hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled And now when thou hast exercised thy self in these acts and the time of the holy Communion approacheth Then 6 Imploy thy time in awakening and affectionate thoughts of Christ thy Lord. Consider the greatness of his Condescension the kindness of his Vndertaking the boliness of his Life the purity of his Doctrine the heaviness of his Sufferings the power of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension Turn thy thoughts earnestly and often upon these and such instances of the History of the holy Jesus and by them dispose thy self to a befitting remembrance of him at his Table And Lastly Gather up all thy thoughts and resolutions together viz. thy apprehensions of the vileness of sin of the Grace of the Covevenant and the merits of thy Lord Thy purposes of leaving every evil way and of renewing thy baptismal Vows and say to thy self Now is the time come that I must use these thoughts and resolves that I may obtain pardon and strength victory over sin and assurance of happiness My Lord invites me to the great representation of the evil of sin in his own sufferings to see his Body wounded and his Soul made an Offering for Sin in the Type of Bread broken and Wine poured out To remember his Conquest over Sin by Death and a glorious Resurrection To see the Covenant of Grace and pardon sealed He invites me to these Priviledges and call upon me to bind my self stronger in this holy Covenant and thereby to make my self the subject of those blessings it assures and conveys I say imploy thy Soul in such thoughts and bring them with thee to the Lords Table spread them before him there in humble Confessions Supplications and Acknowledgments and thou mayst then expect to receive the benefit thou art seeking after These are Preparations for a bare Penitent that hath yet made but little progress in subduing of his Sins And though the highest degrees of all these are not absolutely necessary to the coming of such to the Lords Table yet the more they have been exercised in them so much the better it is by so much they re more prepared and so much more they may expect of the benefits But if your minds that have not been used to spiritual things will not fix long on such thoughts and meditations Ingage them as far as you can proceed in the Method prescribed with that diligence and care that becomes one that is serious And then though your preparations be imperfect now they may be more compleat against another season If thou art sensible they have been so defective maintain and keep up that sense and resolve upon it to indeavor to fit thy self better for another Sacrament by renewing the same method which will be easier for thee in the progress than it was in the beginning As for the other sort viz. II. Those that have advanced in the conquest of their sins They are to act over all the former particulars that I have advised to the bare Penitents For being yet sinners and imperfect they have need to use that Method And there are these few other Directions to be briefly added that do further concern them 1 Call your selves to a particular account concerning your sins examining what vices you are most addicted to and what are the sins of your tempers or of your Profession and Calling when you have found those exercise particular acts of Repentance upon them and renew your resolutions against them Consider that allowance of them is inconsistent with sincerity and a state of true regeneration That 't is necessary you should oppose and subdue them and that the holy Sacrament is to be used as a means for that blessed end 2 Examine what ground you have got upon your sins since the last Sacrament whether you are now more tender and fearful of offending God than you were before whether your inclination to any evil be more weakened and mortified If so take encouragement hence to go on with more Christian vigor and resolution If not humble your selves for your unfruitfulness and indeavor to dispose your souls to make a better use of the next opportunity 3 Inquire into the state of your souls as to your Graces what Graces are wanting and what are weak which are growing and which at a stand and when you have found the condition of your souls as to these then exercise your meditations upon those particulars in the Life Doctrine and Precepts of your Lord whom you are to remember at his Table that may be proper for your case Apply your thoughts and cares and resolutions that way Design and resolve to attend the holy Sacrament for the supply of those wants and to endeavor to use it so that the needed graces may be obtain'd and the weak ones may be strengthened that those that are at a stay may be put into motion forwards and those that are growing may be further improved If you thus provide and imploy your selves in the method before remembred you will then be meet partakers of the holy Mysteries and may assure your selves of the blessings and advantages which they convey THis Subject would have required larger discourse but my present business was principally with