of it and in so doing have higher thoughts and reflect upon all the instances of his Love to their Immortal Souls and teach their Successors to do so too This Jesus who by wicked hands was Crucified and whom God hath made both Lord and Christ was the Master and Author of this Feast and from him it justly derives its Name 2. Because the end of this Eating and Drinking is to Commemorate the Death of the Lord Jesus As the end of the Passover under the Law was to remember the great Deliverance from the Egyptian Bondage and that of the Feast of Tabernacles their being guided through the Wilderness by a Cloud and their Ancestors dwelin Booths and Tents As the Feast of Trumpets was instituted either by way of Anticipation that they might remember afterwards how the Walls of Jericho fell or to refresh their Minds with Isaac's Sacrifice an Emblem of the Messiah's Death and the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost was ordained as a Testimony of their Gratitude for a Plentiful Harvest and to put them in mind of the Liberty they gain'd when God gave them the Law and entred into a Covenant with them and that of Purim to bring into their Memories how they were rescued from the cruelty of Haman the Amalekite and that of the Dedication to suggest to them the Rebuilding of the Temple So the Lord Jesus enjoyn'd and recommended the keeping of this Feast to his Followers that they might remember how their Master loved them and made his Death a demonstration of Love how he died to make them happy and denied himself in all the Contents of Life to make theirs blessed and glorious for ever how he submitted to the Power of the Grave to purchase their comfortable Resurrection and fell a Sacrifice that they might have hopes of Pardon through his Blood a Remembrance so just that if this Charity deserves not frequent Commemoration no Mercy no Benefit no Favour no Providence can deserve it for this goes beyond all that the Word of God calls glorious and beneficial to Mankind 3. It s the Lord's Supper because the Lord Jesus is Meat and Drink in this Feast Meat indeed and Drink indeed as the expression is John 6. 11. for though that Chapter speaks not directly of this Supper yet the Phrases and modes of speech used there may very piously be applied to what is represented by the Elements in this Feast for the Benefits Advantages and Emoluments of Christs Death are Food so proper to a Religious Soul and a gracious Mind feeds so savourly upon these that nothing deserves the name of Spiritual Meat and Drink so much as these and indeed these nourish and feed the Soul make her strong and lively these are her Cordials and Restoratives and in the nature of David's Oyl Psal. 104. 15. which make her Face to shine 4. It 's the Lords Supper because the nourishment and strength it affords or yields is by the influence of the Lord Jesus He sends his Spirit into the Soul that comes to his Feast hungry and thirsty and longing after the Riches of Gods Love whereby the Soul is inflamed to love him who bought her at this dear rate and that love produces Peaceableness and Gentleness and Faith and Purity and Sincerity and Delight in good Works which are excellent signs of the Souls growing strong in the use of the Spiritual Food The Holy Spirit of Christ destroys the reigning Power of Sin in her and the government of the Flesh for the leaner this grows and the more the authority of it is diminished the better the Soul thrives and the more vigorous and active it becomes in all its faculties III. Though to call this Feast The Lord's Supper when it is in most Churches Celebrated in the Morning seems to be improper yet the reason why it still bears the name is Because the same substantial Actions are still observed in the Celebration of it that were used by Christ and his Disciples at his first institution in the night and not only the same Actions but the same end and design is kept on foot which we find in its first foundation and whenever it is celebrated it 's still in imitation of that Supper and that Supper is still remembred in it The reason why Christ in instituting of it made use of the night which gave it the name of a Supper was because it was to be succedaneous to the Passover which according to custom was eaten at night as the Deliverance which the Jews remembred then was performed by the Angel at night and as the Passover represented the Old Covenant or Testament and this Feast the New so it was fit that the later should be instituted immediately after the Celebration of the former that both being set together their different signification might more plainly appear and Men might see what Mercies they might expect from the bringing in of a better Covenant This being the occasion of Christ Celebrating this Feast at night and consequently the reason ceasing with the Typical Passover the Christian Churches in process of time took the liberty of Celebrating it at all seasons as they saw it either necessary or expedient And though what I have said about the Passover is the Principal reason why Christ made choice of the night for this Institution yet for ought we know it might be with an intent also to hint to us how by this Sacrament the night of Ignorance which sat heavy on the minds of most Men would be dispell'd that by night is sometimes understood the night of Ignorance in Scripture is evident from Matth. 4. 16. Es. 9. 1 2. Rom. 13. 12. and that by the devout and religious use of this Sacrament our Ignorance is in a great measure cured experience is a sufficient testimony Hereby certainly our minds are signally enlightned and we behold the Wisdom Love and Goodness of God discover the methods and ways of Salvation get clear Apprehensions of the Mysteries of our Faith and see how inconsistent the Works of Darkness are with this solemn remembrance of the Death of Christ hereby we come to feel the Power of God toward them that Believe and find out the Secret of the Union that is betwixt Christ and his true Followers and learn to know that what is said in the Word of God concerning the tender regard of Christ to his Church and Friends is no Fable Add to all this that Christ made choice of the night possibly to put us in mind of his sudden coming to Judgment which is frequently expressed in Scripture by his coming in the night Mark 13. 35 36. Luke 12. 38 39. 1 Thessal 5 2. Rev. 3. 3. nor is this an unsuitable Reflection in this Sacrament to contemplate his coming to judge the World for though that coming may strike terror into Men that put the evil day far from them and prepare not for their Lord 's coming yet to a Soul enlightned and Sanctified it cannot but
remembred in this Sacrament What kind of Death it was shewn in four Particulars How this Death is to be remembred The Benefits of this Remembrance laid down Though the Death of Christ be the principal thing that is to be remembred in this Sacrament yet that puts no stop to other Remembrances Christ's Example makes it lawful to preserve the memory of any signal Mercy or Providence we meet with Those that do not remember Christ's Death in this Sacrament do very much forget themselves The remembrance of his Death a Motive to forget the World and the Vanities of it This Remembrance the best Defensative against Sin The Prayer I. AS these words Do this in remembrance of me do necessarily import the Bread in this Sacrament to be a Memorial of Christ's Crucified Body or that which is to put us in mind of it and consequently suppose that Christ's real Body is absent so how Christ is to be remembred here must needs be worth our serious enquiry What Christ calls Doing in remembrance of him the Apostle the best Interpreter of his words stiles Shewing forth his Death 1 Cor. 11. 26. So that his Death is the thing that is to be remembred here by all the Communicants And that this Death is worth our serious remembrance will easily appear if we consider what Death the Death of Christ Jesus was For 1. It was the Death of God According to the Quality of the Person dying so his Death is more or less surprizing hence the Death of a King makes a greater noise in the World than that of a Peasant The Death remembred here is the Death of the King of Kings and though as God he could not dye yet it may truly be said that he that was God did die not in his Godhead but in his Humanity not as dwelling in a Light inaccessible but as dwelling in a Tabernacle of Flesh. Plutarch relates that he had heard his Master Epitherses tells this Story How in the Emperor Tiberius's time under whom Christ suffered intending to Sail into Italy he went aboard of a Ship laden with many Goods and Passengers One Evening coming near certain Islands call'd the Echinades the Wind slackening and the Ship being becalm'd with a slow pace they arriv'd at last at the Isle of Paxae Several of the Seamen and Passengers sitting up that Night and drinking on a suddain from off the Island came a Voice calling to Thamus the Master of the Ship thrice When you are come as far as the Palodes proclaim that the Great PAN is dead The Master and his Company doubtful what to do whether they should do according to the import of the Voice or no resolved at last if the Wind favour'd them to pass by the Palodes and say nothing but if they were becalm'd about that place then to cry as they were directed So sailing on and coming to the place they found themselves strangely becalm'd whereupon Thamus call'd aloud That the Great PAN was dead which words he had no sooner spoken but great Howlings and Sighings and Lamentations were heard By PAN the Heathens meant the God of the Universe or him that rul'd govern'd and influenced all and it 's probable this Voice had relation to Christ Jesus who suffered about that time at Jerusalem and that upon the news of this Death Howlings were heard it 's very likely this noise was made by Fiends and Devils whom the Death of the Son of God filling all in all put into those excesses of consternation and sorrow And lest any Man should object That the Furies of Hell had no reason to mourn at his Death but might rejoyce rather that their great Antagonist was gone it must be noted That they feared the Power and Virtue of that Death such Virtue as in a short time would make all the Powers of Darkness tremble and destroy their Empire When Abner Saul's General was carried to his Grave King David follow'd the Herse and said Know ye not that there is a Prince and a great Man fallen this day in Israel 2 Sam. 3. 38. If such a death as Abner's deserv'd to be taken notice of what must we think of the Death of the Lord Jesus Not a Great Man only but one of whom it was said Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thy Hands Heb. 1. 10. How justly is this death remembred by his Followers And what a mixture of Passions Amazement as well as Gladness Trembling as well as rejoycing ought it to cause in all Christian Hearts to think that our God died for us A Captain hath his like a General his Fellow a Prince may be parallel'd with others a King may meet with others of his Rank and Quality but God hath no equal 2. It was the Death of a Person higher than the highest for his Enemies Regulus Codrus Mutius and among the Jews Moses had courage to die for their Country and the good of the People they were related to but still they were their Friends but here a Person ador'd by Angels worshipp'd by all the Host of Heaven the Comfort of Paradise the Joy of Seraphim the Terror of Devils the Lord of Life the Eternal Son of God the Brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person dies for Men for Men miserable and wretched for Men that were Sinners for Men that were proper Objects of his Justice for Men that were haters of God acted like Enemies had affronted their Maker Crucified their Redeemer came out against him as against a Thief who took pleasure in trampling on his Laws rejoyced in their Disobedience had made a Covenant with Hell conspired against him who had given them their Being laugh'd on the brink of Destruction were Heirs of Hell and had no other Inheritance but Damnation for such this wonderful Person dies and this makes his death miraculous and astonishing Rom. 5. 8. 3. It 's Death that Nature and all the Elements were confounded at and Heaven and Earth seem'd to be at strife which of them should be most concern'd at it insomuch that we are told of Dionysius the Areopagite the Person mention'd Acts 17. 34. when he was yet under the Clouds of Paganism that beholding the stupendous Eclipse of the Sun which happen'd about the time that the Saviour of the World died brake forth into this memorable saying That certainly either Nature was going to be dissolv'd or the God of Nature suffer'd If ever Nature endur'd a Convulsion-Fit it did now The Sun disdain'd to look upon the barbarity of the Murther and hid his Face that he might not see his Creator die The Earth trembl'd as if it were asham'd to see Men stupid at the dreadful Spectacle The Rocks broke as if they would testifie against the Sinners that could stand under the Cross without broken Hearts The Vail of the Temple was rent as if it would chide the Wretches that could see the
this World may'st bid me enter into my Master's Joy 44. And it was about the Sixth Hour and there was a Darkness over all the Earth until the Ninth Hour THE Sun loses his Splendour at Noon The Deed was black and Heaven draws a Curtain over it Yet notwithstanding the Miracle the greatest part of the Spectators continue obstinate When Men's Hearts are set upon Sin and the World how little do even Miracles prevail O my Soul How many strange Providences hast thou seen and yet thou hast not mended thy Life upon it Thou hast seen Miracles of Judgment and Mercy yet thy Heart hath been hard Oh learn to take more notice of God's Dispensations and believe that the strange things that happen to thee and others are Calls from Heaven to the Inhabitants of the World to learn Righteousness 45. And the Sun was darken'd and the Veil of the Temple was rent in the midst WHat a Motive was this to Men to rend their Hearts This was a Sign that God would lay the Inclosure open and that Christ was to break down the Partition-Wall and make both Jews and Gentiles one To this Rent thou art beholden O my Soul Thy Father was an Amorite and thy Mother an Hittite thy Ancestors were Heathens and Idolaters by this Rent they were brought to the Light of the Gospel and upon that Account thou enjoyest the Gospel now Remember how unworthy of this Favour thou hast walked many Years and how thou hast dishonoured this Gospel with thy Life Oh learn to bring forth Fruits as become the Doctrine which is according unto Godliness and let thy Conversation be such as may promote God's Glory and thine Eternal Happiness 46. And when Jesus had cried with a loud Voice he said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit And having said thus he gave up the Ghost NOW the Sacrifice is offered and this Death reconciles God to the sinful World This Death which had been so often foretold both by the Prophets and Christ himself is at last accomplished and Pardon of Sin and the Possibility of Men's arriving to Eternal Life by a true Repentance is hereby purchased This Death puts an End to the Curse of the Law And from this Death O my Soul date thy Happiness Though wicked Men who had an Hand in it were the Means whereby it was effected yet the Son of God would die and his voluntary Death is the meritorious Cause of thy Eternal Life Oh look upon it with Wonder and Admiration And while thou standest amazed at it see withal how thou thy self may'st end thy Days If thou livest like a Child of God thy Father in Heaven will receive thee when thou diest Thy Father will not send thee to Hell but being a Father he will stretch forth his Almighty Arms and receive thee to himself like a faithful Creator 47. Now when the Centurion saw what was done he glorified God saying Certainly this was a righteous Man TO make a right Construction of Things is the Way to Spiritual Wisdom This Man justly concluded that Heaven could not possibly shew it self so much concern'd about a Person if he were not an extraordinary Favourite He judged rationally and this brought him to a true Knowledge of Christ and to an open Confession and Declaration of the Sufferer's Innocence O my Soul Consider by what Miracles and Testimonies that Truth thou professest hath been confirmed and conclude it is Divine No Religion hath those Evidences of its Divinity and Celestial Original that the Christian hath and coming from God thou hast the greatest Reason to believe that all its Promises and Threatnings will be fulfilled and seeing that all these shall be