the Pardon and Salvation of Mankind than by the Death of his Son For since it was the Pleasure of God to pitch upon this way of doing it to what purpose is it for us vainly to enquire whether he might not have made use of some other This we ought at least to believe That God had his Reasons for preferring this and that however we ought not so far to tye up the Power and Liberty of our Creator as to presume to say he could not otherwise have redeem'd us than by the Death of Christ yet thus much we may and 't is our duty to conclude That none could have better or so well have answer'd the great Ends both of his Justice and of his Mercy or more illustriously have set forth the Riches of his Love and Favour to Mankind or more powerfully have engaged us to a suitable return of Love to him or more clearly have convinced us of the hatred of God to Sin or more effectually have stir'd us up to our utmost endeavours to live as we ought to do and as becomes those who had been so wonderfully redeem'd by the precious Blood of the Son of God himself But though this then be a Question otherwise of more Curiosity than Vse and raised for the most part rather to cavil at Religion than to magnifie the Power of it yet may it here perhaps be of some benefit to us to fill our Souls with the highest resentments of Love and Gratitude to our Great Redeemer to consider not only from what Miseries he has delivered us but with what a freedom and readiness and good-will to us he did it No God was not constrain'd nor any necessity put upon our Saviour Christ as if either the one must have died or that the other could not by any other means have reconciled Mankind unto himself It was the free Choice of both by this means the better to magnifie their Love to us and to secure our Love and Duty to them again that so as St. John says 1 Ep. iv 19 We may love God because he first loved us Hence it is that the Holy Scriptures every where set out to us the whole business of our Salvation as the effect of the free Choice and Pleasure of God So says St. John cap. iii. 16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life So says St. Paul 2 Tim. i. 9 where he makes the business of our Redemption to have been the eternal purpose of God before Adam had yet sinned or by consequence before there could be any necessity of Christ's dying for us who hath saved us says he and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the World began And of our Blessed Saviour the same Apostle tells us not only that He gave Himself for us Tit. ii 14 but that he did it with all imaginable readiness and with the same good-will with which God designed it Lo I come says he to fulfil thy Will O God Heb. x. 7 9. And again in St. John speaking of laying down his life for us he declares ver 18. No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Such therefore was the love of our Blessed Saviour to us in freely giving up himself to the Death for us And for the reason that induced him to it and the benefits which thereby accrue to us I shall not need to say either what or how great they were Indeed the time would fail me should I go about particularly to lay them all before you Miserable was the State and deplorable the Condition of Mankind beyond any thing that we are able almost to conceive We were all dead in Trespasses and Sins and must for ever have lain both under the Guilt and Punishment of our Transgressions had not the Blessed Jesus opened to us the Gates of Heaven and sealed a Gospel of Repentance with his own Blood for the Remission of our Sins Our Nature was decayed and that he has restored so that whereas before we had no sufficiency of our selves we have now a sufficiency of God and can do all things through Christ that strengthens us Our Sins had got the dominion over us and these he has not only very much prevented by his Grace but will also utterly wipe away by his Death and Satisfaction for us We were under a miserable Sentence of Death and Judgment But Christ has now took away the sting of the one and the danger of the other so that our Temporal Death is no longer a Punishment but rather a Blessing to us and the Eternal Judgment of God shall instead of being our Condemnation prove to us perfect Absolution and a glorious Reward This is the blessed Change which has been made in our Condition and which certainly ought to render the remembrance of our Text most dear and precious to us But I must not insist any longer upon this Point I am persuaded there is no one that now hears me so ignorant in the great Mystery of Godliness as not to be fully acquainted with this first and chiefest Foundation of all our Faith Nor have I mentioned that little which I have now remark'd of it so much to instruct you in what you ought to make a great part of your Memorial when you come to this Holy Sacrament as rather if it shall please God to stir up some Affections both in my self and you that may be suitable to a serious Reflection on all these things There being nothing it may be in the World more apt to fill our Souls with that due resentment we then especially ought to have of the Death of Christ when we come to this Sacred Memorial of it than to consider the wretched condition from which we were delivered by it nor more apt to engage us to live as becomes those who have been freed from such unspeakable Miseries and are now put into a capacity of Everlasting Glory and without which our remembrance of him in this Sacrament will be a Reproach and a Scandal not an Honour and a Service to him we shall forfeit all the benefits of that Death we are call'd to commemorate and as our Apostle phrases it ver 29. of this Chapter Eat and drink our own Damnation not discerning the Lord's Body This is the first thing we are to do in pursuance of the Command of the Text This do in Remembrance of Me. Secondly This remembring of Christ in this Holy Sacrament will oblige us to consider what that Death and Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and commanded us in this place to continue the Memory of in this Institution And this to be sure must be the proper business of every one when
