commemorating the love and blessing of it with joy and transport he comes to put a scorn and affront upon it instead of reflecting upon it with sorrow and shame for the sins that caused it he comes to repeat it and to justifie all the barbarous indignities of it instead of improving it into an argument of repentance and reformation he comes to deride it to insult over it and resolved to continue in his sins in plain defiance and spight of it This in the Language of the Apostle is called Crucifying afresh the Lord of glory and putting him again to the same open shame trampling under foot the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was redeemed and should have been sanctified Heb. 10.29 And truly is in effect a seconding all the malice and spight of the Jews avowing the treachery of Judas justifying the Sentence of Pilate and vindicating the barbarous and remorseless cruelty of the Roman Soldiers yea and let me say is in him that professeth Christianity really exceeding and outdoing them all The guilt of most of the orher is capable of some extenuation either ignorance prejudice or interest but what shall excuse such a mans guilt or can be pleaded in extenuation of it who hath been baptized into the faith of Christ and solemnly vow'd love and obedience to him as his Saviour and Lord and yet wilfully outdoeth the greatest indignities and affronts that his most treacherous servant or most implacable enemies could offer to him This was one great reason why the discipline of the Church in her primitive times of purity was so very strict and sharp Why she was so quick to observe and as careful to punish all notorious and profligate offenders by suspending them from all Communion with her and not admitting them to this highest act of it 'till they had given full testimony of their repentance and sound amendment well knowing how unfit such persons are to communicate in such sacred and divine mysteries besides a great deal of other mischief that they do And were this discipline preserved and duly exercised as the Church of England requires and desires it should there would be none to incur this horrible guilt or be guilty of this lamentable profanation the honour of the Holy Sacrament would be secured and this high profanation of it be effectually prevented and provided against SECT V. ANd if we consider things well we shall find that things are not so bad among us but that both these instances upon which men may Communicate unworthily are pretty well provided against or however that they are not committable by any Christians that offer themselves to the Holy Sacrament or have any fears upon them of coming unworthily to it let us consider how circumstances stand in relation to both 1. And first as to this gross and scandalous ignorance how much soever some men have made it their business to cry out against and taken liberty to traduce the members of our Church as a company of blind and ignorant creatures thinking that there could be light no where but where themselves shined and that nothing but darkness and ignorance must succeed when such lights as themselves were removed and their instruction of the people ceased Yet thanks be to God care is taken that people be competently instructed in the principles of Christian Religion and I hope much better than they have been the generality of the members of our Church I believe do competently understand their Religion and any one is impardonable that doth not I am sure instruction and knowledge is not hid from them but they have both in as plentiful a measure as it may be the Church hath ever injoyed It is not easie for them to remain ignorant under such advantages and means of knowledge as they enjoy and if they apply their minds to them as the Church begs them to do they cannot do so I would not be afraid to have the comparison made between the members of the Church of England and the proselites to any of the various sects among us if the tryal were made it would be found who are the ignorant who truliest understand what Christian Religion means notwithstanding they may be undervalued and reproached by ignorant conceited and supercilious opposers If I may be allowed to speak my observation I would say that of all the people that I ever conversed yet with some that think so highly of themselves have I found to be most truly ignorant Knowing and well skill'd I confess in the little distinctions of their sects pert and bold in quarrelling with the Church and offering their little exceptions against it c. a sign that in these they are chiefly instructed but as really ignorant in the true grounds and principles of Christian Religion as the meanest of those which they so scornfully and imperiously pity as poor ignorant people But these things call me too much out of my way I only mention them to shew that men cannot well be counted so grosly ignorant as to bring them under the danger of eating unworthily upon that reason and that if any should chance to be so it is their own fault only and the Church is wholly free and to be acquitted from being in the least accessary to it but I pass the further prosecution of this and proceed to what is more pertinent to my purpose And that is to shew by what measures a man may judge himself and his knowledge in this matter and what those measures of knowledge are that will set him above all this danger and I dare pronounce him to have attained to these that hath so much knowledge as enables him to understand that Christ died for the redemption of mankind to satisfie for the sins of the world and to purchase pardon for men upon the Conditions of repentance and faith in him that the Holy Sacrament is instituted to be a commemoration of this death of Christ to give God Almighty hearty and devout praise for it and to assure us that if we truly believe in Christ and his merits repenting us of our sins and resolving by Gods grace to lead a good life we shall be pardon'd for what is past and enabled to perform what we resolve for the future truly upon These are no mighty arduous or difficult measures of knowledge a man that is a grown Christian and hath lived under the instruction of the Church can hardly be thought so ignorant as to come within the danger of eating and drinking unworthily upon this reason he will be able to discern the Lords body to understand that this is a sacred and religious service and to put a difference between it and a common meal he will understand what it means what he ought to do what to expect and what posture to put himself into when he doth approach to the Table of his Lord. 2. But the more important and seeming difficulty is yet behind and that is to apply what I say to the second thing
'till they have a little better strengthened their good resolutions and tempers than to venture presently upon that service which they may abuse and profane by being false to the resolutions they take up and the promises which they make in it This is the case and to the scruple taken up upon it I return these three things in answer and satisfaction to it 1. That every man ought indeed to be true to his vows and promises as near as he can and when he hath taken up such a resolution and given his faith to God he ought to perform it and to do his utmost to stand to it It is certainly a dreadful fault to play fast and loose with God almighty to promise and never take any due care to perform what a man doth promise there is not a sadder instance of a loose careless trifling spirit than to be prodigal in our promises and niggardly in our payments of them to be forward upon all occasions to promise great things to God what reformed what good men we will become and be but yet to be regardless and careless afterwards whether we be such or not and never to apply our selves in earnest to make good what we have promised and to put our good purposes in execution 2. But yet Secondly a mans doing thus afterwards doth not make his Communicating in the Holy Sacrament to be eating and drinking unworthily in any proportion to what is intended in this Text. His having received the Holy Sacrament may aggravate the guilt of his after failure but that subsequent failure doth not so affect his precedent communicating as to render it eating and drinking thus unworthily if the purpose of the mind be then serious and sincere his receiving the Holy Sacrament is far enough from being unworthy or faulty and as I said his failing afterwards doth not affect it all But then do I consider what I say can that purpose of mind be sincere and serious which afterwards is not put in execution doth not a mans failing afterwards to make it good shew that he was perfidious and an hypocrite in making of it why no I say it doth not a man may be in earnest and sincere in making a promise and taking up a resolution and yet possibly fail of making it good afterwards his failing afterwards is no argument that he was not in earnest when he made it it is argument indeed of his carelesness and irresolution but it may arise from a thousand reasons besides his falsehood or hypocrisie when he made it Many a man in the time of affliction and sickness for example makes fair promises to God what he will be and what he will do if God please to spare him and this I doubt not really and in earnest and with a sincere purpose of mind at that time to be or to do as he promiseth and yet afterwards that sense of things may wear of and that purpose of mind abate and that specious promise may come finally to nothing but this is not because the man was not then really in earnest but because afterwards he is careless and trifling and easily led away with temptations that interfere with his former promise and purpose of mind And so I doubt not it may be and too often is with men when they come to the Holy Sacrament their pious purposes for that time may be sincere and in earnest and yet afterwards wear off and come to nothing 3. And therefore Thirdly I affirm a man in this case doth come with one great qualification which should attend his communicating in the Sacrament i. e. a purpose of repentance and reformation and which will most certainly secure him against all possibility of eating and drinking unworthily in the sense of this Text or any like it So that instead of staying away for fear that he should change his mind afterwards he ought I think the rather to come that he may not do so the great reason certainly lies on this side seeing there is not any better course that he can at present take to fasten his good purpose and to secure it of effect than this for by this means he will make his promise more solemn and affecting upon himself cause it to stick the deeper and closer upon his own thoughts and receive that grace most infallibly from God which if he be faithful and true unto his pious resolution will continue and he may be enabled to act according to the intention of it SECT VI. 4. I Add now a fourth thing worthy to be considered in order to our satisfaction in this inquiry viz. that whatever the sense of eating and drinking unworthily is in this Text or whatever men can think to be like it discerning the Lords body will secure them from it What discerning the Lords body means I have shewed already and I need repeat very little of it again it means these two things First putting a difference between the consecrated Elements and common Bread and Wine the looking upon the Holy Sacrament as an immediate duty and service of Religion