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A42499 The whole duty of a communicant eing rules and directions for a worthy receiving the most holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper. By the right reverend Father in God, John Gauden, late Lord Bishop of Exeter. He being dead yet speaketh. Gauden, John, 1605-1662. 1685 (1685) Wing G373A; ESTC R217413 67,785 159

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broken the Covenant of thy God even the Covenant of Reconciliation Seal'd thee by the Sacrament and that thus by thy Sin thou art at enmity with thy Maker Be it so yet will not the Lord who is good be as gracious to his enemies as he requires us to be to ours It is his own Law Exod. 23. 4. If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or his Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again now God meets us Sinners and all Sinners as such are his Enemies he meets us straying like the Beast without understanding and what will he not bring us again unto himself the sole proprietary by that first right of Creation and that more firm right of Redemption IV. Read his Commission Luke 4. 18. He comes to preach the Gospel to the poor to heal the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the Captives to recover sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised to this to all this is he Sealed of the Father John 6. 27. and that he will do it he seals unto us in this holy Sacrament make hast my Soul and approach to the Throne of Grace in this blessed Ordinance let my accusing Conscience tell me I am a Sinner and therefore not worthy the knowledg of God or the quicknings of his Grace not worthy a Communion with Christ a participation of his fulness yet to this shall my afflicted Soul reply in the returns of Faith that God even teaches Sinners in the way so they be humble and penitent Sinners and from hence know I that the Lord teacheth Sinners even from hence that he is both good and upright V. Thus then does God give Grace to the humble to the humble not so properly said to be humbled for humbled we may be when prest down under the weight of punishment but humble we cannot be less laid low in the sense of Sin without this sense of Sin we shall be as far from being humble as from having Grace but oh the languishings of my Soul under the weight of my Sin My Sins are gone over my head and are become a sore burden too heavy for me to bear too heavy not only in their punishment and their wrath but even in their pollution and guilt VI. If so yet though humbled be not rejected O my Soul but rather comfort O comfort thy self in this holy Sacrament of thy Jesus through faith in the promises of his Grace for that by how much the more thou art humbled for thy sin by so much the more do those promises of Grace and Glory belong to thee in the Gospel which are peculiarly made of God in Christ and by Christ conveyed unto us in this Sacrament VII And all those who thus come unto Christ in this holy Ordinance they shall find rest to their Souls and though we cannot keep the Covenant and Testimonies of our God in an Angelical purity yet may we do it in an Evangelical sincerity though not in a full perfection yet in a sincere endeavour of holy obedience that Mercy and Truth being met together Righteousness and Peace may kiss each other even in him my blessed Mediator will I trust which hath wrought out my everlasting Salvation Tuesday Morning a Solliloquy on the blessed Sacrament I. O Lamb of God that takes away the Sins of the World grant me thy peace and take not thy holy Spirit from me grant that I may run the ways of thy Commandments and keep them with my whole heart that being now called to thy holy Table I may become a worthy receiver of thy precious body and blood which was offer'd up for me and for the Sins of the whole World II. O Lord God who art the wise disposer of all things both spiritual and temporal who livest in that light unto which no mortal eye can appro●ch and yet humble● thy self so far as to behold me and all other thy unworthy Servants more especially thou hast engag'd thy self by promise to draw nigh unto to dwell with and to be in the midst of thy poor people when in sincerity of heart they shall appear before thee III. I therefore the unworthiest of all thy Servants sinful dust and ashes a worm and no man do here in all humility prostrate my self before thee desirous to have my thoughts and meditations fix'd upon thine omnipresence which beholdest me and all that is within me even the intentions and disposition of my heart in coming to thy holy Table as also with a confidence of thy gracious presence that thou art with me to assist and enable me in the performance of this thy holy Ordinance that I may become a worthy receiver of thy precious Body and Blood IV. Lord I confess I am unworthy to come before thee to draw nigh unto thee or to receive any favour from thee and that because of the rebellion of my nature I have just cause to cry out with the Leper I am unclean I am unclean unclean by Original Corruption which like a Leprosie hath overspread all the powers and faculties of my Soul unclean by those numberless number of actual trangressions which throughout the whole course of my life I have committed against thee V. I come unto thee O God at this time disclaiming my own righteousness and abhorring my self for all my former wickedness and only in the name for the merits and through the mediation of my dear Redeemer Christ Jesus the righteous Am I bold yet to implore thy mercy to seek thy face to sue out a pardon from the guilt of my iniquity to desire thee to be reconciled and to be well pleas'd with me O Lord do thou forget my sins but let me remember them do thou cast them behind thy back but let me have them always before my face I must confess O Lord that thou maist glorifie thy self in my confusion and I must needs acknowledge that in the severest of thy dispensations thou art righteous but let my God rather glorifie himself in the remission of my sins in the converting of my nature and salvation of my soul VI. O thou father of mercy have mercy upon me and let all my iniquities be cast into the Sea even into the red Sea of my Saviours blood that so they may never rise up in judgment against me O thou God of all Grace send down thy Spirit of Grace into my heart to sanctifie it to thy service humble me for my sins past and establish me against sin for the time to come let me every day grow in grace that the house of Saul may grow weaker and weaker and the house of David stronger and stronger VII O put thy fear into my heart that I may never depart from thee and do thou never leave me that so I may walk on from strength to strength in this valley of Tears until I appear before thee O God give me a sanctified use of all thy dispensations towards me that sickness and health