the careless and negligent to whose condition I have mostly applied my self For the others that are solicitous for their souls and desirous to be further informed about this great and important affair of Preparation I shall advise them to get and carefully to read and digest two excellent Books of the Sacrament The former called Mensa Mystica or a Discourse concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by Dr. Simon Patrick and the latter named the Christian Sacrifice containing most excellent Meditations and Prayers both before and after the Sacrament In the first design of this little Discourse I intended to have added some things of that sort for your use But while I was thinking of it my Pious Learned and Excellent Friend the Author sent me one of those his last Books the Devotion and Piety of which is extraordinary and there is nothing that I know fitter to prepare your affections and to excite them to the noblest height of desire and love than those heavenly Meditations And you cannot use more proper judicious or affectionate Prayers than those he hath annext So that I was exceeding glad when I saw this useful much needed Work so incomparably well done that there was no occasion of my doing any more in it than earnestly to recommend that book to your perusal And I intreat you to get it into your Houses and from time to time to indeavor to warm your souls by it when you are preparing for the Sacrament and by it to fix you in your resolutions of living according to your ingagements there when you have attended on that blessed Ordinance And now my Friends I leave you to the blessing of God and the consideration of what I have said Whatever judgment may be made of it I have this testimony that I meant it sincerely And I shall never cease to pray that both you and I may sincerely practice according to it Your Faithful Monitor and Servant J. G. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Basil. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * AS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Lord and a Seal of the Covenant that God hath made with us in him Two things then it is principally designed for 1 To Remember us of our Lord and Saviour and 2 to be a Seal of the Covenant of Grace of each briefly 1 'T is for a Remembrance not only of his Person or only of his Sufferings or any other particular part of his Ministry But we are by it required thankfully and affectionately to call to mind All that he hath done and all that he hath suffer'd His Life Doctrine and Laws His Passion Resurrection and Ascension His Victory over Sin Death and Hell and the gracious Covenant that God hath made with us through him These are all included in his Body and Bloud as I intimated before of which the Holy Sacrament is a Sign and Memorial And the remembrance of these which we are call'd to by the Divine Institution is not only some slight and passing thoughts but a solemn and most serious fixing of them upon our minds in order to the inflaming our affections with love and our wills with resolution that we may live answerably to that excellent Religion of the Holy Jesus which we profess 2 'T is the Seal of a Covenant The new Testament in my bloud The Covenant is That God will give pardon of Sin and eternal Life upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance This He seals to us in the Sacrament and assures us that he for his part will make good his Promises and we on ours seal that we will endeavour to perform the conditions So that the Lords Supper is a Sacrament by which we confirm those ingagements we are entred into at Baptism Then our Sureties undertook for us that we should be faithful in the Convenant and in this holy Ordinance we take all those obligations upon our selves and in our own persons promise to act according to them This plainly and in short is the nature and design of the Holy Sacrament concerning which there are some other expressions in Scripture which I shall consider briefly in order to the further explication of the sacred Mystery The chief are these 'T is called 1 The Cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 The communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ 1 Cor. 10. 16 and in the duty t is said 3 That we shew the Lords Death 1 Cor. 11. 26. 1 The Cup of Blessing viz. of Praise and Thanksgiving Our Saviour Matth. 26 gave thanks when he took the Cup. The Jews used to conclude their paschal Supper with a Cup of Wine at which time they sung an Hymn and therefore call'd it the cup of praising and blessing And the Heathens also after their feasts had their cups of Praise to their Gods which some take to be the Cup of Divils mention'd by the Apostle I Coa 10. 