and consequently performing it with that devotion and seriousness that reverence and respect that men use to shew in other services of Religion the want of this was the cause that made the Corinthians to eat unworthily and provoked God to punish them with sundry diseases and death as he afterwards tells them they did not make any difference between this and a common meal in their own Houses they did not take it to be any peculiar act of Religion they came intemperate and drunk to the Lords Table and therefore to be sure were far enough from that reverence and devotion that so sacred a service ought to have been performed with Secondly discerning the Lords body means something more not only to look upon this Holy Sacrament as a solemn and immediate act of Religion but as the Sacrament and immediate representation of Christs body i. e. his body broken and slain for the sins of the world and the Communicating therein to be the commemoration of his death and partaking in the blessed effects of it to look beyond the Elements to that which they are designed to signifie and Sacramentally are to look upon the bread not as common bread but the substitute of Christs body and the wine not as ordinary wine but the figure of his blood and so regarding the whole service both as the most devout and solemn commemoration of Christs death and passion for the expiation of our sins and partaking as truly and effectually in the benefits and blessings of his body and blood as if we did eat and drink that very body and blood themselves This is the great end of this service and the reason of our Lords institution of it and to discern the Lords body is to understand it so and look upon it as such which it is most certain these Corinthians were far from doing either so ignorant as not to understand the reason of
it or so grosly irreverent and careless as not to consider it for had they done either much more both they could hardly have been guilty of such profaneness or of eating and drinking unworthily as they did And that is what I would say in this period that whatever the sense of eating and drinking unworthily is in this place the discerning the Lords body will secure men from it and this I shall endeavour to make plain in these following considerations 1. The not discerning the Lords body is here made the reason of their eating and drinking unworthily this I have cleared already to be the reason both of the sin and punishment too from whence it is plain that discerning the Lords body would secure from both for if men eat and drink unworthily because they do not discern the Lords body then if they do discern it they will not eat unworthily for the old rule is true in morality as well as nature and will hold in this instance as well as others take away the cause and the effect will cease 2. But Secondly this appears clear in the nature of the thing for there is a direct and immediate vertue and power in discerning the Lords body to cause in men all those qualifications that render them meet for this service and sufficiently secure them from eating unworthily as the Corinthians did yea and from doing so in any sense like unto them For First in general if men discern the Lords body they will presently perceive that this is a most sacred solemn service of Religion and not any ordinary thing and by this will not only be admonished of that reverence and devotion that it ought to be performed with but strongly induced to it Men naturally have some sense of reverence and aw upon their minds when they are addressing themselves to devotion and when they ingage into the services of Religion And so they will have here also when they consider what a solemn service of Religion this is and hath always been esteemed to be in the Christian Church and truly they can hardly be otherwise if they have any sense of Religion or any dread of the Almighty upon their Spirits And Secondly if men discern the Lords body here so as to understand the special reason of this institution that it is to commemorate the mighty love of our Lord in dying for us that it is to be a religious solemn representation of his meritorious bitter death and passion for our sins they will find that it will even naturally beget in them repentance and faith and joy and charity and thankfulness and a very high sense of the love of God and Christ towards poor sinners These are the highest and meetest preparations for the Holy Sacrament and those qualifications that fit us for the receiving of it and the death of Christ is the highest argument and most powerful means of effecting these in men that God Almighty hath to offer or can use with them The Apostle seems to count it irresistible and such a one as cannot miss of effect upon men that consider it 2 Cor. 5.14 The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then all were dead c. And truly if Men do thus judge if they do seriously reflect upon the transcendent and amazing love of Christ in dying for the salvation of sinners it will even constrain them to repentance and faith and love almost whether they will or no if the grace of God be irresistible in any argument of the Gospel it is certainly so in this and I will adventure to say it is so far so here that those are monsters of Men or they do not consider things as Men that can resist and defeat the effect of it So that the Holy Sacrament being so sensible a commemoration of this death the very visible representation of it the evident crucifying of Christ before our eyes as the Apostle speaks Gal. 3.1 the true discerning of it and of the Lords body in it will be of the same effect to produce all these things in us I appeal to the experiences of good men for the truth of what I say let them tell you