Open still new Springs of Love when I come to this Sacrament of thy Everlasting Love that the New Springs may still give new life to my Soul new courage to do thy Will new Power to tread on Serpents new resolutions to conquer all that stops my way And thus my dearest Lord transform me by the renewing of my Mind that I may prove what is the Holy acceptable and perfect Wall of God Amen Amen CHAP. XVI Of the Perpetuity of this Ordinance and the Necessity of its Continuance to the World's End The CONTENTS St. Pauls Command to the Corinthians of shewing forth the Lord's Death till he come not to be understood of Christ's coming to them in the Spirit but coming to Judgment This proved largely by many arguments The reasons laid down why this Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to last to the end of the World Christ's coming to Judgment proved to be a very proper object of our Contemplation in the Recieving of the Holy Eucharist and a help to Patience and Faith and confidence in the Goodness of God God's Marvellous care of our everlasting welfare shewn in tying us up in Bonds of Obedience in this Ordinance Men who look for Grace and Salvation as they are bound to make use of the means of Grace so they are obliged to make use of this The wretched state of those who neglect to shew forth the Lord's Death in this Sacrament The same temper required in Recieving the Eucharist that we desire to be in when we shall be summoned to Judgment The Prayer I. THat this Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a standing Ordinance and to last to the end of the World St. Paul expresly tells us 1 Cor. 11. 26. For as often as you Eat this Bread and Drink this Cup ye do shew or do ye shew the Lord's death till he come Whereby is plainly meant Christ's coming to judge the World and this hath been the unanimous belief of the universal Church since the Apostles time unto this day which makes us justly wonder at the boldness and ignorance of Quakers and other Enthusiasts who have presumed to abolish this Ordinance in their Conventicles pretending that this Sacrament was fitted only for the Infancy of the Christian Church but intended it should cease when Christ should come to them in the Spirit and having already received Christ as they fancy in their first Conversion and Regeneration they foolishly and ridiculously imagine that they have no need of receiving him again in the use of the outward Symbols tendered to Christians in this Sacrament Puffed up with this airy conceit they run into this Sinister and Childish Interpretation of the Apostle's words contrary to the sense of all Christian Churches as if Till he come were as much as Till he come to you in the Spirit to which impertinent Exposition nothing could possibly lead these silly Men but the Spirit of error and contempt of all human Learning and undervaluing the common dictates of Reason and a monstrous Spiritual Pride which not only swells them with an opinion that they are wiser than all the Christians in the World besides but tempts them to other insolencies and Prophanations of the Written Oracles of the Holy Ghost and therfore lest weak Capacities should be ensnared by such specious pretences it will be necessary to shew the unreasonableness of this interpetation 1. There is not the least Syllable not the least hint given us in all the New Testamenâ— that this Sacrament after it was once instituted was ever to be abolished which made not only the Apostles introduce it into the Christian Congregations while they lived but all the Churches planted and founded by them retained and continued it knowing nothing to the contrary but that this Ordinance was to be perpetual and Eternal and therefore as they had recieved the necessary use of it from those who laid the foundation of their Religion so they propagated the same to their posterity Nay among the Hereticks that left and separated from the Church there were very few but what preserved the use of this Sacrament in their Congregations and though they had the insolence of Blaspheming other Mysteries of Christianity yet this Ordinance they were afraid to abolish being sensible that it was one of the Corner stones of Christianity And who could imagine otherwise that considered how this Sacrament succeeded in the room of the Passover which was Item enough that it was to last for ever for as the Passover after its first Institution was to last to the end of the Jewish Oeconomy that expiring with Christ's Death so this succeeding was an argument that it was to continue while the dispensation of Christianity should last and that is to the end of the World 2. No Man will deny but that those three thousand Souls converted by St. Peter's Sermon did receive the Holy Ghost for St. Peter expresly promises them Acts 2. 38. Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remissions of Sins and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and this was very common in those days for true Penitents to receive the Holy Ghost immediately upon their Baptism and sometimes before their Baptism as Cornelius and his Company Act. 20. 44. 48. And though by the Holy Chost in those places are meant the miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost speaking with Tongues healing diseases c. Yet it must be granted that in their conversion they had the Sanctifying Spirit of God sent upon them yet these very Persons that â—nd so received the Spirit continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayer as we are told Act. 2. 42. And that by breaking of Bread there is not meant sitting down to their private and ordinary meals is evident from hence because it is mentioned as a part of their Devotion and publick Worship to which their ordinary Diet cannot be referred and therefore it must be the Encharist or this Sacrament of the Lord's Supper that 's meant by it for by that Term it was usually expressed in the Primitive Church as we see 1 Cor. 10. 16. 3. Those very Corinthians to whom the Apostle writes in the place aforementioned and gives a Command to shew forth the Lord's death in this Sacrament till he came had already received the Spirit of God as we read 1 Cor. 2. 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given us of God and to this purpose he adds 1 Cor. 6. 11. Such were some of you but ye are Washed but ye are Sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God These Men then had received the Spirit of God and therefore when the Apostle writing to them chap. 11. Saith that they should shew forth the Lords death till he come most certainly he cannot mean till he came
rejoyce in nothing so much as in this that I love thee XX. O my bountiful Saviour O my loving Redeemer When when shall it be that I shall love thee perfectly Here on Earth I must not hope for this Happiness but in Heaven I shall O Heaven Heaven How desirable art thou Where the Love of Jesus shall eternally reign in my Soul Where my Love shall be perfectly pure perfectly Seraphick perfectly Extatical and Eternal Ages shall not alter it At present I am in Prison encompassed with a Mortal Body and must sojourn in a wicked World Oh when will that Day that Hour that Minute that happy Time come that I shall be delivered from this Dungeon and translated to that place where Love is all in all where Love knows no End no Decay no Period where it is pure without Mixture invariable without Changes eternal without ceasing Come Lord Jesu Come quickly Particular Acts of Devotion at the Acts of Consecration and Receiving of the Consecrated Bread and Wine At the Minister's pouring out the holy Wine into the Cup. O Jesu Who can think of the flowing of thy Blood without being desirous to be washed with it Or I fancy I do at this present stand under thy Cross and see thee bleeding for my Sins Or Oh. Let thy Blood flow upon my wounded Soul that I may become a sound Member of thy Mystical Body At the Minister's laying his Hand upon the Bread O Blessed Saviour Lay thy Hand upon my Soul that all my Distempers may depart from me Or Oh lay hold on my Soul as the Angel did on Lot Save me from the Flames and let me escape into the Mount of God that I perish not At the Minister's Breaking the Bread Lord Jesu In suffering thy Body to be broken for my Sins I see the Vehemence the Strength and Fervour of thy Love Oh make me all Love all Fervour all Charity Or Oh break the united Forces of my Sins scatter them by thy mighty Arm. Gather the broken Planks of Vertue in my Soul unite them make them whole and strong and secure against the Fury of Winds and Tempests At the Minister's pronouncing the Words This is my Body Lord Let me look off from these material Things and shew me Things invisible and Heavenly Or O Lord The Benefits of thy wounded Body my Soul longs for Oh say They shall be thy Portion At the Minister's touching the Cup. Lord Touch my Soul that it may feel the Power of thy Super-abundant Charity Or Oh! Touch me as thou didst the Blind of old that I may see the Bowels of thy Compassion and rejoyce in the glorious Sight At the Minister's pronouncing the Words This is my Blood Lord My Soul wants Wine of another nature than is in this Cup Oh wash it and cleanse it and purifie it in thy Blood Or Lord Speak thou to my Soul and say I will be thou clean At the Receiving of the Bread Lord Let thy Death be my Life And the Bread represented by this Bread feed me into Everlasting Life Or Lord As thou hast provided Food for my Soul so give me a Taste and Relish also of this Food and a Tongue to praise thy Name for ever Or Lord As thou hast given thy Body for me so I freely offer my Soul and Body as Living Sacrifices to thy Majesty At the Receiving of the Cup. Lord Nothing is more precious than thy Blood Oh! Let it warm my Heart that it may comply with thy Will wlthout wavering Or Lord Bid me look upon thy Blood and in thy Blood upon the Reconciliation wrought by it to the Comfort and Edification of my Soul Or O Lord I am heavy laden and my Pollutions are great And as thy Blood alone can remove that Burthen so free me from those Spots and Wrinkles which make me look deformed in thy Sight CHAP. XXVIII Of the proper Acts of Devotion after we have Received The CONTENTS The Time that is left after our Personal Receiving before all have Communicated not to be spent in Gazing or Looking about Acts of Devotion to be used after Receiving and relating to the Wisdom Mercy Liberality Love Goodness Greatness and Majesty of God to our own Vileness and Unworthiness c. IT falls out so often that when we have Communicated and our Souls have been fed at this Table a considerable Space of Time remains before the united Praises and Thanksgivings of the Congregation begin again This Time be it more or less must not be spent in looking about or in sitting still or in thinking of what Objects our Fancy is pleased to offer and present to us but in holy Aspirations And that the Communicant may know how to employ himself in that Interval it may not be amiss to set down some pious and proper Ejaculations whereby he may exercise his Mind according as Time will permit I. O God! Thy Love in Christ Jesus deserves to be praised admired and magnified There is all that in it which can engage a Soul to break forth into Praises and Hallelujahs There is Beauty Wisdom Condescention Mercy Liberality Sweetness Power Greatness Majesty in it and all these in the highest Degree which would force even a dumb Man to speak of thy Glory II. I adore thee O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity for that infinite Care of my immortal Soul which I see in all thy Proceedings and Transactions and particularly in the Cross of my dearest Redeemer Here thou seemest to empty all thy Stores and pourest out thy Grace abundantly upon the Heads and Hearts of thy Servants Behold Bless ye the Lord all ye Servants of the Lord which by Night stand in the House of the Lord Lift up your Hands in the Sanctuary and bless the Lord. The Lord that made Heaven and Earth hath blessed us out of Zion III. O Charming Son of God! I alone am not able sufficiently to praise thee and therefore I wish that every Drop of the Ocean every Grain of Sand every Leaf of the Trees of the Field and every Sprig of Herbs and all the Creatures that ever were or are or shall be might be turn'd into Seraphick Tongues to praise thee IV. O Jefu When I behold thy wonderful Love how it hath bowed how it hath stooped to so mean a Creature as I am the Thoughts of it force my Soul into the humblest and deepest Prostrations Thou art Beauty I am Deformity Thou art Wisdom I am Ignorance Thou art Light I am Darkness Thou art Omnipotence I am feeble Thou art Purity I am Filth and Dung Thou art rich I am Poverty it self Thou art happy I am Misery it self Thou art Perfection I am Weakness Thou art All in All I am nothing V. O Blessed Saviour When I see how Men fall in love with a mortal and fading Beauty which to Day shines bright as the Sun to Morrow by Sickness or Death is all tarnish'd and decay'd how do I blame my self that I do not love thee better whose
promote and encourage the good he reaps from exacter Compositions I have in the following Discourse endeavour'd at once to inform the Readers Judgment to direct his Practice and to satisfy his Curiosity the first by giving a rational account of the Nature of the Eucharist the second by taking notice of the particular Duties requisite in Communicants and the third by adding some Historical passages about the rise and progress of some Rites and Opinions relating to this Sacrament I had Thoughts toward the latter end to have added a Chapter about Confessing of Sin to a Faithful Minister of God's Word before Men receive the Communion but fearing the Book would swell to an unconscionable bulk I was forc'd to stop where I did That which made me desirous to have said something of that Subject was because I find by converse that some Romish Priests have of late been very busie with several Members of our Church and made a mighty stir about this Sacramental Confession as if our Church were defective in a Fundamental Point because we press no such thing upon our Communicants But not to mention that Mountebanks do what they can to discourage Men from consulting with discreet and rational Physicians we do not indeed make this Confession of sins to a Minister absolutely necessary to Salvation nor do we enjoyn it upon pain of Damnation because we have no warrant for it in Scripture which our Church makes the only Rule of her Faith but that we do not encourage this Confession as a thing very convenient nay in some cases necessary especially where the Sinners Conscience is burden'd and oppress'd and labours under doubts is a malicious Slander and Calumny We find nothing in the Apostles Rubrick for Celebrating the Holy Communion concerning this Confession But all that he saith is this Let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup which Christians may certainly do without Confessing their Sins to a Minister Yet where they are gravel'd in this Examination or find themselves in perplexity about their Spiritual concerns Reason requires that they should come to the Priest who is appointed by God as Director of their Consciences and where we find that their Souls are touch'd with remorse and their resolution is great and magnanimous to shake off the burthen of their Pollutions and to give themselves up to the conduct of a better Master there we are ready to impart to them that Absolution which God hath bid us pronounce in his Name to their Comfort and whereof there is as full and satisfactory a Form in our Liturgy as any Christian can desire It 's granted we do not as in the Roman Church join the Merits of the Virgin Mary and of the Saints to those of Christ in our Absolution because we dare not for fear of committing a hainous Sin but we Absolve as far as we are impowred by the Word of God and he that leaves this Fountain and hews out to himself Cisterns which can hold no Water is in danger of being forsaken by God and left to his own Delusions and vain Imaginations THE Crucified Jesus CHAP. I. Of the Name of this Ordinance and why Distribution and Participation of Bread and Wine usual in Christian Assemblies is called The Lords Supper The CONTENTS All Societies of Men have certain Badges whereby they are united among themselves and distinguished from others The Sacraments of the Christian Church are such Badges This particularly where Bread and Wine is Administred call'd The Lords Supper for four Reasons Though Celebrated in the Morning yet may still be call'd the Lords Supper Some Remarks upon its Institution at Night Divers Names given to this Sacrament by the Ancients An Account how this Supper differs from Common Suppers The Necessity of our giving attendance at this Ordinance The proper dress of the Soul which renders it a welcome Guest at this Sacrament The Prayer I. IT is St. Austin's observation that Men can never unite in the Bond of Religion whether true of false except they agree in some outward Sign or Badge as a Character of their Concord and Combination To this purpose it was that even the Divides of old as Caesar tells us having made their Sacrifices the Testimony of their Union whenever any of their People did obstinately disobey their orders the Punishment they inflicted on them was to interdict them the Use and Participation of their Sacrifices and whoever fell under this Censure was counted Criminal and impious his Company Discourse and Conversation shunn'd as the Plague and he depriv'd of the Benefit of the Law and look'd upon as infamous and scandalous Such visible Badges the Son of God when he left the Earth thought 〈◊〉 to give to the Christian World to be Witness of their Union and Communion viz. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord the former as a Mark of their being admitted into his Church the other to advance and increase that Spiritual Life of which the former may be supposed to have sown the Seed and laid the happy Foundation and and though all that come and apply themselves to the use of these Ordinances are not therefore true Members of his Church or lively Stones in that Spiritual Building yet as these Mysteries and frequenting of them are standing Witnesses of their having addicted themselves and vow'd obedience to Christ's Religion so they are means whereby they may not only arrive to a lively sense of their Duty but whereby their Union and Communion may be promoted and proclaimed to all that are without the Pale of Christian Congregations And were the ancient Discipline of the Church revived and reduced to its former lustre and glory we may rationally conclude that to be deprived of the use of these two especially of the latter would be more infamous and grievous than it was among the Heathen to be excluded from the participation of their Sacrifices as the Benefits of which people are deprived thereby are of greater consequence and concernment than those which the Pagans expected from their unreasonable Service II. As to the Sacred Rite of Distributing and Participating of Bread and Wine universally practised in the Christian Church and which is the proper subject of the ensuing Discourse the reason why it is called the Lords Supper is 1. Because the Lord of Lords and King of Kings he whose Name is Wonderful The Lord Jesus Christ hath solemnly instituted vnd ordained it It was the fatal night when the Jews prompted by the Prince of Darkness and blind with rage and envy were come out against him as against a Thief with Staves and Spears to hurry him to Death and to the Cross just before this amazing Tragedy began having eaten the Passover with his Disciples and by so doing put an end to the Types and Shadows of the Ceremonial Law he took Bread and Wine and gave it to all the Church then present and bid them eat and drink
afford matter of comfort to think at such times that the same Jesus who was crucified will ere long appear in Glory with all his mighty Angels to give those that have followed him in the Regeneration full possession of the purchas'd Glory However at the best the Celebration of this Feast at night was but a circumstantial thing and therefore the Church is not obliged to keep to it circumstantial things depending much upon conveniency or inconveniency which vary in several Ages and this was the reason that though standing at the eating of the Passover was a commanded circumstance Exod. 12. 11. yet the Jewish Church in after Ages varied from it even by Christs own Approbation and turned that posture into leaning as I shall have occasion to shew more largely in the Chapter about Kneeling at the Communion The Church therefore sins not in Celebrating this Feast at any other time especially in a circumstance barely related not commanded Yet as I said before because this Spiritual Feast kept up in all Churches is still in imitation of Christs Supper and that Supper is religiously remembred in it and the same essential things together with the scope drift and design of all are still preserved it is not unfitly called the Lords Supper still so that if any man seems to be contentious about the name We have no such Custom neither the Churches of God 1 Cor. 12. 16. IV. Yet this is no Argument but that it may also lawfully be called and expressed by other Names and this we find the Christian Churches have done from time to time Tertullian was the first that called it a Sacrament taking the Name from the Oaths the Roman Soldiers took that they would be true and faithful to their Emperor and the rather because we vow Allegiance and Fidelity in this Ordinance to the great Master that died for us Others have call'd it an Oblation because we offer up our humble Prayers and Supplications to the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ and our Souls and Bodies too when we remember this Beneficial Death Sometimes it hath been call'd a Sacrifice because it is not only a commemoration of the wonderful Sacrifice of Christs Death but we chearfully offer up the Sacrifice of our Praises for this inestimable Mercy The name of Communion occurs frequently in the Writings of the Ancients because all sincere Christians are hereby tyed in a bond of mutual Love participate of the same Bread are Fellow-members of the Mystical Body of Christ and have Communion with Christ their Head and enjoy all the same Benefits of his Death and sufferings The word Eucharist is used as often as any other because Thanksgiving and Magnifying the Goodness Mercy and Charity of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are a great part of the Service here The name Mass which they of the Roman Persuasion and even the Lutheran Churches make use of as it was not known in the Church for the first Four hundred years after Christ so the Original of it was this When the Lords Supper was to be celebrated after Sermon the Deacon or some other Officer of the Church called to the People that did not or were not to receive in these words Ite missa est Depart the Congregation is dismissed In time that which was only a Preliminary circumstance of the Lords Supper was applied to the whole Office and the Service was called Missa or Mass a word which the Romanists make a great stir with and turn into a perfect Charm and a monstrous Sacrifice to the great disparagement of Christs Sufferings and the Benefits that accrue thereby to true Believers Some of their Writers make it a Hebrew word and fetch it from the Old Testament others derive it from the Greek others from the Northern Language and though it expresses less then any of those Names we mentioned before yet hath this swallowed up all the rest and the more superstitious in the Roman Church are almost afraid to call it by any other Name and the Mass is that which both young and Old both learned and unlearned among them have most frequently in their Mouths though few of the Vulgar know what it means I omit here many other Names appropriated by Writers to this Mystery such as Collect Oeconomy Liturgy Dominical Agenda Anaphora Synaxis c. partly because I intend no Critical History and partly because by the names I have already spoken of this Sacrament is usually known in the Western Churches That we do so often call it a Mystery is because the things discovered and imitated here do altogether depend upon Divine Revelation and are such as Flesh and Blood understand not and the Secrets of which none but a Person enlightned by the Spirit of God apprehends to any purpose and which transcend all the Arcana or hidden points of Heathen Divinity V. The name of the Lords Supper puts us in mind that this Holy Feast differs from Common Suppers 1. In that Common Suppers are for the support of Nature this for the support of Grace and Goodness in our Souls The former are intended for the strengthning of the Body this for the corroboration of our Faith and Hope and Love Our Common Supper represents to us the Ordinary Providence of God which opens its hand and fills the desire of every living thing This Gods extraordinary dispensation which shews at what cost and charges we are made the Children of God and fitted for everlasting habitations The former gives us an account of the Blessings of Gods Left this of the favours of his Right Hand The former bids us look into the nether this into the upper Springs of the Divine Clemency 2. In our Common Suppers our Spirits may unbend and our Minds and Tongues take liberty of thinking and speaking of things relating to our necessary Employments in the World in this our thoughts must rise mount up with Wings as Eagles pierce the Clouds and fix on the Riches of Divine Love retire from the World view God and his glorious Attributes and unite with that excellent object improve themselves into Contemplaâ—ion and adore the Mystery of Redemption In the former no other Preparation is required but what we are to bring with us to common affairs and businesses i. e. Gravity and Sobriety but in this the Heart must be prepared the Soul chafed the Affections warmed prayers offered Ejaculations press into Gods presence and Self-examination dispose the Soul for the visits of the Holy Ghost that it may be a worthy Guest at so great a Table and the rather because God is in a special manner present here for wherever Providence displays its brighter beams of Love there God is eminently present that makes Heaven what it is because there the Divine Goodness shines most gloriously In this Sacrament are set before us more then ordinary Characters of Gods Love the Angels of Heaven saith St. Chrysostom stand round about the Altar and while the Minister