which are proportionable may be used so that no Nation or man may think himself excluded from the use and comfort of this Sacrament of the Lords Super. II. For their necessity such as no man in an ordinary way of living can dispence with the want of them and live long healthfully implying that Food is not more necessary for sustaining this present life and strength of the body than the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is for the supporting the life and well-being of the soul to all eternity III. For their plainness and simplicity it is such as may take off Christians minds from placing Piety and the Mysteries of Grace and Religion in any external pomp and vanity which doth but dazle the eyes and amaze the senses and detain vulgar and common minds by the outward glory of the senses Objects from that inward retiring of the Spirit and Soul to its proper and comfortable Objects which are Spiritual Invisible and Intellectual and far remote from the Senses and abstracted from them So that Christians cannot easily be so grossly and stupidly sensual as to imagine any efficacy in these small and simple elements of themselves no more than in Wax or Parchment which not of their proper virtue but only of the will of the conveigher have power to convey an estate to the Receiver of them IV. For their proportionable suitableness and familiar correspondency of Virtues and Efficiency first the bread and wine being apt to nourish the body by common ordination of Providence the body and blood of Christ fit to nourish the soul by special ordination of Grace Secondly the bread and wine at a distance will not feed us but must be personally applyed by taking eating drinking and digesting The body and blood of Christ looked on only by knowledg and Historical speculation will not profit the soul except by a lively Faith which is the hand mouth and stomach of the soul it accepts and takes hold on Christ and applies his merits to it self for Salvation V. The Bread after it passeth much violence of the Mill hand and fire is made wholesome for Food and the Wine after it hath endured the torture of the Press is prepared for drink the body and blood of Christ not whole entire and unsufferable but Crucified and Broken in his Passion when he did undergo the burthen of the sins of the world and was under the pressure of the Justice of God and Sacrificed for the redemption of mankind under this consideration is received by the believing Soul for its life and comfort looking on all these sufferings of Christ not as his own demerits whose innocency was without spot or blemish but as the satisfaction of the Justice and appeasing the wrath of God for the sins of them that shall believe in his name which work of reconciling Heaven and Earth God and Man as Christ willingly undertook so he fully performed and is fully performed and is by God accepted in full discharge whose mercy to man designed his only Son for this great End VI. For the facility of the performance both in respect of cost and labour the Indulgence of Christ seeking to render Christian services to God and the Offices of the Gospel as easy and as cheap as might be that neither the cost nor the pains might deter any from the frequent partaking of these Mysteries the comforts of which are the free gift of God and cost us nothing but acceptance for the evidence and perceptibleness of them falling under the perception of four several fenses by whose joy●t testimony of their proper Objects our minds and reason naturally gains the certainty and infallibility of natural truths whose Testimonies now by Christs institution are raised higher to give evidence and witness to Faith of the truth and certainty of its Objects VII The Body and Blood of Christ broken and shed in his death and sufferings which by these sensible signs are clearly represented and the merits and efficacy of his death as truly perceived and as really conveighed by faith to the soul and person of a Believer for life and happiness as the nutritive power and virtue of the Bread and Wine is perceived approved and applyed by the Senses to the Body that as by one sense of Hearing faith is begun so by the other four Senses in this Sacrament it might daily be encreased and strengthned there being not a greater Physical certainty given into our common Sense and Reason by our senses of the Truth of the bread and wine which the body receives then there is a Theological and Sacramental certainty given into Faith depending upon the Authority truth and power of the Institutor of a real and most effectual perception of the body and blood of Christ for the nourishment of our souls and bodies to eternal life that as our souls are here helped by the senses of the Body and its food in the way of a natural and momentary life so the body may at last be saved by the souls perception of its Spiritual Food to Glory and Immortal life Fourthly The Mystical Vnion by which they effectually attain and convey to us that end and benefit which is propounded I. For the Sacramental Union of the outward signs which are the proper Objects of our senses to the body and blood of Christ which are the proper Objects of our Faith this I conceive to be not by any Physical or natural Union as the Fruit to the Tree or the effect to its proportionate Cause nor yet by any Miraculous working of Omnipotency in changing the substance of these Elements into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood which makes the Judgment of Faith contradict the Judgment of the Senses which the will of God hath appointed by the Law of Nature to give a true Testimony of their proper Objects rightly dispos'd and withal do witness these to be indeed true bread and wine and the same for Substance after Consecration as they were before though wonderfully different from their use neither is faith ever commanded by any Divine will to deny or contradict the truth of Senses for the substance and nature of things Though it raiseth us far above them and bids us look infinite beyond them in a Divine and Supernatural relation and use annexed to them II. Nor may Omnipotency the common retreat and subterfuge be so far extended by Human fancy and imagination to maintain them as to imply a necessary contradiction in the Will of God about one and the same subject which Will is but one and regular setting bounds to Omnipotency agreeable to it self which cannot be avoided here if we say that God's Will is in the way of nature that the Senses judge truly of their Objects which They do here and tell us jointly that they are bread and wine and yet his Will is at the same and about the same thing that Faith should contradict the Senses Testimonny and believe truly that they are not bread and