what a mighty efficacy they find in the Holy Sacrament to this purpose and how powerfully they feel their hearts moved to these things by it and truly if we consider the natural causality of things we shall be inclined to think it almost impossible it should be otherwise let us consider them a little singly 1. As for repentance whether it imply sorrow for sin a sense of its mighty evil and danger and a resolution against it or all these together as indeed it doth what can effect this in me if the Holy Sacrament do not can I see the Lords body broken and his blood poured out as I do in the Holy Sacrament for sin and to make the great attonement to the divine justice for sin I say can I see this without a sorrowful reflection upon my own sins which had a hand in this suffering Or can I doubt what a mighty evil sin is which could not be expiated by a meaner sacrifice than the death and suffering of the Son of God or of how dangerous and insupportable effect that punishment must be which the Son of God could not bear without horror and astonishment without fainting and death or lastly can I consider all this without some resolution and purpose to reform from sin and to beware of that whose consequences and issues I see to be so dreadful and insupportable I am sure I cannot consider these things but they will have some effect upon my mind and I am sure if they have not I do not duely consider them 2. And as for faith whether it respect the gracious declarations or kind promises or terrible threatnings in the Gospel or all these can I doubt the truth of any of these when I see the son of God die to confirm it can I question whether God be gracious and ready to forgive sin when I see him exposing his own Son to death that he may with honor do so can I doubt his promises to all penitent sinners when I see the truth of them sealed in his Sons blood or can I think that the divine threatnings of wrath and vengeance against all impenitent wretches will not most certainly be executed on them when I see God inexorable to his own Son and letting him suffer and die rather than permit sin to pass unpunished In a word the whole Covenant that God hath made with man the new Covenant of grace and mercy which the Gospel is the joyful publication of is here as it used to be of old ratified and confirmed by blood and the blood too of the Son of God which is such an assurance and confirmation of its truth as can never fail us and beyond which our faith cannot desire a greater 3. And then as to a mighty sense of the
the Holy Sacrament which their minds may have entertained upon the reason of them CHAP. II. Having in the former Chapter cleared the true sense of these words I proceed in this to the second general that I proposed to draw some general Conclusions from them which may be proper to be considered in the present case and to which I shall reduce as to so many heads what I intend further to say in this discourse the Collections that I purpose are these three that follow 1. That eating and drinking unworthily in the sense of this place is a thing hardly to be committed by Christians in this age 2. The supposed danger of eating and drinking unworthily is not a sufficient reason for Men to abstain from the Holy Sacrament upon 3. The true purpose of this place is to deter Men from irreverence and rudeness in eating and drinking in the Holy Sacrament and ingage them to that devotion and reverence that becomes them that do discern the Lords body These are three material Collections proper to be considered by all scrupulous persons in this case and therefore I shall endeavour to the utmost of my power and skill to discourse them with that plainness and evidence that they require and deserve I begin with the first eating and drinking unworthily in the sense of this Text is hardly to be committed by Christians in this age In order to the clearing the truth of this Collection it will concern me to do these following things 1. Shew what this eating and drinking unworthily was and wherein this sin of these Corinthians did consist 2. Consider the Circumstances that all Christians now are in which set them almost above the possibility of being guilty of it 3. I shall inquire what can be counted eating and drinking unworthily in proportion to this 4. And consider in the last place whether these also be not almost incompetent to Christians especially to any that are concerned in our present case SECT I. IN order to my discharging the first thing undertaken I shall need but to repeat a little of what I said in the explication of this Text and this phrase in it Not discerning the Lords body is certainly the Key to the meaning of eating and drinking unworthily and by considering the one we may come to the understanding of the other and by examining how the case stood with these Corinthians we may easily understand both By their not discerning the Lords body the Apostle means their not considering that this was an immediate service of Religion and that the morsel of bread which they did eat and glass of wine that they did drink were Sacramentally the very body and blood of Christ they put no difference between these sacred Symbolls of our Lords body and blood and common food and drink nor shewed greater reverence in eating and drinking the one than doing so to the other they ate in Gods House just as they did in their own and made no distinction between this and a common meal Yea and which is something worse yet they did this not only thus irreverently but in intemperance and downright drunkenness for so he tells them vers 21. One is hungry and another is drunk How this monstrous disorder happen'd among them hath been hinted already and may more fully now by giving a