Persecution The Danger and Imprudence of those who neglecting to receive it in Publick do not think of it till they come to lye upon their Death-beds What a mercy it is that we have Publick Churches where we may serve and worship God without fear or molestation Great Gravity and Devotion required in the Publick Worship of God The Prayer I. THat the publick Church is the most proper most warranted and fittest place to celebrate and eat the Lord's Supper in seems to have been the constant belief of the Christian Church and they have grounded their Belief on the Apostles Expostulation with the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11. 20 22. where speaking of their coming together into one place and distinguishing private Houses from the Church of God he intimates a known custom in that Age to meet in certain Oratories or places appointed for publick Worship and there receive the Holy Symbols That which is commonly objected of the great Improbability of publick Buildings and Edifices in times of Persecution such as the Apostles and the Christians for the first three Centuries had sad experience of seems to carry greater weight than really it doth for though we speak of places appointed for Publick Worship no Person of common Sense can imagine that we mean they had such stately and magnificent Buildings as our Churches are at this day the Effects of Ease and Peace and Plenty These came not in till Constantine procured the Churches Respit and Freedom from their former Bondage yet we may justly enough suppose that even in those days of trouble and calamitous times they either converted some spacious upper Room in a charitable Believer's House into a Church or some good Christian gave and dedicated his House for that Religious Use or the Believers by common consent turned it into a Place of publick Worship which is the reason that the Disciples are said to have met in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper Room Act. 1. 13. possibly the same which Christ celebrated the Eucharist in and who knows not that mention is sometimes made of a Church in such a Man's House as Colos. 4. 15. Salute Nymphas and the Church at his House Upon which words Oecumenus tells us He was a was a great Man for he had converted his House into a Church And though it is said Act. 2. 46. That the Believers continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking of Bread from House to House did eat their Meat with gladness of heart yet the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render from House to House as our Translators take notice in the Margent may as well be rendered in the House and then the meaning will be this That continuing daily in the Temple or frequenting the Temple daily they broke Bread in the House i. e. in the House by the Temple appropriated to the publick Christian Worship and particularly in that upper Room by the Temple where the Apostles and Believers used to meet in which place when they had broken Bread or received the Eucharist they went home to their own Houses and sat down to their private Meals with joy and great comfort II. The succeeding Churches observ'd this very Religiously and therefore call'd the Holy Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Convocation because they judged it meet the whole Church should be together when it was administred For this reason it was also call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liturgy which properly imports Publick Administration of an Office and therefore applied Rom. 15. 27. to publick distribution of Alms to the Magistrate's executing of his Office Rom. 13. 4 and to the Office of Teaching and Prophecying in the publick Congregation Acts 13. 2. And this gave occasion to Cyril of Alexandria to say in an Epistle to Coelosyrius That the Eucharist or Sacred Symbols ought to be offered no where but in the Churches of Believers and that he who attempts the contrary doth manifestly violate the Law of God meaning the Apostles practice before-mentioned which he supposes amounts to a virtual Command To this purpose the Council of Laodicea forbad all Bishops and Priests to celebrate the Communion in private Houses and Eustathius the Bishop of Sebastia as Socrates tells us among other reasons was deposed from his Place and Dignity for this because he had given permission to have the Lord's Supper administred in private Houses which was saith the Historian against the Ecclesiastical Rules Notwithstanding this it was customary at Rome to do so which makes St. Hierome in his Book against Jovinian find fault with the abuse and expostulate with them Why do they not go to Church to receive Christ's Body and Blood Are there two Christs one in publick another in private And indeed those Christians that insisted upon this publick Administration had the Jewish Church for their pattern for it being taken for granted that the Lord's Supper was succedaneous to the Passover as the Paschal Lamb was to be kill'd in the Temple and in publick so it was fit that the solemn Remembrance of the Death of that Lamb which was to take away the sins of the World the Antitype of the other should be celebrated in publick and in the Congregations of Christians That the Paschal Lamb which every Family among the Jews were obliged to eat of was killed in the Temple is more than probable for though Philo the Jew seems to take it for granted that every Master of a Family had Liberty to kill the Paschal Lamb at his own House yet as judicious Men have observed Philo being an Alexandrian and not having those opportunities of searching into the Jewish Rites that others had who lived at Jerusalem might easily run into a mistake the rather because Josephus and most Jews affirm the contrary viz. That every Master of a Family was obliged to bring the Lamb intended to be eaten at the Celebration of the Passover to the Temple to the Priests who were to kill it for him If it had not been so it is not easie to imagine how the Priests could have given so exact an account to Cestius of the number of the Jews that were come up to the Passover at that time for they gave in an account of 55000 and 600 Persons that had presented themselves at the Feast which in all likelihood they knew by the Lambs the People brought to them to be slain for their respective Families and though Jewish Customs lay no Obligations upon Christians yet where the Gospel gives a Rule a Jewish practice in a case not much unlike may serve for confirmation of the Observance III. The publick eating of the Lord's Supper doth certainly best represent the end for which Christ died and that is the Publick Good a Good which Caiaphas ignorantly acknowledged and confessed when he told the Jews Ye know nothing at all nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole multitude perish
not Jon. 11. 49. 50. But St. John is fuller in the explication of this Good when he asserts that his death is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World 1 Jon. 2. 2. Many things are by Men pretended to be done for the Publick Good but what they call Publick is either for the Good of a Family or Corporation or Parish or City or a certain Territory or a Kingdom But the Death of Christ spreads its Virtues infinitely wider not confining its Benefits to a Province or a part of the World but the whole Race of Mankind was concern'd in the Favour so that nothing was ever done so truly for the Publick Good as Christ's Suffering and Dying and whoever remembers it in publick testifies his esteem and value of it not only by his inward sense and admiration of it but by the very place in which he doth remember it The Truth is Christ was crucified publickly in the face of the Sun and before huge multitudes both of Jews and Proselytes who were come to give their attendance at the Passover Both Jews and Gentiles beheld the spectacle and Men of all sorts and conditions crouded to see so dreadful a shew which was an Item that the remembrance of it should be in the most publick place the Church the rather because this publick remembrance doth best promote Christ's Glory as multitudes joyning together in Confessions and Praises must necessarily advance it more than the Hallelujahs of two or three in private IV. Private Communions or Communions in places which were neither Churches nor publick Oratories owe their first rise to the Churches persecutions For when Nero and his successors in the Roman Empire began to defile the Faith with Blood and to be a Christian and a Malefactor were made convertible Terms the Christians were forced to serve God as they could and therefore celebrated the Communion in any place to which they were driven in the common Storm in Mines in Ships in Stables in Prisons in Caves and Dens of the Earth and where two or three Christians had the convenience of getting a Bishop or Minister to consecrate the Elements they chearfully remember'd their Crucify'd Lord and Master as Dionisius of Alexandria tells us in Eusebius And this soon occasion'd another Custom which was to send part of the Consecrated Bread and Wine to Peoples Houses and Cottages in the Country Justin Martyr is very express in this point And hence it came to pass that the Christians kept the Consecrated Elements by them to make use of them when either sickness seiz'd them or they found death approaching and upon this account the Sacrament was called the Viaticum or provision for a Man's Journy into another World as we learn from Gregory the Great And because the Holy Bread thus kept for use was sometimes too big for the sick or dying Person to swallow they crumbled the Bread into the Consecrated Wine and gave it the sick Person in a Spoon as we see in the example of Serapian in Eusebius a thing which in process of time was thought so necessary for all dying Christians that in some places where Superstition thrust out true Devotion in case a Person dyed before he had received the Communion they would thrust and force the crums of Bread mingled with Holy Wine into the Mouths of Persons already departed against which profanation the Fathers thought themselves obliged to Enact very severe Canons which was done accordingly in the Councils of Carthage Antisiodorum and Constantinople and Julius Bishop of Rome forbad putting the Crums of Consecrated Bread in Wine a practice which in all probability came first from sending the Consecrated Elements to Persons absent from the Publick who either could not or durst not appear in the publick Oratories a thing that Origen either foresaw or knew would be abused which makes him inveigh against such presumption So that as Persecution first brought in private Communions so when those Persecutions ceased the Church still obliged her Members to receive the Communion in publick according to the first institution It is therefore wisely ordered by our Church that People shall be exhorted in time of their health to receive the Eucharist in publick that they may not be disquieted for the omission of it when Diseases or Distempers do suddainly seize upon them at which times as the Senses and Faculties are weak so Men cannot receive these Mysteries with that Vigor Zeal and Love that is required in the right use of the Ordinance And indeed where People neglect receiving in publick not thinking of their Duty till death put them in mind of it we can promise them but little comfort He that hath often appeared at the Lord's Table in publick and concludes the scene of his life with this remembrance may reap more than ordinary satisfaction from it because he perfects that in private which he so often comfortably made use of in publick but he whose Eyes were never open to see the necessity of it till his dying groans remove his blindness as he hath despised the Church of God and neglected the time of his Visitation so his Comforts can neither be so great nor so solid as his who hath frequently strengthen'd his Soul in publick with this Cordial when the powers of the Soul are shaken with a violent sickness and the Limbs are weak the Spirits faint and the Thoughts diverted by uneasiness and pain Alas How can the Soul fix on the Cross of Christ What Sense what touches of his Love can it have or what guesses can it make at its Spiritual growth and advancement in Holiness And though according to the old Proverb It 's better late than never yet it 's to be fear'd such Men come so very late that if they were to be pictur'd they might justly be drawn as the Cardinal drew Salomon hanging betwixt Heaven and Hell it being very doubtful which of these two would fall to their share So that upon a review of the whole tho' private Communions cannot be said to be altogether unlawful especially in times of persecution nor inconvenient to persons who have frequently attended this Ordinance in publick when they were able so in times of Peace and Liberty and Tranquility for Men and Women to continue strangers to publick Receiving and to satisfie themselves with a private Communion upon a Death bed is a thing so inexcusable that we cannot but with all possible earnestness discourage it as a thing that 's dishonour to the Church they live in a disgrace to the Religion they profess an impediment to their comfort a remora to their joy an affront to their Saviour and an uncertain cherisher of their hopes of Salvation The Preceeding Considerations reduced to Practice I. WHat a mercy is it that we have Publick Churches and Oratories to go to without lett or hindrance that we have no Tyrants nor Foreign Enemies no Rods no
with the multitude to the House of God with the voice of Joy and Praise O let me consider it is the All-seeing God in whose Presence I stand and that the Holy Angels are sent to observe my Devotion Give me sober Thoughts holy Affections devout postures steddiness of Mind ardent Desires modest Looks a grave Behaviour especially when I am going to contemplate the precious Sacrifice offered by the Son of God for the Sins of the World let all that is within me turn into holy breathings represent that comfortable Object in lively Characters to my Understanding that I may think nothing unworthy of my Saviour banish from me all undecent Thoughts or if thou dost not think fit to free me from Temptations encourage me however to resist them vigorously that I may discover my Zeal for thy Glory by my abhorrency of all Imaginations that exalt themselves against the Obedience of Christ Jesus Amen CHAP. IV. Of Eating the Lord's Supper The Nature of it and how it is to be Eaten The CONTENTS A great difference betwixt coming to the Lord's Supper and Eating the Lord's Supper Several Reasons why Men come though they do not Eat as they ought to do What Eating the Lord's Supper is viz. To Eat it with a relish of the Benefits of Christ's Death with longings to be conformable to Christ in his Graces and to Eat it with unfeigned Resolutions to resist Temptations Much depends upon the manner of any Religious Performance Conversation with God with our selves and with the Holy Angels a great means to Eat as we ought to Eat The Prayer I. THat there are many who come to the Lord's Supper and yet Eat not the Lord's Supper as they ought to do is evident from Experience and will appear more fully in the sequel of this Discourse when we shall tell you what it is to Eat and Drink unworthily When some of the looser sort of the Corinthian Christians 1 Cor. 11. 20. came drunk to this Sacrament it 's certain they only eat the Bread of the Lord but not the Bread the Lord as the Fathers speak and if Simon Magus Acts 8. 13. came to this Feast as I am apt to believe he did for in those days they that were baptized were soon after admitted to the Lord's Supper as appears from Act. 2. 41 42. this must necessarily have been his case and who can doubt of this Truth that in the Age we live in sees so many come to this Royal Supper and go away unreformed untouch'd and unconcerned than which there cannot be a greater sign that they do not eat the Supper of the Lord though they approach and feed upon the External Elements And Men may very easily know it by such Marks as these 1. If they come without any sense of the designs Christ had in Instituting this Sacrament one of which certainly was to engage us to the generous contempt of the World in imitation of him who for the Glory set before him not only undervalued the Pomp and Grandeur of the World but endured the Cross and despised the shame as we are told Heb. 12. 2. And when we see Men and women approach the Table of the Lord with all the Gaudes and Gayeties their vain desires prompt them to like Ranters rather than Penitents more like soft Sybarites than frighted Disciples dressed to allure Mens eyes more than to invite the Crucified Jesus into their Souls like players rather than like Christians And when we see how the very next day after this Feast if they stay so long they quarrel fight contend and fall out about the trifles of the World run to Theatres and Play-houses and with as great greediness as ever pursue the Riches and Glories and Fashions of the World how can we imagine that such Persons came with the sense of the aforementioned design of Christ in instituting this Sacred Feast 2. If they come without any sense of the love of God of which there is so curious a Picture drawn in this Sacrament as is enough to make even the most hard hearted Heathen weep And what sense of this Love can we suppose to have been in Men when after their Receiving they do not so much as look into a Bible to see what Precepts and Commands of Christ they mean for the future to be more observant of Is it possible such Men had sense of the Love of God upon their Spirits that day they receiv'd the Holy Elements when the next day they offend him as boldly as ever and hug the same sins they entertained several years before and are now as little concerned to please God as they were some Months ago and consequently such Persons come to the Lord's Supper yet do not eat as they ought to do for none eat it truly but such as eat with this sense and where this sense is it will make the Soul cautious of offending God II. Yet such Guests are very common at this Table which would make a wise Man wonder why they will come at all when their coming signifies so little and as will appear afterward doth them more harm than good Yet the Reasons may easily be guess'd at For 1. Conviction brings them to it They are convinced that coming is a commanded Duty not a thing indifferent and that they may not seem dispisers and contemners of so great a Law they come though they put strange Fire in their Censers Conviction hath great power even upon unregenerate Men It made Felix tremble Acts 24 25. and Judas throw down the Thirty Pieces of Silver the reward of his Treason in the Temple Matth. 27. 4. and Simon embrace Christian Baptism Act. 8. 13. And where a Man is teazed and haunted by his Conscience he 'll do something to stop his mouth and though he doth it but slovenly yet he 'll bribe Conscience with this trifle as we do Children that cry for a Jewel with a Rattle and in this manner Conviction Works upon some Men and Women and that force puts several upon coming to the Lord's Table 2. Their Office and Employment obliges them to receive and that makes not a few appear at this Table The Law of the Land excluding Men from publick Offices and Charges that receive not the Communion we may very justly believe that abundance come to satisfie the Statute more than their Conscience and fear of losing or missing of the Office they are ambitious of hath a stronger influence upon them than the fear of losing God's Favour not but that a man may Eat the Lord's Supper to his great comfort and edification because an Act of Parliament commands it at his entrance upon an Office for a man who fears God may make use of any occasion to receive and consequently may make his present Office an opportunity of coming to the Sacrament But I speak my just fears that many receive on this account whom neither Love to God nor to their own Souls could have obliged to come had it