fulfilled what manner of Person oughtest thou to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 48. And all the People that came together to that Sight beholding the things which were done smote their Breasts and returned SMiting their Breasts was a Sign of their Grief and Anger of their Grief because so excellent a Person had been so inhumanely butcher'd and of their Anger against those bloody Men that had condemned and executed him See here O my Soul what Entertainment thou art to give thy Sins In looking upon them divide thy Affections betwixt Grief and Anger Grieve that thou hast offered so many Indignities to thy Blessed Master Be angry with thy self for being so base and ungrateful Grieve that thou hast forgotten the End for which thou wast created and be revenged upon the Sins that caused it And the best Revenge is this to see and take care that thy Degrees of Sin be truly answered by thy Degrees of Sanctification and Heavenly-mindedness 49. And all his Acquaintance and the Woman that followed him from Galilee stood afar off beholding these things THough it is some Ages since Christ was crucified yet in imitation of these Religious Women thou may'st stand afar off O my Soul and behold the Spectacle still When the Circumstances of it are left thee in Writing and the doleful Story stands upon Record thou canst ascend Mount Calvary and see those things acted as if thou hadst been present And Oh little dost thou think how much this Sight will edifie thee Look often upon the Cross and thou wilt find what a Damp it will strike upon all thy sinful Pleasures and how little reason thou hast to hancker after those things whereof so many good Men after they have been sensible of their Errours have been ashamed 50. And behold there was a Man named Joseph a Councillor and he was a good Man and a just IN the midst of Temptations God preserves this Man though his Riches Greatness Reputation and Friendship of the Grandes did strongly entice him to consent to the Death of the Lord Jesus yet he would not and was resolved rather to hazard all than have an hand in the Condemnation This was an Argument of a generous Spirit to bear up under the strongest Assaults and Enticements in the World and to keep an uncorrupt Soul in the midst of Dirt and Filthiness Thou livest in a very evil Generation O my Soul Dare to preserve thine Integrity in the midst of all the Floods of Ungodliness that surround thee And the more thou art discouraged from Goodness and Righteousness the more vigorously stand up for it and maintain it and thy God will be with thee 51. The same had not consented to the Counsel and Deed of them He was of Arimathea 4 City of the Jews who also himself waited for the Kingdom of God TO wait for the Kingdom of God is the Way to resist and to overcome Temptations He that is resolved not to lose his Share in God's Kingdom hereafter will not stand upon his Losses and Crosses here for he knows that the future Kingdom will recompense all No Nan will venture so much for Christ as he that firmly believes the Kingdom of God and fixes his Eye of Faith upon it O my Jesus Give me a clearer Sight of
reproaches on Christ himself as if the motives he was come to give the World were impotent and unable to effect that mighty change the Gospel speaks of and which the Son of God used to Glory in while the World was so happy as to enjoy his Presence The Devils rejoyce to see Christ thus defeated in his grand designs of Reformation and though he is in Glory at this time yet the Hypocrites actions raise a Persecution against him and put the Devils upon new insolencies against his Honour and Majesty what say they are these thy Servants and Disciples are these the Men that are changed from Glory to Glory What do they more than the disciples of Hell And if the little pleasures of the World I hold out to them can preponderate and do more with them than the Arguments of thy death and the motives drawn from a Glorious endless life where is thy power or wherein hath thy Kingdom the advantage of my Empire III. He was betray'd partly for filthy Lucre partly for his unchangeable Integrity 1. For filthy Lucre. The love of Money the root of all evil was the cause of it The Thirty Peices of Silver invited the Traitor to this Enterprise So powerful is Gold and Silver that at this day it tempts Men to betray the Son of God for we see they care not what becomes of Religion so their Purses swell and are indifferent whether Gods Honour be maintained or no so their Corn and Wine and Oyl increaseth This makes Men venture on the foulest sins and draws them into actions which should not be so much as named among Christians This tempts them to oppress to cheat to flatter to dissemble to lie and to forswear themselves to comply with the sinful humours of Men and to debase their Souls to the dirtiest and most disingenuous Actions yet all this while such will be counted Christians and Protestants and of the true Religion against which the Gates of Hell shall not be able to prevail 2. For his unchangeable Integrity He would not allow Judas to profess himself his Disciple and cherish base and covetous desires the Lord Jesus that knew his heart we may suppose bid him either leave his profession or with his profession cleanse the inside of the Cup and Platter convinced him that the love of God and that of the World were incompatible and did mutually destroy each other This the illnatured Disciple could not brook and because his Master would not give him leave to enjoy Gods favour and his own sins together he betray'd him This is the case of Counterfeit Christians at this day because Christ will not permit them to blend his Religion with their delight in vanity will not allow them to serve God and Mammon they expose his Religion to that contempt and scorn we have mention'd as if they would be revenged upon God for being so unkind to them as not to permit an alliance to be made betwixt the Temple of God and Idols betwixt Christ and Belial betwixt Light and Darkness IV. Why Christ would Institute this Sacrament that very Night in which he was betray'd will appear from these following Reasons 1. To shew that he delighted not in the death of the Sinner therefore the same Night that he was betray'd he provided a remedy that Sinners might not die and whereby the Offenders might be restored to life and happiness if they did not wilfully reject it That Pardon and Deliverance and freedom from everlasting Death is offer'd tender'd convey'd and sealed in this Sacrament to every Sinner that is unfeignedly resolv'd to be Friends with God upon his own terms is confess'd by all the Christian World It was therefore Instituted that Night that Judas did betray him to shew that if even Judas and all such Traytors that should some way or other imitate him in his Actions either had come or should for the future come and throw away their Weapons their Enmity and their Arms quit their Hostility and humble themselves before their offended Father that they shall not miss of Mercy and Forgiveness than which there cannot be a greater sign that he delights not in their Ruin That Night when he was persecuted to provide a Refuge for his Persecutors That Night when his Enemies were like to practise Treason to think on a way how that Treason might be pardoned That Night when they were going to undo themselves to provide a Pool in which they might wash and be clean This surely spoke his desire that they might not die Wonderful Goodness He foresaw the Wounds they would give to their Souls and before they give themselves those wounds he prepares a Plaister to heal them He saw how fierce and violent the Poison was they were going to take and at the same time provides an Antidote He saw they were going to starve their Souls and at the same time orders Meat and Drink to be made ready to preserve them from expiring 2. He Instituted it that very Night to admonish us that when we come to receive these Holy Elements we should remember with grief and sorrow how often we have betray'd his Glory to his Enemies and by the heinousness of the sin be frighted from attempting the like again and what can be more reasonable at such times than to reflect Ah Wretch that I am How like a Bruit have I lived under the Name of a Christian I have called my Master Lord and have done mine own Will I have called him Father and when he hath bid me work in his Vineyard have run away I have profess'd love to the Lord Jesus and been asham'd of him and of his Gospel I have seem'd a devout Worshipper of him and been a stranger to self-denial And when my Profit Ease or Credit have been in danger how have I left him with the Disciples and fled How have I betray'd him by such cowardice What occasion of reproach have I given to his Enemies How have I harden'd others in their sins by such doings How have I made sensual Men despise that noble Religion the Son of God sealed with his dearest Blood And shall I betray him any longer Shall I still deliver him up to be mock'd Shall I dare to do such a barbarous thing again No No I 'll confess Thee before Men my Dearest Lord that thou mayst confess and own me in the last day before thy Father and his Holy Angels 3. He Instituted this Sacrament that Night to teach us that we must do good for evil Judas betrays him and that very Night he is contriving how Judas if he would have accepted of the offer might be saved from Everlasting ruin this was his method and course of living in the World to reward unkindnesses with tenderness and compassion to the Offenders The Jews cry Crucifie him and he prays for them Father forgive them for they know not what they do Malchus who came out against him to apprehend him and as 't is probable was
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
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
I might be advanc'd to bliss I see what a costly thing my Salvation is since to purchase it the Son of God did die Yet how light do I make of Heaven O God what moved thee to love me thus And shall I think any thing to dear to part with for thy sake Into what Labyrinths do I run my self while I am mine own Keeper Thou hast paid dear for thy right to rule and govern me and shall I after all be loath to be govern'd by so Gracious a Master Here I make an offering of my Heart if thou wilt but vouchsafe to accept of it it is a Present unworthy of thy Greatness and Majesty yet thou art pleased to require no other sacrifice Hence forward speak Lord and thy Servant will hear and when the Characters of thy Mercy wear out or decay in my unconstant Soul Lord write them there afresh write them with the Blood of Christ that they may be everlasting and may be an Eternal fence to me against the suggestions and persuasions of thine Enemies 3. Conversing with the Holy Angels after we have eaten requires imitation of them in their Praises and Obedience Bless the Lord ye his Angels that excel in strength that do his commandments hearken to the voice of his word saith the Psalmist Psal. 103. 20. Praise and Obedience are inseparable Virtues the one without the other makes dull Musick in the Ears of God Let no Man think that because Angels are invisible Spirits and afar off there is no conversing with them He that doth their work is their Companion their Brother and their Familiar with such they love to be such persons they love to visit and he that doth so may be as confident they are on his right hand as if he saw them for God hath said so Psal. 34. 7. and therefore it must be true whether our carnal eyes behold them or no. Praising is not only to offer up a Psalm or Hymn after we have eaten but living in a sense of the love of God and he that doth so cannot but be obedient and faithful to him that hath so signally manifested his mercy in his Misery The PRAYER O Thon who art the Bread of Life who canst feed Souls and nourish Spirits into Immortal Life who hast food the World knows not of and by secret influences canst enrich and enlighten those that wait at the Pool for the stirring of the Waters O bring my mind in frame O teach me to eat in this Sacrament of thy Love to the satisfying my Soul Make the food of sin odious and bitter to me I have fed too long on that stolen Bread Open mine Eyes that I may see how miserable I am if I do not relish what thou hast set before me Thou hast given me a Soul and thou would'st have it thrive In this Sacrament is that which shall strengthen my Heart I want only a mighty hunger and thirst O thou who hast given me an Appetite after the meat which perishes give me a Holy greediness after that which endures to everlasting life O let the Benefits of thy death prove life to my Spirit Raise it above this dull and Corruptible Flesh that it may triumph over its base desires Bring thou back my Captivity and let my Chains fall off Let the Liberty of thy Children which consists in a chearful going on from virtue to virtue be my delight and ornament so shall the King take pleasure in my Beauty and my Soul shall rejoyce in Thee for ever Amen CHAP V. Of the various abuses of this Holy Sacrament The CONTENTS The most Sacred things in all ages have been abused Instances drawn from the brazen Serpent Gideon's Ephod and the Love-Feasts of the Primitive Christians Abuses of Holy things rise from several causes The Lords Supper hath undergone the same fate The Holier any thing is that is abused the greater is the Crime A great abuse of this Holy Sacrament is to fancy that like a spell it will Charm sin out of our Souls without strong endeavours The abuses committed in this Sacrament no just Temptation to neglect the use of it The Prayer I. THere is nothing so sacred or holy but hath been and may still be abused by sensual Men. Moses Numb 21. 8. by God's special Appointment erects a fiery Serpent or a Serpent of Polished Brass shining bright as Fire a symbol of God's Presence and Power to heal the tormented Israelites who had been stung by fiery Serpents insomuch that if any of the persons thus stung look'd upon the Figure he actually recovered So remarkable a History depending upon this brazen Serpent it was laid up for a Monument yet in process of time this became an object of Idolatry which moved Hezekiah to break it in pieces and call it Nehushtan 2 Kings 18. 4. The very same happen'd to Gideon's Ephod Judg. 8. 27. a thing innocently enough contrived and in all probability piously intended as a standing testimony to future Ages what a signal Victory God had given his People over the barbarous Midianites yet after his Death when with his Life his Power and Authority over the bruitish People were gone they went a whoring after it i. e. fell to worship it an accident which proved the ruine of Gideon's Family and of thousands besides in Israel What could be more innocent than the Love-Feasts in the Primitive Church Mention is made of them Jud. vers 12. They were Feasts made in the Oratories or places where the Primitive Christians used to assemble for the Celebration of Divine Worship and at the charge of such as were well to pass or richer than the rest to these the poorer sort were invited and sat down at the Table with the rich ate with them and carried the Leavings or Fragments home and this being done with great expressions of Love and managed with singular Meekness Charity and Humility with brotherly Familiarity and with holy Discourses without Excess or Intemperance and all sanctified by Prayers and Psalms and reading the Holy Scriptures the Apostles both permitted and encouraged these pious Collations and after them their Hearts being thus impregnated with Charity they applied themselves to the Use and Celebration of the Eucharist That which gave occasion to these Love-Feasts was either Christ's eating the Passover with his Disciples immediately before the Communion or the custom of the Jews who used to eat and drink together in some Chamber or Building adjoyning to the Temple when they offered their Sacrifices or which is more probable from the antient custom of the Grecians who having brought rich Guifts they intended for their Gods to the Temple converted them into Feasts of Charity to which the Poor as well as the Rich sat down and all ate together no respect of Persons being observed at that time which Practice not a few Christians being lately crept out of the darkness of Heathenism it 's like retained changing only the Object of their Worship and doing that to
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
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