short account of the ancient practice of the Church in this matter Now that briefly stood thus the Holy Sacrament was usually prefaced unto by a publick feast of Charity which is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Love-Feast to which you have frequent reference in the New Testament to this Feast every one contributed and brought some portion according to his ability of which all feasted lovingly together reserving some portion for the Holy Sacrament which they always celebrated in the close of this Feast Now this grand profanation of this Holy Service happen'd thus instead of feeding lovingly all together of what was thus brought by all each one fed singly upon his own portion by which it came to pass not only that the poor had little or nothing to eat but the rich had too much which brought them to excess and even to plain drunkenness one is hungry and another drunk in which sad condition approaching to the Table of the Lord they were very unfit to consider the sacredness of it and very unlike to pay that reverence that was due to it That both these things contributed to their not discerning the Lords body and in consequence of that eating and drinking unworthily we may fully satisfie our selves by considering the Apostles dealing with them in the latter part of this Chapter where he falls upon this Argument For because they were so grosly ignorant in the reason and design of the Holy Sacrament he explains that fully to them from Verse 22d to the 27th acquainting them with the Author reason and purpose of this institution that it was an immediate service of Religion instituted by Christ himself just before his suffering and instituted to no meaner a purpose than to be a solemn rite of commemorating his death which should be used in his Church till his coming again to judgment For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus in the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and said Take eat this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying This cup is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come And because through their scandalous intemperance preceding they so horribly profaned this service therefore he shews them both the sin and great danger of it and presseth them to a serious care to reform it as you may see in the 27 28 29 and 30th Verses Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examin himself and so let him eat of this bread and drink of that cup. For he this eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep For if we would judge our selves we should not be judged In which words it is plain he refers to this scandalous abuse of theirs aggravating both the guilt and danger of it in words as high and dreadful as could well be thought on that thereby he might bring them to a dread of it and to the use of those means which he prescribes in order to the reforming of it This in short was the eating and drinking unworthily that the Apostle so sharply taxeth and God
forward to make any thing eating and drinking unworthily which I have reason to believe the Apostle did not intend so I will not be hasty in agreeing with them that do unless I be very well satisfied that the Analogy is true and that the circumstances in both cases be the same 2. Another thing that I would have observed here is this that nothing can be eating and drinking unworthily in analogy to what the Apostle means here but that which argueth or infers as great an irreverence to this service and as gross a profanation of it as this of the Corinthians made them guilty of Their eating and drinking unworthily consisted in this and therefore if men make any thing else to be eating and drinking unworthily like them they must prove the same or as great irreverence and profanation to be in it If they can find any other thing which equally hinders men from discerning the Lords body or yielding any more respect to the sacred Symbols of it than the Corinthians did then I will yield that that may be allowed to come within the guilt of eating and drinking unworthily that the Apostle here refers to This is that Key that lets us into the Apostles meaning in this Text and opens to us his sense of eating and drinking unworthily and therefore if men will use it to any other things they must see that the wards exactly agree or else it will do no more service to them in this cause than a common Key will do towards the opening a Lock which it never was fitted for The Corinthians did eat and drink unworthily because they did not discern the Lords body and therefore those that do eat and drink unworthily like them must as little discern the Lords body as they did This is the rule that we must proceed by in this case if we will conclude rightly concerning any other thing it must be something that sets men as far from discerning the Lords body and renders them as unfit or unable to shew any becoming respect to it as this disorder of the Corinthians did them otherwise it is not eating and drinking unworthily in proportion to them in this the Analogy must truly hold or else all our deductions will miserably fail SECT IV. HItherto we have been smoothing the way and so far I dare say we have gone upon sure ground but now we must advance to a more uncertain and slippery path and to that in which the difficulty pincheth most 3. And that is the third thing proposed viz. to inquire what can according to this rule of proportion be admitted to be eating and drinking unworthily as these Corinthians did what it is that can hinder us from discerning the Lords body and paying that reverence and respect to it in the Holy Sacrament that men ought to pay as that disorder and intemperance of these persons did them This is the main