rather desires if it may be to be of the number of those who shall be found alive at the coming of Christ and have this mortal and corruptible body while they are clothed with it changed into a spiritual and incorruptible body without the pain and terrour of dying of which immediate translation into heaven without the painfull divorce of soul and body by death Enoch and Elias were examples in the old Testament It follows ver 5. Now he that hath wrought for us the self same thing is God That is it is he who hath fitted and prepared us for this Glorious change who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit The Spirit is frequently in Scripture called the witness and seal and earnest of our future happiness and blessed resurrection or change of these vile and earthly bodies into spiritual and heavenly bodies For as the resurrection of Christ from the dead by the power of the holy Ghost is the great proof and evidence of immortality so the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelling in us is the pledge and earnest of our Resurrection to an immortal life From all which the Apostle concludes in the words of the Text Therefore we are always confident that is we are always of good courage against the fear of death knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may better be rendred whilst we converse or sojourn in the body than whilst we are at home Because the design of the Apostle is to shew that the body is not our house but our tabernacle and that whilst we are in the body we are not at home but pilgrims and strangers And this notion the Heathens had of our present life and condition in this world Ex vita discedo faith Tully tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo commorandi enim natura diversorium nobis non habitandi locum dedit We go out of this life as it were from an Inn and not from our home nature having designed it to us as a place to sojourn but not to dwell in We are absent from the Lord that is we are detained from the blessed sight and enjoyment of God and kept out of the possession of that happiness which makes Heaven So that the Apostle makes an immediate opposition between our continuance in the body and our blissfull enjoyment of God and lays it down for a certain truth that whilst we remain in the body we are detained from our happiness and that so soon as ever we leave the body we shall be admitted into it knowing that whilst we converse in the body we are absent from the Lord. And ver 8. we are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord intimating that so soon as we quit these bodies we shall be admitted to the blessed sight and enjoyment of God My design from this Text is to draw some useful Corollaries or Conclusions from this Assertion of the Apostle That whilst we are in these bodies we are detained from our happiness and that so soon as ever we depart out of them we shall be admitted to the possession and enjoyment of it And they are these 1. This Assertion shews us the vanity and falshood of that Opinion or rather dream concerning the sleep of the Soul from the time of death till the general Resurrection This is chiefly grounded upon that frequent Metaphor in Scripture by which death is resembled to sleep and those that are dead are said to be fallen asleep But this Metaphor is no where in Scripture that I know of applied to the soul but to the body resting in the grave in order to its being awakened and raised up at the Resurrection And thus it is frequently used with express reference to the body Dan. 12.2 Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Matth. 27.52 And the graves were opened and many bodies of saints which slept arose Acts 13.36 David after he had served his own generation by the will of God fell on sleep and was laid to his fathers and saw corruption which surely can no otherwise be understood than of his body 1 Cor. 15.21 Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept that is the resurrection of his body is the earnest and assurance that ours also shall be raised And ver 51. We shall not all sleep but shall all be changed where the Apostle certainly speaks both of the death and change of these corruptible bodies 1 Thessal 4.14 If we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him That is the bodies of those that died in the Lord shall be raised and accompany him at his coming So that it is the body which is said in Scripture to sleep and not the soul For that is utterly inconsistent with the Apostles Assertion here in the Text that while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord and that so soon as we depart out of the body we shall be present with the Lord. For surely to be with the Lord must signifie a state of happiness which sleep is not but only of inactivity Besides that the Apostle's Argument would be very flat and it would be but a cold encouragement against the fear of death that so soon as we are dead we shall fall asleep and become insensible But the Apostle useth it as an Argument why we should be willing to dye as soon as God pleaseth and the sooner the better because so soon as we quit these bodies we shall be present with the Lord that is admitted to the blissful sight and enjoyment of him and while we abide in the body we are detained from our happiness But if our souls shall sleep as well as our bodies till the general Resurrection it is all one whether we continue in the body or not as to any happiness we shall enjoy in the mean time which is directly contrary to the main scope of the Apostle's Argument 2. This Assertion of the Apostle's doth perfectly conclude against the feigned Purgatory of the Church of Rome which supposeth the far greater number of true and faithful Christians of those who dye in the Lord and have obtained eternal redemption by him from hell not to pass immediately into a state of happiness but to be detained in the suburbs of Hell in extremity of torment equal to that of hell for degree though not for duration till their fouls be purged and the guilt of temporal punifhments which they are liable to be some way or other paid off and discharged They suppose indeed some very few holy persons especially those who suffer Martyrdom to be so perfect at their departure out of the body as to pass immediately into Heaven because they need no purgation But most Christians they
he went about doing good to the bodies and to the souls of men his miracles were not destructive to mankind but healing and charitable He could if he had pleased by his miraculous power have confounded his enemies and have thundred out death and destruction against the Infidel world as his pretended Vicar hath since done against Hereticks But intending that his Religion should be propagated in human ways and that Men should be drawn to the profession of it by the bands of love and the cords of a man by the gentle and peaceable methods of Reason and perswasion he gave no example of a furious zeal and religious rage against those who despised his Doctrine It was propounded to men for their great advantage and they rejected it at their utmost peril It seemed good to the Author of this institution to compell no man to it by temporal punishments When he went about making proselytes he offered violence to no man only said If any man will be my disciple If any man will come after me And when his disciples were leaving him he does not set up an Inquisition to torture and punish them for their defection from the faith only says Will ye also go away And in imitation of this blessed Patern the Christian Church continued to speak and act for several Ages And this was the language of the holy Fathers Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio the Christian Law doth not avenge it self by the sword This was then the style of Councils Nemini ad credendum vim inferre to offer violence to no man to compell him to the Faith I proceed in the Second place to shew the Vnjustifiableness of this spirit upon any pretence whatsoever of zeal