not been for such forcible means or straits and necessities so that the Minister of the Ordinance may thank their Office more than their Religion that he sees them in that holy place And most certainly this is not Eating the Lord's Supper for nothing is properly an act of Religion but what is a free-will-offering and flows from an internal love of the Duty And what is here said of accidental Employments is too true of standing Offices of the Church A Minister or Clergyman may come to the Lord's Supper and yet not eat the Lord's Supper he may celebrate it as a Minister and yet not eat it as a sincere Christian he may eat it because his Office obliges him to administer it and yet not eat it with that sense which becomes a sincere believer And it is so with lesser Officers about a Church Custom may carry them a great way and for some years they may never fail to come to this Table and yet may not eat as they ought for they may do it upon the account of their Office only and because it is expected of them but the sense of the end and of the love of God may be wanting which defect makes it a very lame offering 3 Such Men however come and to this they are led by a fancy they are willing to entertain that other Men who come receive it with no greater sense or seriousness than they They consider not whether this will be a good Plea another day but it gives present satisfaction and this makes them espouse it Not to mention that it is great rashness and presumption in them to judge of other Mens hearts the secrets of which they are for the most part ignorant of and if other men should be no better than they yet that would be no excuse Men being to live by Precepts not by every Example that is before them yet thus Men love to delude themselves and by that means precipitate themselves into unspeakable Dangers For III. This not eating as they ought strangely hardens them in Sin If the Cross of Christ cannot open their eyes or make them sensible of their Errors few things can be supposed able to do it to their comfort If the Blood of the Covenant cannot supple their hearts other things must be believed to be ineffectual because God looks upon this as the most potent remedy to effect it nor is this to be understood only of scandalous sins but all such offences which Christ hath peremptorily forbid though the world takes no great notice of them such as are aversion from holy Thougts and Discourses and neglect of those Gospel Graces the Apostle presses upon such as would not be Christians in vain And hence it is that where Men do not eat the Lord's Supper aright our Exhortations to those nobler Duties of Religion are lost upon them and all the severe threatnings we rehearse and mention to rouze them from their Spiritual slumber are spoke into the wind and they continue strangers to that Spiritual frame which the Apostle calls Rom. 8. 5. minding the things of the Spirit By a Spiritual frame of the heart I mean a God-like Temper which is pleased with any thing that makes for the Glory of God and as Fire converts all things into its own substance spiritualizeth Objects or makes a spiritual use of them and is truly enamoured with the severer Precepts of the Gospel and looks upon them as perfective of our natures and consequently thinks no Commandment grievous Hence it is that such Men who are strangers to this frame their Religion turns into mere Formality and Hypocrisie and however it may look in their own eyes in the sight of God it goes for no more than Paint and Varnish mere Glow-worm light that shines but warms not glitters but gives no Heat blazes but doth not touch the Heart and like rotten Wood seems bright but hath nothing of Fire in it and this must necessarily cause very false Applications of Gospel Promises which at last produces such Self-deceptions that when they come to appear before the Bar of God's Justice they 'll not only wonder at the Cheats they have put upon themselves but tear their hair and smite their breasts and be ready to kill themselves to think how they have murthered their own Souls with kindness and by fair Words and Speeches enticed them into ruin IV. From what we have said it will easily appear what eating of the Lord's Supper doth import eating it I mean in a Scripture Sense 1. To eat it with a relish of the Benefits of Christ's Death and Passion even in our common Meals we find a great difference betwixt eating and relishing betwixt eating with and without an Appetite betwixt tasting the juice and delicacy of the Meat and fancying it to be no better than Chaulk or Ashes He that eats the Lord's Supper aright his Soul must eat as well as his outward Organs and as Christ saith John 6. 63. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life so the Soul that eats as it should do the benefits of Christ's Death they must be Life and Spirit to her a perfect Cordial true Elixir real Sweetness comfortable Balm and sweeter than Honey to the Palate These Benefits are Pardon and Peace and reconciliation to God and Salvation and the Soul must be affected with them prize them value them practically above the Riches of the World and count all things dross and dung for the excellency of them and be willing to part rather with Father and Mother and Lands and Houses than with the Comforts of them and that is to relish and then the Soul eats indeed whereas a person that either thinks not of these Benefits or if he thinks of them hath no actual value for them so as to feel in himself how highly he esteems them and what a mighty veneration he hath for them though he may be said to eat yet he doth not relish them and therefore doth not eat aright 2. It is to eat with secret longings to be conformable to Christ Jesus in his Humility and Charity or as the Apostle expresses it to have the same mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus Phil. 2. 5. And this in another place is called hungring and thirsting after righteousness Matth. 5. 6. and was represented of old by the secret longings of the Spouse Cant. 1. 3. Draw me after thee and I will run Where there is no such longing to conform to Christ in these Virtues a Man doth not properly eat the Lord's Supper like a healthy man for he digests not the Food doth not turn into good Juice it doth not nourish him he doth not thrive upon it I call it longing for the desire after these Graces which were so eminent in Christ must be strong and vehement ardent and grounded upon the Beauty Loveliness and Amiableness of them such a longing as David expressed for the Lord's House and his
of the Wheat Psal. 147. 14 so it s like they would not in their Passover in the Bread they used omit the commemoration of that Mercy and the same Bread which Christ made use of in the Passover we must suppose he made use of in the institution of this Sacrament This will give us occasion to enquire whether any other thing Men make use of instead of Corn-Bread may be used in this Holy Sacrament for it 's certain that in some Countries they have no Corn and divers Authors tells us how much the Bread differs in the several parts of the habitable World according to the nature of the Soil and temper of the Inhabitants The Egyptians heretofore made Bread of Millet and Milk and Water and in some part of the West-Indies at this day they make Bread of the roots of certain Trees which they dry and powder and then make up into Paste or Bread and so they do in divers parts of Africa And as it may be the lots of many Christians to be cast upon such places so the question may justly be ask'd Whether in the administration of the Lord's Supper being destitute of Bread made of Corn they may with a safe Conscience make use of any other And most Divines answer in the affirmative For tho' the Canonists among the Papists will allow nothing to be Bread but what is made of Corn yet whatever it is that nourishes like Bread made of Corn is Bread to them who are so nourish'd by it And since the reason of Christ's making use of Bread in this Sacrament was to represent the Spiritual nourishment of our Souls by application of the benefits of his death or as we commonly speak by his Body and Blood Why should not any Nation or People make use of that in the Sacrament to represent this Spiritual nourishment which serves them instead of Bread and gives the same nourishment to their Bodies that ordinary Bread doth especially where Bread of Wheat or Rye or Barley is not to be had Yet this is not to be applied to other Fruits of the Earth such as Pears and Apples and Figs and Melons c. as if they in case of necessity might be made use of instead of Bread for though they nourish too yet no Nation makes use of them as their Bread And since Bread is not only used by Christ but by all the Christian Churches in all Ages something that hath the nature and the name of Bread must still be used in this Holy Sacrament and all care imaginable taken that by making use of something else Men run not into Profanation of this Ordinance 3. As it was unleaven'd and wheaten Bread Christ made use of in the Institution of this Holy Sacrament so it was also substantial Bread not a Wafer as is now used in the Church of Rome That Christ used substantial Bread no Man ever doubted that understood what Bread the Jews made use of in the Celebration of the Passover and for a thousand years after Christ the Church was wholly ignorant of Wafers It 's granted that the Sacramental Bread was antiently called Host from the Latin Hostia a Sacrifice because the Bread represents the Body of Christ which was offered in Sacrifice for the sins of the World which name of Host the Church of Rome still applies at this day to their Wafers in the Mass but then it was substantial Bread or a whole Loaf they called by that name How these Wafers first came in is explain'd by Honorius Augustodunensis The report goes saith he that it was usual in former times for the Ministers of the Church when the Sacrament of the Altar was to be Celebrated to fetch a quantity of Meal or Flower from every House or Family in the place they lived in which Custom is yet observ'd among the Greeks and of that to make the Bread which was to be used at the Lord's Table and distributed among the Communicants But after the Church increased in number but decreas'd in Holiness it was order'd for the sake of carnal Men that those that could should communicate either every Lords Day or every Third Lord's Day or on the Festivals of the Year But the People not coming and there being no need of so great a Loaf as formerly it was thought good to use Wafers in the form of a larger Penny and that they might not want a Mystery for these new doings the People desired instead of Flower to offer every Man a Penny that thereby they might acknowledge how their Lord and Master was betraid for Thirty pieces of Silver So far he And it 's probable that from hence came the Easter-Offerings which as yet are usual in most Churches of the Nation And since these Wafers are the effects of so great no abuse which the wickedness of the times brought into the Church it can be no great encouragement for those that would preserve the solemnity of this Mystery to keep them up or plead in vindication of them It 's true the Wafers they use this day in the Church of Rome are made of Flower and Water But 1. There is not that quantity of Flower and Water in them as is required in substantial Bread Neither 2. Are they wrought or baked as common substantial Bread is Neither 3. When they are made are they design'd for any thing but to seal Letters withal I mean in the ordinary use of them before the Priest doth lay them upon the Altar which shews that they are not intended for nourishing Bread nor have they the right taste or smell or strength of Bread neither are they commonly sold for Bread nor doth any Man make use of them for his daily Bread thereby to strengthen his Body So that they do not answer Chrst's design and the Analogy that ought to be betwixt the thing signifying and that which is signified i. e. They being no substantial Bread cannot exactly represent the substantial Nourishment of the Soul and therefore have been most justly rejected by most Churches but by that which hath made bold with God himself with Scripture and the express Laws of our Saviour and substituted their own Inventions and Traditions IV. Why Christ made use of Bread in this Holy Sacrament is next to be consider'd Besides the general Reason I have already mentioned viz. To represent the Nourishment he intends our Souls by his Death and Crucifixion if we lay hold of it by an active and fruitful Faith there may these following Reasons be also given for it 1. To put us in mind that he was the Person prefigured by the Bread variously prepared and ordered under the Law and in the Temple and in the Rituals of the Jews The Shew-bread was to be before the Lord continually Exod. 25. 30. In the Original it 's called The Bread of Faces The Mystery of it was to shew that Christ was to be the great Mediator who should be always in the Presence of God behold his
would to God it might be as surprizing to see one Christian fall out with the other 5. He broke the Bread to hint to us with what Hearts we ought to come to the Table of our Lord and to the Altar of the Cross even with humble broken contrite Hearts Such Hearts we might get if it were not for our Pride It was therefore prohibited in the Old Law to use Leaven in God's Sacrifices and Offerings Leaven was the Emblem of Pride which makes us unfit to appear before the humble Jesus I am broken with their whorish Heart which hath departed from me saith God Ezech. 9. 6. This was literally fulfilled in Christ And shall not we share in the Depth of that Sorrow Shall we see him bow his Head under the Weight of our Offences and shall not the Burthen appear heavy and insupportable to our Spirits Shall we see the innocent Lamb weep for our Stubbornness and be unconcerned at the Spectacle 6. He broke the Bread to let us see how ready he is to comfort the Contrite and Broken Heart Christian as great as the Agonies were thy Sins did put him to as great as the Torments were he felt upon thy Account as bitter as the Death was he suffered and tasted for thee yet if thy Soul relents and if that which made him die becomes loathsome and abominable in thy Sight if a deep Sense of thy Unworthiness fills the Chanels of thy Heart if the Fountain of thy Head runs with Water if thine Eyes gush out in Tears if the Weight of thy Sins presses thy Soul into an holy Self-abhorrency if his Passion can fright thy Sins into a languishing Condition abate their Courage and break their sturdy Necks and his broken Body proves a Motive strong enough and obliges thee to break loose from the Government of Hell behold those very Wounds thou madest shall be thy Balsam and the Blood thy Sinns did spill shall turn into Oyl to supple thy broken Bones with that precious Liquor thy Soul shall be washed and that which was his Death shall be thy Life and Antidote with that Offering of himself once made he will expiate thy Filth and perfume thy Services render them acceptable to God give thee a Right to Heaven comfort thee in all thy Tribulations and call to thy Soul Be of good chear thy Sins are forgiven thee 7. He broke the Bread to let us know that his Death would break the Wrath of God allay his Anger pacifie his Justice and satisfie for the Affront his Holiness had suffered from the Sins of Men and make way for the Penitent's Admission to God's Bosom This is St. Bernard's Observation and the Mystery is rational for by his Death he broke the Power of him who had the Power of Death Heb. 2. 14. This was the Devil who got that Power by Man's Apostacy which provoked the Almighty's Wrath and moved him to permit the Enemy to exercise that Power over Mankind who was therefore not only the Cause of Adam's Death but of all the Deaths that followed that for which Cause Christ called him a Murtherer from the Beginning Joh. 8. 44. And the Jews stile him the Angel of Death and if any extraordinary Judgments were inflicted on Men at any time he was still the Executioner Besides all this he had Power given him to fright Men with Death either violent or natural and the dreadful Consequences of it of all which Man's Apostacy was the Cause This Power given him by the Justice and Wrath of God against the Sins of Man was broken by the Death of Jesus who thereby gave all true Believers Power and Courage to undervalue these Fears and Terrours to look upon them as Bugbears and Things to fright Slaves withal since this wonderful Death brings Life and Pardon and Salvation to their Souls and makes their own Death a Passage to the full Possession of the Joys to come 8. He broke the Bread prophetically to fore-tell what Miracles would happen at his Death how the Veil of the Temple would rend the Rocks break and the Graves burst their Bonds and open even then when Men's Hearts would be harder than Flints more impenetrable than Stones more insensible than Adamants less tractable than the Earth more rigid than the Grave and less relenting than inanimate Creatures 9. He broke the Bread Why may not we think that hereby he signified the Breaches and Divisions that through the Passions and various Interests of Men would happen in future Ages in the Church upon the Account of this Sacrament What Strife what Bitterness what Contentions hath this Ordinance occasion'd betwixt the Eastern and Western Churches and in the Western betwixt the Papists and Protestants and among the Protestants betwixt the Lutherans and those that call themselves of the Reformed Religion Upon which Account I cannot but think of the bitter Language that both Luther and his Followers have given to the Zwinglians and Calvinists that differ'd from them in Opinion about the Supper of the Lord. Nor did the Fury stop here but in many Places where any of the Zwinglians were they were turned out imprisoned harrassed expelled driven into Exile and forced away to Sea in a severe Winter in Frost and Snow when the Winds blew hard and the Weather was exceeding tempestuous and all because they would not abjure these Six Propositions 1. That these Words Take eat this is my Body and Take drink this is my Blood must not be understood literally but typically and figuratively 2. That the Elements in the Lord's Supper are only Signs and Symbols and that Christ's Body is as far removed from the Bread in the Sacrament as Heaven is from Earth 3. That Christ is present in this Sacrament by his Virtue and Power and not with his Body as the Sun with his Light and Operation assists and refreshes the Creatures of God in this lower World 4. That the Bread in the Sacrament is the Emblem and Figure of Christ's Body and signifies and represents only 5. That Christ's Body is eaten only by Faith mounting up into Heaven not with the Mouth 6. That only true Believers do properly eat Christ's Body but wicked Men who have no lively Faith receive nothing but the bare Bread and Wine Those that would not abjure these Doctrines were used like Hereticks Fanaticks and Vagabonds By their usage one would have taken them to have been guilty of Sacrilege Murther Robbery Sedition Rebellion c. but the chief Crime it seems was because having imbibed Zwinglius and Calvin's Doctrine about the Eucharist they could not conform to the Lutheran Persuasion in that Point Wonderful Barbarity which one would scarce have expected from Heathens much less from Christians and Fellow-Protestants who together with them protested against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome Into such an unseemly Behaviour do Men precipitate themselves when they let loose the Reins of their Passions instead of becoming Repairers of Breaches they make them wider and
Deacon's Hand or whether they took it out of the Dish into which the sacred Bread was broken with their own Hands is not very material to determine Though whatever Passages there may be in Clemenâ— of Alexandria and St. Cyprian which seem to import that the Communicants did take the broken Bread out of the Dish yet most of the Ancients do agree that the consecrated Elements were taken from the Hands of Ecclesiastical Persons And though among the Jews the Master of the Family that broke the Bread did not always give it into the Hands of every Guest but having broken it laid it upon the Table and every one took a Piece yet the Practice of the Christian Church for Six Hundred Years at least after Christ sufficiently shews how the holy Apostles took it whom we may suppose the first Churches did imitate And as the Disciples took it from Christ's Hands so the Communicants afterward took it from the Apostles and their Successors Hands which Practice continues this Day in most Churches of the Protestants that call themselves Reformed I say in most for in some and particularly those of the United Provinces the Communicants take it out of the Dish after it is broken by the Minister It was Ignorance and Superstition that brought in a contrary Custom And from hence rose that Canon in the Council of Antisiodorum celebrated about the Year after Christ 613. That Women must not take the Eucharist with their bare Hands but in a Linen Cloth which they called Dominicale Soon after as Folly and Superstition increased some began to take the consecrated Bread in little Vessels of Gold or of some other Metal against whom the Sixth Council of Constantinople about the Year of our Lord 676. made a Canon and forbad them to do so for the future but to put their Hands cross-wise and so to receive it The Pretence in receiving the holy Bread in some Thing besides their bare Hands was that they might not defile the Body of Christ with their Hands as if touching it with baser Things than their own Hands would be more acceptable to God For as Solomon tells us a living Dog is better than a dead Lion so we may with far greater Reason say That a living Hand is infinitely better than all the dead Things which are made either of Gold or Silver or Brass or any other Mineral But though these Abuses crept in so early yet the Custom of receiving the holy Bread with their Hands continued in abundance of Churches till the latter end of the Ninth Century by which Time it began to be customary in the Western Church to put the Eucharist into the Mouths of the Communicants as it is practised this Day in the Roman Church as also among the Lutheran Protestants It is confessed that a Canon was made in a Council of Roan about the Year of our Lord 685. That the Eucharist should for the future by the Priest be put into the Mouth of the Communicant whether Woman or Lay-man Yet there are sufficient Testimonies extant that assure us that this Canon was not observ'd every where till about the latter end of the Ninth Century In a Word As Superstition grew and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation began to prevail so this ancient Rite of taking the Eucharist with the Hand was abolished and the Priests of the Church of Rome would not so much as suffer Lay-men to touch the Sacramental Bread with the Tip of their Fingers pretending that it was only given by Christ into the Hands of Priests an Absurdity so great that by the same Rule it would follow that the Laity must be totally excluded from the Sacrament because at the first Institution it was received by none but Priests Nay to that heighth of Folly did Men arise by degrees not only Papists but many also that professed the Purity of the Gospel that it was counted a great Profanation of the Eucharist if the People did any way touch the sacred Bread and therefore great Care was and is still taken even at this Day that the Bread be put exactly upon the Tongue of the Communicant that he may not touch it so much as with his Teeth So that under a pretence of Religion Men are made to forbear that which true Religion commands to be done And what an Injury is it to the People to hinder them from touching and taking the holy Bread in their Hands when Christ laid down his Life for them as well as for the Priests Did the Priests receive greater Benefit by Christ's Death than the People Or were some peculiar Advantages consigned to them by his Death over and above what is intended for the Laity If this could be proved there might be some Colour for this Pretence But when all equally share in his Mercies why should not all take the Bread in their Hands whereby they remember the Benefits of his Death Are the Priest's Hands holier or cleaner than the People's Would to God they were so not only in this Sacrament but in all Things But after all what can be more weak or silly than to imagine that the holy Bread is defiled more by the Hands and Teeth than by the Tongue or Bowels or Stomach which receive it Is not the Tongue a Member of the Body as well as the Hand Or are the Bowels into which the Bread is received purer than the Hand If it be said that by the Hands great Sins are usually committed I would fain know whether greater Sins are not daily committed with the Tongue than with the Hand So impertinent is this Plea that it deserves no Argument or Answer In the Greek Church the Custom of taking the holy Bread with the Hand was kept up for many Hundred Years till of late they have got a way of mingling the holy Wine with the Bread in a Spoon whence the Communicants do take it II. As we are commanded to take the holy Bread with our Hands which makes it no indifferent Thing so we cannot suppose that Christ would command it without intending some Mystery in that Action and if it be lawful to guess we may piously believe that by that Taking he intended these following Things 1. It puts us in mind with what Alacrity we should accept of the unspeakable Gift viz. The Mercy of Reconciliation by the Death of Christ Jesus As we readily stretch forth our Hands to receive a Present that is pleasing to us so ought we to accept of what a merciful God doth so freely and so frankly bestow upon us Accept of it You will say Who can be supposed to refuse it Will a Malefactor scruple to accept of his Prince's Pardon Or If a King put a Treasure into a poor Prisoner's Hands will he scorn it or withdraw his Hand 'T is true Men are willing enough to accept of a Saviour so they may have him upon their own Terms If he will give them leave to do what they please and