question and the resolution of it will set us pretty well to rights in this difficulty There are but two things that after my best considering of this question I dare pitch upon to bring into any comparison with this unworthiness of the Corinthians and they are these gross ignorance and wilful resolved impenitence I name these two because I think I can make the correspondence to hold and I name no more because I cannot see that Analogy to hold in any others Upon the reason of one of these men cannot and upon the other they will not discern the Lords body and therefore in both cases are as far from any due respect and reverence to it as the Corinthians were I shall consider them distinctly and examin them upon this reason of not discerning the Lords body 1. Gross ignorance I mean it in the great principles of Christian Religion especially in that great mystery of our redemption by Jesus Christ when men understand little or nothing of Christs coming into the world or of the reasons of it or that bitter suffering and death that he underwent for us When they know not what the reason of this institution was or what our Lord would have signified in it If any adult Christian be thus grosly ignorant and being so communicate in this service I do not know how to excuse him from eating and drinking unworthily as the Corinthians did for it is plain in this case he cannot discern the Lords body He will look upon the Elements but as common Bread and Wine he will not consider that they are the Symbols of Christs body and blood and that the breaking of the one is to signifie the breaking of Christs body on the Cross and the pouring out of the other the shedding of his blood for our redemption and that our communicating in these is communicating in the blessed effects and benefits of both He doth not know that by this solemn rite of Religion he is to commemorate with gratitude and transport the amazing love of his dying Lord and that in this he may expect those communications of divine grace that shall strengthen and refresh his soul as really and truly as his body is by the Bread and Wine And being thus profoundly ignorant in these things such a man will eat that morsel of Bread and drink that Wine but just as these Corinthians and their fellow Grecians used to do the like in the end of their feasts as a Concluding Morsel and as a Grace Cup in token of that love which was amongst the ghosts for so they used always to end these their conventions And just like them he will be far enough from apprehending any thing of Religion and Mystery to be in it and consequently to that far enough from that devotion and reverence that becomes every Communicant in this service This was the reason why converts in the ancient times of the Church were usually kept in the rank of Catechumens for some time and competently instructed in the principles of Christian Religion before they were admitted to full Communion and to this service and this is the method that the Church of England proceeds in to this day to have all baptized persons Catechised and competently instructed in their Religion and thereupon Confirmed before she admit them to the Lords Table And by the way I would to God that this were so carefully kept up and practised as it should be and then we should have but little reason to fear any mens such gross ignorance or communicating unworthily upon the reason thereof 2. The other thing that we may allow to be the cause of eating and drinking unworthily in proportion to this of the Corinthians is resolved wilful impenitence In this case it is as plain the Analogy doth hold or indeed exceed rather and the not discerning the Lords body is alike in both cases a resolute impenitent wretch doth as little discern the Lords body as the Corinthians did and besides that doth despight to it instead of shewing forth the Lords death he comes to avow it instead of
feed upon the sensible pledges of this love and visibly seals unto us the assurance of the same 3. The most devout and raised affection the most hearty and exalted praise to God for all this the magnifying the astonishing love of our God and rendring the most devout praise to our dear Saviour for this miracle of his kindness to us 4. Earnest prayer to God to accept our prsent poor service and mean return for this mighty favour and to enable us by his grace to live for the future in some competent measure sutable to these mighty obligations The four former qualifications render us fit to partake of those Holy mysteries and these other make us actually to do so and I pray you but to recollect them and then tell me what great difficulty there is in them the truth is they are all so natural to Men at such a time that I should think the great and only difficulty were so to resist our present impressions as not to be affected into them Who that considers what he is then doing and what benefit and honor he is receiving from the great God can be otherwise than devout and humble whose heart can choose but burn with love unto God and Christ and flame out into the most hearty adorations and praise to them when he commemorates this amazing instance of their love and who can be affected thus and not break out into most sincere and earnest prayer to God for his grace to enable him to live in some measure answerable to the same I appeal to the experiences of all pious Communicants whether there be difficulty in these things or rather whether they feel not such a mighty strong energy and power upon their spirits at such a time as causeth them readily to break out into them How naturally do tears of sorrow and joy flow from our eyes how do our Souls lick the dust in humble prostrations how are we swallowed up with rapturous