for God and Religion No case can be put with Circumstances of greater advantage and more likely to justify this spirit and temper than the case here in the Text. Those against whom the Disciples would have called for fire from heaven were Hereticks and Schismaticks from the true Church they had affronted our Saviour himself in his own person the honour of God and of that Religion which he had set up in the World and of Jerusalem which he had appointed for the place of his worship were all concerned in this case so that if ever it were warrantable to put on this fierce and furious zeal here was a case that seemed to require it But even in these circumstances our Saviour thinks fit to rebuke and discountenance this spirit Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of And he gives such a reason as ought in all differences of Religion how wide soever they be to deter men from this temper For the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them that is this Spirit is utterly inconsistent with the great design of Christian Religion and the end of our Saviour's coming into the world And now what hath the Church of Rome to plead for her cruelty to men for the cause of Religion which the Disciples might not much better have pleaded for themselves in their case what hath she to say against those who are the objects of her cruelty and persecution which would not have held against the Samaritans Does she practice these severities out of a zeal for truth and for the honour of God and Christ and the true Religion Why upon these very accounts it was that the Disciples would have called for fire from Heaven to have destroyed the Samaritans Is the Church of Rome perswaded that those whom she persecutes are Hereticks and Schismaticks and that no punishment can be too great for such offenders So the Disciples were perswaded of the Samaritans and upon much better grounds Only the Disciples had some excuse in their case which the Church of Rome hath not and that was Ignorance And this Apology our Saviour makes for them ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of They had been bred up in the Jewish Religion which gave some indulgence to this kind of temper and they were able to cite a great Example for themselves besides they were then but learners and not throughly instructed in the Christian Doctrine But in the Church of Rome whatever the case of particular persons may be as to the whole Church and the Governing part of it this ignorance is wilful and affected and therefore inexcusable For the Christian Religion which they profess to embrace does as plainly teach the contrary as it does any other matter whatsoever and it is not more evident in the new Testament that Christ died for sinners than that Christians should not kill one another for the misbelief of any Article of revealed Religion much less for the disbelief of such Articles as are invented by men and imposed as the Doctrines of Christ You have heard what kind of Spirit it is which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples It was a furious and destructive Spirit contrary to Christian charity and goodness But yet this may be said in mitigation of their fault that they themselves offered no violence to their enemies They left it to God and no doubt would have been very glad that he would have manifested his severity upon them by sending down fire from Heaven to have consumed them But there is a much worse Spirit than this in the world which is not only contrary to Christianity but to the common Principles of Natural Religion and even to Humanity it self Which by falshood and perfidiousness by secret plots and conspiracies or by open sedition and rebellion by an Inquisition or Massacre by deposing and killing Kings by fire and sword by the ruine of their Country and betraying it into the hands of Foreigners and in a word by dissolving all the bonds of humane Society and subverting the peace and order of the World that is by all the wicked ways imaginable doth incite men to promote and advance their Religion As if all the world were made for them and there were not only no other Christians but no other Men besides themselves as Babylon of old proudly vaunted I am and there is none besides me And as if the God whom the Christians worship were not the God of order but of confusion as if he whom we call the Father of mercies were delighted with cruelty and could not have a more pleasing sacrifice offered to him than a Massacre nor put a greater honour upon his Priests than to make them Judges of an Inquisition that is the Inventors and decreers of torments for men more righteous and innocent than themselves Thus to misrepresent God and Religion is to devest them of all their Majesty and Glory For if that of Seneca be true that sine bonitate nulla majestas without Goodness there can be no such thing as Majesty then to separate goodness and mercy from God compassion and charity from Religion is to make the two best things in the world God and Religion good for
what that was he expresseth more particularly c. 26. v. 6 7 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our Fathers unto which promise our twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come By the promise made of God unto the Fathers he means some promise made by God to Abraham Isaac and Jacob for so S. Luke more than once in his History of the Acts explains this phrase of the God of their Fathers Acts 3.13 The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob the God of our Fathers and c. 7. v. 32. I am the God thy Fathers the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now what was the great and famous Promise which God made to Abraham Isaac and Jacob was it not this of being their God So that it was this very Promise upon which S. Paul tells us the Jews grounded their hope of a future state because they understood it necessarily to signifie some blessing and happiness beyond this life And now having I hope sufficiently clear'd this matter I shall make some improvement of this Doctrine of a future state and that to these three purposes 1. To raise our minds above this world and the enjoyments of this present life Were but men thorougly convinced of this plain and certain Truth that there is a vast difference between Time and Eternity between a few years and everlasting Ages would we but represent to our selves what thoughts and apprehensions dying persons have of this world how vain and empty a thing it appears to them how like a pageant and a shadow it looks as it passeth away from them methinks none of those things could be a sufficient temptation to any man to forget God and his Soul but notwithstanding all the delights and pleasures of sense we should be strangely intent upon the concernments of another world and almost wholly taken up with the thoughts of that vast Eternity which we are ready to launch into For what is there in this world this waste and howling wilderness this rude and barbarous Country which we are but to pass through which should detain our affections here and take off our thoughts from our everlasting habitation from that better and that heavenly Country where we hope to live and be happy for ever If we settle our affections upon the enjoyments of this present Life so as to be extremely pleas'd and transported with them and to say in our hearts It is good for us to be here if we be excessively griev'd or discontented for the want or loss of them and if we look upon our present state in this world any otherwise than as a preparation and passage to a better life it is a sign that our faith and hope of the happiness of another life is but very weak and faint and that we do not heartily and in good earnest believe what we pretend to do concerning these things For did we stedfastly believe and were thoroughly perswaded of what our Religion so plainly declares to us concerning the unspeakable and endless happiness of good men in another world our affections would sit more loose to this