risen after he had been dead And how can any Man be sure there are such Words in the Bible as This is my Body if he may not believe his Eye-sight 3. This is my Body differs very much from This is Transubstantiated or Changed into my Body or Let it be changed into my Body This is my Body speaks what is already in Being not what may or shall be effective of something else To be and to be changed into a Thing are quite different Expressions And he that says a Thing is or hath a Being cannot be therefore supposed necessarily to say that it is changed or transubstantiated or shall be so for a Thing may be several Ways besides being changed That of which Christ affirms that it is his Body was the Bread he took in his Hand or that which he broke and that may be said to be his Body several Ways without being changed or transubstantiated into his Body Which very Thing hath made the wiser and more judicious Papists confess that these Words do not necessarily infer a Transubstantiation without the Decree Order and Explication of the Church upon which they chiefly build their Doctrine and Assertion And how ridiculous this Explication of their Church is any common Capacity may perceive that doth but understand Grammar and the ordinary Way of speaking in all Countries and Languages whatsoever For What can be more common than to say Such a Man is a Fox and Such a Person is a Lion and Such a Neighbour is a Beast and Such a Boy is a Tyger But doth any Man of common Sense infer from thence that such a Person is transubstantiated into a Fox or Lion or Tyger 'T is true God can do all Things but his Power is one Thing and his Will another and to believe he will do that which he hath no where said or promised to do is notorious Presumption And though we are not presently to reject a Thing because our Reason cannot comprehend it yet it is fit that what we cannot comprehend with our Reason we should be sufficiently assured of that God hath revealed it Such as is the Mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of our Lord and the future Resurrection c. And if we had but as good Ground for Transubstantiation as we have for these Mysteries not only God's express Revelation but the constant Doctrine of the Church no wise Man would dispute it Transubstantiation is a Thing which neither the Scripture nor the Primitive Church did ever acknowledge And there being nothing in the Word of God to establish it and being besides contrary to all Sense and Reason we must be first given up to believe a Lye as some 〈◊〉 it seems are 2 Thess. 2. 11. before we can give 〈◊〉 unto it It were endless to repeat here all the Contradictions and Absurdities that this Doctrine may be charged with for Mice and Vermine will eat the consecrated Wafer if it lies in their Way It destroys not only the Nature of Christ's Body but a principal Article of our Belief too which saith That Christ is ascended and sitteth at the Right Hand of God whom the Heavens must receive until the Time of the Restitution of all Things Act. 3. 21. Not to mention that the Apostle calls the Bread in the Sacrament even after Consecration Bread still 1 Cor. 11. And that this Doctrine crosses the Nature of a Sacrament and is confuted by Christ's saying Do this in remembrance of me which supposes that he is absent as to his Body which was crucified c. Nor will that Place Joh. is 55. My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed do any great Service to our Adversaries in this Controversie For if it be Meat indeed how doth that infer that the Bread must needs be transubstantiated into his Flesh since his Flesh may be Meat indeed several Ways For to all true Believers that take Comfort in his Death and are released from Sin and the Snares of the Devil by his Flesh that was nailed to the Cross he may be truly said to be Meat indeed and Drink indeed because their Souls are comforted by the Remembrance of it and preserved to Eternal Life and though he be only spiritual Meat to them yet he is so indeed and really and in a very good Sense As we say of a comfortable Word spoken to a troubled Conscience That that Word is Meat and Drink to it indeed and doth it more Good than all the Meat and Drink in the World would have done And that all that Discourse John 6. is to be understood of Spiritual Meat and Drink whereby the Soul receives comfort and refreshment Christ himself hath declared Joh. 6 63. II. As these words This is my Body do not infer a Transubstantiation so neither do they import a Consubstantiation a word as hard as the former and which hath been taken up by the Lutheran Protestants to express their Opinion that Christ's Glorified Body is in with and under the Element of the Bread in the Holy Sacrament or hid under it a Doctrine which they ground upon the Ubiquity of Christ's Body or being every where and in all places which Priviledge they fancy was communicated to Christ's Human Nature by its being joyn'd with the Divine a thing so irrational that hereby they confound the Divine Nature with the Human And to say that Christ had a Body which as all other Bodies must have Dimensions heighth and breadth and depth and length and yet to make that Body every where present is a conclusion so weak that I am apt to believe that if it had not been pitch'd upon by Luther in a heat or passion he would never have embraced it For indeed this was the infirmity of that excellent Man who tho' otherwise very much mortified in his desires after the Riches Honours and Glories of the World yet could not endure to be contradicted nor yield to another Man's Opinion tho' much sounder because himself was not the first inventer of it And by what I can see from History this was one great reason why he differ'd from Zwinglius in the point of the Holy Sacrament and embraced Consubstantiation which implies as is said already that the Body of Christ is hid under the substance of the Bread a Point that transported him into very great passion which made him afterward upon his Death-bed deplore That he had been too hot in his Controversie He that gave the first hint of this Opinion was John Gerson Chancellor of Paris who about the time of the Council of Constance not being able to digest the absolute Doctrine of Transubstantiation and finding that Assertion to be full of Blasphemy and Idolatry found out this expedient as he thought That Christ as he was a Creature and had a Body finite could not be at one and the same time in divers places yet being united to the Divine Nature in one Person the Human Nature by that conjunction had
serious Reflections on his Death and Agonies and the Bitterness of his Passion It being spoken to our Souls not to our Bodies to take and eat this Body the Soul hath no other Way to feed upon it but by a pathetick Consideration of the Particulars of that Death and the End and Design of God in it and the Comforts and the Benefits that thereby redound to Mankind and such a Consideration as affects our Souls touches them to the quick and puts them on serious Enquiries into our wretched State and makes them break forth into Flames of Love so that though Christ's Body was crucified above Sixteen Hundred Years agone yet a pious Soul can eat it at this Day swallow the Charity which appears in it with her Thoughts consider who it is that is so wonderfully concerned for her Safety look upon him whom her Sins have pierced and take a View of that Man of Sorrows who was bruised for her Iniquities and wounded for her Transgressions and admire the Miracles that are to be seen in all this 2. To eat Christ's Body is to apply the Benefits of his Death and Passion to our Souls and to rejoyce in them as our greatest Treasure As he that eats with his Bodily Organs applies the Food he takes with his Hands to his Mouth and Body and converts it into Blood and Substance so the pious Soul is pleased with this Spiritual Meat is refreshed by it and applies the Benefits of that crucified Body to her self and with the Thoughts of Peace and Pardon and Salvation which are the Blessings that drop from that Tree arms her self against the Assaults of the Devil and the Terrours of Death and believing without wavering that those Mercies were purchased for her in particular and that she hath a Right and Title to them stands up in the evil Day and in the midst of Temptations boldly cries with the Apostle Who is he that condemns It is Christ that died Rom. 8. 34. 3. To make this crucified Body a Persuasive and Motive to Holiness and Obedience To conclude from thence that if he gave himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity then we must not frustrate his Expectation nor cling to that Iniquity which he came to free us from And if he died to purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous for good Works then we must not defile our selves after that nor wallow in the Mire any more with the Swine but cleanse our Minds from carnal covetous and lustful Thoughts our Wills from Perversenes and Stubbornness our Affections from Fondness of this present World and our Hands from Uncleanness His zealous Love to us must make us zealous for his Glory to him we must consecrate our selves and to be holy as he is holy must be the Business of our Lives and so to love him as to keep his Commandments must henceforward be looked upon as our bounden Duty He truly eats this crucified Body upon whom this Crucifixion hath that Power as to crucifie in him his known Lusts and Passions and to engage him to purifie himself from all Filthiness both of Soul and Body The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. IN all Writings both Ancient and Modern about this holy Sacrament there are various Rhetorical Expressions used which we must not understand literally but as Flowers strowed upon the Herse of our Blessed Redeemer and as Ornaments of Speech to represent the Greatness of the Mystery There is nothing more common among the Fathers than to call the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper the Body and Blood of Christ and the Cup the Vessel in which Christ's Blood is contained And many times Christ is said to stand at the Altar and all the holy Angels waiting at the Table that Christ offers his Body to be bruised by the People's Teeth and dyes them red with his Blood that the Elements are changed and become the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus and that after Prayer and Thanksgiving they are no more what they were before and a Thousand such Expressions besides From which the Church of Rome presently infers that they believed a Transubstantiation or a Conversion of the Elements into the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood than which nothing can be more absurd For if a Man compare these Saying of the Ancients with other Passages in their Writings it plainly appears that they meant no more than that the Elements are representative of all this and that the Expressions they use are nothing but Rhetorical Flourishes to raise the People's Affections and to render their Devotions brisk lively servent affectionate and vigorous We do the same at this Day when we tell you that you come to feast with Christ that in this Sacrament he is crucified before you Eyes that you may see his Blood run down that you hear him groan under the Burthen of your Sins that you see here his Body hanging on the Cross that you are to stand under the Tree and catch the precious Gore as Balsam for your Souls All which is true in a spiritual Sense and we do it to make you more attentive and set this Passion out in such lively Characters that your Souls may be touch'd and enliven'd and as Things represented in brighter Colours strike the Senses more so we speak of these Things as if they were visible and perceptible to the outward Eyes that your Souls may more chearfully feed on the Kernel that lies in those Shells and with greater Life embrace the glorious Benefits which come to you by that precious Sacrifice II. By the same Way that Man was lost by the same Way he must recover He was undone by eating He must be made whole again by eating By eating he died By eating he must come to Life again That Day thou eatest of this Tree thou shalt surely die saith God And the same saith God of this holy Sacrament That Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely live The Fruit in Paradise became a Savour of Death unto Death unto him The holy Bread in this Sacrament becomes a Savour of Life unto Life unto him That Eating brought him into Slavery This gives him a Title to the glorious Liberty of God's Children In eating that Fruit he thought to be like God and made himself worse than the Beasts that perish By eating of this Bread he is enabled to become like unto the Son of God by being changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory That Eating made him sick This is Health to his Navel and Maerrow to his Bones Prov. 3. 8. That brought the Plague This delivers from it That filled him with Wounds and Bruises and putrifying Sores This makes his Flesh come again like unto the Flesh of a little Child In a Word By eating God's Favour was forfeited By eating it is regained Let Israel rejoyce in him that made him let the Children of Zion be joyful in their King for the Lord takes pleasure in his People he will
Engagements and Promises to be true and faithful to that God who bought them at so dear a price as the Blood and Death of his own Son but in actual drinking of it profess and declare that in case they prove false and treacherous to their great Confederate break their promise wilfully and allow themselves in it that they deserve that everlasting Death and Damnation from which that Blood was intended to deliver them and besides it is a tacit imprecation too if they be not true to their Engagements that then those Agonies and Miseries and dreadful Death the Son of God endured shall fall to their share and portion which illustrates the Apostles saying 1 Cor. 11. 29. He that Eats and Drinks unworthily Eats and Drinks Damnation to himself But of this I shall have occasion to Treat professedly in the sequel III. There is frequent mention made in Scripture of the Old and New Covenant By the Old is meant the Covenant or Compact God by the Ministry of Moses made with the Israelites as they were a Common-wealth whereof God himself was pleas'd to be the King and President This Covenant was fitted to the slavish temper of the People God had to deal withal and as God promised them temporal Felicity eating the Good of the Land a plentiful Harvest increase of their Kine and Cattle full Barns and a rich Vintage multitude of Children and protection from their temporal Enemies so it requir'd in the Consederates or Jewish People an exact compliance of their outward Man with the Precepts Laws and Statutes God appointed and gave them The New Covenant is that Contract which God makes with Mankind in Christ Jesus wherein he promises to admit sincere Believers into his special Favour and for Christ's sake to bestow upon them the riches of Grace and Glory and on our side requires renouncing all Love to a sinful Life and resignation of our Souls Spirits and Bodies to his Will and Government It 's call'd New in opposition to the Civil or Political Covenant God made with the Jewish People as they were a Nation immediately under his Jurisdiction for both the Promises and Obedience under that Dispensation were different from the Promises and Obedience of the other one promising only Temporal Blessings and requiring External Obedience the other promising Spiritual and Eternal Blessings and requiring Internal and sincere Obedience and though the New Covenant which God makes with the People under the Gospel had its beginning already in Adam's time immediately after the Fall and was again publish'd in the days of Abraham Yet notwithstanding all this it may justly be call'd New because of the clear and fuller Revelation of it when Christ the foundation of it appear'd and by his Death confirm'd all the Predictions Prophecies Types and Prefigurations of it before and under the Law of Moses for then was made a new publication of it new Witnesses were made use of and new Motives and Encouragements were given and new Sacraments as Seals of that Covenant were added And this New Covenant the Blood or Wine the Embleme of it in the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper relates to and he that drinks of that Wine or Blood represented by it confirms that Covenant professes that he approves of it will stand to it and acknowledges the justness of his threatnings denounced against those who count this Blood of the Covenant an unholy thing Even the Civil and Political Covenant which God made with the People of the Jews was solemnized by Blood which is the reason of that passage Exod. 24. 7 8. And Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the audience of the People and they said All that the Lord hath said will we do And Moses took the Blood and sprinkled it on the People and said Behold the Blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words And as in their suffering themselves to be sprinkled with that Blood they declared their unfeigned assent and consent to the conditions of that Covenant and profess'd that it was just with God to inflict death and ruine upon them if they did not study to obey that Covenant so in the New Testament in this Holy Sacrament those that come to be Partakers of it are sprinkled as it were with the invaluable Blood of Christ and by that own their hearty consent to the Conditions of the New Covenant and ratifie their Obedience and God's Promises and Threatnings too which are the Sanctions of this Covenant IV. In this Covenant the Parties concern'd are God and Man yet from hence no Person is to conclude that God stood in need of this Alliance We indeed had need of it and it was our Interest that God should do so His vouchsafing to come to such a Contract speaks his Goodness and there is not a greater Argument of his Clemency and Compassion He could have been Great Glorious and Magnificent without us and what need had he of the Friendship of such miserable Creatures as we are that was All in All His Excellency and Beatitude receive no addition by this Covenant and what had it been to him if we had been left in the common mass of Corruption and Perdition What could he have lost by our Eternal Groans or what disparagement could it have been to him to let us sink into the Gulph when our Sins and Offences were the meritorious cause of it It shews his infinite Goodness and condescention that he will enter into promises and engagements with his Creatures and we are Brutes if the thoughts of his Mercy in this particular do not force our Tongues to break forth into admiration of it Our Misery and Wretchedness required such a favour and without it we must have been as great strangers to happiness as we were to power and ablility to help our selves Commisseration to our Poverty and undone Condition moved the Almighty to come to terms with us and this Covenant is our advantage and emolument God gets no profit by it and though it is a publication of his Goodness and proclaims the Wonders of his Loving-kindness yet God might have found out other ways to manifest that and it 's we that are the Gainers by this Contract V. In this Covenant God must not be considered only as an infinite most perfect and most excellent Being but more particularly under that threefold Relation of 〈◊〉 Son and Holy-Ghost Man also is not only to be looked upon as Gods Creature but as a Sinner fallen from God apostatiz'd from Righteousness and standing in need of Gods Help Assistance Grace and Reconciliation and as one who of a Child of Wrath is to be made a Child of God of an Enemy a Friend of an Heir of Hell an Heir of Heaven and Co-heir with Christ And accordingly this Sacramental Covenant is nothing else but a mutual Promise of an offended God and the offender whereby both Parties do unfeignedly and without guile or fraud
Ordinance in thy Church and ordained it as a means whereby thy loving Members may come in the unity of the Faith unto a perfect Man It shall be established for ever as the Moon and as a faithful witness in Heaven Give me O give me perseverance in the use of it O Jesu Thou art the promised Seed the promised Messiah the promised desire of all Nations Thou art the fruitful Vine and by the precious Liquor that drops from thee innumerable Souls are cherished and refreshed Thy Sacred Name is as Ointment poured out I smell the rich composition My Soul doth gather strength and life from that perfume I am the wounded Man that 's fallen among Thieves O let thy Blood heal me of my Plagues Thou hast been lifted up to the Cross that the Enemy of Mankind might be troden down O let me participate of the Virtue of that exaltation that I may trample upon his Temptations Thou hast been lifted up to draw me after Thee and to withdraw my Heart from worldly Desires and Affections O lift me up from the Earth that I may relish the comfort of thy Exaltation Thou wast lifted up that thou mightest be beheld by all O let me look upon Thee whom I have pierced by my Sins that I may mourn for them bitterly Thy Holy Arms were stretched out that thou mightest embrace all that come unto Thee I come Lord Take me into thy Arms and love me O let thy Cross be my security against all my Enemies Let thy Wounds be my refuge in the hour of Temptation Let that innocent Blood that dropt from thy Hands and Feet and Side wash away the spots and stains of my abominable Actions Henceforward my Hands and my Heart shall be lifted up in Prayer and Praise and Love and Devotion O direct me and give me grace to obey thy Directions and leave me not till I am past all danger O see me safe through the wilderness of this World that I may for ever Admire and Adore Thee in thy Everlasting Kingdom Amen CHAP. XVII Of Eating and Drinking unworthyly in this Ordinance and the Guilt the unworthy Receiver incurs thereby The CONTENTS Both good and bad Men frighted witb the thoughts of Eating and Drinking unworthily but the good without just cause Wherein unworthy Eating and Drinking doth not consist shewn in Thirteen particulars with the reasons of the assertion and wherein it doth consist The danger of unworthy Eating and Drinking proved to lie in making our selves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. How Men involve themselves in that guilt discovered A great difference betwixt Receiving unworthily and being not worthy to Receive The great imprudence and Weakness of those that are loath to depart with their Sins and therefore are unwilling to come for fear they should make themselves guilty of the Death of Christ and of Damnation The impudence and boldness of others who come to this Sacrament receive unworthily and are not concerned at their danger The Joys and Comforts which arise from Receiving worthyly The Prayer I. THough from the Premises the Reader may easily guess what is it to Eat and Drink unworthyly and though in Ch. 4. some general notions concerning it have been laid down yet since it is a point which frights not only bad Men but even some of those who are otherwise piously inclin'd from coming to the Lord's Table it will be necessary to give a distinct explication it that neither the bad may think they gain any thing by abstaining nor the good be discouraged from coming As bad Men have no sense of Spiritual things which makes them live merrily in neglect of commanded Duties so not a few of those whose hearts are tender are apt to discompose their minds with needless scruples whereby they too often deprive themselves of the comforts they might reap from God's Ordinances and besides expose themselves to strong Temptations of the Devil who takes pleasure to see good Men in confusion hoping that one time or other they may fall into his net and when they know not how to extricate themselves out of their Labyrinths will shake of the Yoak of all Religion and become his Votaries run into the the other extream and turn either careless or Prophane To prevent these and other dangers it will be convenient to discourse of this Eating and Drinking unworthily first Negatively what it is not and secondly what it is and wherein the sin consists And therefore II. To Eat and Drink unworthily is not 1. To Eat and Drink at this Table with a weak Faith By a weak Faith I mean such a belief of the truth and necessity of the things commanded in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as makes the Soul ready and willing to do the things required of her but is attended with great fears and doubts with wavering and inconstancy and this weakness proceeds not so much from want of will to submit to Christ as from want of understanding either the extent of the Grace of God or the nature of the Gospel of peace or the design of God in his Providences or the Latitude of true Christian Liberty which defect must needs cause great mistrusts of our safety danger of being scandaliz'd with little things and unsteddiness in Holy Duties as we see Rom. 14. 1 2. c. yet this weakness of Faith doth not make a Man an unworthy receiver 1. Because Christ is willing to receive such into favour and he express'd this willingness in his kind behaviour to the Man we read of Mark 9. 22. Who believed indeed but waveringly and soon after cryed out and said with Tears in his Eyes Lord I believe help thou my unbelief The Disciples of our Lord upon their first adhering to him were at the best but weak in Faith and therefore Christ calls to them so often O ye of little Faith yet he doth not therefore reject them He cherishes the very Seeds of Faith and when it is no bigger than a grain of Muster-Seed he makes much of it Though the Branches of it be but tender yet he doth not Root up the Tree or Command the Husbandman to cut it down lest it should cumber the Ground or throw it into the Fire To which purpose there is an Excellent Character given of him Esa. 40. 11. He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd and gather the Lambs with his Arms and carry them in his Bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young There are Lambs in his Flock as well as Sheep and as these two require various management so both may be confident of his tenderness All Stars do not shine alike yet even those that give not so great a brightness shall be preserved as well as the greater Luminaries Love is an acceptable present to him and though in some like fire under green Wood it burns but dimly yet he 'll quench it no more than he will the more blazing Flames But then when I say he will