beautifie the Meek with Salvation Let the Saints be joyful in Glory let them sing aloud upon their Beds let them praise the Name of the Lord for his Name alone is excellent his Glory is above the Earth and Heaven III. See here how rich a Meal God the Father prepares for our Souls even the crucified Body of his Son Shall we look upon that Celestial Food with dull and careless Thoughts Can we behold this costly Bread and forbear crying out Lord for ever give us that Bread Christian if thou meanest to be saved by the crucified Body of thy Lord thou must needs eat of it Not only thy Mouth must eat the Sacramental Bread and chew it but thy Soul must ascend and employ her self in eating of the crucified Body represented by that Bread Thy Soul thy Mind thy Will thy Affections must have the greatest Share in eating at this Table Thy Body hath little to do here that is only the Chariot that brings thy Soul to this Banquet Thy Soul not being engaged and busie here in Thinking Admiration Resolution Love and Joy the Cringes and Bowings of thy Body will be insignificant The End of our common Eating is Assimilation and in our ordinary Meals we therefore eat Food agreeable to our Bodies that it may be united to our Substance mingle with our Blood and become one with our Bodies So here our Souls must feed on the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus that we may become one with him All Creatures may be said to be one with Christ as he is God as he is their Creator in which respect he fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence and is not far from every one of us and in him we live and breath and have our Being Nay in a more particular manner every Professor of Christianity may be said to be one with him as he professes the same Religion which Christ taught his Disciples But this is not the Union aimed at in this Sacrament nor can the Union which respects our Profession only give any great Comfort to a Christian. The Union designed by this Sacrament is effected by the Spirit of Christ Jesus and the Soul that unfeignedly see◠here on the crucified Body of her Master gets the same Spirit that dwelt in her crucified Lord which produces the same Graces in her that shined in that great Shepherd of Souls and the same Mind the same Temper the same Disposition in substance at least though not in the same Degree is effected and produced in her by this Spirit as we see Rem 8. 11. Phil. 2. 5. And this is that Union every true Communicant is to aim at and from hence flows a Communion with Christ in all his Privileges and Glories whereby the Soul is raised up together with Christ and made to sit together with him in Heavenly Places though not by way of actual Enjoyment as yet but by getting a Right and Title to those Privileges as the Apostle informs us Ephes. 2. 6. By feeding on this crucified Body the Soul is nourished and gathers Strength against her spiritual Enemies becomes bold in Temptations resolute in Dangers couragious in spiritual Enterprizes The Soul that comes to feed on this crucified Body and comes not with this Intent comes in vain comes only to stare upon the Cross but not to be refreshed by it The Soul that after the Sacrament yields wilfully to the same Temptations it did before is ensnared by the same sinful Pleasure that ruin'd it before is led Captive by the same Lusts that intangled her before certainly feeds not on the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus because the Contemplation of that Crucifixion works no suitable Effects which if it did the Soul would unfeignedly destroy the Body of Sin according to the Apostle's Rule Rom. 6. 6. and offer up her Body a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God as it is said Rom. 12. 1. Make the Body obedient to Reason and Sense to Faith and the Flesh to the Spirit and it would keep under the Body and bring it into Subjection as St. Paul did 1 Cor. 9. 27. i. e. it would deny the Body those Satisfactions which are manifest Hindrances to the Things of the Spirit it would force it to Temperance to Hardships to Industry and Laboriousness in God's Service it would strive and take care that the Body might become a Temple of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. 〈◊〉 what the Soul doth in this Ordinance would leave such a Sense upon us as would not only enable but constrain us to glorifie God both in Body and Soul as the Scripture requires 1 Cor. 6. 20. These are the blessed Effects of eating the crucified Body of the Lord Jesus And the Soul that feeds on that Body will find these happy Consequences it will not go away empty from this Meal and though for the present it doth not see all these Effects yet there is that Impression made on her by this Eating that these Effects will afterward discover themselves in her Life and Conversation The PRAYER O My God! What Care dost thou take of my immortal Soul that it may not starve Thou hast made large Provision for my Body in the Earth in the Air and in the Water The Earth brings forth Herbs and Roots and Cattel to feed it The Air affords Fowl and Feather'd Creatures to nourish it The Water provides Fish for it But none of all these can satisfie my Soul that must have a spiritual Diet and rather than it shall want thou hast given thine own Son to be her Food O mysterious Love Can I after tbis have low and mean Thoughts of thy Goodness O sweetest Jesu if my Soul feeds not on thee if must die and be separated from thy glorious Presence for ever If it feeds on thee it is made for ever Oh! be thou my most beloved and most delightful Food Thy crucified Body alone can keep my Soul from fainting Thy Death must yield me Life Thy Sufferings must give me Joy Thy Agonies must afford me Comfort Thy Torments must work mine Ease Thy Nails and Thorns must be my Bed of Roses Nothing else can give my Soul Rest. When the Snares of Death and Hell encompass me I will lay hold on these Horns of the Altar here I shall be safe safer than in the Arms of Angels Thou that diedst for me livest for ever to intercede for me and having such an Advocate I may come boldly to the Throne of Grace O let me not survey this glorious Provision made for my Soul with carnal Eyes O let me ponder seriously not with flying and transient but with steady and fixed Thoughts how thou hast favoured how thou hast loved how thou hast dignified this miserable Soul of mine that I may rejoyce in thee for ever and ever Amen CHAP. XII Of remembring Christ in this Sacrament or doing what we do here in remembrance of him The CONTENTS The Death of Christ Jesus the principal thing to be
Messiah suffer without rending their Cloaths and what is more tearing themselves for the crime they had been guilty of The Graves burst their Bands as if they were concern'd to see Men harden'd against all impressions of Compassion The Angels we may without danger of Heresie believe stopt in the midst of their Hallelujahs and if ever there was sadness in Heaven we may suppose it was at this time The upper and the nether World seem'd to go into Mourning because their Lord and Master gave up the Ghost Thus much we are told by the inspired Writer Matth. 27. 51 52. And this makes the Death of Christ Jesus surprizing beyond comparison and surely such a Death ought to be remembred 4. It is a Death whereby the Person suffering merited Eternal Life not only for himself but all his Followers too A mighty Blessing but such as was a just reward of so deep an Humiliation It was for this Death that the Everlasting Father exalted Christ's Humane Nature above Powers Angels Principalities and Spiritual Creatures and in doing so declar'd what those whose Nature he had assumed if they did follow him in the Regeneration might come to after Death viz. Eternal Life and Glory And what greater Blessing can be thought of to enjoy all Blessings at once and to all Eternity To see God and to be ravish'd with his Sight for ever to enjoy Riches Honour Glory Power Dominion Pleasure Recreation Houses Lands in a most eminent manner or to enjoy that which is beyond all these in inexpressible degrees and without interruption without ceasing without disturbance without envy without fear without danger of losing it What can be greater What can be more satisfactory What can be more comfortable This the Son of God hath purchased by his Death That Death is the Messenger of all these Glories In that Death all these Treasures are amass'd and heap'd and piled up together and then it must be worth remembring nay it is impossible not to remember it where all this is believ'd II. How this Death is to be remembred at the Table of the Lord will deserve our next consideration And most certainly a slight transient Remembrance such as we pay to our friends and acquaintance which are absent at our common Meals or at other times as we have occasion to discourse of them is not sufficient here for that 's not at all agreeable to the Greatness and Profitableness of this wondeful Death It must be such a remembrance as 1. Refreshes our Memories with that marvellous Love that shines in this Death This Love must be called to mind even the Love of God the Love that mov'd him to the Kindnesses we see and taste and feel and have experience of The Love that mov'd him to give us a Saviour the Love that mov'd him to take pity of us when we lay in our Blood when we lay in Darkness and in the shadow of Death Love Love Love must here be the Motto the Watch-word and the dear Expression And as the Martyr in Eusebius being ask'd divers Questions about his Name Kindred Relations Family Country Parents c. still answer'd That he was a Christian so if here we should be ask'd what we think what we speak what we mind what we come for what we design what our business is or what we delight in Love must be the Answer to all these Questions Love must be the burden of our Song even the Love of the Holy Trinity a Love in which our Life our Happiness and all our Hopes are wrapt up a Love which nothing above and nothing below can give us any tolerable Image of There is nothing among all the Angels in Heaven nothing in the Sun or Moon or Stars nothing among Men or Beasts or Roots or Herbs or Stons or Minerals that can be said to be truly like it all comparisons are feeble all resemblances faint no Language can reach it no Rhetorick express it no Oratory describe it no Pencil draw it it surpases our Reason transcends the brightest Understanding puzzels the very Angels in Heaven and perplexes the Spirits of Light and Glory It is all Sea all Ocean all Light it hath no Bounds no Shores no Limits and the greatest that ever was said of it or can be said of it is St. John's Expression 1 Joh. 4. 16. God is Love Love it self all Love all Charity all Goodness and nothing but such perfection could have loved such poor pitiful Worms as we are God looks upon our giving a cup of cold Water to a Righteous Man as an Act of Love O then what an Act of Love must it be in him to give us himself to give us the dearest thing he had even his own Son Jesus wept over Lazarus Joh. 11. 35 36. and the Jews said See how he loved him But these Tears were but drops of Water Here the Lord Jesus is seen to weep drops of Blood for us O then see how he loved us We were blinder than Bartimaeus lamer than Mephibosheth fuller of Sores than Lazarus poorer than Job no Comliness no Beauty no Form no Excellency appear'd in us Adam's Fall had disfigurred us defaced us ruin'd us in this lamentable condition God loved us and gave his Son to die for us and shall not this Love be remembred in his Death 2. This remembrance requires calling to mind our Sins which were the cause of that Death It 's true the Love of God was the impulsive cause but our Sins were the instrumental cause these brought him to the Cross and whoever remembers his Death must necessarily remember that whereby this Death was effected and procured this was our Sin and the Infection that attended it But then if I remember my Sins in the remembrance of his Death how can I remember them without detestation How can I remember them without abhorrency How can I remember them without arming my Soul with resolution and arguments to fight against them Can I look on my neglects and not charge them with this Death Can I remember my Love to the World and not accuse it of having had a hand in buffeting and reproaching of him Can I think of my Pride and Wrath and not bid them look on the Wounds they made in that Holy Flesh Can I reflect on my wantonness and lustful Thoughts Desires Words and Gestures and Actions and not be angry with them for having struck Nails into his Hands and Feet And what is said of these particular Sins must be applied to the rest that we are either guilty of or most inclined to they must be so remembred as to be represented to our Minds in their odious shapes as having been accessory to his Death and if this be done we cannot but proclaim War against them and maintain that War all our days 3. With this there must needs be remembred the mighty Redemption procured and accomplished by this Death even our Redemption from Slavery a Slavery so much the worse because we were not
And from hence flows the joyful Exclamation of the Apostle Gal. 2. 20. Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ lives in me and the Life I now live I live by Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me For this Faith enlightens the Soul gives it clear Apprehensions of Christ's Love makes her active and lively and teaches her to overcome the World 1 John 5. 4. 4. This Remembrance is making Approaches to Heaven and Eternal Happiness Every fresh Remembrance is another Step to Paradise What an Encouragement is this to come to the holy Sacrament Every time we thus remember the Death of Christ we get nearer to the Throne on which the victorious Son of God sits triumphing over Hell and Devils For the oftner he is remembred thus the more our Souls are elevated and become more spiritual in their Aspirations and the farther we proceed in Grace the nearer we come to Glory Heaven in Scripture is compared to an Hill and is the Mount where God is seen Every time we come to the Table of our Lord and remember him thus we climb higher and mount up with Wings as Eagles till at last we reach the Top where there is a perfect Calm no Air no Wind no Tempest no infectious Breath to disturb the Conquerors IV. But though the Death of Christ be the chief Object of our Remembrance at this holy Table yet that is no Argument but that we may lawfully remember some other Things relating to his Person or Greatness or Holiness particularly 1. His Divine Life before he was Incarnate A Life which no mortal Tongue can describe A Life in the Explication of which the blessed Cheruhims themselves must fall short A Life known to none but to him who knows all who hath Life in himself and is the Life and the Father of the Spirits of all Flesh. How truly might he say to the Jews Joh. 8. 58. Before Abraham was I am He was indeed from all Eternity lived in the Bosom of the Everlasting Father and his Life was most pure some holy most peaceable most pleasant most glorious A Life of infinite Content of infinite Satisfaction of infinite Joy and of infinite Love A Life spent in Eternal Love of the great Fountain of Divinity the express Image of which he was A Life employed in kind Thoughts to poor Mortals and in Divine Contrivances how their Misery might be retriv'd their Bands loosen'd their Dangers overcome their Enemies vanquished and their Souls advanced to Celestial Mansions A Life undisturbed by the Noise of Wars unacquainted with Tumults free from all Annoyances unmolested by the Disorders of a giddy and confused World A Life of Eternal Calmness which no Waves no Billows no Wind no Storms no Tempests could discompose A Life of perfect Serenity and immense Sweetness A Life employed in the Eternal and Incomprehensible Enjoyment of his own Perfections and which the inspired King gives us a very lofty Description of Prov. 1. This life Christ lived before he was pleased to visit this benighted World with his healing Beams and it concerns us to remember this Life that from that Consideration his Humiliation in coming to dwell among us may appear in livelier Colours 2. To this may be added His laborious Life here on Earth after he was Incarnate A Life despicable from his Infancy contemptible from his Cradle A Life of Poverty a Life of great Misery of Distress and a Thousand Inconveniencies A Life he lived to let us know that the meanest and most miserable outward Condition is no Lett or Impediment to our being beloved and esteemed in Heaven A Life he lived to shew with what Patience and Courage we are to bear the Troubles that a merciful God lays or sends upon us A Life he lived to declare to his Disciples that through many Afflictions they are to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and are not to promise themselves great Ease and Rest here but are to look for a Recompence in the Resurrection of the Just A Life employed in doing good to shew that we are not to be idle here but to busie our selves in that Work which will give the greatest Satisfaction even working out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling A Life he lived for our sakes to facilitate our Access to Pardon and the Throne of Mercy A Life he lived to make our Lives comfortable and the Remembrance of this Life must needs inhaunce our Esteem of his unparallell'd Goodness who could and would deny himself both in the Glory of his Divinity and the Comforts of this present Life for our Good and the Welfare of our Souls The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. CHrist's Example makes it lawful to set up Monuments of Mercies and to preserve the Memory of any signal Deliverance or Providence either by External Symbols or by keeping Anniversaries and Days of Devotion Indeed this was a very ancient Practice countenanced by God and warranted by his Approbation It was from hence that Moses preserved a Pot of Manna to put After-Generations in mind how God had fed his People in the Wilderness And Moses said This is the thing which the Lord commandeth Fill an Omer of it to be kept for your Generations that they may see the Bread wherewith I have fed you in the Wilderness when I brought you forth out of the Land of Egypt Exod. 16. 