world and our hopes would raise our hearts as much above these present and sensible things as the heavens are high above the earth we should value nothing here below but as it serves for our present support and passage or may be made a means to secure and increase our future felicity 2. The consideration of another Life should quicken our preparation for that blessed state which remains for us in the other world This Life is a state of probation and trial This world is God's school where immortal spirits clothed with flesh are trained and bred up for eternity And then certainly it is not an indifferent thing and a matter of slight concernment to us how we live and demean our selves in this world whether we indulge our selves in ungodliness and worldly lusts or live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world No it is a matter of infinite moment as much as our souls and all eternity are worth Let us not deceive our selves for as we sow so shall we reap If we sow to the flesh we shall of the flesh reap corruption but if we sow to the spirit we shall of the spirit reap everlasting life Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart The righteous hath hopes in his death Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace But the ungodly are not so whoever hath lived a wicked and vicious life feels strange throws and pangs in his conscience when he comes to be cast upon a sick bed The wicked is like the troubled sea saith the Prophet when it cannot rest full of trouble and confusion especially in a dying hour It is death to such a man to look back upon his life and a hell to him to think of eternity When his guilty and trembling Soul is ready to leave his Body and just stepping into the other world what horrour and amazement do then seise upon him what a rage does such a man feel in his breast when he seriously considers that he hath been so great a fool as for the false and imperfect pleasure of a few days to make himself miserable for ever 3. Let the consideration of that unspeakable Reward which God hath promised to good men at the Resurrection encourage us to obedience and a holy life We serve a great Prince who is able to promote us to honour a most gracious Master who will not let the least service we do for him pass unrewarded This is the Inference which the Apostle makes from this large discourse of the Doctrine of the Resurrrection 1 Cor. 15.58 Wherefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast and unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Nothing will make death more welcome to us than a constant course of service and obedience to God Sleep saith Solomon is sweet to the labouring man so after a great diligence and industry in working out our own salvation and as it is said of David serving our generation according to the will of God how pleasant will it be to fall asleep And as an useful and well-spent life will make our death to be sweet so our resurrection to be glorious Whatever acts of Piety we do to God or of charity to men whatever we lay out upon the poor and afflicted and necessitous will all be considered by God in the day of recompences and most plentifully rewarded to us And surely no consideration ought to be more prevalent to perswade us to alms-deeds and charity to the poor than that of a resurrection to another life Besides the promises of this life which are made to works of charity and there is not any
was very sudden and so sudden that in all probability he himself hardly perceived it when it happened for he died in his sleep so that we may say of him as it is said of David after be had served his generation according to the will of God he fell asleep I confess that a sudden death is generally undesirable and therefore with reason we pray against it because so very few are sufficiently prepared for it But to him the constant employment of whose life was the best preparation for death that was possible no death could be sudden nay it was rather a favour and blessing to him because by how much the more sudden so much the more easie As if God had designed to begin the reward of the great pains of his life in an easie death And indeed it was rather a translation than a death and saving that his body was left behind what was said of Enoch may not unfitly be applied to this pious and good man with respect to the suddenness of his change he walked with God and was not for God took him And God grant that we who survive may all of us sincerely endeavour to tread in the steps of his exemplary piety and charity of his labour of love his unwearied diligence and patient continuance in doing good that we may meet with that encouraging commendation which he hath already received from the mouth of our Lord. Well done good and faithfull servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you always that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ To whom be glory for ever Amen A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Reverend BENJAMIN WHICHCOT D. D. May 24th 1683. 2 COR. V. 6. Wherefore we are always confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. THese Words contain one of the chief grounds of encouragement which the Christian Religion gives us against the fear of death For our clearer understanding of them it will be requisite to consider the Context looking back as far as the beginning of the Chapter where the Apostle pursues the argument of the foregoing Chapter which was to comfort and encourage Christians under their afflictions and sufferings from this consideration that these did but prepare the way for a greater and more glorious reward Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And suppose the worst that these sufferings should extend to death there is comfort for us likewise in this case ver 1. of this Chapter For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God c. If our earthly house of this tabernacle he calls our body an earthly earthly house and that we may not look upon it as a certain abode and fixed habitation he doth by way of correction of himself add that it is but a tabernacle or tent which must shortly be taken down And when it is we shall have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens This is a description of our heavenly habitation in opposition to our earthly house or tabern 〈◊〉 It is a building of God not like those houses or tabernacles which men build and which are liable to decay and dissolution to be taken down or to fall down of themselves for such are those houses of clay which we dwell in whose foundations are in the dust but an habitation prepared by God himself a house not made with hands that which is the immediate work of God being in Scripture opposed to that which is made with hands and effected by humane concurrence and by natural means And being the immediate work of God as it is excellent so it is lasting and durable which no earthly thing is eternal in the heavens that is eternal and heavenly For in this we groan earnestly that is while we are in this body we groan by reason of the pressures and afflictions of it Desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked Desiring to be clothed upon that is we could wish not to put off these bodies not to be stripp'd of them by death but to be of the number of those who at the coming of our Lord without the putting off these bodies shall be changed and clothed upon with their house which is from heaven and without dying be invested with those spiritual and glorious and heavenly bodies which men shall have at the Resurrection This I doubt not is the Apostle's meaning in these Words in which he speaks according to a common opinion among the Disciples grounded as St. John tells us upon a mistake of our Saviour's words concerning him If I will that he tarry till I come upon which St. John tells us that there went a Saying among the brethren that that disciple should not die that is that he should live till Christ's coming to Judgment and then be changed