21. So that by this we are taught to remember our Lord at his Table with praise and grateful acknowledgements And therefore the Ancients from hence call'd the Lords Supper the Holy Eucharist namely a Feast of Thanksgiving and the Solemnity was always attended with an hymn of Praise 2 Communion or Communication of the body and bloud of Christ viz. The Sacrament is a sacred Rite in which God communicates and imparts to all worthy Receivers the Benefits of Christs Incarnation and Sufferings He doth then ratifie confirm and solemnly exhibit them to those that duly attend upon that Divine appointment 3 As often as ye eat ye do shew the Lords death viz. 1 Declare unto men with joy and glorying that we believe he dyed for such purposes and that he hath procured inestimable benefits for us by his Death That therefore we will adhere and stick unto him and that neither death nor life shall seperate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord. And 2 Imports our shewing and declaring this also unto God and pleading it with him for his pardon and his grace for the sake of that meritorious Passion which we set forth and commemorate These passages fall under the Account I have before given of the Ordinance and shew how we are to Remember our Lord in it and what we may expect in so doing Thus briefly of the Nature and design of the Sacrament I might have run the matter into a large Discourse but I resolve all convenient brevity In what I have said you will find all things that are necessary and essential to the Ordinance For the niceties and disputes that are about it you need not trouble your selves with them But so much of it as I have represented I mean in the substance of the particulars 't is fit you should know And therefore I intreat you especially those of the more ordinary understandings to return back and fix your thoughts a while upon those periods and read them over and again till you have a clear and distinct apprehension of the Subject they explain I know the thoughts of most are very confused and much in the dark about it and while they are so they cannot demean themselves as they ought in the performance of the Duty nor receive those benefits that otherwise they might from it I beseech you therefore not to content your selves with a single and running reading Many Divine Truths will not enter into our minds at first sight or if they do they are gone as soon as they are received Though they are never so plainly exprest yet they many times seem dark till we look again Or though they strike our minds fully yet they pass out of Memory except we reflect and think them over I hope therefore you will do your selves this right And I thus urge you to consideration of my accounts not as if I fancied I had made any discoveries in them which were not made before No These are known things among the Intelligent sort of Christians But I do it because I speak to the meaner and less improved understandings And perhaps from the Representation of the affair which I have given the others also may receive the advantage of a clearer order and method to their thoughts and be deliver'd from many unnecessary and uncertain notions that they have imagined to be of great consequence to be believed and known when either they are not true or not considerable CHAP. III. I Come now to the main thing I design viz. II To urge this great duty which I have thus explain'd and to do what I can to persuade you to the conscientious practice of it Now there are two things that commonly oblige men to action namely Considerations of Duty and of Interest And there are both here in the highest degree to ingage us I shall discourse of each 1 We have the Motive and Reason of Duty and Duty in such circumstances as have the greatest obligation in them A Lord who hath all right to our obedience both by nature and by dear purchase hath commanded us to do this And A Saviour who hath rescued
us from the Jaws of Hell and Earth and hath procured for us endless life and glory hath required it of us Here is the Authority of just Power and the Obligation of astonishing Love We are bound by the submissions we owe a Sovereign Lord and by the gratitude we owe an adorable Benefactor The Son of God the King of both the worlds The Redeemer of Men 't is He that commands and his commandments are not grievous had he put upon our necks a yoke heavier then the Iewish ceremonies had he injoyn'd a greater number of costly and laborious Rites than those and required so many of such services from us as would have taken up all our time and imployed all our strength and wearied all our powers Yet these we ought to have observed without repining and thought all but small homage to his Greatness and small acknowledgment of his Love All these had been nothing in compare with what he hath done for us freely without merit or obligation Nothing to his leaving the bosome of the Father and the glories of the upper world and the Hallelujahs of the blessed Nothing to his descending to a world of Infamy and woe Nothing to his suffering the scorns and contradictions of Sinners the Death of the Cross and the wrath of God So that we had been wretchedly ungrateful should we have stuck at any of these or as much as murmured at them But our Lord hath not given us any such tryal of our Love and obedience He hath deliver'd the world from the Yoke of Ceremonial bondage And besides Baptism hath appointed but this one Rite for us to observe A