contemplations of our Lords love and what bright flames of praise and love ascend from our exalted Souls at such a time So that we are for the present even all wonder and all love and tast what the joys of the spirit and the enravishing sweetnesses of Religion mean the Holy Spirit and the divine grace do so strongly seise and pervade our spirits then that these things become natural and easie and Men must offer a certain violence to themselves and unreasonably resist the strong motions of Gods grace and Holy Spirit or they cannot neglect or fail of them And then as to the second sort of things that I mentioned what are the best and most effectual means and methods to be used in order to these preparations and attainments I think I may reduce all the voluminous prescriptions and advices of Men and the many Books that have been written to this purpose to these three plain heads 1. To consider seriously and truly what our spiritual condition is that we may know what manner of preparation either of repentance and sorrow of faith and hope of love and joy we are especially concerned to make and come with for though all these ought still to be conjoyned and are necessary and becoming every Communicant yet some seem more peculiarly necessary and proper for some than for others according as I said before as their circumstances and conditions chiefly are Repentance is not improper for the best Men living but it is more absolutely necessary for them who have great sins to answer and beg pardon for love and joy and praise become bad Men and are mighty due for the hopes of mercy and pardon that God hath given them but they are more becoming and just from those good Men who live in the blessed sense and fruition of this love and goodness to them and there receive the actual pledges and assurances of it So that though all these be fitting and proper yet some are more so than others according as Mens conditions are better or worse and by seriously considering how our Spiritual circumstances stand we shall easily know what preparation is most proper for us to make and what tempers of mind chiefly to come with 2. Sober and solemn meditation upon the great things of Religion especially upon this mystery of our redemption by the sufferings and death of the Son of God by which we shall affect our Souls with a deep sense of our own unworthiness and vileness of the evil and danger of sin and of the immense and astonishing love of God and Christ to us 3. Humble and devout prayer to God to assist us and help us in these Preparations and addresses for besides that prayer in it self hath a strange efficacy and power to effect in us all these excellent dispositions and tempers it is the most certain way to receive those assistances from God that will help us to the attainment of them for these are offered freely to all and are always ready for those that will ask them that will accept them and that will be true to them For every one that asketh receiveth and every one shall find that seeketh and to him that knocketh it shall be opened And then to conclude this period if there were any difficulty in these preparations considering our own single unassisted strength yet considering how we are backed and may be assisted with this almighty grace and spirit of God there can and there ought to be nothing of difficulty imagined or feared to be in them SECT IV. BUt because I have a mind to clear this point to the utmost I shall consider this matter of preparation yet more distinctly both with respect to a good Man and to one that hath too much reason to doubt himself or conclude that he is evil and under the power of sin shew what preparation is necessary for each of these and that a reasonable portion of time and care will easily dispatch it 1. And first for a good Mans preparing of himself for the Holy Sacrament a very little matter will dispatch it Holiness as I hinted before is a constant habitual preparation for this or any other Service of Religion a good Man hardly will be at any time unfit for it Those Virgins that have Oyl continually in their Lamps and those Lamps constantly burning too can quickly awake and soon trim them for the Bridegroom 's coming and he whose heart keeps a vestal fire of love alwayes alive can easily fan it up into an actual flame and make it fit either for sacrifice or incense Such a Man's Soul is always well inclined and stands continually the right way so that when an opportunity of actual devotion offers it self he readily closeth with it and God no sooner calls upon him to seek his face but his heart eccho's to the call and readily answers with the devout Psalmist Thy face Lord will I seek When we have said all that we can on this subject a good life is the best preparation
the things that he prescribes in order to it 1. Of the first of these I have given account already and shewed that this crime of the Corinthians which he so sharply taxeth was a monstrous shameful disrespect and irreverence to the Holy Sacrament to which I shall only add that it was occasioned by these two precedent errors and miscarriages First their not discerning the Lords Body Secondly their intemperance in eating and drinking in the love-feast that preceded this Service 1. They did not discern the Lords Body they did not know or they did not consider that this was a solemn service of Religion and that there was a mystery in it they did not understand the reason of its institution that the Bread was Sacramentally the Body of Christ and the Wine in the same sense his Blood that both were to represent his Sufferings and Death and that our partaking of them was religiously to commemorate and gratefully to adore the love of God to sinners therein In plain terms as both