and consequently that Christ would come to Judgment before the end of that Age. Suitable to this common opinion among Christians the Apostle here says in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven if so be that being clothed we shall no be found naked It hath puzzled Interpreters what to make of this passage and well it might for whatever be meant by being clothed how can they that are clothed be found naked But I think it is very clear that our Translatours have not attained the true sense of this passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is most naturally rendred thus if so be we shall be found clothed and not naked That is if the coming of Christ shall find us in the body and not devested of it if at Christ's coming to Judgement we shall be found alive and not dead And then the sense of the whole is very clear and current we are desirous to be clothed upon with our house from heaven that is with our spiritual and immortal bodies if so be it shall so happen that at the coming of Christ we shall be found alive in these bodies and not stripp'd of them before by death And then it follows For we burthened that is with the afflictions and pressures of this life not that we would be unclothed that is not that we desire by death to be devested of these bodies but clothed upon that is if God see it good we had rather be found alive and changed and without putting off these bodies have immortality as it were superinduced that so mortality might be swallowed up of life The plain sense is that he
suppose to dye so imperfect that they stand in need of being purged and according to the degree of their imperfection are to be detain'd a shorter or a longer time in Purgatory But now besides that there is no Text in Scripture from whence any such state can probably be concluded as is acknowledged by many learned men of the Church of Rome and even that Text which they have most insisted upon they shall be saved yet so as by fire is given up by them as insufficient to conclue the thing Estius is very glad to get off it by saying there is nothing in it against Purgatory Why no body pretends that but we might reasonably expect that there should be something for it in a Text which hath been so often produced and urged by them for the proof of it I say besides that there is nothing in Scripture for Purgatory there are a great many things against it and utterly inconsistent with it In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus which was designed to represent to us the different stares of good and bad men in another world there is not the least intimation of Purgatory but that good men pass immediately into a state of happiness and bad men into a place of torment And St. John Rev. 14.13 pronounceth all that dye in the Lord happy because they rest from their labours which they cannot be said to do who are in a state of great anguish and torment as those are supposed to be who are in Purgatory But above all this Reasoning of Saint Paul is utterly inconsistent with any imagination of such a state For he encourageth all Christians in general against the fear of death from the consideration of that happy state they should immediately pass into by being admitted into the presence of God which surely is not Purgatory We are of good courage says he and willing rather to be absent from the body And great reason we should be so if so soon as we leave the body we are present with the Lord. But no man sure would be glad to leave the body to go into a place of exquisite and extreme torment which they tell us is the case of most Christians when they dye And what can be more unreasonable than to make the Apostle to use an argument to comfort all Christians against the sear of death which concerns but very few in comparison So that if the Apostle's reasoning be good that while we are in this life we are detained from our happiness and so soon as we depart this life we pass immediately into it and therefore death is desirable to all good men I say if this reasoning be good it is very clear that Saint Paul knew nothing of the Doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome concerning Purgatory because that is utterly inconsistent with what he expresly asserts in this Chapter and quite takes away the force of his whole Argument 3. To encourage us against the fear of death And this is the Conclusion which the Apostle makes from this consideration Therefore says he we are of good courage knowing that whilst we converse in the body we are absent from the Lord. There is in us a natural love of life and a natural horrour and dread of death so that our spirits are apt to shrink at the thoughts of the approach of it But this fear may very much be mitigated and even over-ruled by Reason and the considerations of Religion For death is not so dreadful in it self as with regard to the consequences of it And those will be as we are comfortable and happy to the good but dismal and miserable to the wicked So that the only true antidote against the fear of death is the hopes of a better life and the only firm ground of these hopes is the mercy of God in Jefus Christ upon our due preparation for another world by repentance and a holy life For the sting of death is sin and when that is taken away the terrour and bitterness of death is past And then death is so far from being dreadful that in reason it is extremely desirable because it lets us into a better state such as only deserves the name of life Hi vivunt qui ex corporum vinculis tanquam è carcere evolaverunt vestra vero quae dicitur vita mors est They truly live could a Heathen say who have made their escape out of this prison of the body but that which men commonly call life is rather death than life To live indeed is to be well and to be happy and that we shall never be till we are got beyond the grave 4. This Consideration should comfort us under the loss and death of Friends which certainly is one of the greatest grievances and troubles of humane life For if they be fit for God and go to him when they dye they are infinitely happier than it was possible for them to have been in this world and the trouble of their absence from us is fully balanced by their being present with the Lord. For why should we lament the end of that life which we are assured is the beginning of immortality One reason of our trouble for the loss of friends is because we loved them But it is no sign of our love to them to grudge and repine at their happiness But we hoped to have enjoyed them longer Be it so yet why should we be troubled that they are happy sooner than we expected but they are parted from us and the thought of this is grievous But yet the consideration of their being parted for a while is not near so sad as the hopes of a happy meeting again never to be parted any more is comfortable and joyful So that the greater our love to them was the less should be our grief for them when we consider that they are happy and that they are safe past all storms all the troubles and temptations of this life and out of the reach of all harm and danger for ever But though the Reason of our duty in this case be very plain yet the practice of it is very difficult and when all is said natural affection will have its course And even after our Judgment is satisfied it will require some time to still and quiet our Passions 5. This Consideration should wean us from the love of life and make us not only contented but willing and glad to leave this world whenever it shall please God to call us out of it This Inference the Apostle makes ver 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to he absent from the body and present with the Lord. Though there were no state of immortality after this life yet methinks we should not desire to live always in this world Habet natura says Tully ut aliarum rerum sic vivendi modum As nature hath set bounds and measures to other things so likewise to life of which men should know when