Life for the better looks as it were for a new Sacrifice for Sin and since he will not be purged from his known Sins by the Blood of Jesus which hath been already spilt if he hath any hopes of being purified from his Sin in order to the obtaining of Eternal Happiness seems to desire a more effectual Death of that great Mediator which may against his Will drag him away from his sinful courses and thereby would have Christ suffer and be kill'd again and consequently makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 4. He that Eats and Drinks unworthily kills the Lord Jesus You will say This is impossible Christ being in Heaven and incapable of any such Act of Violence No more could Saul if you understand it according to the Letter persecute him after he was glorified yet the voice that came to him in his way to Damascus said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Act. â— 4. The same may be said of an unworthy Receiver he cannot strictly speaking kill the Lord Jesus yet being unwilling to venture upon a change of Life under all the Abjurations of a bleeding Redeemer that stubborness is Death to Christ as God said to the Jews Ezek. 6. 9. I am broken with your whorssh Heart So may the Saviour of the World cry to the Communicant that comes to remember his Death and will not die to his known Sins Thou piercest thou woundest thou killest me by thy obstinate and refractory temper as we say of a tender Father that the ill course his disobedient Son takes is death to him because it is as grievous to him as if one should attempt to take away his Life The unworthy Receiver by being loth to conform to the Rules of the Gospel in his Practices even while he beholds as it were Christ Crucified for his Sins does an Act so unworthy so disrespectful so injurious that it is as much as if he made attempts upon his Life nay he kills the preventing Grace Christ affords him and slays the good motions whereby Christ lives in him Christ is said to be in us as we are Christians and the unworthy Receiver being desirous and willing to maintain and keep his darling Sins doth thereby drive Christ out of his Heart and kill him in his own Soul for Christ and Love to a sinful Life are inconsistent and incompatible things These destroy his Life in the Soul and therefore in this Sense also the unworthy Receiver makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 5. He that eats and drinks unworthily consents to the Murther the Jews were guilty of when they killed the Lord of Life and approves of that barbarous and inhumane Act and therefore is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. He is supposed to consent to that Murther that is not sorry for if And how can he be sorry for it that is not sorry for his Sins which were the principal Cause of it The unworthy Receiver being supposed to be one that doth not heartily shake hands with a sinful Life and is loth so to renounce his known Sins as to tear them from his Heart we cannot imagine that he is heartily sorry for them for his Sorrow hath not those Effects which Godly Sorrow is said to have 2 Cor. 7. 11. For this same thing when ye sorrowed after a Godly sort what Carefulness it wrought in you Yea what clearing of your selves Yea what Indignation against Sin Yea what Fear i. e. of offending God! Yea what vehement Desire Yea what Zeal Yea what Revenge The Tree is known by its Fruits And if Sorrow for Sin must be discovered by such Effects and these Effects appear not in the Communicant as he cannot be thought to eat and drink worthily so in not being sorry for his Sins he doth not appear sorry for the Murther the Jews committed upon the Body of our Saviour his Sins being the Cause of that Murther And doth not this look like Consent or Approbation of that Murther You will say How can any Man be sorry for Christ's Death when that Death is our greatest Comfort and what Consolations the pious Soul feels it feels by virtue of that Death Shall a Man be sorry for that which God had ordain'd appointed and design'd for the Relief and Redress of our Misery If Christ had not died we had been ever wretched and unhappy and must have looked for no Friendship from above and therefore to charge Men with being guilty of his Death because they are not sorry for it seems to be both against Scripture and Reason Is any Man sorry for a Treasure he finds in the Field Or sorry for an Estate that falls to him by the Decease of a Relation Or sorry for an Act of Oblivion which a gracious Prince imparts to Offenders whereof himself is the Principal But to this the Answer is very easie for the Benefit of Christ's Death and the Mercy God intended Mankind by it must be carefully distinguished from the Instrumental Causes whereby Christ was brought to his Death which were partly our Sins and the barbarous Cruelty of the Jews The Benefit that came by the Death of Christ a Christian most certainly ought not to be sorry for but hath reason to rejoyce in Day and Night But that he was so inhumanely murther'd by the Jews and that our Sins were such abominable things in the Sight of God that to expiate them God was moved to give up his own Son to the lawless Rage of those cruel Enemies this requires our Grief and Sorrow That the Jews did commit a very heinous Sin in crucifying Christ is evident from St. Peter's Discourse or Sermon to the Murtherers Act. 3. 17 18 19. For though God hath decreed that Death as an Expedient to reconcile Man to himself and decreed not to hinder the Jews in pursuing their wicked Designs and Purposes but to make that Death an Antidote against Everlasting Death yet that doth not excuse the Jews from the Guilt of Sin in killing of him whose Cruelty God was resolved to turn to the Good of all true Penitents and sincere Believers nor a Christian from an hearty Sorrow that his Sins were the deserving Cause of it So that a Christian may at once rejoyce in Christ's Death and be sorry for it rejoyce in the unspeakable Mercies procured by it and be sorry that those stubborn Wretches did with that Cruelty dispatch him or rather that his Sins did arm those desperate Sinners to put the Lord of Life to death for the Jews could have had no power to murther him but that the Sins of Mankind crying aloud for Vengeance enabled them and gave them Strength and ministred Occasion to do it So that he that is not heartily sorry for his Sins is not heartily sorry that the Jews did murther him and therefore the unworthy Receiver not being heartily sorry for the Sins he hath lived in consents to that Murther of the Jews and upon
molested them and stung them into strange and painful Distempers and most of them perish'd miserably And as it is with other Sacred Things so it is more particularly with the most Sacred Thing of all the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Bishop Morton upon this account tells us of one Booth in his time a Scholar in Cambridge who being Popishly inclin'd yet loth to own it would still receive the Sacrament in our Church and coming one day to the Lord's Table he seem'd to to take the Holy Bread with his Hands and put it in his Mouth but by an easie craft he thrust it into his Pocket and when the Devotion of the Chapel was ended he took the Bread he had hid and threw it over the Colledge Wall But see the pursuing Judgment of God soon after he threw himself over the Battlements of the Chapel broke his Neck and so ended his life St. Cyprian one of the greatest and most eminent Men in the Primitive Church relates that a Girl left by her Parents in time of Persecution to shift for her self and taken up by her Nurse was by that Nurse being timorous and loth to lose her own and the Child's lâ—fe for being Christians carried to the Heathen Magistrate and there made to Eat and Drink of the Bread and Wine offered to Idols and the Heathen Deities This Child afterward her Mother returning was by her conducted to Church and came to the Holy Eucharist with the rest of the Congregation for in those days they gave the Eucharist to Children as well as to adult Persons where St. Cyprian himself was then officiating The Deacon as his custom was carrying the Holy Wine about and coming to the Child offers her the Cup but finds a strange aversion in her to touch it with her Lips for through a Divine Instinct teaching her that the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of Devils were inconsistent and incompatible she turn'd her Head away shut up her Mouth press'd her Lips together and refus'd it with obstinacy The Deacon however how prudent he was in doing so I shall not dispute using some force upon her poured some drops of the Eucharistical Wine into her Mouth which she had no sooner receiv'd but she fell a vomiting groan'd and sigh'd and as the Father expresses it The Drink sanctified in Christ's Blood broke forth from her polluted entrails And to this purpose he hath another passage of a Woman that kept the Bread of the Eucharist irreverently in a Chest. and when one day she went rudely to open the Chest a Fire flashing out of the Chest did fright her so that she durst not come near it any more All which Examples make it evident that he that Eats and Drinks unworthily Eats and Drinks or may Eat and Drink some extraordinary Temporal Judgment to himself III. It must be confess'd that the expression of Eating and Drinking Judgment is not very smooth and proper yet there is great Truth in the Metaphor and how the unworthy Receiver Eats and Drinks Judgment to himself will appear from the following particulars 1. By eating and drinking unworthily he prepares for some extraordinary Judgment which Judgment he takes and grasps and attracts and pulls to himself as Men do Bread and Wine or Beer when they are going to eat and drink The Apostle Rom. 9. 22. speaks of Vessels fitted for Destruction they fitted themselves for it by their Sins as a Thief by stealing and robbing upon the High-way fits himself for the Gallows or as an idle lazy Servant that neglects his Master's Business fits himself for his Master's Anger So the unworthy Receiver by eating and drinking irreverently and without regard to the Obligations the Sight of Christ's Love and Death lays upon him fits himself for Judgment makes himself ripe for God's Vengeance lays the Wood together and erects the Pile gathers Materials and combustible Stuff for the Fire that will certainly burn him and though he doth not do it designedly and the Judgment comes contrary to his Intention yet as long as he doth that to which such Judgments are annexed he fits himself for Judgment as much as he that will touch Vipers and handle Adders or let a Snake creep about in his Bosom though he may intend no harm by it yet actually prepares and fits himself for Mischief Eating and Drinking imports some Desire after and Delight in the Victuals before us So he that by unworthy Receiving prepares for Judgments seems to delight in Judgment threatned him because he will needs do that which will certainly end in some Judgment or other 2. The unworthy Receiver eats and drinks Judgment to himself by incorporating the Guilt of some extraordinary Judgment with his Soul Eating and Drinking unworthily at the same time he brings Guilt upon his Soul and appropriates the deserved Judgment to himself and as the Sin sticks to him so the Demerits of the Judgment which is threatned to the Sin sticks to him too He eats and drinks unworthily and the Effect it hath upon him is God's Indignation which he swallows with the Food unworthily taken God's Wrath goes along with his Sin and as he takes the one so he doth the other into his Bowels As Poyson and Death go together so unworthy Feeding at the Lord's Table and God's Anger go together and they both mingle with the Spirits of the unworthy Receiver as the Fish at the same time that he swallows the Bait swallows the Hook too and he hath that fastned in him which will be his Death So that Job's Expression is very suitable to the Subject in hand Job 20. 23. When he is about to fill his Belly God shall cast the Fury of his Wrath upon him and shall rain it upon him while he is eating To this purpose David saith of the Israelites in the Wilderness murmuring and speaking against God While their Meat was yet in their Mouths the Wrath of God came upon them So it may be said of an unworthy Communicant While he is feeding at the Table of the Lord the Wrath of God breaks forth against him becomes due to him and is his Portion falls to his Lot and he gets a Title to it We read of Henry VII Emperor of the Romans that he was poyson'd in eating of the Sacramental Bread given him by a Monk This they say was the Fate of Pope Victor II. who died of poyson'd Wine presented to him in the Eucharistical Chalice by his Sub-Deacon And the same is reported of an Archbishop of York that he fell down dead and swelled upon receiving the Sacramental Cup given him by a Priest that bore some Spleen and Malice to him These Men did without a Metaphor eat and drink their Death And though he that eats and drinks unworthily doth not just in the same manner eat and drink Judgment to himself yet the Fate that attends him doth very much resemble the Misfortunes of the other only here is the difference that
Repentance What Danger in doing the Will of God What Danger in performing our Duty What Danger in serious Endeavours to cleanse our selves that we may be pure even as God is pure What Danger in eating and drinking with a Lively Faith in the Promises of the Gospel What Danger in making the Love of God and the serious Contemplation of it a Motive and Occasion to grow in Grace If there be any Danger it is in the Unworthy Eating and Drinking at this holy Table and in that indeed there is as much Danger as there is in cutting our selves with Knives and Lances or in running a Sword into our Bowels And who but a Mad-man will do so There is nothing so good nothing so safe nothing so sound nothing so innocent but Men may corrupt it by their evil Inclinations So they may abuse God's Name and Day and Word and Ordinances and the Duty of Prayer and the Ministry and what not Unworthy Eating and Drinking is a sinful Eating and Drinking Let Men separate the Sinfulness from the Duty let them pare away that poysonous Rind and there is no Danger and you may eat and drink at this Table with as little Danger as you eat and drink at home there is no Danger here but what you make your selves The Danger rises not from the Eucharist but from your Hearts That which makes it dangerous is your Love to Forbidden Fruit while you eat and drink here This you harbour this you cherish and that makes your feeding dangerous But cast out that old Leaven and you may feed as peaceably as contentedly as securely as Children under their Father's Wings as People that sit under their own Vine and under their own Fig-tree The PRAYER O Jesu whom I see coming toward me in this Sacrament not with Balm and Myrrhe and Spices hut with that which is infinitely better even with the Balsom of thy Blood to anoint me to wash me and to make me whole to make this blind Creature see and this lame Man to walk this Dumb to speak this Deaf to hear and to dignifie this Beggar even me the weakest in thy Flock the poorest in thy House the meanest person in thy Spiritual Kingdom What shall I say of this Mercy What can I think of it Thou art both the Giver and the Gift the Feeder and the Food the Guest and the Feast the Offerer and the Oblation O deal with me after thine infinite Goodness I have deserved to be left to be forsaken to be rejected to be cast away from thy Presence But O! let not this miserable Beggar go away from thy Door without an Alms scatter thy Bounty and let me gather it The poorer I am the greater Object I am of thy Pity I bring my Heart to thee to reform it I come to offer my Soul to thee be thou intreated to renew it by thy Holy Spirit Bring me to a more lively and nearer conjunction with thy self that I may become a living Member incorporated into thy Mystical Body and may live not longer by mine own Spirit but by Thine which is the Spirit of my Spirit the Soul of my Soul and the very Life of my Life Thou art my Sun from whose Beams I must receive the Light of Grace Thou art my Fountain from which I must draw Living Water Thou art the Root from which I must receive Sap of increase Thou art my Head from which I must receive Life and Being O! let me feel the force of this Sacrament in my Soul Power against Sin and Satan and ability to serve thee Corroborate my Spirit that I may obtain Victory put off the anxious Cares of the World and put on Joy flowing from Remission and pardon of my Sins I am sensible that Thy Table is the strength of my Soul the Sinews of my Mind the Band of my Confidence my Health my Light and my Recovery Being sprinkled with thy Blood I shall be able to turn to fight the Armies of Aliens the Armies of my Spiritual Enemies and prevail against them and go on from Virtue to Virtue till I shall Hunger and Thirst no more in thy Everlasting Kingdom Amen Amen CHAP. XIX Of Bodily Sickness Weakness and untimely Death which is sometimes by way of Judgment inflicted on Unworthy Receivers of this Blessed Sacrament The CONTENTS Sickness and Weakness and Death are either Corporal or Spiritual Some Reasons laid down why God makes use of Sickness and Weakness of Body to Chastize the Unworthy Receiver How a Person may know whether the Sickness and Weakness of Body that is upon him comes upon him for his Unworthy Receiving How Sickness and Weakness of Body and an untimely Death can be said to be inflicted for Unworthy Receiving when we see that even the most worthy Receivers sicken and dye and sometimes suddenly and before their time and when it is evident that these are effects of Natural Causes The time of Adversity a time of serious Consideration The Soul that loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity hath no reason to be troubled when Sickness or Affliction comes as if it came for Unworthy Receiving Worthy Receiving the best Preparative for Death Those that neglect coming have reason to fear that all the Miseries which befal them come upon them for their neglect The Prayer I. HAving told you in the foregoing Chapter that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judgment doth import both Temporal Judgment and Damnation and shewn how the unworthy Receiver makes himself liable to exemplary Temporal Judgments in general it 's fit I should in the next place in imitation of St. Paul speak of the particular Temporal Judgments the unworthy Communicant pulls upon himself whereof one is Bodily Sicckness Weakness and untimely Death for thus we read 1 Cor. 11. 30. For this cause i.e. upon the account of this unworthy Eating and Drinking many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep as if he had said This your unworthy Receiving brings Sickness Weakness and a preternatural and unusual Sleep upon you This must needs be meant here for ordinary Sleep or the usual Rest of the Body can be no punishment and to tell you that by Sleep in Scripture is frequently understood Death or separation of the Soul from the Body or dissolution of this natural Life were to tell you what all Men know that have but look'd into the Bible nor can any be ignorant that these Phrases are often used in a Spiritual Sense for Spiritual Weakness and Sickness and Death which will oblige me to take both significations into consideration And that God did in the Primitive Ages of Christianity inflict and visit unworthy Communicants with weakness and sickness of Body and with an untimely Death sometimes especially if they continued impenitent thereby to put them in mind of their Offences and to exhort them to amendment of Life all Interpreters agree and the same Temporal Judgments an unworthy Receiver hath reason to fear and look for at this
