Are those Cruel Rites whch he appoints observed with so much duty Will those poor wretches do and suffer any thing rather than displease their ugly Deities And are we Christians Professing Servants of the Son of God our Sovereign and Redeemer and do we neglect this his main just and gracious appointment Is this too much to do for him and do we owe him so much less than Cannibals do their Idols Certainly those men of the Desart those wild Savages of the Woods shall rise up in judgement with such a Generation of pretending Christians and shall condemn it Methinks their diligence and exactness in those hard and painful services should cover us with blushing and confusion at our carelesness and neglect of the easie duty our Lord requires from us And we shall see great reason to be ashamed of our omissions if we consider that our blessed Redeemer had lived a Life of poverty and dishonour for our sakes He had instructed us in the way of Happiness by his excellent Doctrine and Precepts and had gone before us in an incomparable example and now he was just about to compleat his Love by offering himself unto death to deliver us from it and thereby to give an instance of the most amazing goodness that ever was At this time he injoines his Disciples to do something in Remembrance of Him And Lord What is sufficient to be done in memory of such Love Had he required the dearest of our bloud and the choicest of our substance to be offer'd to him in acknowledgment should we have thought such demands unreasonable Would ordinary ingenuity have scrupled to make those Sacrifices for such kindness But he calls not for these He looks for no First-born of our bodies nor chief of our Flocks No He appoints only a feast of Memorials and commands us to remember his Love in that And shall we not observe him in so small a matter Hath he not deserv'd to be remembred by us or do we know any better way to signifie our remembrance of him then that which himself hath prescribed Should we not do as much as this at the request of an ordinary dying Friend And is not the greatest and the best that ever creatures had worthy of such a testimony of affection from us I am sure there is no one can be so brutish as to deny the justness of the Duty and methinks none should be so unworthy as to refuse complyance with it I beseech you therefore if the Considerations of Duty can do any thing with you If there be any obligation in the highest Authority if there be any allurement in the sweetest love If your profession of subjection to Christ be not only a Complement and if he have any real interest in your Souls give this proof then of your being in earnest that which you would be thought Refuse no more of his Invitations Neglect no more of his calls Consider the expresness of his command and that this Law is peculiarly his His in such a sence as Baptism excepted no other Law is For his other injunctions are but enforcements of the Laws that God had written in the old Scriptures and in our hearts But this is his own proper commandment by obeying him in this we particularly own him as our Law-giver and by refusing we renounce him But if the considerations of Duty should not prove so powerful with you there are others which generally use to be of more force namely those taken from our interest And here II I desire you to consider the great benefits that a worthy Communicant receives from the holy Sacrament This is not a meer barren Ceremony or unprofitable Rite but an instrument and means to produce and to convey unspeakable blessings to us Here we receive 1 Confirmation of our Faith All habits are increas'd by being exercised and this Ordinance requires great exercises of the grace of Faith For here we make a solemn declaration of it and thereby bind it stronger upon our souls And to the exercise of this Divine Grace and the sincere and publick profession of it there is no doubt but God will superadd his special aid and blessing that out of weakness it may be made strong So that if your Faith be weake and trembling if you are perplext with vexatious doubts and temptations to unbelief apply your selves to this holy Ordinance as to the proper remedy Declare your Faith and pray for more If you believe God will help your unbelief Mark 9. 24. 2 Our Repentance will be heightned by our Due Communicating at the Lords Table and that in respect of all its great Acts viz. 1. Sence and