unsutable carriage at the Lord's Supper They came to it very disorderly one before another It was the custom of Christians to meet at their Feast of Charity in which they did communicate with great sobriety and temperance and when that was ended they celebrated the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Now among the Corinthians this order was broken The rich met and excluded the poor from this common Feast And after an irregular feast one before another eating his own supper as he came they went to the Sacrament in great disorder one was hungry having eaten nothing at all others were drunk having eaten intemperately and the poor were despised and neglected This the Apostle condemns as a great profanation of that solemn Institution of the Sacrament at the participation whereof they behaved themselves with as little reverence as if they had been met at a common supper or feast And this he calls not discerning the Lord's body making no difference in their behaviour between the Sacrament and a common meal which irreverent and contemptuous carriage of theirs he calls eating and drinking unworthily for which he pronounceth them guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord which were represented and commemorated in their eating of that bread and drinking of that cup. By which irreverent and contemptuous usage of the body and bloud of our Lord he tells them that they did incur the Judgment of God which he calls eating and drinking their own judgment For that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translatours render damnation does not here signifie eternal condemnation but a temporal judgment and chastisement in order to the prevention of eternal condemnation is evident from what follows He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself And then he says For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep That is for this irreverence of theirs God had sent among them several diseases of which many had dyed And then he adds For if we would judge our selves we should not be judged If we would judge our selves whether this be meant of the publick Censures of the Church or our private censuring of our selves in order to our future amendment and reformation is not certain If of the latter which I think most probable then judging here is much the same with examining our selves ver 28. And then the Apostle's meaning is that if we would censure and examine our selves so as to be more carefull for the future we should escape the judgment of God in these temporal punishments But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world But when we are judged that is when by neglecting thus to judge our selves we provoke God to judge us we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world that is he inflicts these temporal judgments upon us to prevent our eternal condemnation Which plainly shews that the judgment here spoken of is not eternal condemnation And then he concludes Wherefore my Brethren when ye come together to eat tarry for one another And if any man hunger let him eat at home that ye come not together unto judgment where the Apostle plainly shews both what was the crime of unworthy receiving and the punishment of it Their crime was their irreverent and disorderly participation of the Sacrament and their punishment was those temporal judgments which God inflicted upon them for this their contempt of the Sacrament Now this being I think very plain we are proportionably to understand the precept of examination of our selves before we eat of that bread and drink of that cup. But let a man examine himself that is consider well with himself what a sacred Action he is going about and what behaviour becomes him when he is celebrating this Sacrament instituted by our Lord in memorial of his body and bloud that is of his death and passion And if heretofore he have been guilty of any disorder and irreverence such as the Apostle here taxeth them withall let him censure and judge himself for it be sensible of and sorry for his fault and be carefull to avoid it for the future and having thus examined himself let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. This I think is the plain sense of the Apostle's Discourse and that if we attend to the scope and circumstances of it it cannot well have any other meaning But some will say Is this all the preparation that is required to our worthy receiving of the Sacrament that we take care not to come drunk to it nor to be guilty of any irreverence and disorder in the celebration of it I answer in short this was the particular unworthiness with which the Apostle taxeth the Corinthians and which he warns them to amend as they desire to escape the judgments of God such as they had already felt for this irreverent carriage of theirs so unsutable to the holy Sacrament He finds no other fault with them at present in this matter though any other fort of irreverence will proportionably expose men to the like punishment He says nothing here of their habitual preparation by the sincere purpofe and resolution of a good life answerable to the rules of the Christian Religion This we may suppose he took for granted However it concerns the Sacrament no more than it does Prayer or any other religious duty Not but that it is very true that none but those who do heartily embrace the Christian Religion and are sincerely resolved to frame their lives according to the holy rules and precepts of it are fit to communicate in this solemn acknowledgment and profession of it So that it is a practice very much to be countenanced and encouraged because it is of great use for Christians by way of preparation for the Sacrament to examine themselves in a larger sense than in all probability the Apostle here intended I mean to examine our past lives and the actions of them in order to a sincere repentance of all our errours and miscarriages and to fix us in the steady purpose and resolution of a better life particularly when we expect to have the forgiveness of our sins sealed to us we should lay aside all enmity and thoughts of revenge and heartily forgive those that have offended us and put in practice that universal love and charity which is represented to us by this holy Communion And to this purpose we are earnestly exhorted in the publick Office of the Communion by way of due preparation and disposition for it to repent us truly of our sins past to amend our lives and to be in perfect charity with all men that so we may be meet partakers of those holy mysteries And because this work of examining our selves concerning our state and condition and of exercising repentance towards God and charity towards men is incumbent upon us as we are Christians and can
long before his death Greater love than this hath no man that a man lay down his life for his friend ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you It is a wonderfull love which he hath expressed to us and worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance And all that he expects from us by way of thankfull acknowledgment is to celebrate the remembrance of it by the frequent participation of this blessed Sacrament And shall this charge laid upon us by him who laid down his life for us lay no obligation upon us to the solemn remembrance of that unparallel'd kindness which is the fountain of so many blessings and benefits to us It is a sign we have no great sense of the benefit when we are so unmindfull of our benefactour as to forget him days without number The Obligation he hath laid upon us is so vastly great not only beyond all requital but beyond all expression that if he had commanded us some very grievous thing we ought with all the readiness and chearfulness in the world to have done it how much more when he hath imposed upon us so easie a commandment a thing of no burthen but of immence benefit when he hath onely said to us Eat O friends and drink O beloved when he onely invites us to his table to the best and most delicious Feast that we can partake of on