32. It was from hence that Aaron's Rod budding blossoming and bearing Fruit was kept in the Ark to tell Posterity how miraculously the Priestood was established in the Line of Aaron and for a Token against the Rebels as the Holy Ghost speaks Numb 17. 10. It was from hence that Joshua commanded Twelve Stones to be taken out of the River Jordan That this says he may be a Sign among you that when your Children ask their Fathers in time to come saying What mean you by these Stones Then ye shall answer them That the Waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan And these Stones shall be for a Memorial unto the Children of Israel for ever Josh. 4. 6 7. In imitation of these Precedents the Jewish Church afterward of their own Accord unanimously agreed to keep an Anniversary to remember their Deliverance from the Rage of Haman Esth. 9. 17. Both Eusebius and Sozomen tells us of a Statue which the Woman who was cured by our Saviour of her Bloody Issue erected to his Honour at Caesarea which lasted a considerable time till Julian the Apostate pulled it down and erected his own in the room of it After such Examples who can think it unlawful for a private Christian to keep either a Fast or a Day of Thanksgiving when either some signal Affliction hath befallen him or some remarkable Mercy hath happen'd to him and to spend that Day in Exercises of Devotion whereby he may either work his Soul into greater Detestation of
his his Sins or into greater Admiration of God's Goodness Such Exercises the Divine Clemency accepts of approves of them and blesses them with new Favours repeals the Judgments threatned and confirms the Soul in her holy Zeal and makes those Devotions Occasions of opening the Windows of Heaven to shower down larger Benedictions upon her II. It must follow from hence that those who do not come to remember Christ's Death in this Sacrament do strangely forget themselves How great is their Number What vast Multitudes of Men and Women live in this Neglect O ye that are sensible of their Sin and Blindness when you meet with any of them tell them they forget that they are Christians they forget that their Lord and Master hath peremptorily commanded them to come and remember him in this Feast and that consequently they are disobedient perverse stubborn wilful and if they obey him not are no Servants no Children of his For If he be their Master where is his Fear If he be their Father where is his Honour Tell them they forget the Danger they run into and neglect the Means whereby their Souls must be snatched from the Devil's Power and shun the Remedy that must give Health to their Souls and therefore are guilty of the highest Contempt and set up their carnal shallow bruitish Reason againt the Infinite Wisdom of God Tell them they forget they have Souls to be saved and how long it is before a Soul be wrought into a total Conformity to Christ and that therefore they had need begin betimes and tye and engage their Souls to God under the Cross of Christ and do it often and force themselves into an holy Life Oh tell them how they will repent when it is too late of their Neglect of so great Salvation Tell them Christ will not remember them in the last Day but prosess to them I know you not because they were not sprinkled with his Blood and had not the Character of Christians on their Souls which will infallibly drive them into Desparation III. See here my Friends what an Obligation the Remembrance of Christ's Death lays upon us all to forget the World and to mind the greater Concerns above Christ died to the World his Life his Death and all his Actions shewed his Contempt of this present World He regarded not the Vanities the Lusts the Recreations the Slanders the Reproaches the Censures of the World but for the Glory set before him endured the Cross and despised the Shame Can we remember his Death in this Sacrament and think that he did all this only for us to admire his Actions without transcribing all this on our own Lives Surely we may live in the World and yet not be of the World we may sojourn in the World yet not be greedy after the World we may mind our Work in the World and yet not make the World our highest Good we may converse with Men of the World and yet not set our Hearts upon the World we may be industrious in the World and yet not suffer the World to ingross our Affections we may provide for our Families in the World and yet not conform to the World we may eat and drink in the World and yet not participate of the Sins of the World we may trade and traffick in the World and yet not have the Spirit of the World we may suffer Afflictions in the World and yet be far from the Sorrow of the World we may prudently contrive Things in the World and yet be Strangers to the Wisdom of the World In a Word Our living in the World is no hindrance to our arriving to an holy Contempt of it And though there be some Difficulty in this Task yet the Necessity of the Work and the Reward in the World to come and Christ's Example and the Apostles Practice and God's Readiness to assist and the All-sufficiency of Grace are Persuasives and Encouragements strong enough to prevail with any Soul that is not bent upon her own Ruin IV. The best Defensative against Sin at any time is the Remembrance of Christ's Sufferings Not only at the Sacrament but where-ever we are this Remembrance is an excellent Shield in the Day of Battel Art thou walking art thou standing art thou sitting art thou going out or coming in Set a Bleeding Saviour before thee When Sinners entice thee think of thy Saviour's Wounds When thou art tempted to over-reach or defraud thy Neighbour in any Matter think of the bitter Cup thy Master drank off When any Lust any vain Desire rises in thy Mind think of thy dear Redeemer's Groans When thy Flesh grows weary of a Duty remember who suffered on the Cross When thou art tempted to be indifferent in Religion and saint in thy Mind look upon him who made his Soul an Offering for thy Sin When thou art loth to overcome think of him who by his Death overcame him that had the Power of Death When impatient Thoughts assault thy Mind think of the Lamb that before his Shearers was dumb and sure under this sad Scene thou wilt not dare to sin And there is this Advantage in such a Remembrance that there is a Book of Remembrance written before the Lord for them that speak often to one another and think of his Name insomuch that he will remember them in that Day when he makes up his Jewels Mal. 3. 16. V. To remember Christ's Death in this Sacrament with greater Life and Sense it is very necessary to remember him often at other times And that is the Reason why Christ calls himself by many familiar Names and the Holy Ghost gives him Titles and Epithets taken from Things we daily see that we might not look on those Things from which he takes those Denominations without remembring him To this End he is called a Door Joh. 10. 9. that we might not go in or out but think O thou who art the Gate of Mercy by whom whoever enters will find Mercy open thy Bosom to my wounded Spirit and let me find Rest in thy All-sufficiency and the Merits of thy Passion For this Reason he is called a Sun Mal. 4. 2. that we might not view that splendid Luminary without thinking O thou glorious Light that didst shine to those that sit in Darkness shine into my Soul dispel the Clouds that darken my Understanding and warm my Heart that it may long for thy Salvation Hence it is that he is stiled the Morning-Star that whenever we take notice of that Son of the Morning of that Harbinger of the Day we might reflect O thou who tellest the Number of the Stars and callest them all by their Names rise rise unto me and irradiate my Inward Man that I may delight in Vertue Be thou my Guide lead me to thy Kingdom keep me from going astray and preserve me that I may be thine for ever It is from hence that he is called Alpha and Omega Rev. 1. 8. which are Letters of
a ransom for me a mercy without which I could neither have been safe nor happy and a share in which must needs be more to me than the wealth of Kings What can be more reasonable than that he should be my Master and I his Servant that he should command and I obey that he should govern and I submit that he should prescribe Laws and I act according to those Laws whatever Danger whatever Trouble whatever Inconvenience I put my self to This is the Wisdom of God or rather infused by God into the Soul and if any sort of wisdom were hinted by Christ's using Wine in this Ordinance it must be this Wisdom for this is gratitude and ingenuity and an argument that we receive not the grace of God in vain 4. Wine hath briskness and spirit in it and might not this be an Item to tell us how lively and vigorous our Love should be to Christ Jesus and how like new Wine our Love should be ready to burst the bottles at least vent it self in some such ejaculations Oh Jesu how sweet how lovely how amiable art thou how full of Beauty how full of Glory how full of Majesty in the midst of all thy pain and sorrow Thy wounds look dismal yet was never any thing more medicinal never did any thing afford greater virtue for they can cure sin they are preservatives from Hell and the surest Amulets against inffection from these the costly Balsom flows that must restore my wounded Soul Oh how I love thee Oh how I prize thee Oh how I esteem thee Thou art more to me than Father or Mother more than Lands or Houses I read of Fountains that flow'd with Oyl when thou wast born but that 's no comfort to me Thy wounds are the springs that send forth an Oyl precious and sweet and odoriferous whereby the diseases of my Heart are expell'd This is the Oyl of gladness anoint my Head with it and from thence let it run down to the skirts of my cloathing that my whole Man may be thine and my Soul and Body and all I have may participate of thy grace and compassion 5. Wine is cleansing too and might not this be an hint of the purifying quality of the Blood of the Holy Jesus Surely that Blood cleanses us from all sins it washes whiter than Snow Fullers-Earth is not to be compar'd with it Though the Sinner wash himself with Nitre and take much Soap to purifie his Soul yet that will not take away one spot still his iniquity will be mark'd before God but the Blood of Christ will make him clean so clean that God will spy no iniquity in Jacob and no perverseness in Israel so clean that no wrinkle shall appear in him one would think nothing could have been more filthy than some sinners have been yet upon their Repentance the Blood of Christ hath so purified so cleans'd so beautified their Souls that even Angels have fall'n in love with them VI. That Christ made use of a Cup in the distributition of the Wine we have already taken notice of but whether there might not be some mystery in his making use of a Cup and no other Vessel is a thing worth our consideration And. 1. The Prophets had spoken of a Cup of trembling and of a Cup of God's fury Es. 51. 17. Jerem. 25. 15 17 18. This Cup the Jewish Nation was to drink of their Commonwealth and Policy was to be destroy'd and inexpressible Calamities were to light on them and the second Captivity was to be worse than the first as their Sins that caused the second were greater than those which occasioned the first Miseries so great that when Christ beheld the City he wept over it and said The days will come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation Luk. 19. 41 43 44. This was the Cup of astonishment that unhappy Nation was to drink of so that his making use of a Cup was an allusion to that misery for now the time drew near and they were going to do that which would hasten their ruin viz. kill the Lord of Glory and their greatest Friend 2. Himself was to drink the Cup of the Lord's fury to atone for the Sins both of Jews and Gentiles and of this the Cup he took was an Emblem He had generously and freely undertaken to open to Mankind a way to God's Favour This way could not be made considering the Decree of God but by his Sufferings and and accordingly we find him drinking so deep of this Cup that in the Garden of Gethsemane he falls into an Agony and his Sweat was as it were great drops of Blood falling to the ground Luk. 22. 44. That which made this Cup so bitter was the greatness of the sins of Mankind and the dreadful wrath of God they had deserv'd particularly the monstrous sins of the Jewish Nation to whom the first offers of Grace were made and the unspeakable temporal calamities which were to come upon them for their perfidiousness and contempt of the greatest mercies and their total desolation and destruction for their hardness and wilful stupidity These as they were represented to his Mind in a lively manner so it caused prodigious Grief in his Soul insomuch that he profess'd his Soul was sorrowful unto death This was a Cup the most loathsome that ever mortal did take and therefore he calls it by that name Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Luke 22. 42. He takes therefore a Cup here that his Followers in future ages might think of the Cup he had drunk of with so much terror and consternation A Cup he took to let us see that the Cup he took in this Sacrament was the true Cup of Salvation we find mention made of a Cup of Salvation and of a Cup of Consolation Psal. 116. 13. and Jer. 16. 7. But the Cup in this Sacrament is of a far greater virtue The Cup of Salvation among the Jews was either the Cup of Wine they made use of in the Passover or the Cup they drank of at Festivals or Feasts when they rejoyced with their Friends after some signal Mercy and Deliverance The Cup of Consolation was properly that which they gave to Mourners at Funerals especially where People took on excessively for the death of their near Relations or were ready to sink with Grief But the Cup in this Sacrament is a Cup of Salvation and Consolation in a sublimer Sense By the Blood of Christ Mankind was made capable of inheriting Life and Eternal Salvation which is beyond being saved from Egypt from the Midianites from the Assyrians and from the Chaldeans so that he that drinks of this Blood contain'd in the Sacramental