be conveyed to us in this Ordinance without a due Contrition and Endeavours to tread in our Master's Steps we may easily infer that we were unworthy Receivers and that among other Causes of our Sickness this is one and the principal too even our unworthy and irreverent Feeding at the Lord's Table 2. Is any sick among you Let him send for the Elders of the Church saith St. James Chap. 5. Vers. 14. In the Primitive Church the sick Person especially he that was doubtful of his Spiritual Condition sent for Seven Ministers or Presbyters of the Church as so many Physicians to consult about the State of his Soul before whom he faithfully spread his Case giving them as candid an Account of himself as he could and so left it to them to judge and give Sentence in his Cause And this also is a very rational Way to come to a satisfactory Knowledge whether the present Sickness proceed from unworthy Communicating or not And therefore he that falls sick after he hath been at the Lord's Table let him send for a faithful Guide and Director and impartially signifie and reveal to him the Constitution of his Soul what it hath been and what it is and the Actions of his Life the manner of his Worship in publick and private and how and which way he used to address himself to God what his Thoughts and Preparations were when he used to go to the Table of the Lord what he felt after Receiving whether it left an Awe upon his Spirit a Fear desiring his own Soul what his Design was in Receiving and how far he closed with God And a pious judicious Divine may be very helpful to the sick Person to direct instruct and inform him whether the Sickness be an Effect of his unworthy Receiving or not And lest any should cavil here and object What matter is it whether a Man know the Occasion of his Sickness and what it was that brought it upon him I shall offer by way of Answer these few Particulars 1. If there were nothing but Curiosity in the Case something might be said for a Man's being so inquisitive In Natural Causes of Distempers Men think no Curiosity great enough and if either we our selves or Children or Relations fall sick common Curiosity tempts us to ask the Physician what he thinks the Cause of our Illness is nay if the Cause be unknown both to our selves and others we have very often the Curiosity to have the Body of a Friend or Child open'd to know the Cause And why People should not be as curious in Spiritual Things as they are in Natural I know no Reason The Providences of God and his Designs in the various Accidents that befall us certainly deserve our Curiosity and Inquisitiveness much more than things of an inferior Nature Nor is it impossible to find out the particular Cause why God sends such a Sickness upon certain Persons when himself hath declared in his Word in what Cases and upon what Provocations he will send it 2. If the Sickness be found to be a Consequence or Effect of unworthy Receiving this helps to strengthen our Faith in the Promises and Threatnings of God and finding that what the Apostle hath said so many Hundred Years agone comes to pass still this is a very strong Argument that he spake by the Spirit of God and a Motive to admire the Veracity of God and Encouragement to believe the other Promises and Threatnings of the Word of God Nothing is a greater Confirmation of Faith than Experience and he that hath seen the things the Scripture speaks very frequently accomplished hath enough to turn his Faith into a full Assurance 3. If the unworthy Receiver knows that it is his Sin committed in the holy Sacrament that hath brought the present Sickness upon him if after that he recovers and escapes it will be an Obligation upon him to come to it with greater Circumspection For he that hath suffered in the Flesh saith St. Peter hath ceased from Sin 1 Pet. 4. 1. And therefore having suffered for his unworthy Receiving that Suffering will make him weary of his Sin which he cannot be except he comes for the future and draws near with a pure Heart holding fast the Profession of the Faith without wavering as it is said Heb. 10. 22 23. But IV. While we are discoursing of this particular Judgment another Doubt arises viz. How Sickness of the Body and an untimely Death can be said to be inflicted for unworthy Receiving when we see even the most worthy Receivers sicken and grow weak and die young many times in the Prime and Flower of their Age And nothing is more vulgarly known than that Sickness and Death are nothiâ—g but the Product of Natural Causes I answer 1. Though even very excellent Christians who may be supposed to have been very penitent and worthy Receivers ever since they frequented the Ordinances of God with any Sense and Understanding though even such do sicken and many times die suddenly and in the midst of their Race yet that proceeds from other Causes And these Accidents are either Trials of their Faith and Patience or Preparatives for Heaven or Preservatives from Sin or Occasions to glorifie God or Opportunities to promote the Honour of Religion or Chastisements for some rash and imprudent Actions to prevent their being condemned with the World According to which Rule we are to judge of the untimely Death of that Prophet 1 Reg. 13. 24. who cried against the Altar of Bethel A good Man no doubt but being persuaded by the crafty old Prophet who pretended a Counter-Inspiration he went back and ate Bread in the place against which he was warned for which imprudent Act a Lion found him and slew him And such was the Death of Uzzah 2 Sam. 6. 7. who out of a good intent put forth his Hand to uphold the Ark that was in danger of falling the Oxen that drew the Cart shaking it For which God struck him dead upon the place And this was the Case of Josiah a Man noted for his singular Piety yet going up rashly against Pharaoh Necho was killed in Battel though according to the Course of Nature he might have lived many Years longer Thus God chastised the impremeditated Errours of his Servants in this Life that they might not fall a Prey to the greater Condemnation hereafter One and the same Effect may have very different Causes and the Reasons of Things that happen in the World are various The same thing may be a Mercy to one which is a Judgment to another as the Pillar of a Cloud Exod. 14. 19 20. was Darkness to the Egyptians and Light to the Israelites And the Meat sent to Elijah was a Character of God's Love whereas that sent to the Israelites upon their murmuring was a Fore-runner of his Wrath and Anger And this may be applied to Sickness and Untimely Death In the unworthy Receiver it is a Punishment in the Worthy a
they help to prepare thy Soul for the Possession of that Inheritance which shall last for ever III. Worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper is the best Preparative for Death No Man can die uncomfortably that makes it his Business as often as he comes to this Table to receive worthily Death cannot hurt him let it be natural or violent untimely or orderly for by this worthy Receiving he hath laid up a good Foundation against the Time to come Death may destroy his Body but cannot kill the Soul Death may fright him but it cannot undo him It may dis-lodge his Spirit but it drives it to a nobler Habitation It may expel the Guest but it gives him a Title to a better Building His worthy Receiving gives him an Interest in Christ's Death and because Christ lives he shall live also Death may come blustering and make a Noise but in that Whirlwind his Soul rides to Heaven Let his Death come by Sword or Famine or Torment or Fire or Water it makes no Alteration in his Happiness To him to live is Christ and die Gain And he knows who hath said I am the Resurrection and the Life The worthy Receiver never dies for he lives in Christ who abides for ever Christ will not suffer that Soul to perish in which he hath been pleased to make his Habitation He is concern'd to secure her Happiness and his Eyes are open upon her to do her good Her worthy Receiving arms her against the Fears of Death and scatters the Mists which Death doth cast before her Eyes Receiving worthily makes the Soul a sit Habitation for the Spirit of God and If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you Rom. 8. 11. IV. As the unworthy Receiver when Sickness or some other heavy Judgment lights upon him hath reason to believe that it is for his unworthy Receiving so he that wilfully neglects coming to this holy Sacrament may very justly conclude that all the Troubles and Miseries that befall him do in a great measure befall him for that Neglect 'T is hard to determine which is the greater Sin whether Receiving unworthily or not Receiving at all both will admit of great Aggravations And as these Sins are in a manner equal so it is not irrational to conclude that the Judgments threatned to the one may be inflicted for the other too As the Jews say of the Golden Calf that an Ounce of that Sin is an Ingredient into all the Calamities that came upon them so there is not a Cross that the wilful Neglecter of this Sacrament feels or endures but he hath reason to think that this Neglect contributes towards it and all his Miseries call to him though he will not hear the Voice not to neglect so great Salvation and if all these Calls cannot awaken him into a Sense of his Duty how must his Reckoning swell and how inexcusable must he be whom neither the still Voice of Prosperity nor the shriller Sound of Adversity can convince Take eat this is my Body and Drink ye all of this is a Duty as much as doing by others the same that we would have others to do us It will appear and be made out one Day that this was not an Evangelical Counsel only which the more Religious Sort that are ambitious of the highest Place in Heaven need only mind if they please It was said to all the Disciples that represented the Church-Militant And if thou professest thy self a Member of that Church thou art no more excused from the Performance of it than thou art from coming to Church and attending the other Ordinances of God But if these Motives cannot prevail God hath Enforcives which shall but from these Good Lord deliver us The PRAYER O God! When thou with Rebukes dost chasten Man for Iniquity thou makest his Beauty to consume away like a Moth Hear my Prayer O Lord and give ear unto my Cry hold not thy Peace at my Tears Oh let the Afflictions which have befallen me and which thou shalt hereafter think fit to send upon me help towards the strengthening of my Faith in Christ Jesus Thou hast sometimes laid thy Hand upon me thy Afflicting Hand and I have taken no notice of it Thou hast smitten me and I have not looked up to Heaven from whence the Stroak did come Thou hast corrected me and I have not been the better for it I have been like a Beast before thee so foolish was I and ignorant Oh teach thou me Let me read my Duty in my Crosses And whatever Trouble comes upon me let that Trouble direct me to the Cross of my dear Master the Lord Jesus Enlarge my Contemplations of the Cross of Christ by the Crosses that knock at my Door Let these make me more zealous to participate of the Benefits of the Cross of Christ. In these Crosses and Troubles let me find Motives to come with greater Seriousness to the Table of my crucified Redeemer Let these prompt me to run to the Tree which yields the Fruit of Righteousness Let not these discourage me from loving thee but rather inflame my Affections to make thee my Hope and Fortress my Light and my Salvation Let me look upon the Joy that all my Troubles will at last end in and take Comfort in all my Tribulations Imprint this Belief upon my Soul that thou knowest better what is good for me than my Carnal Heart I am apt to hanker after the Flesh-pots of Egypt but let me see the richer Table in thy Kingdom I am apt to be fond of these outward Comforts Oh quench my Thrist after them Let me see clearly that to feed on thy Love is better Diet than this Earth affords Give me thy Peace not as the World gives but as thou usest to give thine own People Oh! give me what I want Thou knowest my Necessities better than I. Give me better things than my Flesh desires even those which may preâ—erve me by thy Power through Faith unto Salvation through Jesus Cheist our Lord. Amen CHAP. XX. Of Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death the Second Temporal Judgment inflicted sometime on the Unworthy Receivers of this holy Sacrament The CONTENTS The Eucharist a Cure for all Diseases yet many continue weak and sick after it The Cause shewn to be in themselves The Signs of Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death God inflicts these Spiritual Judgments upon Unworthy Receivers by degrees The Justice of it vindicated in four Particulars Spiritual Weakness and Sickness proved to be a greater Judgment than the Corporal Of the End of our Eating and Drinking worthily at this Table which is Spiritual Health and wherein that consists Spiritual Judgments more common than Men think or suspect Our Souls are capable of Diseases as well as our Bodies Several Instances and Proofs given of it The Cure of Spiritual Weakness
and Sicknesses laid down in several Particulars The Prayer I. AS Corporal so even Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death proves too frequently an Effect of Eating and Drinking unworthily at this Table Nay these Spiritual Sicknesses are more common than the other 'T is true they cause no Pain no Aches no Torments in the Bowels they are not felt as the Pleurisie or Cholick or Twisting of the Guts but they are Sicknesses still And because we find such Things and God manifests his Anger often against unworthy Receiving by such Symptoms we have reason to believe the Apostle aimed at these as well as at Bodily Diseases when he avers For this Cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep 'T is true there is not a more proper Medicine for all the Diseases of the Soul than this holy Sacrament To which purpose Albertus Magnus saith very appositely If in the Eucharist in the Remembrance of our Saviour's Passion we reflect on his Humility it will free us from the Infection of Pride If we think of his wonderful Charity we shall be delivered from the Evil of Envy If we consider with what Alacrity he went to die for us and to offer himself in Sacrifice for us it will be an Antidote against Weariness of his Service and Backwardness to Devotion If we ponder his Bounty and how liberally he gives us himself and all he hath we shall be rid of Covetousness If we lay his Meekness and Patience to heart it will be an excellent Remedy against Wrath and Anger If we remember how frugal his Supper was and how far from Pomp and Ostentation and how mean the Food was he made use of it will check our Gluttony and Voracity And if we cast our Eyes on the bitter Herbs he eat the Emblem of his bitter Passion we shall not be troubled much with Luxury And to this purpose was the Saying of Innocent III. That the Mystery of the Cross frees us from the reigning Power of Sin and the Mystery of the Eucharist from a Desire of Sin And if the Woman in the Gospel was cured of her Infirmity by touching but the Hem of Christ's Garment what Virtue may we suppose in his whole Body if it be touched by a lively Faith in this Ordinance If God hath given to the Fat of Vipers Virtue to expel Poyson shall not we think there is greater Virtue in Christ's crucified Body to cure the Diseases of the Soul If he gave Virtue to the Tree of Life in Paradise to prolong Age and to procure Perpetuity of Duration shall not Christ's Flesh represented by the Symbols here confer Life and Health and Salvation much more If he have given some Minerals Virtue to disperse Fumes and Vapours shall not we believe there is greater Virtue in the Incarnate Son of God to disperse the Clouds and Fogs that molest and annoy the Soul This cannot be denied and we may rationally believe that this Sacrament is intended by God to cure all the Distempers of the Soul But if that Medicine be not used as it ought the Soul instead of growing stronger becomes more weakly more sickly and draws nigh unto the Gates of Death II. What this Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death is will not be very difficult to discover If you mind the Apostle's Expression there is a Gradation in the Judgment he speaks of Weakness is a lower Degree of Misery than Sickness and Sickness a lower Degree than Death The first Act of God's Displeasure against Receiving unworthily is to inflict Weakness if that works no Reformation then Sickness and if this doth not make the Sinner rise then Spiritual Death 1. Spiritual Weakness And this may be said to consist in these following Particulars 1. In the Loss of Lively Apprehensions of Spiritual Things which were formerly vouchsafed to the unworthy Receiver Even Men that are Hypocrites in Religion and whose Hearts were never throughly changed have sometimes Flashes of Heaven or Hell coming either from without or from within Ahab certainly had a very great Sense of God's Displeasure and a Sight of Divine Vengeance surprized his Mind when he rent his Clothes and put Sack-cloth upon his Flesh and fasted and lay in Sack-cloth and went softly 1 King 21. 27. And some of us may have known some Persons who have been given to Drinking or Swearing or Lying or Uncleanness or Quarrelling when their Office or Employment or Station in the World or some such External Cause and Motive have put them upon Receiving the Holy Sacrament before they have come to this Table they have had some very serious Thoughts and you might observe in them a Demureness of Behaviour some Apprehensions of the Necessity of Repentance and sometimes their Hearts have been so touched that even a few Tears have dropped from their Eyes as a Testimony of their being moved at the Thoughts of Christ's Death and Passion but the Sacrament being over their Devotion hath been at an end too and they have returned to their old Sins which made them unworthy Receivers because this shews they were not heartily resolved when they came to this Table to subdue their Corruptions Their lively Apprehensions of Spiritual Things they formerly had have thereupon grown dark and decayed become languid and faint and no Foot-step of them hath been left Those Flashes of good Thoughts though short and transitory had they been improved would have signally strengthen'd their Souls and encouraged their practical Love to Christ Jesus But being careless and regardless of that Improvement God justly lets those lively Apprehensions decay and thence comes their Spiritual Weakness God could uphold those lively Apprehensions but they having no Love to them God by a secret Judgment lets them wear out And then What can be the Issue but Spiritual Weakness 2. Irresoluteness to resist Temptations is another Symptom of this Spiritual Weakness When the Soul is either unresolved whether it shall resist such known Temptations or not or resist them but faintly it is a Sign the Powers of the Soul are shaken and the Plague is begun in the Heart By Temptations I mean such Temptations as are agreeable to our sinful Temper and Inclination or such as our Calling and Employment makes us subject to He that observes and takes a View of such Sinners as Receive unworthily cannot but spy in them a very feeble and irresolute Resistance of such Temptations For notwithstanding whatever Resolutions they made before Receiving whatever Prayers and Supplications for God's Grace and Assistance they offered and put up before yet after they have been at this Table the old Temptations return even the same dear Friends that enticed and persuaded them to sin before their Resistance is very weak and they know not well what they shall do whether they shall displease their own and other Men's vain Desires or no. Perhaps some little horror or kind of damp the Sacrament for the present leaves upon their Minds hath so much force
none but general Gifts so even these upon his Abuse and misemploying of them are gradually removed as Men take meat and victuals away from insolent Beggars that throw their Gift upon a Dunghil and as a charitable Pension is withdrawn when we find that the Party which enjoy'd it spends it in Ale-houses and Taverns or in Play 2. By a gradual permitting the Devil to exercise his Power and Jurisdiction upon them God doth not very frequently suffer the Enemy to fly upon the Offender with all his force or to ruin him at once but he lengthens his Chain by degrees to see whether the Sinner will yet give himself leave to think and attempt to be freed from that intolerable Yoak and Slavery but that tenderness and patience of Almighty God becoming fruitless and ineffectual the Judge gives the Executioner greater liberty to darken his Mind to pervert his Will and to sear his Conscience Time was when but one Devil was permitted to Tyrannize over him but if instead of being angry and displeas'd at that single foe the unworthy Communicant embraces and makes him his friend then that Devil takes with him seven other Spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that Man is worse than the first saith Christ Matth. 12. 45. Nor is there any thing of injustice in these proceedings of God For 1. It is nothing but Lex Talionis a just Retaliation a Rule whereby God ordinarily governs himself in the execution of his Judgements Hâ—s 6. 4. He tells Judah and Ephraim Your Goodness is as a Morning Cloud and as the early Dew it passes away The Judgment therefore is made proportionable Hos. 13. 3. Therefore they shall be as the Morning Cloud and as the early Dew that passes away so here the Sin is spiritual the Judgment is so too The unworthy Receiver wrongs his own Soul and in his Soul the marks of God's Wrath appear 2. God in this case doth no more than what we our selves do and think our selves very reasonable and just for doing so A Father reduces his spend-thrift Son to a smaller Allowance and the ground that will not bear any thing after a world of Toil we Dung and Dig and Manure no more In this manner and for Reasons â—ike these God withdraws his Holy Spirit from the unworthy Receiver 3. As the Devil is God's Minister of Justice his Jaylor and Hangman so he may justly make use of him to judge and lash the unworthy Receiver the rather because he wilfully hearkens to the base suggestions of his sworn Enemy and who finds fault with a Prince or Magistrate for sending an Executioner to behead or hang those that have committed Treason or conspired against their lawful Sovereign 4. That God doth gradually send this Spiritual Judgment upon unworthy Receivers this speaks his Goodness Compassion and Patience and shews how loth he is to give up Ephraim how loth he is to deliver up Israel to the rage of the Enemy how loth he is to make them as Admah and to set them as Zeboim so that there is Charity mingled with the Justice and in the midst of his Anger he remembers Mercy IV. And this will give us occasion to enquire which of these two Judgments is greater the Temporal or the Spiritual And here if we consider the mischief done by them we must conclude and assert that the Spiritual is greater For 1. Pain and sickness of Body may yet bring a Man or drive a Man to a true Repentance and a sight of the Errors of his ways as we proved in the foregoing Chapter but this Spiritual Weakness makes the way and passage to Repentance more difficult and the more any thing doth hinder a Man from Repentance the more dangerous it is Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death supposes that the faculties which should be chiefly employed in the product of Repentance are out of order and violated such as the Understanding the Will and the Affections Bodily Sickness very often puts these into a new fermentation and a strong desire after Spiritual Things But when the very Tools whereby the Soul is to work are blunt and their edge rebated or are become rusty and useless the work is very likely to be left undone If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness saith our Saviour Matth. 5. 23. 2. The Spiritual Judgment is the more dangerous because it is less perceiv'd and taken notice of than Bodily sickness If a Man feel the smart and pain of his Wounds and Sores they oblige him to seek out for a Physician for Remedy for Counsel and Advice and so we find it is for the most part with all Diseases of the Body which cause anguish and grief and great inconvenience and disorder in the Body yet among these various distempers some there are where the poison creeps along in the secret parts and Men perceive it not till it seizes upon the Vitals invades the very Heart and tolls the Bell for Death and these we count the most dangerous Of this nature is Spiritual sickness and weakness It leaves the Body in the same temper it found it in causes no prickings in the Back no stitches in the side no disturbance in the Head It lets Men eat and drink and sleep and walk and do their business and as to the outward Man they feel no inconvenience which makes them think that they have nothing of a distemper about them that all is safe and they ail nothing For this Spiritual sickness cannot be perceiv'd without Thinking and Self-examination which being neglected Men feel it not whence it comes to pass that it spreads insensibly in the dark while Men are asleep and by degrees corrupts the Soul till all its goodness be consumed and consequently this Spiritual Judgment is greater than the Corporal 3. The Spiritual Judgment is a sign of God's greater anger too and though it will not enter into the thoughts of a sensual Man that it is so or that any thing can be a sign of God's Anger but what relates to losses and disappointments and crosses in the outward Man and in the World yet enlighten'd Souls have ever look'd upon Spiritual sickness and Death as a sign of God's heavier wrath and indignation because in this case God doth as it were let Men alone leaves them to themselves and his not punishing of them with Bodily troubles looks like an aversion from their Persons and so much we may guess from what we read Hos. 4. 14 17. The Preceding Considerations reduced into farther Practice I IF Christ and his Apostles press Eating and Drinking worthily at this Table it is because they would have our Souls be in perfect health and they are then in perfect health when they rejoyce in the Lord always Thomas Aquinas upon that saying Cant. 1. 13. A bundle of Myrrhe is my well-beloved unto me observes that as Myrrhe preserves Bodies from