Church of Rome as well as by us for one Essential part of the Priestly Mission and accordingly made use of by them in their Ordination So that either this Sacrament may be reiterated or the Character divided and one part conferr'd at one time the other at another all which is contrary to their own Principles or else the Apostles were not ordain'd Priests when they received the Holy Eucharist but when our Saviour here breathed upon them and both by his Action and his Words plainly expressed his Mission of them I say not to insist on any of these things either we must look upon these words to relate to the whole Church to the People as well as to the Priests and then to be sure they cannot have either the Effect or Signification that they herein attribute unto them or else it will remain that there is no Divine Command at all entituling the People to any Right to this Holy Sacrament For if our Saviour spoke to his Apostles as Priests if he not only took the Bread and the Cup and consecrated them as a Priest himself but also distributed them to the Apostles as Priests and bad them Take Eat and Drink as Priests then are not the People no not by Cardinal Bellarmin's consequence at all concerned in any part of this Institution which the Priests only by virtue of this Command are obliged to continue and consecrate offer give receive all by themselves and to one another as Christ and his Apostles here are supposed without the rest of the Disciples and as Priests to have done To pass by therefore this Interpretation both so lately invented and so weakly established set up to support that bold attempt of depriving the People of one half of the Communion and that upon such Principles as in the natural consequence of them rob them of both I go on to the other Point I have proposed and shall now take leave somewhat more largely to insist upon Viz. II. To shew what indeed it was that our Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them all of us to do in Remembrance of Him And to this end it will be necessary that we distinctly to consider these Two things First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this Secondly What it is to Do this in Remembrance of Christ First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this I answer That if we take these words as they lye before us in the first and most obvious Form of a Command they will then imply a Commission hereby given to the Apostles and in them to the whole Church to continue this Holy Sacrament by an Ordinance for ever as a Solemn Memorial of that Death and Passion which he was now about to undergo for us When God was pleased by a wonderful Deliverance to bring up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt we read in the Twelfth Chapter of Exodus That the same Night in which he did it he commanded them to kill a Lamb and eat it after a solemn manner with bitter herbs and unleavened-bread and to continue every Year by a constant repetition of that Sacred Ceremony the Memory of that Deliverance which he had wrought for them In like manner our Saviour Christ being now to fulfil that Redemption wâ—ereof the other was but a Type and Representation takes care for a Solemn Memorial to be continued of it in all Ages of his Church to the End of the World He institutes another and better Supper and the Observation whereof should not only be the Commemoration of his Delivering us but to the worthy Partaker of it the application also of all the Benefits of it He takes Bread blesses it and breaks it He takes the Cup and blesses it and distributes both to his Disciples and then in the words of the Text bids them also do the same in Remembrance of Him That as the Jewish Church had by their Paschal Feast hitherto kept up the Memory of God's once delivering their Fathers from the destroying Angel in the Land of Egypt so should we from henceforth by this Feast of Eucharist continue the remembrance of that infinitely greater and better Redemption which he was just now about to purchase by his own Death upon the Cross for us And this is no doubt the first and most proper design of these words But now Secondly If we consider them not only as a Command but as they are a Direction to inform his Apostles first and then us how we should celebrate this Holy Sacrament they will then add thus much to our former Account namely that we have here not only in general a Command to continue the Memory of the Death of Christ in this Holy Sacrament but moreover an Instruction also after what manner we are to do it That as our Saviour Christ here took the Bread blessed it and brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which was given for you As he took the Cup blessed it and gave it to them saying Drink ye All of this so should those who now minister in Holy Things when they stand at the Altar and set forth the Death of Christ in this Sacred Memorial of it after his Example and in Obedience to his Command in like manner take and bless and distribute these Sacred Elements to all those who partake with them in this Sacrament * As the Apostles received first the Bread then the Cup too at his Hands so should all they who supply the place of the Apostles at our Tables receive both the one and the other of these after their Example * And whosoever he be that celebrates this Holy Feast in any other manner than the Blessed Jesus did and has given us a Command to do it he therein both departs from the Example of our Saviour and violates the design of his Precept who not only in that particular manner as so many of the Holy Pen-men have set forth to us establish'd this Sacrament Himself but in the words of my Text has expresly commanded us to continue it for ever in the same manner in which he established it Do this in Remembrance of Me. But here therefore let me not be mis-understood For when I say that our Saviour Christ in my Text commanding his Apostles to do this in Remembrance of him did not only in general command them to perpetuate the Memory of his Death by this Holy Ordinance for ever but did moreover direct them after what Manner they should do it I do not mean to signifie thereby that we ought to look upon our selves to be so tied up to the Example of Christ as not to be at liberty to depart in any the least Circumstances from that first Celebration of it For then we must never administer nor receive this Holy Sacrament but after Supper in a private Chamber or upper Room to Men only and not to Women and those just twelve