suffer and so it came to pass Let me for ever believe thy promises In all Dangers in all Troubles in all Necessities let thy Promises be for my Comfort Let me never mistrust thy Goodness after so great an instance of thy Goodness as the Gift of thy Son must be How can I despair of Mercy upon unfeigned Repentance when in this passion Mercy was drawn out to that length on purpose that it might reach the greatest Sinners O Jesu thou hast defeated all mine Enemies Thou hast evacuated all the obstacles of my Salvation Let me pretend and plead excuses no more Now let me run with patience the race which is set before me the way being open'd into the Holy of Holies encourage me to walk in it with all that wait for the Salvation of God Affect my Heart with a Religious Fear and let thy humble Passion kill my Pride Let my Sins appear more dreadful to me when I contemplate thine Agonies and let the World with all its deceitful Vanities become loathsome to me when I see how little thou didst regard it Let every thing die in me that is not agreeable to thy Life that when thou who art my Life shalt appear I may also appear with thee in Glory Amen Amen CHAP. XIV Of the Covenant represented by the Cup in this Holy Sacrament The CONTENTS A seeming contradiction betwixt the Evangelists reconcil'd The Greek Word which we render Testament prov'd to signifie a Covenant too The manner of making Covenants in ancient times applied to the Covenant made in this Sacrament The difference between the Old and New Covenant discover'd In this Sacramental Covenant the parties mutually engaging one to another proved to be God and Man Under what Notions both parties are to be consider'd explain'd The nature of this Sacramental Covenant its beginning and first rudiments in our Baptism the necessity of renewing it when we come to some maturity of Understanding Our consent to it and how that consent must be qualified This Covenant if broken after a due ratification of it whether it may be renew'd What things do not break or null it What Sins they are that make it void How it may be renew'd by sincere Repentance and what kind of Repentance it must be Great presumption to enter into a Solemn Covenant with God and not to consider the wieght and importance of it The great misery and wretchedness of Men who are not actually in Covenant with God How necessary it is for persons when young to make or renew their Covenant No impossible thing to come to a rational Confidence that we are in Covenant with God The Mercies and Advantages of being God's faithful Confederates The Prayer I. CHrist in describing the Nature of this Sacramental Cup or the Wine in the Cup tells us as St. Matthew and St. Mark relate it This is my Blood of the New Testament or as St. Luke and St. Paul rehearse it This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood St. Luke being St. Paul's companion in Travel it 's like the Apostle made use of St. Luke's Commentaries which he had by him though perhaps they were not yet published to the World nor must we therefore suspect a contradiction in these different expressions for the Evangelists in their Histories do not always tye themselves to the very number and order of Words and Syllables which our Saviour spoke but many times think it sufficient to express the Sense and that the Sense is the same here though the Expression be different will easily appear to an impartial Reader though it may be said that Christ might very justly use both expressions one after another say that which St. Mark and St. Matthew mention and afterwards that which St. Luke and St Paul take notice of by way of explication and for brevitys sake one Evangelist might set down one and another the Sense being the same another II. The word which we render Testament is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which indeed in some few places of Scripture particularly Hebr. 9. 15. is us'd for the last Will and Testament of a Testator but for the most part stands for a Covenant answering to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Berith and imports a compact or contract of two Parties mutually engaging to one another to do and perform what is proper convenient and fit to be done and this by the consent of all Interpreters is the chief signification intended here and that which will give Light to this Notion is the custom of the first Ages of the World For Covenants in antient times were usually made by the slaying of a Beast and shedding its Blood which was to put the Confederates in mind that if they broke the Articles agreed upon they must fear as base a death as that Beast did suffer◠and Providence would not only take notice of the violation and revenge it but by the ceremony they imprecated themselves that in case they prov'd false to their promise such a sudden violent death might seize on them Among the more barbarous sort of Mankind when in these cases they had slain the Beast they pour'd the Bloud of the Hog or Calf or Ox that was shed into a Cup and the Confederates drank of it to make the tye stronger and the execration more dreadful and consequently more forcing But the civiller sort after they had kill'd the Beast to seal the Covenant instead of Blood fill'd the Cup with Wine and the respective Parties drank of it which they thought and believ'd to be as obligatory as the other In a word hereby both parties express'd their resolution and serious intent to perform the mutual Engagements and tacitly wished Death and Judgment to themselves in case of nonperformance of the Articles And though this cannot be applied in every circumstance to the Covenant made betwixt God and Man in every particular God not being capable of imprecating himself and his Word being of greater weight and moment than all the Oaths and Execrations Man can take yet from the premises we may easily guess that Christ alludes to these practises of Mankind in saying This is my Blood of the New Testament and that in this Sacrament Men enter into a Covenant with God or rather confirm the Covenant made betwixt God and them by the Mediation of the Blood of Jesus who was the innocent Lamb slain from the foundation of the World for it is with regard to that Blood that God is not only willing to enter but actually enters into compacts and contracts with lapsed Man and as in the afore-mentioned federate Rites and Ceremonies the parties engaging to one another drank of the Blood of the slain Beast or of the Wine which was in lieu of that Blood thereby to confirm their mutual promises so they that come to this Holy Sacrament are not only admonish'd by drinking of the Cup or of the Wine in the Cup representing the Blood of Christ to enter into solemn
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
a just cause lascivious desires and appetites and revengeful actions c. have so severe a Sanction annexed to them if they be cherished and lov'd is this because the less they are the sooner and the more easily they are avoided and therefore it must argue strange aversion from God not to oblige him in so small a thing and that Men after they have enter'd into this solemn Covenant at the Table of the Lord may be allur'd and enticed by Temptations and perswaded to allow themselves in known Sins both great and small and thereby null the Covenant we have no reason to question since Experience is beyond all Witnesses in the World 7. The only Plank left us after the Covenant is thus broken and null'd to swim out of the Gulph of perdition and to regain God's favour is confess'd on all hands to be true and deep repentance and particularly a Repentance attended with Fasting Alms and great future Self-denials In the stricter Ages of Christianity especially in the Second and Third Centuries it was very much question'd whether a Person who had solemnly and deliberately entr'd into a Covenant with God either in Baptism or in the Lord's Supper if afterwards he fell into some of these three Sins Adultery Murther or Idolatry was capable of regaining the favour of God promis'd in this Covenant The African Churches especially were very stiff in this point yet the more moderate allow'd of a Second Repentance reckoning the first to be that which had been made by adult Persons in either of these Sacraments and the second if after a new fall or wilful precipitation into any of these crimes he rose again with very great purposes and resolutions but if a Man fell again into any of these Sins after the Second Repentance they look'd upon the Third as impossible Others though they did not exclude the Persons thus fallen totally from the possibility of God's favour and Salvation in case he repented either the Second or third time yet did not think fit to receive him again into the Communion of the Church and this which the African Fathers look'd upon only as a thing convenient Novatus enrag'd it 's like because he could not be made a Bishop improved into absolute necessity which made his followers exclude all such Persons as were fallen after their first Repentance into any of these Sins from their Communion That which gave occasion to this Doctrine was their too rigid interpretation of some places in Scripture particularly that of Heb. 6. 4 5 6. and the other 1 Joh. 5. 16. which places are to be understood rather of a malicious denying the Faith and forsaking the very Profession of Christianity and turning Jew Heathen or Infidel than of the aforesaid acts of Sin The Roman Church was the first that receiv'd such sinners after a tedious and laborious Repentance into their Communion again for which Tertullian expostulates with the Bishop of Rome and accuses him of Rashness imprudence and breach of the ancient Canons However since the Apostle himself 2. Cor. 2. 7. received the incestuous Person into the Communion of the Church of Corinth and desired the Corinthians to do the like after a sufficient demonstration of his Repentance after such falls into wilful and habitual Sins be sincere and true exemplary and laborious that there is just hopes such a person may renew his Covenant get a Title again to the promises of it and be readmitted to God's Favour and Complacency But then 1. This Repentance ought to be speedy To live long in such Sins after the first wilful breach of this Covenant is dangerous hardens the Heart gives the Devil greater power over the Soul and the Person thus sining knows not but he may be given up to hardness of Heart and to reprobate mind in which condition he may be snatcht away by Death and haled to the great Tribunal 2. Such a Person must not make a trade of Repenting and sinning for if he fall often into the same Sin and still pretends to repent it s a sign the Repentance is counterfeit his love to God fickle and unsincere his resistances of God's Spirit strong and the inward Man left without a Guard to secure it against the assaults of the Devil 3. Upon this new Repentance greater watchfulness than ordinary must be used and the Penitent must become a gainer by his Sins i. e. the dreadfulness of his fall must help toward the great exemplariness of his Life and the Sins he hath lived in must make them dread them more than ever A very signal growth in Grace must succeed his Fall and the Ball having been struck against the ground must now rebound the higher His time must now be redeem'd and he that hath been so careless must now double his diligence He must therefore love much now because he expects much should be forgiven him and his greater fervor in Religion is the best demonstration of his unfeigned return from his Apostacy The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. IT must needs be great presumption for Men and Women to enter into a solemn Covenant with God in this Sacrament and not to consider the weight and importance of it Christian when thou enter'st into this Covenant with the Holy Trinity thou solemnly obligest thy self that as thou hopest for Heaven and Happiness as thou hopest for Pardon and Salvation as thou hopest to have thy Sins wash'd away with the precious Blood of Christ thou wilt take Christ's Yoke upon thee endeavour to be humble and meek as he was learn of him and die to the World crucifie thy Lusts and Affections fight against the vanities of the World and labour to conâ—orm to the great example of that Saviour that spilt his dearest Blood for thee Either thou understandest what this engagement means or thou dost not If not how darest thou touch the Sacred Elements with polluted Hands If thou understandest it and art not firmly resolv'd to take care to perform what thou promisest so solemnly how dost thou think to escape the Judgement of God Art thou afraid of breaking a solemn promise made to a Prince and great Man whose Smile or Frown can either help or prejudice thee much and art thou not afraid of violating thy Engagements to the great God of Heaven What dost thou make of God Dost thou take him to be some Heathen Deity that hath Eyes and sees not Ears and hears not Dost thou oblige thy self to be his Subject and dost thou turn Rebel His Child and become a Prodigal His Confederate and conspire against him with his Enemies Dost thou take him for thy Lord and wilt not thou do what he saith If these thy unfaithful dealings with thy Lord and Master be enter'd into Gods Book of Accounts as certainly they are and the black Roll shall at last be open'd and read in thine Ears dost not thou think what Terror Amazement and Confusion thou wilt be in O Sinner There is no jesting with
such Bonds and Obligations The God thou hast to deal withal is a jealous God and if these Engagements cannot oblige thy Soul to a serious Conversation they 'll be witnesses to promote and hasten thy Condemnation II. See here what a miserrble and doleful state it is not to be in Covenant with God He that is not hath no security from the wrath of God the Threatnings of the Gospel are in force against him and he knows not how soon the Thunderbolt will fall upon his Head Like a condemn'd Malefactor he is repriev'd for a while and can promise himself a share only of the common Blessings which the Great Creator bestows indifferently upon his Friends and Enemies Not to be in Covenant with him is to be dead to his Paternal Grace and Favour and to be depriv'd of those Influences which make the Saints joyful in Glory and cause them to sing aloud upon their Beds Till you are in Covenant with your God you can have no hopes of Pardon your Sins remain upon you and that load will crush you at last into despair O think of it you that never made such a Covenant with your God in good earnest Notbeing in Covenant with him Christ's Blood and Death and Wounds and Agonies do not profit you And for you O miserable Creatures Christ died in vain that Damnation Christ came to deliver the World from continues to be your Portion and should you die in that condition you are undone to all intents and purposes Till you are in Covenant with God you are under the power of Darkness and under the Government of the worst of Tyrants you are Slaves in the midst of all your jollities Bondmen in the midst of your Pleasures You laugh in Chains triumph in your Fetters and stand upon the brink of Destruction O do not make light of this unhappy state your making light of it speaks you desperate but being concern'd at your danger may yet be a means to free your selves from the Net you are at present intangl'd in Fear of being undone may yet keep you from it and sorrow that you have not seriously thought of it may yet turn the stream and convert the Heart of God to you into Mercy and Compassion therefore it is that we instruct you in meekness if God peradventure will give you Repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth and that you may recover your selves out of the Snare of the Devil who have been taken captive by him at his Will 2 Tim. 2. 26. III. From hence it appears how necessary it is for People when young to make or renew this Covenant with their God As no Man can close too early with the offers of Grace so if this Covenant were made by all young Men and Women seriously and with deliberation what a restraint would it be upon their juvenal Desires What a curb to their extravagant Fancies What an Armour against Sin and the ill examples of the World How would this considerate Engagement keep them in and fright them from consenting when sinners do entice them The reason why it hath not this effect upon them is because it is not made with suitable applications of the Mind to the importance of it or to the Greatness and Majesty of that God with whom it is made and to the danger and hazard they run in breaking of it for every trifle that comes in their way and when they have made it they do not keep their Hearts warm by ruminating upon what they have done nor do they renew it so often as they might and should do Were it preserv'd fresh and green and flourishing in their Minds it would harden them against impression of all those little allurements which now draw their Affections and their Souls another way Did they think when a sinful shew when vain company when a glozing pleasure when a base suggestion invites them to consent I have wash'd my Feet how shall I defile them again I have given my self up to the disposal of him to whom all Power in Heaven and Earth is given How can I be faithless and escape his Anger I have in this Sacrament made a resignation of my Heart to him that rescued me from the burning Lake how shall I break with him and escape his displeasure I have consecrated my self to a greater Master How shall I debase my self and serve such pitiful nothings I have but one Soul and have given that away to my Redeemer How shall I espouse this Vanity I have promis'd Obedience to him that washed me with his Blood How shall I obey his Enemy Such Thoughts as these repeated often would make the Heart inflexible to all the charming intreaties of the World or the Devil and Oh! that you would but make this Tryal you would find that we are not Mad but speak the words of Truth and Soberness as St. Paul told Festus in a case not much unlike this Acts 26. 25. IV. It 's no very difficult thing to come to a Holy certainty and assurance that we are in Covenant with God It must needs be difficult to the unwilling and to him that hopes God's Favour will fly into his Mouth without seeking it any thing seems hard and if it were difficult the difficulty is not insuperable especially if we look into the conditions of the Covenant There is no man that is in his Wits but may upon a diligent search find and know whether he heartily agrees to the conditions and whether he promises what is required on his part out of love to the ways of Religion and whether he makes conscience of performing his promises It 's true the Heart is deceitful but that it is so is our own fault we may remedy that deceitfulness if we will search it and by the Rules Christ hath prescribed in the Gospel bring it into order It is not to be imagin'd that God would leave us in uncertainties in so great a concern as this and he that bids us apply the Comforts of this Covenant must be supposed to have left us signs and characters whereby we may know that we are confederates with him and have a right to what he hath said he 'll do for us and there can be no greater character than the testimony of our Conscience that our engagements influence our Spirits keep us in awe prevail with us to be cautious and can do more with us than a base Lust or any sinful gain and pleasure If thou freely resignest thy self to the guidance and direction of thy Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and the love of God manifested in this Covenant works upon thine Affections and thou art content to be ruled by ois Law art sensible of the equity and reasonableness of it consentest to his injunctions not only professest subjection but actually endeavourest to submit to what he commands and art willing without any reserves that not only thine Understanding Will and Desires but thine outward Man too thine Eyes and Ears