some farther Prospect than this present Life and that he uses the Word not only to terrifie the unworthy Receiver with Sickness and Weakness of the Body and a Spiritual and Temporal Judgment but at the same time bids him take heed that in case any of the former doth not for Reasons best known to Providence light upon him or in case the Thoughts of the former do not work upon him and transform him into a better Man he doth not run himself into Hell-Fire and Eternal Misery It is plainly to tell him that since the Word includes both Judgments Temporal and Eternal he hath no reason to flatter himself that it will be only a Temporal judgment but may justly fear he shall in our God's Everlasting Indignation And therefore our Church retains both Significations of the Word in her Exhortation before the Sacrament So is the Danger great if we Receive the same unworthily for then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour we Eat and Drink our own Damnation not considering the Lord's Body we kindle God's Wrath against us we provoke him to plague us with divers Diseases and sundry kinds of Death II. How an unworthy Communicant eats and drinks Damnation to himself is the next thing we are to explain And this he doth this following Way 1. He makes himself obnoxious to the fierce Anger of the Judge that is to decide the Controversie of his Life and Death to all Eternity and this Judge is the Son of God Christ Jesus who hath protested that Not every one who saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and therefore will say unto them in the last Day I know you not depart from me ye Workers of Iniquity And there is nothing more certain than that the unworthy Receiver is resolved not to do the Will of his Father which is in Heaven whose Will is that Men should honour the Son as they do the Father Joh. 5. 23. i. e. believe in him as they do in the Father and come to this Sacrament like Persons redeemed from their vain Conversation resolved to war against the Lusts of the Flesh like Soldiers of the Cross and to remember the Death of the Son of God here with that Respect and Devotion they owe to God resolved to live and die with him like Persons who have listed themselves under his Colours with an Intent to fight against his Enemies and to take heed they do not dishonour the Son of God by an evil Heart of Unbelief in departing from the Living God This is the Will of God and since Christ the Judge of the World is the Person appointed to examine whether this Will of God hath been obeyed the unworthy Receiver dying in Impenitence and coming before him and it appearing that he hath nothing less than the Will of God professed indeed that he would do it pretended Service and Obedience to him and yet done his own Will though exhorted and moved to do the Will of God by numberless Arguments Arguments big with the greatest Charms what can his Obstinacy cause but Anger in the Judge Anger implacable since he would continue dead and unconcerned under the lively Oracles of Heaven and under the most lively Representations of the Love of God The Effect of which Anger is the Sentence of Everlasting Condemnation Depart from me ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire c. Matth. 25. 41. And for this Reason the Psalmist calls to all Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the right Way when his Anger shall be kindled but a little Psal 2. 11. 2. He puts himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Sinners are in to whom is reserved the Blackness of Darkness for ever And that State and Condition is Wilful Disobedience to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what the Consequence of this State is St. Paul explains 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power And that this is the unworthy Receiver's Condition is manifest from hence because he knows not God i. e. he will not know him nor obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He might know that God is an holy God and hath called him to Holiness and is not to be put off with blind lame and slovenly Devotion and yet he will not nor doth he obey the Gospel which obliges him by virtue of the Grace of God appearing to all Men to renounce Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts. This Ungodliness and these Worldly Lusts he retains and cherishes and makes much of notwithstanding his coming to the Lord's Table and so putting himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Men are no wonder if he makes himself liable to the same Damnation 3. He makes himself fit Company for the Damned and the Sufferers in Hell Those that are in that miserable State did as he doth and he doth as they did They suffer'd the Profits and Pleasures of the World to justle out a serious Sense of Religion so doth the unworthy Receiver They had a Form of Godliness and denied the Power thereof so doth he They some of them at least came to this Sacrament with unmortified Lusts with unsubdued Passions of Anger and Pride and with ungovernable Desires after the World and had no real Intent to become Proselytes of Righteousness so doth he They did not think that the holy Sacrament was such an Inforcive to a Change of Life as Divines talked of so doth he They made no great matter of this Ordinance but thought it expedient to comply with the Custom of the Country and the Usages of the Church they lived in and that was all and so doth he They made nothing of promising and breaking their solemn Promises to God no more doth he And being like them in Manners no wonder if he be like them in Torments too Being their Companion in their Sins 't is just he should be a Companion with them in their Misery Having been their Associate in Hypocrisie 't is fit he should have his Portion with Hypocrites III. But here the Sinner I know will be apt to clamour and say What Justice can there be in it that God for eating a Piece of Bread and for drinking a few Drops of Wine irreverently and unworthily without observing some Punctilio's and Nicer Rules of Divinity should inflict Eternal Damnation upon a poor Creature To which I answer 1. Every supreme and absolute Law-giver hath liberty to set what Penalties he thinks fit upon the Breaches of his Law If he will appoint a Punishment that is very dreadful for a certain
Offence the Interest of the Subject is to keep the Law not to quarrel with the Sanction At this rate a Man might plead What great matter is there in opening a Window at Night to get into an House to steal some small inconsiderable thing in the House And shall this be made Felony without Benefit of the Clergy All wise Law-givers have their Reason why they inflict severe Penalties upon Offenders and 't is fit that an Infinite Majesty should both threaten and appoint Punishments suitable to his Grandeur Where the Law and the Sanction of it is sufficiently known Men do not accuse the Law-giver of of Cruelty if the Offender runs himself into Danger but rather blame the senseless and foolish Man who knowing the Severity of the Sanction might have easily denied himself in his sinful Purchase and secured his Life and Welfare And the less the Fault is for which a severe Punishment is appointed the more easily might it have been avoided and not to avoid it when the Forbearance was so easie is an Argument of strange Presumption so that the Contempt and Presumption are so severely punished and not the Fault it self Let us apply this to the Case in hand The Supreme Law-giver thinks fit to inflict Damnation on the unworthy Receiver Either this unworthy Receiving is a very littâ—e Sin or a very great one If a great one the Punishment cannot be thought too great for it is proportion'd to the Greatness of the Authority which is despised and to the infinite and incomprehensible Mercy which is slighted not to mention that unworthy Receiving is a Complication of many Sins and more than one go into the Composition If it be little it is more easily shunned and then the Presumption comes to be very great and that Presumption is justly punished with great Severity Besides Who can judge so well of the Contempt and the heinousness of it as he that knows all things and can best judge how great the Indignity is which is offered to God in the Sin Nay the Greatness of the Penalty discovers the Greatness of the Impiety the Foulness of the Crime the deep Dye of the Transgression and the dangerous Tendency of the Offence A Christian from the Greatness of the Penalty is to conclude there must be more in the Sin than appears to his Eyes and to infer that if the Offence were not greater than ordinary so severe a Penalty would not have been laid upon it So that at the same time the Greatness of the Punishment serves to fright the Sinner from continuing in his Sin against he comes next to the Table of the Lord and is a strong Engagement to him to take nobler Resolutions to come with greater Reverence and with better Purposes that he may escape Damnation 2. That which makes the Penalty just is the Reason the Apostle gives 1 Cor. 11. 29. Because he discerns not the Lord's Body And what is it not to discern the Lord's Body 1. The unworthy Receiver discerns not that the Bread and Wine in this Ordinance set apart for an holy Use and consecrated by the Words of Institution represents the Body and Blood of the Son of God Which Consideration should over-awe him into the greatest Reverence and Devotion He considers not that by laying his Hands upon the Body of the Son of God he vows Faith and Allegiance to him and therefore refusing that Faith and Allegiance in his Actions is supposed to look upon that Bread as common which God hath made representative of the greatest Mystery He considers not that by eating of this Bread his Soul at the same time pretends to feed on the Body of Jesus Christ and to apply the Mercies and Benefits of his Death whereby he brings himself under an Obligation to live as a Member of Christ's Mystical Body not according to the Lusts of the Flesh but according to the Will of him that bought him at so great a Price And being at the same time unresolved to do so he mocks the Lord Jesus Christ and plays with Vows made in a place where Angels give their Attendance 2. He discerns not he considers not what it is for God to take a Body upon him for a poor Sinner's sake to redeem him from Damnation For God to take a Body upon him is a thing so astonishing so miraculous that if the greatest Prince of the World should voluntarily make himself a Beggar and wallow in Dirt and Slime to deliver a Slave out of Prison in a Foreign Country it is not so much nor a thing of that great Consequence For God to take a Body upon him that he might die for the Sinner and make him capable of inheriting Everlasting Bliss is a Mercy which runs so high that Reason is at a loss and it is enough to make the Mind grow giddy at the Consideration and consequently it is so great an Engagement to devote our selves to the Service of that God who hath done this that no Obligation can be thought greater or more likely to prevail with Men of Common Sense and Ingenuity And therefore for the unworthy Receiver not to discern or consider this must be a Contempt that is without a Parallel 3. He considers not that it is the Body of his Lord and Master that is present in the Figure in this Ordinance even the Body of that Lord whose Servant he is and owns himself to be He discerns not that in eating of the holy Bread he acknowledges Christ Jesus to be his Lord and Master at whose Beck he means to run by whose Command he intends to act and by whose Will he designs to be ruled So that the unworthy Receiver runs himself into strange Contradictions He acknowledges at the Receiving of the Eucharist that Christ is his Lord and Master and yet is not willing to be govern'd by his Laws his Lust and sinful Desires still continue his Masters the Devil is still his Master the World is still his Master and Sin still reigns in his Mortal Body Christ is only his Master in shew these in good earnest he in Complement these in sober Sadness And when this Contempt hath all these Aggravations in it who can complain that God is unjust in inflicting Damnation on the unworthy Receiver if he turns not IV. But still they were only the prophane Corinthinians against whom this Judgment is denounced Men who came drunk to this holy Sacrament And since no Body in this Age can be presumed or supposed to come in such a Posture to this Sacrament why should the Penalty mentioned by St. Paul be enforced upon Men now living who are not guilty of the same Sin and in no possibility almost of committing it i. e. of coming drunk and disguised to the Lord's Table To which I answer 1. Not to mention that Whatever things are written afore-time are written for our Learning 't is a great Mistake that the Apostle restrains the Penalty to being drunk with Wine or any other
Seriousness what Protestations of Cautiousness and Fear of offending God for the future Yet when God hath restored thee when the Almighty hath been so favourable to thee as to give thee the Desires of thy Heart how careless hast thou been of thy strongest Promises How regardless of the strictest Engagements How negligent of thy Duty How hast thou returned to thy former Vomit and with the Swine that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire 7. Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover must be killed HOW many Easter-Days hast thou lived to see O my Soul Days when thou shouldst have risen with Christ from the Death of Sin and applied thy self unto a Life of Righteousness Yet thou art the same still thou wert so many Years ago What Lust hast thou mortified what Corruption hast thou killed what darling Desires hast thou sacrificed for Christ Art not thou as dull and as dead in God's Service as thou hast been heretofore The Sins that thou hast left was it the Love of God or the Change of thy Condition that made thee abandon them On the blessed Day of thy Saviour's Resurrection may be thou hast been devout and serious but what strange Liberty hast thou given thy self soon after How hath thy Piety and Goodness died again and thy Carefulness to please God given up the Ghost and expired 8. And he sent Peter and John saying Go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat HOW often O my Soul hath God sent his Spirit and his Messengers to thee with an Order to prepare and meet thy God by a serious Repentance Yet thou hast either resisted his Spirit or disobliged his Messengers or undervalued their Summons How little hast thou regarded the Condescention of so great a God! How little hast thou minded the Favour God did thee in visiting so worthless a Creature Dost not thou remember how thou hast pretended that thou hadst either Farms to see or Oxen to buy or an House to look after and thus hast put off thy God that would fain have gathered thee as an Hen doth her Brood under her Wings 9. And they said unto him Where wilt thou that we prepare HOW careful are the Disciples that they may do nothing contrary to their Master's Will How do they enquire after the very place where he would have them prepare O my Soul How little hast thou been concerned whether thy God were pleased or not Thou hast been so far from observing the Circumstantials of Religion that thou hast not minded the Substance How hast thou rushed into Sin as the Horse rushes into the Battel without being sollicitous or concerned about offending God! How little hast thou enquired what thy Lord and Master requires of thee How contentedly ignorant hast thou been of his Laws and how loth to know thy Master's Will that thou mightest not be obliged to do it 10. And he said unto them Behold when you are entred into the City there shall a Man meet you bearing a Pitcher of Water follow him into the House where he enters in HOW strangely doth Providence order things Just at the Disciples entring into the City God orders this Man to meet them How wonderfully O my Soul hath God made the Second Causes to meet for thy good How hath God turned such Men's Hearts towards thee into Mercy and Compassion How often when thou hast been in Trouble hath God sent thee a Deliverer How often when thou hast seen no probability of Help hath God come in with his Salvation Yet how careless hast thou been of his Providence How apt hast thou been to ascribe these Events to Second Causes Dost not thou blush to think thou shouldst be so dull as not to see God in such Dispensations 11. And ye shall say to the good Man of the House The Master saith unto thee Where is the Guest-Chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my Disciples HOW often O my Soul hath thy great Master attempted to enter into thy Heart and to make that his Guest-Chamber And how surly how ill-natur'd how impudent hast thou been in refusing so great a Guest whose Presence would have enriched thee with infinite Treasures Temporal Profit Honour Ease and Pleasure have but gently knocked at the Door and thou hast listen'd and heard and run to open to them See where thy Love and thy Treasure lies Christ hath stood without knocking and calling Open to me my Sister my Spouse for my Locks are wet with Dew But how loth hast thou been to rise from thy Bed of State or from thy Couch of Luxury to let in that Heavenly Friend Were it not just when thy Prayers knock at Heaven Gate that he should fling them back into thy Face and say As thou wouldst not hear when I called so shalt thou call and I will not hear 12. And she shall shew you a large Upper Room furnished there make ready AND O my Soul hath not thy Lord shewn thee very often a large Upper Room even Heaven it self where the Supper of the Lamb is to be kept and to which thou hast been invited Yet how hast thou preferred this Dunghil Earth before it How contemptible have those Everlasting Mansions been in thine Eyes How hast thou hugged thy Plenty here below and how contentedly hast thou lived without any Assurance that the Eternal Riches shall fall to thy share How little hath that Heaven affected thee How little have thy Affections been stirred with the Thoughts of it How often hast thou looked upon that glorious Place without any Longings to be there or to feast there with thy great Redeemer 13. And they went and found as he had said to them and made ready the Passover THis is the Property of God that he cannot lye If he saith or fore-tells things they must necessarily come to pass Yet how hast thou lived O my Soul as if thy God were false to his Word Thou hast lived in Sin and yet hast believed that God would receive thee at last into Glory Thou hast embraced Follies which he hath protested shall exclude thee from the Kingdom of Heaven and yet hast fancied that thou shalt be happy What is this but to make God a Lyar and to hope that he will not be so good as his Word When thou hast hoped for Heaven without Holiness for a Crown without Conquest for an Everlasting Reward without bearing the Heat and Burthen of the Day and for the same Felicity the Son of God enjoys without imitating him in his Meekness Patience Humility and Charity Hast not thou plainly flattered thy self that God would break his Word and act contrary to his Promises and Threatnings 14. And when the Hour was come he sate down and the Twelve Apostles with him SEE how the great Saviour of the World disdains not to sit down at the Table with a Company of Fisher-men Yet how scornfully O my Soul hast thou looked sometimes upon thy Neighbour What high Thoughts
hast thou had of thine own Worth And how hast thou undervalued the Man or Woman that have had to no other Crime but Poverty Thou hast thought thy Inferiors scarce worth talking to How unlike thy Redeemer is this Pride and Haughtiness Were Grace an Inhabitant of thy Heart what low Thoughts wouldst thou have of thy self How readily wouldst thou converse even with the meanest Saint How wouldst thou learn to esteem Men more for their Holiness than for their Riches And how lovely would a Creature that hath the Image of God upon him look in thine Eyes Far more lovely than the greatest Monarch or Lady that have nothing to recommend them but their outward Splendor 15. And he said unto them With Desire I have desired to eat this Passover before I suffer HOW doth God long for our Happiness How fervent are his Desires to do us good Yet how little have these Longings prevailed with thee O my Soul Notwithstanding all these Desires of God to make thee happy how hast thou longed after the muddy Waters of Sensual Pleasures Nay longed to be for ever miserable when in despight of his Intreaties not to neglect so great Salvation thou hast longed for the stolen Waters of sinful Delights coveted Death and been enamoured with Destruction How hath God intreated thee to close with him upon his own Terms and how hast thou grieved him with thy Refusal How hath the Almighty beseeched thee by his Ambassadors to be reconciled to him and yet thou hast stood out and baffled the Stratagems of Mercy 16. For I say unto you I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God CHrist rejoyces that the Shadows are at an end and that the Substance or Antitype is approaching for as the Passover was a Sign of the Jews Deliverance from Egyptian Bondage so that Deliverance was a Shadow or Emblem of our Deliverance from Sin here and our Exemption from all Misery and Trouble in Heaven which was now to be effected by the Death of Christ. But O my Soul how hast thou hunted after Shadows and left the Substance unregarded What are the Glories of this World but mere Shews Yet how fond art thou of them and how strangely hast thou been enamoured with them These Shadows intimate that there are more substantial Glories in the Everlasting Mansions yet these thou passest by and the other thou art delighted with See how thou dotest on those painted Coronets those Butter-flies those Airy Nothings while with the Cock in the Fable thou tramplest on the Pearl even on the Pearl of Price to purchase which the Spiritual Merchant in the Gospel sold all he had 17. And he took the Cup and gave Thanks and said Take this and divide it among your selves HOW thankful is our Great Mediator for every Mercy he received from his Everlasting Father Yet how ungrateful hast thou been O my Soul to thy mighty Benefactor What Mercies hast thou received at his Hands and what strange Returns hast thou made for them Thy God hath been kind to thee and thou hast been base and unworthy How hast thou fed on his Blessings and ascribed them to thy Wisdom and Industry How hast thou lived upon his Charity and spurned at his Laws Foolish Creature Dost thou thus reward the Lord thy God Thou shouldest not eat a bit but send some Thanksgiving-Ejaculations to Heaven yet thou contentest thy self with a careless Grace and never thinkest more afterward of God How little dost thou mind the Providences that are sent upon thee And while thou considerest not the Operations of God's Hands how canst thou be thankful 18. For I say unto you I will not drink of the Fruit of the Vine until the Kingdom of God shall come INdeed Heaven hath the best and choicest Wine even the Wine of Angels This Wine is the ravishing Love of God This transports the Understanding and wraps up the Intellect in Extasies of Joy and Comfort A brutish Man knows not this neither doth a Fool understand it And hath not this been thy Case O my Soul How weary hast thou been of thinking of this Banquet How soon have thy Spirits tired with meditating of that Love How ready hast thou been to think of the World and the last Night's Revel and how backward to reflect on this richer Entertainment What a Weariness hath it been to thee to survey these Glories to walk about that Jerusalem and to behold the Towers and Bulwarks of it 19. And he took Bread and gave Thanks and brake it and gave unto them saying This is my Body which is given for you This do in remembrance of me HEre begins the happy Institution of the holy Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood and the great Command to remember the Death of Jesus and together with that an Item of the greatest Love that can be shewn to poor Mortals Yet how backward O my Soul hast thou been sometimes to come to this holy Sacrament Thou should'st have longed for an Opportunity to remember this Death with the People of God What is this Bread but an Emblem of the Communion of Saints and a Representation of thy Communion with the Great Head the Lord Jesus Yet how little Delight hast thou taken in this Ordinance How often hast thou come out of Formality only How little have thine Affections been moved with that stupendous Love Either Sin or Malice to thy Neighbour or some Worldly Trouble hath made thee stay away The Thoughts of this Love should have thrown down all thy Strong Holds of Iniquity and left thee in a calm holy spiritual Temper But how hast thou preferred thy little Concerns in the World before this Feast And what Hazards hast thou run of being doomed to a Spiritual Famine as those Guests against whom the Master of the Feast protested that they should never taste of his Supper 20. Likewise also the Cup after Supper saying this Cup is the New Testament of my Blood which is shed for you AT how dear a rate was the remission of our sins purchased The Blood of the Son of God was the Price Greater Love hath no Man shewn than that he lay down his life for his Friends but here is one that laid it down for his Enemies that they may be pardoned How hast thou looked upon this pardon O my Soul sometimes without standing amazed at the height and breadth and depth and length of the love of God! How cold hast thou been in thy desires after this precious Blood Thou should'st have stood under the Cross waiting for the drops that trickled down But the familiarity of the joyful news of it alas hath too often wrought in thee a dis-esteem of it Nay how light hast thou made of this remission and by making so light of it thou hast profan'd it too when thou hast sinned because God is willing to pardon sinners and hast made that pardoning Blood an encouragement to indulge thy self in thy carnal