this side heaven If we seriously believe the great blessings which are there exhibited to us and ready to be conferred upon us we should be so far from neglecting them that we should heartily thank God for every opportunity he offers to us of being made partakers of such benefits When such a price is put into our hands shall we want hearts to make use of it Methinks we should long with David who saw but the shadow of these blessings to be satisfied with the good things of God's house and to draw near his altar and should cry out with him O when shall I come and appear before thee My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And if we had a just esteem of things we should account it the greatest infelicity and judgment in the world to be debarred of this privilege which yet we do deliberately and frequently deprive our selves of We exclaim against the Church of Rome with great impatience and with a very just indignation for robbing the People of half of this blessed Sacrament and taking from them the cup of blessing the cup of salvation and yet we can patiently endure for some months nay years to exclude our selves wholly from it If no such great benefits and blessings belong to it why do we complain of them for hindring us of any part of it But if there do why do we by our own neglect deprive our selves of the whole In vain do we bemoan the decay of our graces and our slow progress and improvement in Christianity whilst we wilfully despise the best means of our growth in goodness Well do we deserve that God should send leanness into our souls and make them to consume and pine away in perpetual doubting and trouble if when God himself doth spread so bountifull a Table for us and set before us the bread of life we will not come and feed upon it with joy and thankfulness A DISCOURSE AGAINST TRANSVBSTANTIATION Concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper one of the two great positive Institutions of the Christian Religion there are two main Points of difference between Vs and the Church of Rome One about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which they think but are not certain that they have the Scripture and the words of our Saviour on their side The other about the administration of this Sacrament to the People in both kinds in which we are sure that we have the Scripture and our Saviour's Institution on our side and that so plainly that our Adversaries themselves do not deny it Of the first of these I shall now treat and endeavour to shew against the Church of Rome That in this Sacrament there is no substantial change made of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the Cross for so they explain that hard word Transubstantiation Before I engage in this Argument I cannot but observe what an unreasonable task we are put upon by the bold confidence of our Adversaries to dispute a matter of Sense which is one of those things about which Aristotle hath long since pronounc'd there ought to be no dispute It might well seem strange if any man should write a Book to prove that an Egg is not an Elephant and that a Musket-bullet is not a Pike It is every whit as hard a case to put to maintain by a long Discourse that what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Bloud And if this evidence may not pass for sufficient without any farther proof I do not see why any man that hath confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the World sees it is or affirm any thing to be what all the World sees it is not and this without all possibility of being farther confuted So that the business of Transubstantiation is not a controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind It is a most Self-evident Falshood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the World that is of it self more evidently true than Transubstantiation is evidently false And yet if it were possible to be true it would be the most ill-natur'd and pernicious truth in the World because it would suffer nothing else to be true it is like the Roman-Catholick Church which will needs be the whole Christian Church and will allow no other Society of Christians to be any part of it So Transubstantiation if it be true at all it is all truth and nothing else is true for it cannot be true unless our Senses and the Senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects and if this he true and certain then nothing else can be so for if we be not certain of what we see we can be certain of nothing And yet notwithstanding all this there are a Company of men in the World so abandon'd and given up by God to the efficacy of delusion as in good earnest to believe this gross and palpable Errour and to impose the belief of it upon the Christian World under no less penalties than of temporal death and eternal damnation And therefore to undeceive if possible these deluded Souls it will be necessary to examine the pretended grounds of
and absurd sense And it is very well known that in the Hebrew Language things are commonly said to be that which they do signifie and represent and there is not in that Language a more proper and usual way of expressing a thing to signifie so and so than to say that it is so and so Thus Joseph expounding Pharaoh's dream to him Gen. 41.26 Says the seven good kine are seven years and the seven good ears of corn are seven years that is they signified or represented seven years of plenty and so Pharaoh understood him and so would any man of sense understand the like expressions nor do I believe that any sensible man who had never heard of Transubstantiation being grounded upon these words of our Saviour this is my body would upon reading the institution of the Sacrament in the Gospel ever have imagin'd any such thing to be meant by our Saviour in those words but would have understood his meaning to have been this Bread signifies my Body this Cup signifies my Bloud and this which you see me now do do ye hereafter for a Memorial of me But surely it would never have enter'd into any man's mind to have thought that our Saviour did literally hold himself in his hand and give away himself from himself with his own hands Or whether we compare these words of our Saviour with the ancient Form of the Passover used by the Jews from Ezra's time as (n) Dialog cum Tryp p. 297. Edit Paris 1639. Justin Martyr tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Passover is our Saviour and our refuge not that they believed the Paschal Lamb to be substantially changed either into God their Saviour who delivered them out of the Land of Egypt or into the Messias the Saviour whom they expected and who was signified by it But this Lamb which they did eat did represent to them and put them in mind of that Salvation which God wrought for their Fathers in Egypt when by the slaying of a Lamb and sprinkling the bloud of it upon their doors their first-born were passed over and spared and did likewise foreshew the Salvation of the Messias the Lamb of God that was to take away the Sins of the world And nothing is more common in all Languages than to give the name of the thing signified to the Sign As the delivery of a Deed or Writing under hand and Seal is call'd a conveyance or making over of such an Estate and it is really so not the delivery of mere wax and parchment but the conveyance of a real Estate as truly and really to all effects and purposes of Law as if the very material houses and lands themselves could be and were actually delivered into my hands In like manner the names of the things themselves made over to us in the new Covenant of the Gospel between God and man are given to the Signs or Seals of that Covenant By Baptism Christians are said to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost Heb. 6.4 And by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper we are said to communicate or to be made partakers of the Body of Christ which was broken and of his Bloud which was shed for us that is of the real benefits of his death and passion And thus St. Paul speaks of this Sacrament 1 Cor. 10.16 The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the bloud of Christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ But still it is bread and he still calls it so v. 17. For we being many are one bread and one body for we are partakers of that one bread The Church of Rome might if they pleased as well argue from hence that all Christians are substantially changed first into Bread and then into the natural Body of Christ by their participation of the Sacrament because they are said thereby to be one bread and one body And the same Apostle in the next Chapter after he had spoken of the consecration of the Elements still calls them the Bread and the Cup in three verses together As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup v. 26. Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily v. 27. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this bread and drink of that cup v. 28. And our Saviour himself when he had said this is my bloud of the new Testament immediately adds * Matth. 26.29 but I say unto you I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the Vine untill I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom that is not till after his resurrection which was the first step of his exaltation into the Kingdom given him by his Father when the Scripture tells us he did eat and drink with his Disciples But that which I observe from our Saviour's words is that after the consecration of the Cup and the delivering of it to his Disciples to drink of it he tells them that he would thenceforth drink no more of that fruit of the Vine which he had now drank with them till after his Resurrection From whence it is plain that it was the fruit of the Vine real wine which our Saviour drank of and communicated to his Disciples in the Sacrament Besides if we consider that he celebrated this Sacrament before his Passion it is impossible these words should be understood literally of the natural body and bloud of Christ because it was his body broken and his bloud shed which he gave to his Disciples which if we understand literally of his natural body broken and his bloud shed then these words this is my body which is broken and this is my bloud which is shed could not be true because his Body was then whole and unbroken and his bloud not then shed nor could it be a propitiatory Sacrifice as they affirm this Sacrament to be unless they will say that propitiation was made before Christ suffer'd And it is likewise impossible that the Disciples should understand these words literally because they not onely plainly saw that what he gave them was Bread and Wine but they saw likewise as plainly that it was not his Body which was given but his Body which gave that which was given not his body broken and his bloud shed because they saw him alive at that very time and beheld his body whole and unpierc'd and therefore they could not understand these words literally If they did can we imagine that the Disciples who upon all other occasions were so full of questions and objections should make no difficulty of this matter nor so much as ask our Saviour how can these things be that they should not tell him we see this to be Bread and that to be Wine and we see thy Body to be distinct from both we see thy Body not broken and thy Bloud not shed From all which it must needs be very
over it which profiteth him that worthily eateth the Lord and this he says he had spoken concerning the typical and Symbolical body So that the matter of bread remaineth in the Sacrament and this Origen calls the typical and Symbolical body of Christ and it is not the natural body of Christ which is there eaten for the food eaten in the Sacrament as to that of it which is material goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draught This Testimony is so very plain in the Cause that Sextus Senensis suspects this place of Origen was depraved by the Heretiques Cardinal Perron is contented to allow it to be Origen's but rejects his testimony because he was accused of Heresie by some of the Fathers and says he talks like a Heretique in this place So that with much ado this testimony is yielded to us The same Father in his * Cap. 10. Homilies upon Leviticus speaks thus There is also in the New Testament a letter which kills him who doth not Spiritually understand those things which are said for if we take according to the Letter that which is said EXCEPT YE EAT MY FLESH AND DRINK MY BLOVD this Letter kills And this also is a killing Testimony and not to be answered but in Cardinal Perron's way by saying he talks like a Heretique St. Cyprian hath a whole Epistle * Ep. 63. to Cecilius against those who gave the Communion in Water only without Wine mingled with it and his main argument against them is this that the bloud of Christ with which we are redeemed and quickned cannot seem to be in the Cup when there is no Wine in the Cup by which the Bloud of Christ is represented and afterwards he says that contrary to the Evangelical and Apostolical Doctrine water was in some places offer'd or given in the Lord's Cup which says he alone cannot express or represent the bloud of Christ And lastly he tells us that by water the people is understood by Wine the bloud of Christ is shewn or represented but when in the Cup water is mingled with Wine the people is united to Christ So that according to this Argument Wine in the Sacramental Cup is no otherwise chang'd into the Bloud of Christ than the Water mixed with it is changed into the People which are said to be united to Christ I omit many others and pass to St. Austin in the fourth Age afâ—er Christ And I the rather insist upon his Testimony because of his eminent esteem and authority in the Latin Church and he also calls the Elements of the Sacrament the figure and sign of Christ's body and bloud In his Book against Adimantus the Manichee we have this expression * Aug. Tom. 6. p. 187. Edit Basil 1569. our Lord did not doubt to say this is my Body when he gave the Sign of his Body And in his explication of the third Psalm speaking of Judas whom our Lord admitted to his last Supper in which says he †Enarrat in Psal Tom. 8. p. 16. he commended and delivered to his Disciples the figure of his Body Language which would now be censur'd for Heresie in the Church of Rome Indeed he was never accus'd of Heresie as Cardinal Perron says Origen was but he talks as like one as Origen himself And in his Comment on the 98 Psalm speaking of the offence which the Disciples took at that saying of our Saviour except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud c. he brings in our Saviour speaking thus to them ‖ Id. Tom. 9. p. 1105. ye must understand Spiritually what I have said unto you ye are not to eat this body which ye see and to drink that bloud which shall be shed by those that shall crucifie me I have commended a certain Sacrament to you which being Spiritually understood will give you life What more opposite to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation than that the Disciples were not to eat that Body of Christ which they saw nor to drink that bloud which was shed upon the Cross but that all this was to be understood spiritually and according to the nature of a Sacrament For that body he tells us is not here but in heaven in his Comment upon these words me ye have not always * Id Tract 50. in Johan He speaks says he of the presence of his body ye shall have me according to my providence according to Majesty and invisible grace but according to the flesh which the word assumed according to that which was born of the Virgin Mary ye shall not have me therefore because he conversed with his Disciples forty days he is ascended up into heaven and is not here In his 23 d. Epistle †Id Tom. 2. p. 93. if the Sacrament says he had not some resemblance of those things whereof they are Sacraments they would not be Sacraments at all but from this resemblance they take for