Rite that is neither troublesome nor costly tedious nor laborious And what Prodigies of baseness shall we make our selves if we refuse to take notice of this his gracious Institution With what face can we look up and call our selves by his name How shamefully are we upbraided by the practice of those we count barbarous Let us look abroad into the world and consider the most brutish Idolaters They will cut their beloved flesh and burn their dearest children and sometimes suffer themselves to be crush'd to death by the Carriages that bear their Idols because their Infernal Gods require and are pleased with such testimonies of their homage Hath the Devil such obsequious servants Are those Cruel Rites whch he appoints observed with so much duty Will those poor wretches do and suffer any thing rather than displease their ugly Deities And are we Christians Professing Servants of the Son of God our Sovereign and Redeemer and do we neglect this his main just and gracious appointment Is this too much to do for him and do we owe him so much less than Cannibals do their Idols Certainly those men of the Desart those wild Savages of the Woods shall rise up in judgement with such a Generation of pretending Christians and shall condemn it Methinks their diligence and exactness in those hard and painful services should cover us with blushing and confusion at our carelesness and neglect of the easie duty our Lord requires from us And we shall see great reason to be ashamed of our omissions if we consider that our blessed Redeemer had lived a Life of poverty and dishonour for our sakes He had instructed us in the way of Happiness by his excellent Doctrine and Precepts and had gone before us in an incomparable example and now he was just about to compleat his Love by offering himself unto death to deliver us from it and thereby to give an instance of the most amazing goodness that ever was At this time he injoines his Disciples to do something in Remembrance of Him And Lord What is sufficient to be done in memory of such Love Had he required the dearest of our bloud and the choicest of our substance to be offer'd to him in acknowledgment should we have thought such demands unreasonable Would ordinary ingenuity have scrupled to make those Sacrifices for such kindness But he calls not for these He looks for no First-born of our bodies nor chief of our Flocks No He appoints only a feast of Memorials and commands us to remember his Love in that And shall we not observe him in so small a matter Hath he not deserv'd to be remembred by us or do we know any better way to signifie our remembrance of him then that which himself hath prescribed Should we not do as much as this at the request of an ordinary dying Friend And is not the greatest and the best that ever creatures had worthy of such a testimony of affection from us I am sure there is no one can be so brutish as to deny the justness of the Duty and methinks none should be so unworthy as to refuse complyance with it I beseech you therefore if the Considerations of Duty can do any thing with you If there be any obligation in the highest Authority if there be any allurement in the sweetest love If your profession of subjection to Christ be not only a Complement and if he have any real interest in your Souls give this proof then of your being in earnest that which you would be thought Refuse no more of his Invitations Neglect no more of his calls Consider the expresness of his command and that this Law is peculiarly his His in such a sence as Baptism excepted no other Law is For his other injunctions are but enforcements of the Laws that God had written in the old Scriptures and in our hearts But this is his own proper commandment by obeying him in this we particularly own him as our Law-giver and by refusing we renounce him But if the considerations of Duty should not prove so powerful with you there are others which generally use to be of more force namely those taken from our interest And here II I desire you to consider the great benefits that a worthy Communicant receives from the holy Sacrament This is not a meer barren Ceremony or unprofitable Rite but an instrument and means to produce and to convey unspeakable blessings to us Here we receive 1 Confirmation of our Faith All habits are increas'd by being exercised and this Ordinance requires great exercises of the grace of Faith For here we make a solemn declaration of it and thereby bind it stronger upon our souls And to the exercise of this Divine Grace and the sincere and publick profession of it there is no doubt but God will superadd his special aid and blessing that out of weakness it may be made strong So that if your Faith be weake and trembling if you are perplext with vexatious doubts and temptations to unbelief apply your selves to this holy Ordinance as to the proper remedy Declare your Faith and pray for more If you believe God will help your unbelief Mark 9. 24. 2 Our Repentance will be heightned by our Due Communicating at the Lords Table and that in respect of all its great Acts viz. 1. Sence and