and Feet and Gestures and Behaviour thy Reason Memory and Passion should all be at his beck move by his prescription act according to his appointment be seasoned with his Grace and conducted by his Wisdom If thou art content that all shall go rather than his Favour if his Love or a share in it be dearer to thee than the dearest of all outward enjoyments be of good cheer it 's a good sign and thou mayst rationally infer that thou art in Covenant with thy Lord and hast a right to all the priviledges that are annex'd to it for thy encouragement V. And here we may justly reflect what a mercy it is to be in Covenant with God a mercy indeed which no Tongue can express nay no Apollos neither as eloquent as he was can describe no Tertullus no Cicero no Demosthenes represent according to its worth a mercy which no Man knows save he who receives it a mercy weich fills the Tongues of departed Saints with praises a mercy which unhappy Souls that groan among Devils would give Millions for if they had them a mercy which sweetens all Conditions makes Sickness easie and Iron Chains sit soft mitigates pain and tempers grief and anguish A mercy which made the penitent Publican stand confounded amaz'd the humble Magdalen caused St. Paul to go chearfully through Stripes and Imprisonment and encouraged the Believers of old to defie death and torments He that is in Covenant with God enjoys all that Son of God enjoys though not as yet in fruition and possession yet in title and reversion God the Father carries him on his Wings as the Eagle doth her young the Eternal Son of God is his faithful Friend The Holy Spirit of God speaks to him in the still voice of peace and comfort He that is in this Covenant is safe in the midst of Spears and Arrows safe when he goes through the Water safe when he passes through the Fire safe when the Waves do roar safe when Hell gapes upon him safe in a Storm safe at Sea safe on the Shore safe in his Life safe in his Death God is concern'd for him in all his afflictions He is afflicted The Lord Jesus is touch'd with his infirmities and the Spirit of God makes intercessions for him with groans that cannot be utter'd In a word there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. The PRAYER O God! whose pity is infinite whose compassion knows no bounds How shall I extol thy Humiliation How shall I admire thy condescension to this poor Worm Will God the Great the omnipotent God look upon such an one as I Wilt thou enter into a Covenant with this lump of Clay wilt thou tye and oblige thy self to do me good The Favour is wonderful I could not have thought it possible but that thou hast most graciously revealed it to me I believe Lord help my unbelief Behold I am Servant the Son the Daughter of thine Handmaid Be it unto me according unto thy Word I accept of thy offer I count my self happy that I may be admitted into Covenant with thee I renounce the Devil and all his Works Thou shalt be my Master my Father my Guide my Director my King and my God my Master to command me my Father to counsel me my Guide to lead me my Director to conduct me my King to rule me my God to dispose of me as thou pleasest I will know no Will but thy Will By the Blood of the Covenant unite my Will to thy Will Grant me to desire what thou delightest in desiring to search after it searching to know it and knowing it to fulfil it Make me O Lord for thou alone canst do it make me Obedient without contradiction Holy without defection Chast without corruption Patient without murmuring Humble without dissimulation Chearful without licentiousness Sorrowful without dejection Grave without affectation nimble in Religion without lightness Fearful without despair Upright without Hypocrisie and fruitful in good Works without presumption Give me a watchful Heart a Heart not easily drawn away by vain imaginations a Heart unbroken by afflictions unaffected with the vanities of the World that may not swell with prosperity nor sink in adversity Grant me understanding to know thee diligence to seek thee wisdom to find thee a readiness to please thee perseverance to wait for thee and confidence at last to embrace thee O Holy and Eternal Spirit I depend upon thy assistance Make me faithful to my God faithful to my Neighbour faithful to mine own Soul faithful in my Calling faithful in the discharge of my Duty faithful in my Promises faithful in my Conversation faithful in my Love faithful in my Obedience faithful in thy House faithful in mine own faithful unto Death that I may obtain a Crown of Life through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen CHAP. XV. Of frequent receiving the Holy Communion and the necessity of it The ONTENTS Frequent coming to the Lord's Table the Practise of the Primitive Christians Receiving every Lord's Day an universal observance Different Customs in different Churches Decay of a good life the cause of Communicating seldom The necessity of frequent Communicating shewn in four particulars as the Eucharist is a great preservative against Sin an engagement to emulate Christ's Virtues a Motive to Charity and the frequent coming a thing very pleasing to God Inquiry made how often a conscientious Christian is bound to Communicate The measures of that Obligation to be taken partly from the Orders of the Church we live in and partly from the fervency of our love to Christ. An Objection drawn from the danger of contempt and disesteem of the Ordinance if we come often answered Arguments to prove that lawful business in the World is no just impediment of Communicating frequently An Expostulation pressing frequent Receiving The frequent Communicant an Object of Divine Mercy The Prayer I. THough the Example of the Primitive Believers is not properly a Law yet we may have leave to infer so much from it that being well acquainted with the Will of Christ and his Apostles in those Practises especially which were universal we ought not without very urgent reasons to depart from that Pattern and if this Rule hold frequent communicating at the Lords Table will become if not absolutely necessary yet highly useful and expedient since it was the practise of the best of Men in the best of Ages and of this the Acts of the Holy Apostles give us a very large account particularly Ch. 2. 42. 46. which place being generally understood of the Eucharist it must follow that the Believers did daily participate of it But this seems to have been a custom peculiar to the Church of Jerusalem for though St. â—yprian St. Chrysostom and St. Austin speak of some places in their time where the daily Sacrifice was celebrated yet even in the Apostles days we find other Churches did
it it must stand and last as long as those assaults do last The Apostle therefore makes mention of sincere Christians that will be alive at Christ's coming to Judgment 1 Thess. 4. 17. And consequently the Church will last till then and if the Church is to last to the Worlds end the Marks of that Church must last as long It 's true Holiness of life is one Mark but that 's not all the Marks the Christ's Church must have The Sacraments are Marks too and Marks whereby it may be better known than by Holiness not but that Holiness is the principal Ornament of the Church but as those that are to joyn themselves unto the Church are generally more inquisitive after the Constitutions and Ordinances of it and the means whereby that Holiness is effected than after any thing else so this Sacrament being part of those means and therefore one of the necessary Marks it must last to the end of the World as much as the Church it self and as long as there is any probability of Mens joyning themselves to the Church and by this means Holiness of Life is signally promoted as experience sufficiently witnesses As Christians in general so the Church of Christ or the respective Societies of Christians professing Christ's Doctrine and imitation of his life are compared to a City set on a Hill and which cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Not that Christ's Church must always appear outwardly Magnificent and Glorious thereby to attract the Eyes of Spectators no but that the purity of Doctrine and sound Preaching of the Word and the due administration of the Holy Sacraments together with innocence of Life must make it visible and this it may be under the greatest persecution and when a severe Tempest falls upon her by these Marks she may still be known and if these are her Marks these Marks must last as long as the Church it self III. The term therefore to which this Holy Sacrament is to last even Chrst's coming to Judgment may very justly be taken into consideration in receiving of the Blessed Eucharist I hinted so much Ch. 1. Fa. 9. But must upon this occasion enlarge upon it For 1. This consideration will help to encourage us to Patience under reproaches Injuries and Mens unrighteous dealing with us It serves to quiet the Soul to think that Christ knows my Sufferings aud the Injuries that are done me and sees my Integrity and Innocence and will clear me in the last day before the whole World What need I resent such an affront when the Son of God takes notice of it and if I am patient under it will in that great day plead my Cause set the Sinners Transgression if he repents not before his Eyes and confound him not that I am to wish that confusion of the offender but my consideration that Christ will actually do it may promote my contentedness under that affliction What need I revile my Persecutors when he for whose sake I endure that persecution will sufficiently vindicate me in that day for it is a righteous thing with God to recompense Tribulation to those that trouble you saith St. Paul 2. Thes. 1. 6 7 8. This Judge will at last discover how Men were mistaken in us how unjust there Censures were what sinister Constructions they put upon our Actions how malicious their Slanders were how unjust the Punishments they inflicted on us how inhuman how contrary to Charity all their ill Lauguage was He shall bring forth our Righteousness as the Light and our Judgment as the Noon-day Psal 37. 6. and this consideration must needs be very effectual to promote Patience 2. This Consideration will help to increase our confidence and arm us against distrust and diffidence for if the powers of darkness would fright us from laying hold on Christ's Merits because he will be a very severe Judge in the last day the timerous Christian may answer thus True he will be my Judge but he hath promised to be a Father too to those that fear him He 'll be my Judge Indeed but he is a Judge of my Flesh and of my Bone and who will have regard to my infirmities He 'll be my Judge but he is my Head withal who will be tender of his Members He 'll be my Judge but he is a merciful High Priest withal who will be my Advocate and answer the Objections I cannot confute I will cling to his Precepts I will not wickedly depart form him I will express my Love to him in Holy Obedience I will dread his Judgments and make his Mercy a motive to Purification I will not give place to the Devil I will fight against his Temptations I will stand upon my watch I will not lie asleep in the Bed of Sin I will get up if I chance to fall I will rise again when I am overtaken in a fault I will accuse my self and beg his pardon I will endeavour to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith I am called with all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering I will not take part against him with his Enemies This is the work I have resolved upon according to this Rule I will walk and such a Soul I know this Gracious Judge will not cast away nor condemn what inadvertencies I may run into I will not justifie but strive against them and I doubt not but his Cross will cover them while my Heart is sincere and my Soul is ever toward him This Judge will absolve me he will deal favourably with me as with a person whom he hath redeemed I will look upon the Promises and apply them He hath promised that he will not take away his kindness utterly from such as love him while I live I will love him and I question not but as severe as he is to the obstinate and untractable he will visit me with everlasting kindness The Preceding Considerations improved and reduced to Practise I. O Let us admire the Goodness of God and his marvellous care of our everlasting welfare He sees how slippery our Natures are how fickle how mutable how changeable how apt to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered to them and therefore he ties us in Bonds in Covenants and in Sacraments of of Virtue whereof the Lord's Supper is the strongest the greatest and most Sacred and therefore the best defensative and guard against the encroachments of Temptations insomuch that he who can break through this Mound and will not be kept in by Arguments drawn from the Death of Christ but in despight of the Blood of the Covenant he hath drunk and sealed his Promise with will plunge himself into known sins that Man's case is desperate that Man is truly resolved to be miserable and will die though the Lord Jesus call to him from the Cross Live in thy Blood live He that can Swear and Vow to God in this Sacrament vow upon the Body and Blood of Christ that he 'll be Drunk no more and Swear no more