neither more nor less and lying along with our Heads in one anothers Bosoms as the Apostles now did and which I suppose no Christian of whatsoever Church or Persuasion he be does at all think himself obliged to do But my meaning herein is this That in those things wherein the Nature of this Holy Sacrament consists and which the Holy Scriptures have recounted to us on purpose to direct us in the Celebration of it in those we are not to depart from our Saviour's Institution nor to presume to set up our own Innovations as the Council of Constance has most presumptuously done in opposition to and even in defiance of our Blessed Lord's Appointment To receive the Holy Sacrament in this or that posture with such or such particular Ceremonies these are things wholly foreign to the Nature and Design of this Blessed Sacrament and therefore such as may in different places and Ages be different And every Christian ought to comply with what is used and prescribed in that Church with which he communicates But for those things in which the very Nature of this Holy Sacrament is concern'd for such parts as constitute the integrity of it and serve the more lively to set it off as a memorial of the Death and Passion of Christ and which therefore we must look upon our Lord and Saviour to have sealed with his express Command Do this In these I say we are to keep close both to the Example of our Saviour and to the Command of the Text and when he has distinctly instituted this Holy Supper in Two Kinds not dare to command Men under the pain of an Anathema to believe that One alone is sufficient And this may suffice for the Explication of the former part of my Text What it is we are to understand by that Phrase of my Text Do this I go on Secondly to enquire Secondly What it is to do this in Remembrance of Christ. It is I think agreed on all hands That the Design of our Saviour in this Command was to set forth the great End of his Instituting this Holy Sacrament viz. That it was to keep up in our own Minds and set forth to others a solemn and lively Remembrance of his dying for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages that accrue to us thereby And however it be pretty hard to reconcile this plain Design of this Institution with what those of the other Communion now make to be the main business of it namely to be a true and proper Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Living and of the Dead in nothing differing from that upon the Cross but only in the manner of the Oblation A remembrance being ever of things absent from not present with us and the same Sacrifice very improperly said to be a Type or Memorial of it self yet so clearly is this design of this Holy Sacrament here declared to be for the remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion that they have chosen rather to encounter all these Absurdities than to adventure to deny what our Savior has so very plainly delivered as the End of this Institution But though it is not therefore to be doubted but that the Intention of our Blessed Lord in this Command was to oblige us by such a Solemn Ceremony as this to continue the Memory of his Death yet we are not therefore to think that all we have to do when we come to the Holy Table and attend on this Great Memorial is simply to remember or call to mind the Sufferings of our Saviour No this is not sufficient to answer either the meaning of this Command or the design of this Institution The word in the Original which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and imports not a bare calling to mind but a renew'd Commemoration It regards the Affections of the Heart as well as the Action of the Mind In a word it denotes not so much a private Remembrance as a publick and solemn Commemoration when in our Apostle's Phrase ver 26. we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate and shew forth to others at the same time that we thus call to mind our selves the Lord's Death and that with all those pious motions and resentments that befit so excellent and so advantageous a Remembrance To know therefore what it is that our Saviour here requires of us when he bids us to do this in Remembrance of Him two things will be necessary to be considered by us First What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Secondly In what manner and with what Motions and Affections we are to do it And First let us examine What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Now this in general St. Paul here tells us is his Death ver 26. that is that bitter Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for our sakes when he established this Solemn Memorial of it For says he as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the LORD 's Death till his coming But because a bare Remembrance of the Death of Christ without any farther Consideration either of the cause and manner of it or of those infinite Advantages which accrue to us thereby will afford but a very imperfest Memorial to us We must therefore for a full discharge of this duty and to raise up in our Souls those suitable resentments we ought to bring to this Holy Administration take a farther and more particular prospect of it And consider First What our State and Condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us Secondly What that Death Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and has therefore commanded us to remember in this Holy Sacrament Thirdly What the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby And First To do this in Remembrance of Christ will engage us to call to mind what our State and condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us For however we were by Baptism wash'd from all the Guilt and delivered from the Punishment of our Original Pollution and admitted into the Covenant of Grace and made Heirs of the Promise of Eternal Glory yet we are not therefore to think our selves ever the less concerned when we come to this Holy Sacrament and shew forth that Death of the Lord by which our very Baptism it self was consecrated into a laver of Regeneration there to call to mind that wretched State in which we once were and must for ever have lain had not the Blessed Jesus given himself up unto Death for us I should indulge too much your Curiosity in an Argument of this moment should I enter on that vain Speculation which the School-men first started and has since been made the Sport and Diversion of our Modern Scepticks in Religion Whether God could not otherwise have provided for
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
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