the Sacramental Bread and Wine was part of what they had eaten and drank in the love-feast just before so they looked upon them to be still the same and but only a concluding morsel and a grace Cup with which that feast was to be ended for that as we ought to know was the common custom among the Jews and these Grecians too to conclude their feasts with a Loaf or small parcel of Bread of which every one took a little piece and a Glass or Bowl of Wine of which every one drank in token or in pledg of that unity and love that then was and afterwards should continue among the ghests that had then feasted together Now being so ignorant and uninstructed as it seems they were in the reason of the Holy Sacrament they might easily slip into this mistake and knowing that their former feast was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feast of love and instituted to be a means of creating and continuing love among them they might easily take the Sacramental Bread and Wine being a portion of what they had eat and drank before to be but a tessera cheritatis such a pledge and token of love among them as was used at their other feasts This is the true state of this matter and it gives us one plain account of the irreverence and profanation of the Holy Sacrament which these persons were guilty of and how strange soever the thing may appear to us yet when these circumstances are considered the wonder ceaseth and the reason is plain 2. And yet this was not all nor the worst in this matter for their intemperance was worse than their ignorance and would more fatally prejudice their reverence and devotion intemperance in eating and drinking is the greatest hinderance of devotion possible and plain gluttony and drunkenness utterly inconsistent with it Now this you find the Apostle charging them roundly and plainly with at least the richer sort of them v. 21. one is hungry and another is drunk which though it may seem very strange and one would think incompetent to a Christian yet we have a plain account given us also how this happened For these love-feasts were upon a common stock to which every one contributed his single portion the poor you may well think could bring little or nothing but the rich brought more every Man saith the Apostle according to the ability which God had given And perhaps among these Corinthians than whom no Grecians were more vain proud every one might strive to exceed the other Now hitherto all was tolerably well only bating that some vanity might mingle with these contributions but here was the first fatal miscarriage these richer persons instead of casting in their symbols to the common stock feasted upon their own single portions and having much to eat and drink did eat and drink accordingly and commonly to that excess as to be downright drunk by that time they came to the Holy Sacrament which was always celebrated at the end of these feasts of such a portion of Bread and Wine as was separated out of the publick offertories Now coming to the Holy Sacrament in this sad condition no wonder if they profaned it indeed and shewed so little reverence and regard to it a drunken Man is every way as unfit for devotion as an ignorant Man can be but when Men are both these no irreverence can seem strange that they are guilty of These two things occasioned this terrible irreverence and profanation of the Holy Sacrament that our Apostle chargeth them with and from which these words are intended to reform and affright them for the future and by considering this we may surely collect what the great purpose of them was for as when we know a disease we can guess easily what the design of the Physick prescribed in cure of it is so by considering what the errror and miscarriage of these Corinthians was we may conclude what the design of the Apostle is in these words which he useth in remedy of it and therefore since the great fault of them consisted in their horrible irreverence and want of respect to this service we can assure our selves that what he intended was to reform that fault and bring them to that reverence and devotion that became a service of Religion and that so solemn too as he had instructed them the Holy Sacrament was So that since their eating and drinking so irreverently and profanely was that eating unworthily that he speaks of their doing this worthily would be by communicating with that Religion reverence and devotion that became a service so sacred as that was This I am confident is really the sense of these words and a true account of the Apostle's intent and meaning in them the consideration of which would be a great relief to scrupulous and timorous persons in this case and let them see how much others pervert and they themselves mistake the sense of this Text who conclude every error and miscarriage in communicating to be that eating and drinking unworthily which the Apostle so sharply blames and so severely threatens in these words I conclude by only adding this observation if eating and drinking irreverently and profanely be that eating and drinking unworthily which the Apostle means in this place then eating and drinking with that reverence and devotion that becomes such a service of Religion will set Men above the danger of that unworthiness and if to bring Men to this was the only thing he aimed at then Men do very ill to put other sences upon this Text and to fright themselves and others with the sound of words that do not concern them SECT I. THere is a second thing also I told you to confirm us in this account of the Apostle's meaning here and that is the phrase of the Text both that in which the Sin and the cause and the punishment of it too is expressed 1. The word expressing the Sin is unworthily