Confessions specifies the particular Acts wherein he hath walk'd contrary to God discovers an earnest desire to grow in Grace and in this St. Paul shews us an example 1 Tim. 1. 13. where he doth not say I have been a great Sinner but a Blasphemer spoke ill of the way to Life a Persecuter afflicted oppressed and made havock of the Churches of God injurious done great injuries to St. Stephen and to abundance of other Christians In a word such a person by his particular Confession deals faithfully with his own Soul and by mentioning the particular Diseases that annoy him manifests his earnest desire of a Cure whereas General Confessions leave the Soul ignorant dull careless and unaffected with the great Concerns of Salvation And tho' a person every time he accuses himself or confesses his Errors is not bound to enumerate all the particular Sins of his Life he can charge his Memory with yet if he never did it before it 's fit he should do it at least when first he receives the Holy Sacrament and at other times confess such fins as he finds himself most inclin'd to and most apt to harbor in his Bosom 2. These Confessions must be accompanied especially the Confessions before the Sacrament with aggravations of our Offences and with shame and confusion of Face I joyn these two together because aggravating of them is the cause of that confusion and he that reflects in his Confessions what light what knowledge what checks of Conscience what motions of God's Spirit what goodness of God what mercy what patience what promises what threatnings he hath sinn'd against what time he hathlost what opportunities he hath neglected what a gracious what a merciful God he hath offended even love it self and sweetness and beauty it self and what blessings what priviledges what advantages what offers he hath slighted will find himself obliged to have very low and mean thoughts of himself This was the Publican's case Luke 18. 13. Who standing afar off would not lift up so much as his Eyes to Heaven but smote upon his Breast saying God be merciful to me a Sinner He was ashamed and confounded His Conscience told him how unworthily he had dealt with his Creator how strangely he had carried himself to God his best and greatest Friend how unthankful and how base he had been to his most gracious Benefactor and how strangely he had carried himself to the best of Beings He was confounded with the thoughts of his vileness and conscious of his guilt he â—ast his eyes to the ground unable to look his offended Father in the Face His Heart was full of grief Sorrow fate heavy on his Soul and though his Tongue could not express his particular acts of injustice oppression pride anger and greediness after the World yet his Mind confess'd them thought of them his Heart was ready to break at the dismal sight and this was a very acceptable Confession 3. These Confessions must be joyned with invincible purposes to endeavour after a better and more Spiritu-Temper So the wise Man tells us He that confesses his Sins and forsakes theâ— shall find mercy Prov. 28. 13. Without this Qualification our Confessions are mere Lip-services and rceive not one gracious Look from above nay are accounted no better than Israel's Devotion Hos. 10. 1. Israel is an empty Vine He brings forth fruit unto himself Why unto himself The reason is because in that fruit he aim'd not so much at God's Glory as his own Profit Nor was any Person the better for it the design was selfish it was just to satisfie the present terror within no love of God lay at the bottom the ground of all was self-love and God had nothing to do with it The same may justly be said of him that confesses but is not concern'd whether his Flesh be subdued to the Spirit or not Such a Confession is his own invention it is not that Confession which God requires If he confesses it must not be to himself for God regards it not and indeed till this actual endeavour to forsake them is added to the Confession our Sins continue still in God's Books of Accompt look still as black as ever not one of them is blotted out for the enmity against God is still maintained and whilst that lasts it naturally follows that God and we cannot be friends III. The second act of judging our selves is upon this Confession to condemn our selves And indeed if the Soul be truly awake and the Heart sincerely sensible of its errors and miscarriages the Penitent cannot but condemn himself and acknowledge that the Judgments threatned in the word of God are due to him and cry Ah! my God and my Lord Who shall deliver me from the Body of this death from this confluence of Misery I have deserv'd with Adam to be thrown out of Paradise and to be for ever forbid eating of the Tree of Life I have deserv'd to drown'd with the first World or to be consumed for ever as Sodom and Gomorrah I have deserved the sudden and unnatural death of Nadab and Abihu to be stoned with Achan to be struck with Leprosie as Miriam to be swallowed up â—live by the Earth as Dathan and Abiram I have deserv'd Manasseh's Prison and Zedekiah's Chains and what is worse the everlasting Chains of Darkness I acknowledge that I have deserved it should be more tolerable for Infidels in the Great Day than for me for I have seen the mighty works of God and continu'd a stranger to Repentance I have deserved to be called upon at Midnight as that careless Man Thou Fool this Night thy Soul shall be required of thee and whose shall be which thou hast provided To this Wretch that is before thee belongs nothing but Wrath and Indignation On this Head of mine thou mightest justly discharge the Ordinance of Justice and pour out the Vials of thy Wrath On me thou mightest justly rain snares and Fire and Brimstone I have deserv'd to be plagued with Diseases tormented with grievous Pain haunted by panick Terrors If any of these Judgments do not fall upon mee it is thy Patience not my Goodness and I may wonder I have escaped them all this while I have deserved to be made a Prey to that Devil whose Temptations I have swallow'd with Greediness Instead of rejoycing over me to build me up thou mightest justly rejoyce over me to destroy me Justly O Lord thou mightest send upon me trembling of Heart and fainting of Eyes and sorrow of Mind I have deserv'd that my Life should hang in doubt before me that I should fear day and night that in the Morning I should say Would God it were Even and at Even Would God it were Morning Mercy Lord I have deserved none The Crums that fall from thy Table are Blessings too good for me if I deserve any thing it is thy Rod thy Scourges thy Waves thy Billows and a horrible Tempest To condemn is the proper act of a
Sacrament pag. 198. Chap. XV. Of frequent Receiving the Holy Communion and the necessity of it pag. 228. Chap. XVI Of the Perpetuity of this Ordinance and the Necessity of its continuance to the Worlds End pag. 250. Chap. XVII Of Eating and Drinking unworthily in this Ordinance and the Guilt the unworthy Receiver incurs thereby pa. 269. Chap. XVIII Of the sad Effects and Consequences of unworthy Eating and Drinking in this Holy Sacrament and first of Temporal Judgments pag. 343. Chap. XIX Of Bodily Sickness Weakness and untimely Death which are sometimes by way of Judgment inflicted on unworthy Receivers of this Blessed Sacrament pag. 360. Chap. XX. Of Spiritual Weakness Sickness and Death the second Temporal Judgment inflicted sometimes on the unworthy Receivers of this Holy Sacrament pag. 375. Chap. XXI Of Damnation which the unworthy Receiver Eats and Drinks to himself pag. 393. Chap. XXII Of Preparation and first of Meditation of Christ's Passion pag. 408. Chap. XXIII Of Sâ—lf-examination the Second Act of preparation for this Holy Sacrament pag. 496. Chap. XXIV Of Judging our selves the Third Preparative Duty in order to our worthy Receiving of the Blessed Sacrament pag. 531. Chap. XXV Of Self-resignation the Fourth Preparatory Duty in order to a worthy Receiving of this Holy Sacrament pa. 553. Chap. XXVI Of Preparatory Devotions and Aspirations fit to be used in Private before we come to the Sacrament pag. 566. Chap. XXVII Of the proper Acts of Devotion when we come to the Holy Table pag. 573. Chap. XXVIII Of the proper Acts of Devotion after we have Receiv'd 582. Chap. XXIX Of the Life we are to lead after we have Receiv'd the Holy Communion pa. 587. Chap. XXX Of the Ceremony or posture of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament pag. 594. FINIS L. Plotius 2 Tim. 3. 1. 1 Cor. 11. v. 28. l. 19. contr Faust. c. 11. l. 6. de Bell. Gall Acts 2. 36. Oecum in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soc. l. 2. c. 33. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 7. c. 21. Gregor l. 7. Epistol 62. L. 6. c. 23. See Archbishop Spotswood's Hist. Book 2. p. 69. Vid. Vers. LXX l. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Voss Disp. 19. de Sacris Coen Dom. Symb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Platin. in Sixt. 1. Greg. M. l 7. Ep. 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 36. Can. 101. L'Arroque ' s History of the Eucharist Part 1. O. 13. Jac. Goar in Not. ad Miss Chrysost. p.m. 150. Hoc vero nihil aliud est nce aliter nominari aut haberi potest quam magica incantatio Hosp. Hist. Sacrament Part. 2. p. 103. Distinct. 2. de Consecr Can. 74. Lib. 3. de Euch. cap. 8. Suffragatur nobis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 analogia Hebraismus actio circumstantia nihil non Oeconimo Epist. ad Melancth Sir George Wheeler's Voyage l. 2. p. 128. In Ludolph Hist. Aethiop l. 3. c. 5. De Defect Orat. Idiot de Am. div cap. 4 Euseb. Hist. lib. 7. c. 17. Sozom. Hist. 1. 5. c. 20. Zonar ad Can. 32. Conc. in Trulio Epiphan Haer. 46. August Haer. 64 Philastr Haer. 77. Ludolph Histor. Aeth l. 3. c. 6. Platin. in Zephyrin 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Georg Cassand Consult Art 22. Concil Constant. Sess. 13. Hist. Eccl. l. 13. C. 7. Hierom. in 1 Cor. 2. Hist. Fccl. l. 17. c. 25. Hesych in Levit. 18. Can. 3. Petrus de Natalibus l. 5. 21. Herodot l. 4. See The Happy Ascet. Exerc. 6. Just. Mart. Apol. 1. pro Christianis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Psal. 22. 6 7. 8 9. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See Chap. 15. Sect. 5. ¶ 1. Sophr. vel Mosch in prat Spir. cap. 31. Dr. Hammond â— Sam. 14. 31. compared with 2 Sam. â—18 14. Council Eliber c. 3. Ne lusisse decommunione Dominicâ videantur Cap. 8. Serm. 5. de Laps In corpore ore violato Eucharistia permanere non poâ—uit Sanctificatus in Domini sangâ—ne potus de pollutis visceribus â—rupit Id. Ib. Psal. 78. 30 31. Dionys. Areop de Hier. Eccl. cap. 5 De Sacram. Dist. 3. Tract 1. cap. 4. De Myster Miss l. 4. c. 44. Damian in spec Monach. P. Jean Bapt. de St. Jure de la Connois de l'amour de nostre Seign Liv. 1. Sect. 2. Serm. de diligend Deo Hospin Hist. Sacram lib. 2. cap. 2. Conc. Trid. Sess. 5. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Willam de Raley and Wil. Longspe Arrian Epict. l. 2. c. 16. Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 23.
and Devils Nor need we wonder why God suffers these abuses for the permits them as he doth other sins to let Men see at last that their Condemnation is just Besides this makes those who use this Ordinance in pursuance of the right end of its Institution more glorious in God's Eyes for this hath still been the Privilege of the true Church of God to flourish like a Lilly among Thorns and what the Apostle saith of Heresie in general is most true of these Abuses There must be such things in the World that those which are approved may be made manifest 1 Cor. 11. 19. The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. THE holier any thing is that is abused the greater is the Crime When Belshazar Dan. 5. 1. was resolved to be drunk had he made himself a Beast by drinking out of common Cups though the sin had been great and against Nature yet it might have passed unpunished here as other Villanies are but when nothing would serve his turn but to drink his Reason and his Wits away out of the Bowls of the Sanctuary and to add Profanation of the Vessels of the Lord's House to all his Crimes this allarmed the Divine Vengeance immediately and rather than not shew his Displeasure God thought himself obliged to be at the Charge of a Miracle which caused the fatal Hand upon the Wall and the King's Overthrow followed within a few hours after And if the Abuse of consecrated Vessels raised so great a Storm what must the abuse of consecrated Reason and Duties and Mercies do Sirs your Reason is a consecrated thing God hath set it apart for his use that you should consider and contrive how to get a share among the Blessed hereafter if you abuse it and will let it serve you for no other end but to teach you how you may grow rich and great and fill your Bellies with hid Treasures will not God visit for these things and will not his Soul be avenged on such Persons Your signal Mercies and Deliverances are consecrated things God hath set them apart to put you in mind of your Gratitude to teach you Submission to his Will and to walk humbly with your God if after these you are careless and live as regardless of your Duty as you did before will not God reckon with you one day for such abuses Should a poor Man take the Cordial you send him and fling it upon a Dunghil how would you resent it and can God like it do you think to see how like Mad-men you tear off the Cloaths he gives you to cover your Nakedness to see you live the reverse of his Designs to see you fight against him with his Mercies and as it was in the Case of the Daughter Jerusalem Ezech. 16-17 to see you take the fair Jewels of Gold and of Silver he hath given you and make to your selves Images of Men and commit fornication with them II. One great abuse of this Holy Sacrament is to fancy that like a spell it will charm sin out of your mortal Bodies so that you need be at no trouble to mortifie it The Sacrament indeed confers Grace but it is objectively as it contains very great Motives to a lively Faith and Hope and Charity and it confers Grace too as a cause without which Grace would not be convey'd because God hath promised in this Ordinance to be present and as the Dew of Hermon or as the Dew descends on the Mountains of Sion so here the Lord commands his Blessing even life for evermore But still it doth not confer Grace Physically as if the mere use of it would make you Favourites of Heaven and Children of his Love It 's Physick indeed which will work a Cure but then the Person that makes use of it must be qualified for it must be sensible that he is sick and willing to be cured of his Spiritual Diseases and then God will look upon him as a Father and manifest himself to him look upon him as a kind Physitian and make the Medicine effectual to him look upon him as a Friend and take him into his bosom and say to him as it is Es. 49. 8. In an acceptable time have I heard thee and in a day of Salvation have I helped thee and I will preserve thee and cause thee to inherit the desolate Heritages III. The abuses committed by some in this Sacrament must not tempt us to neglect the use of it If the abuse that others have been guilty of were a sufficient excuse to stay away we might as well argue that Meat and Drink and Cloaths and Books and Learning may not be used because ill Men have perverted the harmless design of them We should count that Man a fool that should resolve because a Man of such a Profession hath cheated him therefore he will never deal with a Man of that Profession again or because such a Person who pretended to strictness of Religion hath plaid the knave with him therefore he will never trust a Religious Man again The same absurdity would he commit that from the abuse that others have run into in the Holy Communion should resolve to abstain from it for this would be as much as to resolve to be mad because others are and have been so God hath furnish'd us with Faculties and Powers to discern the Dross from the Silver and the Tin from the purer Mettal and we have his Word to guide us in distinguishing the use from the abuse and as the temperate Man still drinks Wine though thousands in the World still pervert the use of that Creature so a good Christian can see no rational discouragement from coming to this Table though some have made it their bane and turned it into their own destruction The PRAYER O Most Gracious God who hast given us thine Ordinances for our Comfort and Edification and directed us how to use them to thy Glory Give me an Understanding Heart and a pure Mind that they may be a savour of Life unto Life to me Let me not touch these Holy things with unclean Hands but purifie my Soul and cleanse it from that filthiness which doth so easily beset it that I may be fit for thy Divine and Glorious Influences Lord without thee I can do nothing thou art the Vine and I the Branch convey thy Celestial Juice into this withered Branch that I may revive and bring forth much fruit and have my Fruit unto Holiness and the end everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. VI. Of Receiving the Lord's Supper Fasting and how far it is Necessary The CONTENTS It is a thing not absolutely necessary to receive the Lord's Supper fasting Several Reasons to prove the Assertion Yet to receive it Fasting is a thing very conventent because it quickens Devotion and is an Act agreeable to the mortifying Prospect of Christ's Death and warranted by the Practice of the Universal Church Total Abstinence from Food that Morning
we receive may be prejudicial to some Constitutions which must therefore be indulged to eat something at Home Cautions and Rules to be observed in Eating before we Receive The Decay of Fasting among Christians of this Age an Argument of the Decay of Christianity To Fasting before we Receive must be joined afterward Abstinence from Sin The Prayer I. THat it is not absolutely necessary to eat the Lord's Supper Fasting will appear from the following Arguments 1. Neither Eating nor Abstinence do in themselves commend us unto God for neither if we Eat are we the worse neither if we Eat not are we the worse saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 8. 8. It 's not the Belly God regards so much as the Heart and the Frame of the Soul he ever respects more than the Bowels The Pharisee that lays the stress of his Religion upon an empty Stomach mistakes the Nature of God as much as the Pythagorean who fancies God will be pleased with his chusing one sort of Food before another Neither the former's abstaining from Swines-Flesh nor the other's Aversion from Beans is an Offering acceptable to him especially where they stand single and have no other Virtues to bear them company God being a Spirit loves to converse with Spiritual Natures and such are our Souls and an humble and broken Spirit prevails more with him than all outward Ceremonies whatsoever The Jews Es. 58. 3. were as much out when they cryed Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not as those Luk. 13. 26. that said to Christ Have not we eaten and drunk in thy presence One Act of sincere Contrition is a more pleasing Spectacle to God than a thousand external Formalities and doing his Will a more acceptable Sacrifice than a rueful Face Fasting hath no intrinsick Virtue the Gracious Aspect God vouchsafes it is upon the account of something within that looks very lovely in his Eyes and that is a Conscience sprinkled from dead Works 2. Christ's Example is a convincing Argument that to receive it Fasting is not absolutely necessary Not only St. Matthew Matth. 26. 26. but the other Evangelists assure us that while Christ and his Disciples were eating the Passover or as soon as they had eaten it he took Bread and Blessed it and brake and gave it to his Disciples and said take eat c. Had it been a sin to do so we may rationally suppose the first Author of this Sacrament would have given no encouragement to it by his Example and though it 's true that may be sometimes lawful in a Prince which may be an Error in the Subject yet our Great Master laid aside that Piece of State and appeared in the Form of a Servant and became obedient to that Law he would have his Followers live up to He did not prescribe one thing and do another but like a watchful General put his Hand to that Plough at which he would have others labour and it 's evident enough that while he and the Disciples were eating or as soon as they had eated the Passover and consequently they were not fasting he bid them Eat and Drink of the Sacramental Bread and Wine which accordingly they did and we may be confident he would not have led them into an Error 3. The Apostles afterward we see were indifferent whether they gave it to Men fasting or to Persons who had been at a Meal just before so they were but studious of a pure and spotless Conversation and so much appears from what we read Act. 2. 46. After they came from the Temple i.e. after they came from the Common Prayer in the Temple which was at Nine of the Clock in the Morning and at Three in the Afternoon they break Bread from House to House and giving it in the Afternoon as well as in the Morning we may justly conclude they laid no stress upon Peoples receiving it fasting However it 's plain that the Corinthian Christians by St. Pauls Allowance and Approbation administred and received it after their Love-Feasts and while they observed the Rules of Decency Sobriety and Temperance and Charity and Seriousness in those Agapae or Feasts of Charity the Apostle found no fault with their Communicating after them but when they became luxurious and grew exorbitant and made provision for the Flesh more than the Spirit he justly changed his Discourse and turned his former Gentleness into sharp Reproofs and Apostolical Reprehensions and he had reason for these Doings would have soon brought this weighty Ordinance into Contempt and made Men abhor the Offerings of the Lord. II. Notwithstanding all this to receive it Fasting is a thing very convenient 1. Because it quickens Devotion That we are not to come to the Table of our Lord with an indifferency of Mind or looseness of Fancy or carelesness of Affections none can be ignorant The sublimest Mystery requires the sublimest Thoughts and a Mind as clear from gross and carnal Apprehensions as Mortality will let us but this is not to be done without Fasting Meat and Drink filling the Brain with Fumes and as you have seen a Cloud coming before the Sun intercepting and darkening the brighter Rays of that noble Planet so the greasie Steams and Vapours which feeding before sends up to the nobler Parts must needs in some measure at least obscure the Understanding the Sun in this Microcosm and hinder it from spreading and dispersing its kindly Beams and Influences and this was the Opinion not only of the Primitive Believers but of the Pythagoreans also and other Philosophers whose Great Maxim was That the purest Thoughts flow from an empty Stomâ—ch or Self-denial in Meat and Drink That the ancient Christians fasted so often the reason certainly was to give Wings to their Devotion and to make their Prayers fly the faster and with greater Alacrity to Heaven This way they found was most proper to plant a Spiritual Temper in their Souls and when they would mount up with greater Chearfulness above the Clouds they gave themselves to Fasting and Prayer And indeed in some Constitutions at least the Soul never acts more like it self than when the Body gives it no Divertisement by Eating and Drinking for a time The more the Body is fed the leaner grows the Soul and the leaner the Body is kept the fatter grows the Soul all which is evidence enough That to receive the Holy Communion Fasting is the way to receive it with the quickest and therefore most sutable Devotion 2. To receive it fasting is an Act most agreeable to the mortifying Prospect of Christ's Death and Passion What Look upon so dismal an Object with a full Stomach or a pampered Body which is enough to tempt us to say with St. Thomas in another case Let us go that we may dye with him John 11. 16. He that comes to this Sacrament comes to dye with Christ i. e. to dye to Sin and sure no sober Man will think Eating and Drinking to be a proper Preparative for