the most part the names of the things which they represent Therefore as the Sacrament of the body of Christ is in some manner or sense Christ's body and the Sacrament of his bloud is the bloud of Christ So the Sacrament of faith meaning Baptism is faith Upon which words of St. Austin there is this remarkable Gloss in their own Canon Law ‖ De Consecr dist 2. Hoc est the heavenly Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is called the body of Christ but improperly whence it is said that after a manner but not according to the truth of the thing but the Mystery of the thing signified So that the meaning is it is called the body of Christ that is it signifies the body of Christ And if this be St. Austin's meaning I am sure no Protestant can speak more plainly against Transubstantiation And in the ancient Canon of the Mass before it was chang'd in complyance with this new Doctrine it is expresly call'd a Sacrament a Sign an Image and a Figure of Christ's body To which I will add that remarkable passage of St. Austin cited by * De consecrat dist 2. Sect. Vtrum Gratian that as we receive the similitude of his death in Baptism so we may also receive the likeness of his flesh and bloud that so neither may truth be wanting in the Sacrament nor Pagans have occasion to make us ridiculous for drinking the bloud of one that was slain I will mention but one Testimony more of this Father but so clear a one as it is impossible any man in his wits that had believed Transubstantiation could have utter'd It is in his Treatise * Lib. 3. Tom. 3. p. 53. de Doctrina Christiana where laying down several Rules for the right understanding of Scripture he gives this for one If says he the speech be a precept forbidding some heinous wickedness or crime or commanding us to do good it is not figurative but if it seem to command any
to have been engaged in an evil course preserve their innocency with great tenderness and care as the greatest Jewel in the World No Man knows what he do's and what a foundation of trouble he lays to himself when he forfeits his innocency and breaks the peace of his own mind when he yields to a Temptation and makes the first step into a bad course He little thinks whither his lusts may hurry him and what a monster they may make of him before they have done with him 2. Those who have been seduced but are not yet deeply engaged in an evil course let them make a speedy retreat lest they put it for ever out of their power to return Perhaps their feet onely are yet ensnared but their hands are at liberty and they have some power left whereby with an ordinary grace of God they may loose and rescue themselves But after a while their hands may be manacled and all their power may be gone and when they are thus bound hand and foot they are just prepared and in danger every moment to be cast into utter darkness 3. As for those who are gone very far and are grown old in vice who can forbear to lament over them for they are a sad spectacle indeed and the truest object of pity in the World And yet their recovery is not utterly to be despaired of for with God it is possible The spirit of God which hath withdrawn himself or rather hath been driven away by them may yet be persuaded to return and to undertake them once more if they would but seriously rosolve upon a change and heartily beg God's assistance to that purpose If we would take up a mighty resolution we might hope that God would afford a miraculous grace to second it and make it effectual to our recovery Even in this perverse and degenerate Age in which we live God hath not been wanting to give some miraculous instances of his grace and mercy to sinners and those perhaps equal to any of those we meet with in Scripture of Manasses or Mary Magdalen or the penitent Thief both for the greatness of the offenders and the miracle of their change To the end that none might despair and for want of the encouragement of an example equal to their own case be disheartned from so noble an enterprize I am loth to put you in mind how bad some have been who yet have been snatched as Firebrands out of the fire and that in so strange a manner that it would even amaze a Man to think of the wonder of their recovery those who have sunk themselves into the very depth of infidelity and wickedness have by a mighty hand and out-stretched arm of God been pluckt out of this horrible Pit And will we still stand it out with God when such great Leaders have given up the cause and have surrendred and yielded up themselves willing Captives to the grace of God that omnipotent grace of God which can easily subdue the stoutest heart of Man by letting in so strong a light upon our minds and pouring such terrible convictions into our consciences that we can find no ease but in turning to God I hope there are none here so bad as to need all the encouragement to repentance which such examples might give them encouragement I say to repentance for surely these examples can encourage no Man to venture any farther in a wicked course they are so very rare and like the instances of those who have been brought back to life after the sentence of death seemed to have been fully executed upon them But perhaps some will not believe that there have been such examples or if there have they impute all this either to a disturbed imagination or to the faint and low spirits of Men under great bodily weakness or to their natural cowardize and fear or to I know not what foolish and fantastical design of completing and finishing a wicked life with an hypocritical death Nothing surely is easier than to put some bad construction upon the best things and so slurr even repentance it self and almost dash it out of countenance by some bold and perhaps witty saying about it But oh that Men were wise oh that Men were wise that they understood and would consider their latter end Come let us neither trifle nor dissemble in this matter I dare say every man's Conscience is convinced that they who have led very ill lives have so much reason for repentance that we may easily believe it to be real However of all things in the world let us not make a mock of repentance that which must be our last sanctuary and refuge and which we must all come to before we die or it had been better for us we had never been born Therefore let my counsel be acceptable unto you break off your sins by repentance and your iniquities by righteousness And that instantly and without delay lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin If we have been enslaved but a little to a vitious course we shall find it a task difficult enough to assert our own liberty to break these bonds in sunder and to cast these cords from us But if we have been long under this bondage we have done so much to undoe our selves and to make our case desperate that it is God's infinite mercy to us that there is yet hope Therefore give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while you look for light he turn it into darkness and the shadow of death I will conclude with that encouraging invitation even to the greatest of sinners to repentance from the mouth of God himself Isa 55. Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your Soul shall live seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon To him let us apply out selves and humbly beseech him who is mighty to save that he would stretch forth the right hand of his power for our deliverance from this miserable and cruel bondage of our lusts and that as the rain cometh down from Heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it to bring forth and bud so he would grant that his word may not return void but accomplish his pleasure and prosper in the thing to which he sent it For his mercy sake in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever Amen MATTTHEW XXIII 13. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and ye neither go in your selves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in THE Scribes so often mentioned in the Gospel