not frown on those that are weak in Faith I do not mean such as have no saving no working Faith and as refuse to work the work of God such are Infidels not Men weak in Faith Weakness of Faith supposes readiness to good works but the various doubts which attend it cause this weakness That there are such Persons as Children in Grace St. John assures us 1 John 2. 12. Yet even their Sins he is willing to forgive for his Names sake 2. Because this Sacrament was instituted for the strengthening of our Faith The weak in Faith are called and invited to it that they may grow more robust and lively and to this end Christ offers himself in this Ordinance as Spiritual Meat and Drink that living upon him and feeding upon him we may be brought up to greater perfection that our Souls may follow him with greater alacrity Grace may become more active and Faith more solid and more defecated from Hypocrisie And as here we contemplate Christ so we behold his extraordinary Faith in God that seeing it it may give us courage to tread in his steps His Father's promises to him as Man and Mediator were great and large and extensive God had promis'd that he should be King of Heaven and Earth that all Power should be put into his hand and that he should be as it were his Lieutenant-General Ask of me saith he Psal. 2. 8. And I shall give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession thou shalt break them with a rod of Iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potter's Vessel There was little probability of the performance of these promises when he was mocked derided scourged beaten bruis'd and crucified when he was made liker a Worm than a Man the reproach of Men and despised of the People when all that saw him laugh'd him to scorn and did shoot out their Lips and shook their Heads saying He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him when many Bulls compass'd him and strong Bulls of Basan did beset him round when they gaped upon him with their Mouths as ravening and roaring Lions when he was poured out like Water and all his Bones were out of joynt when his Heart was like Wax and melted in the midst of his Bowels when his strength was dried up like a Pot-sherd and his Tongue cleav'd to his Jaws and he was brought into the dust of Death when Dogs compass'd him and the Assemblies of the wicked did enclose them when they pierc'd his hands and his Feet as David describes his misery yet in the midst of all these disasters he believ'd the promise of his Father would be punctually fulfill'd which makes the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews say that for the Glory set before him the promis'd Glory He endured the Cross and despised the shame Heb. 12. 2. His Faith bore him up under all these Floods of ungodliness so that he is not only the Author and Finisher but also the example of our Faith an Example set before us in this Holy Sacrament that we may light our Candle by his Fire strengthen our Faith by his Plerophory and Confidence and if this be the end of his being represented in this Ordinance the weak in Faith cannot be excluded nor can weakness of Faith make a Person an unworthy Receiver Nor Is it want of a total purity or of freedom from all Sin that makes a Person an unworthy Receiver It 's true the Gospel commands those who mean to receive worthily to purge out the old leaven 1 Cor. 5. 7. And putting off the old Man with all his deceitful Lusts Eph. 4. 22. and whoever hopes to be partaker of the benefits of Christ's death his purpose at least must be serious and unfeigned without partiality and Hypocrisie to renounce all Love and Affection to a sinful Life but still there is a great difference betwixt destroying the Reigning power of Sin and being free from all Sin of the former the aforesaid passages must be understood and the worthy Communicant must in sober sadness mortifie and resolve to mortifie the Imperial Power of Sin in his Soul so as not willingly and wilfully to yield unto the sinful dictates of the Flesh or of the World but to prefer his God and what he requires before his own Temporal advantages But from thence it follows not that the worthy Receiver must not be so much as subject to errors and inadvertencies and falls by surprize and before he can well recollect himself and therefore the want of such spotlesness is not it that makes a Man Eat and Drink unworthily at this Table 1. Because this Feast is not instituted for Angels but for Men. Angels have no need of such encouragements to Virtue they being determin'd to Goodness Were Men free from all Sin they would not stand in need of this Ordinance which is intended to make sinful Men good and good Men better Those that are whole need no Physician but the sick and as Christ is the Physician in this Sacrament so they are the sick he invites to come to him The best Man that is though he labours under no Chronical distemper yet he hath ailings still and infirmities about him which want the Physicians hand and Medicine which is here most Graciously tendr'd to him The Scripture of the Old Testament calls Man Enosh infirm weak sickly and though good Men are arriv'd to a far better state of health than Hypocrites and grosser Sinners yet who even of the strictest mortals can say I have made my heart clean so that no spot shall be seen there This Sacrament therefore being ordained for Men it must be granted that it is ordain'd for sinful Men not to encourage them in Sin but to make them hate it not only the bigger stains but even the relicts of it that remain in the Regenerate To this end Christ's Agonies and exquisite Torments are set before us in this Sacrament the Torments I mean our Sins inflicted and brought upon him that that sight may terrifie us and fill us with abhorrency of that which hath made the Son of God so miserable 2. No Sinners are excluded from this Sacrament that are willing to reform their Hearts and Lives Those that with Ephraim will have no more to do with Idols take with them words and turn unto the Lord saying Take away all our iniquity and receive us Graciously so will we render the Calves of our Lips Ashur shall not save us neither will we say any more to the works of our hands ye are our Gods as it is said Hos. 14. 2 3. Such are call'd by the great Shepherd of the Sheep not stubborn Sinners but penitent Sinners not obstinate Sinners but tractable Sinners not Sinners that will be miserable but Sinners that long to be deliver'd from their misery not Sinners that are resolved to walk
assert God's just Anger against Sin and keep off the fatal blow from Man at once defend God'ds Right and establish Man's Felicity and thereby put the poor miserable Worm in a capacity of becoming Heir to the Riches of God who was an Heir of the Treasures of Wrath and a companion of Blessed Spirits who had deserv'd to howl with Apostate Spirits a Child of Light who was a Son of Darkness and a Servant of Righteousness who was a Slave of Sin I say the Holy Ghost supposes that he that seriously believes all this will think nothing too good for God will not stand out against so great a Mercy will fight no more against so great and so good a Master but will submit to him be ready to run at his Commands give himself up to the Will of so great a Benefactor and will be hearty and sincere in serving him Now the unworthy Receiver being so far from doing this so far from turning to God with all his heart and with all his mind that he refuses the Dominion of God will be a Slave to his Sin still and had rather obey the Devil than this most bountiful Master who hath done so much for him by doing so denies that Christ's Body and Blood was sacrific'd for him for if he believ'd it he could not do as he doth and tho' he may protest by all that 's Good and Sacred that he believes it yet Words and Compliments will not absolve him and if talking were believing no Man that professes Christianity would ever be damn'd What doth a Malefactor's pleading at the Bar that he is not guilty signifie when the Evidences are strong and the Matter of Fact is prov'd against him Belief that doth not touch the Heart or renew the Mind or spiritualize the Affections is mere Infidelity and where this Belief is not to be found the Sinner is accused of denying the Mercy he pretends to believe And to this purpose saith the Apostle They profess that they know God but in their works they deny him Tit. 1. 16. So that the unworthy Receiver i. e. He that receives and yet will not reform whatever his Profession may be in his Actions he denies that Christ was Sacrific'd for him and therefore makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 2. He Eats and Drinks unworthily makes himself guilty of jesting with the Body and Blood of Christ As the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis speak He plays with the most tremendous things for in coming he seems to confess that by the Death of the Son of God his miserable Soul was redeem'd and a Pardon purchas'd for him and the Heavens made to bow to him and the good Will of God procur'd to save him for ever and yet he doth not think all this worth forsaking a sinful Lust or shaking a pleasing Dalilah from his Bosom and what is this but playing with the Body and Blood of Christ Should a Man make a very curious Harangue in commendation of his Neighbour compare him with Salomon for Wisdom with David for Sincerity with Jonathan for Faithfulness with Josiah for Piety for Generosity with Moses for Chastity with Joseph for Patience with Job with St. Paul for Courage with St. Peter for Zeal with Absolom for Beauty with Zacheus for Charity with Abraham for Hospitality nay with Angels for clearness of Understanding and for Purity of Life with Seraphim And when he hath done abuse and reproach him or do that which he cannot but know must be offensive and irksome or prejudicial to him gives the Spectator just occasion to think that all that flanting Panegyric was only a jocular thing design'd rather as an essay of Wit than as any real affection to the Virtues of the commended Party The unworthy Receiver doth in effect the same for his coming to this Sament is a tacit Commendation of Christ's Crucified Body and Blood whereby he seems to applaud the wonderful Works that Christ hath done for him and to proclaim to all the standers by what an Obligation that Death is to mortifie the body of Sin and to be true and faithful to him that did not count his Life dear to do him good and yet having no real purpose within whatever external Declaration he may make to become a new Man but after he hath been at this Table when temptations assault him temptations to his former sins yields to them as easily as ever plainly declares he was in jest when he seem'd to magnifie this Munificence of his Saviour and from hence it must follow that he is guilty of playing with the Body and Blood of Christ. 3 He that Eats and Drinks unworthily seems to wish that Christ may dye again and upon that account is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord for in that Christ's Death is not efficacious to pull down the strong holds of Sin in him or rather in that he will not let that death prevail with him to the mortifying of his sinful Lusts he seems to wish for an iteration of that Death which may be more powerful and have a greater influence upon the destruction of his Sin It is a Declaration as it were that the Death of Christ as the case stands doth no good upon him and therefore since the Death of the Son of God must be the means to break the power of Sin in him he stands in need of another death of that Saviour which may do greater miracles upon his Soul or sinful Temper Christ's Death indeed must break the reigning power of Sin but then a Person in whom this effect is to be wrought must apply that Death think upon it warm his Heart with the Consideration of it ruminate upon the Motives of it and upon the greatness of his own Sin that occasioned it and upon the vast Advantages that flow from that Death and be restless with God to make it effectual to his Soul For to think that this Death will do the work without our Labour or Industry or pondering the weight and moment of it is to imagine that God will deal with us as with Brutes that have no understanding As Christ died once in the end of the World so his Death spreads his Virtue to all Penitents from the beginning to the end of the World But wherever it works a serious Reformation it must be improv'd by Faith and Thoughts and Prayer and Contemplation and should Christ dye a thousand times if these means be neglected his dying so often would signifie little to the inconsiderate Spectator This is the monstrous Fancy of some Men that they hope the Mysteries of Religion will or must change their Hearts without any trouble of their own which Conceit must needs make them contemptible in the sight of an All-wise God who sees them neglect the Powers and Faculties he hath given them The unworthy Receiver therefore finding no good by this Death of the Lord Jesus for it makes no alteration in his
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
Sacrament the Son of God doth not only offer to reconcile thee to thy God but shews thee the way too how it shall be effected to thy Content and Satisfaction Here he offers to enrol thy Name among the Friends of God but it is impossible to make thee God's Friend while thou maintainest thy Enmity against him To leave thy Sins and to come to this Sacrament are one and the same thing these two are inseparable to divide them is to divide Light from Fire which implies Impossibility Oh think therefore Till I come to this Ordinance God will be my Foe and should I be snatch'd away while God is so who will plead for me when I come to appear before God I will arise therefore and go to my Father c. IV. As squeamish as some Sinners are there are others that dare come and receive unworthily and be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and be no more concern'd than if they had committed any trivial or indifferent Action Such are they who are the same after they have received as they were before vitious before and vitious after revengeful lascivious unclean malicious proud Boasters intemperate Back-biters implacable unmerciful before and after too nor doth the threatning that they make themselves guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus fright or discompose them Lord How stupid a thing is Sin How hard how insensible doth it make the Heart What Venom doth it shed upon the Soul Who would imagine that Men could be so perverse Men that live under the Gospel too as to be guilty of murthering Christ Murthering of Christ You will say Who can murther him now he is in Glory What Bug-bears are these to fright poor silly ignorant People with So easily do Men slide from Hypocrisie into Prophaneness and from Prophaneness into the Scorner's Chair But What if Christ be in Heaven and out of the reach of thy Baseness and Malice If Christ interpret thy Continuance in known Sins after thou hast been viewing his Death and Crucifixion in this Sacrament as murthering of him how great how heinous and of how deep a Dye must thy Sins be What Guilt what Loads what Mountains of Wrath must we suppose dost thou lay and pull down on thy Shoulders Who can tell so well the venomous Influences and Tendencies of thy Sins as he that perfectly understands the poysonous nature of it If he saith that it amounts to murthering of him Will thy laughing at the Conceit excuse thy Folly when his Anger shall be kindled Need he value thy Flouts and Jeers that hath Flames and Vengeance at command to lash thee into better Manners It is impossible he should be mistaken in his Verdict of things And wilt thou say he doth not speak what is true Art thou wiser than he Or dost thou see farther into things than he Must his Wisdom be modell'd by thy shallow Reason Or shall a Creature dispute the Oracle of its Creator If he sees and knows that thy wilful Impenitence runs so high as to make an Attempt upon his Life again wilt not thou believe him or darest thou charge him with a Lye The Holy Ghost speaking by St. Paul protests so much And wilt thou add sinning against the Holy Ghost to all thy Offences Believe it Sinner 't is Death to the Lord of Life to see a Creature for whom he took such pains wallow still in those Sins after Receiving which he was supposed to abjure in Receiving 'T is Death to him to see thee more tender of keeping thy Word with a Man that must die than with him that lives for ever 'T is Death to him to see thee wilful in breaking that solemn Promise thou madest under his Cross and didst seal with drinking of his Blood Thou dost in this Sacrament make a Covenant with him and oblige thy self as thou hopest to have a share in his Merits that thou wilt be guided and governed by him who to the Astonishment of Men and Angels died for thee and there cannot be a more sacred Tye and to see thee violate that Oath and break through that Vow into Damnation into that Damnation from which he came to rescue thee this is Death to him and a new Attempt upon his Life and if thou darest be so barbarous so inhumane as to do so Heaven and Earth will be Witnesses against thee and that very Blood which thou prophanest will be a Witness against thee and all the Saints that see thee prophane that Blood will be Witnesses against thee and it is enough to make the Lord repent that ever he died for such a Wretch O then play not with these Mysteries for it will be hard for thee to kick against the Pricks But V. Let the worthy Receiver rejoyce in the midst of all these Terrours These Thunder-bolts do not reach him These Threatnings do not concern him He is safe under all these Storms They will not fall on him to crush him These Hail-stones will not bruise his Head This Weight will not sink him He can pass through all these Messengers of Death and fear no Evil Even he who sees greater Comfort in a crucified Saviour than in this gaudy World and can admire the Mercies purchased by his Death while others stand gazing on stately Buildings and sumptuous Palaces Even he who makes Conscience of performing what he promises to a glorious God and feels Desires in his Breast to be more and more conformable to the holy Life and Example of Christ Jesus and to whom no Interest is so dear as that of a crucified Saviour who loves as he loves without Hypocrisie or Dissimulation Let such a Soul be glad in the Lord and believe that God will command his Loving-kindness in the Day-time and in the Night will cover him with the Shadow of his Wings Let him not be disquieted nor think God hath forgotten him when his Soul is bowed down to the Dust and his Belly cleaves unto the Earth Christ the Son of God will certainly manifest himself unto him be present with him pour Grace into his Heart and Comfort into his Soul give himself to him be his Hiding-place compass him about with the Songs of Deliverance and say unto him I will instruct thee and teach thee in the Way which thou shalt go I will guide thee with mine Eye Such a Person receives Christ indeed receives him with all his Blessings and with all the Spoils he recovered of the Enemy He receives him with all the Wealth he hath fought for and purchased with his Bâ—ood He receives him with all the precious things he hath laboured for in the Sweat of his Brows He receives â—im laden and abounding with glorious Promises which shall by degrees be all fulfilled in him for they belong to him they are his Right they are his Portion Christ will make him worthy to receive them He shall ask and his Master will give He shall seek and find too He shall knock and
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
day insomuch that if many a Man's sickness and weakness of Body and not living out halfe his days were throughly examin'd and look'd into it would be found to proceed in a great measure from this Cause even his unworthy Receiving of the Holy Symbols II. If we enquire into the Reasons why God makes use of Sickness and weakness of Body to lash the unworthy Receiver in this Life we must conclude that considering how all Afflictions and Judgments of this Life are curative and intended to work a change in the Offender for the better the Reasons why God makes use of Sickness particularly in punishing the unworthy Receiver are these following 1. Sickness weakens the Flesh abates and lessens its violent desires whereby it comes to pass that the Spiritual part gets from under the slavery it lay enthrall'd in while the Flesh prevail'd and puts the Sinner upon serious Thoughts for now it gets leave to exercise its Authority which before was over-aw'd and crush'd and oppress'd by the usurping Tyrant and thereby occasions terror and consternation in the whole Man about his unworthy Receiving While the Flesh is predominant and bears Rule Faith and Reason are mere prisoners and whatever they suggest is not hearken'd to The Flesh still baffles their Arguments and admits of nothing but what pleads in favour of its brutish Appetite Sickness coming and weakning the Flesh and rendring all the delights of the World insipid and unsavoury the Soul recovers her freedom and is now at liberty to think of her former Life to survey the Actions of her past Practices and among other Errors to reflect upon her unworthy Receiving to aggravate this particular Offence and thereby to incline the sinner's Eyes and Heaâ—t to penitential Tears for now the Man having no hurry of business no noise of vain company no external Gayeties no Musick of sensual Pleasures to call him away from minding the things that belong to the happiness of his Soul he is more at leisure to ruminate upon what he hath been doing and the dreadfulness of his Sin viz. feeding irreverently at this Table and not discerning that the Body of the Son of God was offered to his Soul and if any thing will melt or turn him this is very likely to effect it 2. Sickness puts the unworthy Receiver in mind of Death for he that falls sick knows not but his Illness may end in Death and there are few Men but are of this opinion when once they take their Bed fear that they shall or may dye makes them seek out for proper Helps and Remedies send for Physicians if they be able and sometimes for Divines too think of making their Wills set their House in order and after all leave nothing untried whereby they may prevent the stroak of Death Sickness being of that nature and having this influence on men may therefore be suppos'd to put the unworthy Receiver in mind of his Death and as it puts him in mind of Death so if he have any sense of Religion left it minds him also of an approaching Judgment and suggests to him that for ought he knows he will shortly be in another World be summon'd to give an account of his Life to God and appear before the Judge of Quick and Dead even before Christ Jesus the Son of God whose Death hath had no influence upon his Life whose Blood he hath trampled under foot whose Sufferings he hath not much thought of whose Love hath made no great impression upon him whose Charity hath wrought in him no considerable tenderness to his Neighbour whose Presence in the Sacrament he hath undervalued and whose entreaties to become Wise unto Salvation and meek and humble and serious and blameless he hath stopt his Ears against and how little Mercy he must expect of that Judge whom to please he hath not been much concern'd This Kindness Sickness may be supposed to do to the unworthy Communicant viz. to put him in mind of his Death and future account and the Judge whose Body and Blood he hath profan'd and his anger and indignation against such Profanation and what can be supposed more effectual to promote Repentance and Godly Sorrow and new Resolutions to awake from the Dead that Christ may give him Life And therefore God makes use sometimes of Bodily Sickness to afflict the unworthy Communicant But where Death seizes on the unworthy Commnicant either before he can bethink himself or before a previous lingring Sickness hath melted and wrought his Heart into a Spiritual Life there the Man's case is deplorable indeed for to think that God will accept of his Death as a Satisfaction for his Sin and save him however is to make a new Divinity and to erect Principles which the Scripture knows nothing of 'T is true in some Cases where God cuts off a young Man in 〈◊〉 Flower of his Age a young Man I mean whose Liâ—e hath been blameless attended with holy Fears and a Conscientious Behaviour at home and abroad his untimely Death may be said to be a Temporal Affliction for some accidental Miscarriages and single Inadvertencies such as never swelled into an Habit or setled Approbation by which Affliction he is saved and freed from the greater Condemnation according to the Apostle's Rule 1 Cor. 11. 32. But when we are judged i e. with Temporal Judgments such as Sickness Weakness and Untimely Death whereof he had spoken Vers. 30. we are chasten'd of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World In this Case i.e. in Accidental Miscarriages God may be said to accept of the lesser for the greater Judgment upon his Account who died and rose again for those who hear his Voice But where the Sin is habitual rooted in the Heart hath invaded the Complexion and is allowed of and thought harmless and void of Hurt there an Untimely Death is no Security against Condemnation no Shelter against the Wrath to come How far it may abate or qualifie the future Indignation I am not able to say but it is no Deletory no Fortisication no Charm against that Storm III. But here a Difficulty will arise How a Person may know that the Sickness or Weakness of Body that is upon him comes upon him for his unworthy Receiving To which I answer 1. There is not a more ready Way to know it than by ransacking our Life and particularly our publick Devotions If in our present Sickness we find upon Examination that when we came formerly to the Supper of the Lord we came without any sincere Intent Desire or Resolution to be wrought into Love and Obedience to Christ Jesus by the Sight of his Cross and Death and Charity that we came and went away unconcerned unmoved untouched at this Medicamentum Immortalitatis this Physick of Immortality as St. Dennis calls it or that we thought that the Blessings promised to the Faithful and to those who strive and fight the good Fight would fall to our share and
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
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
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
Temptations were stronger than my Purposes and when they came I fell This Sickness Lord I am still apt to fall into and though by thy Grace I act sometimes according to my good Intentions and Resolutions yet how often do I miscarry in this point Lord give me not only good Inclinations but Courage to perform them too Oh let me not think it enough to entertain good Wishes in my Soul but make them so strong that the Good I intend and purpose may break forth like the Sun from a Cloud into a perfect Day 17. For of necessity he must release one unto them at the Feast VVHen the Paschal Lamb was to be killed the Jews had a Prisoner released to confirm the Memory of their Deliverance from the House of Bondage O Lamb of God! When thou diedst thou openedst the Prison-door for all Mankind to come out Thou didst proclaim Liberty to all Men captivated by Sin and the Devil O wonderful Release This makes me admire how Men after this Liberty procured for them by thy Death should yet be fond of their Prisons still and delight in Slavery and the Bondage of Iniquity Oh Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may praise thy Name The Righteous shall compass me about when thou shalt deal bountifully with me 18. And they cried out all at once saying Away with this Man and release unto us Barabbas A Monstrous Choice To prefer a Man before God a Son of Death before the Lord of Life a Malefactor before Innocence it self a Murtherer before the Saviour of the World Darkness before Light a Villain before the Son of God! Yet blessed Jesu such a sad Choice I have made too often when I have preferred the Cares of the World before the better part and while I have condemned these wicked Men and been in a kind of Passion to see and hear of their Impiety have unawares sunk into this Sin my self by preferring a Trifle before thy Will and a foolish Satisfaction before Rest in thy Bosom and an Interest in thy Favour and the Things of this World before a more glorious Reversion in another Life Pardon my desperate Choice And let me henceforward prefer thee who art fairer than the Children of Men before all that my Flesh doth promise or the World give For one thing is needful even thy Love of Complacency and if I have that it shall not be taken away from me 19. Who for a certain Sedition made in the City and for Murther was cast in Prison PRisons are fit Places for Malefactors not only upon the Account of securing Humane Societies from Enemies but also because such Sinners being removed from Temptations and Objects that enticed them to do ill and under pressure may think of God and reflect upon their wicked Lives and come to a sincere Repentance Yet when they are delivered out of their Durance their Lives very often are the same that formerly they were O my dear Redeemer Thou hast made me a Prisoner sometimes by Sickness and other Disasters in hopes that the Affliction might work upon me and the Fire I was in would make me a new Man yet when thou hast freed me from this Prison I have re-assumed my former Liberty in sinning Oh let it be so no more And seeing I am made whole let me take heed and sin no more lest worse things happen unto me 20. Pilate therefore willing to release Jesus spake again to them HEre I see greater Charity and Tenderness in an Heathen than in those who had the lively Oracles of God What a strange Sight is this to see Uncircumcision which is by Nature fulfilling the Law judge them who by the Letter and Circumcision do transgress the Law How many excellent Acts of Vertue do I see and read of in mere Pagans that had nothing but the Light of Nature to direct them Acts which I do not come up to that have the Light of Heaven to shine upon me O Jesu make me ashamed of my Backwardness and let my Righteousness exceed that of Men which do not call upon thy Name lest it be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in that Day than for me 21. But they cried saying Crucifie him crucifie him THis was the most infamous Punishment that any Man could be condemned to Ah Wretches Did not your Hearts smite you when you said so Will nothing serve you but the most ignominious Death a Death which none but Slaves were destin'd to What a brutish thing is Wrath and Anger It stops its Ears against all common Ingenuity and Reason It doth things in haste which must be repented of by leisure Lord Jesu I remember what unreasonable things I have done when my Passion hath been up things I am ashamed of now Oh leave me not to these Winds and Tempests Oh let me learn of thee for thou art meek and lowly in Heart that I may find Rest for my Soul 22. And he said unto them the third time Why what Evil hath he done I have found no Cause of Death in him I will therefore chastise him and let him go O Jesu 'T is very true thou hast done no Evil neither was Guile found in thy Mouth When thou wast reviled thou didst not revile again when thou sufferedst thou threatnedst not Thou wentest about doing good no Man could convince thee of any Sin Thou wast good and didst good even to those that now cried Crucifie him Thou camest to discourage Men from Evil it was thy Province to destroy the Works of the Devil and to make Men Partakers of the Divine Nature Goodness was in thy Nature and all thy Actions breathed of it Thou wast tender of Men's Good of the Good of their Souls and Bodies Oh make me conformable to thy Goodness Let me abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good Let thy Goodness be my Pattern and let me ever rejoyce in thy Goodness Make me steadily and invincibly good good unto Death that I may receive a Crown of Life Thy Goodness endures for ever Give mine the same Duration Oh touch it with thy Light and it shall burn bright for ever 23. And they were instant with loud Voices requiring that he might be crucified and the Voices of them and the Chief Priests prevailed THE Devil was let loose in these Sinners and see how he rages He makes them leap Bogs and Ditches and a Thousand Precipices to get their Wills accomplished The Damned in Hell were not more outragious than these Men. Lord Jesu What are we when left to our selves or to the Power of the Enemy Thou camest to redeem me from this Power Oh let me come under it no more Once I dwelt under that Tyranny I now serve a gentler Master Oh let me serve thee not with Eye-service as a Man-pleaser but as a Servant of God doing the Will of God from the Heart 24. And Pilate gave Sentence that it should be as they required THese Brutes threaten to accuse him
offended what tremblings will invade them How will they quake for fear What pitiful shifts will they betake themselves to but all in vain O let that dreadful day be ever before mine Eyes Let the future shrieks and groans of impenitent Sinners even now in this my day sound in mine Ears that I may be frighted from Sin O let me think what their ways will end in and turn my feet away from their Paths O let me not follow their pernicious ways that I may not be condemn'd with the World 31. For if they do these things in a green tree what shall be done in the dry JUdgment must begin at the House of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God And if the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the Ungodly and Sinner appear God is resolved to judge the World and even the best shall have a taste of his Justice The Afflictions that befall the good in this World are but the beginnings of his indignation against Sin and by the Blood of Christ they shall be saved from the wrath to come But if these be the beginnings of God's anger what will the progress of his Justice be and where will it end O blessed Saviour How fearful will the end of all ungodly Sinners be If I must be afflicted O let me have my share of it in this World that I may not sink under the burden of thine indignation hereafter 32. And there were also two other Malefactors led with him to be put to death VVHat an opportunity had these wretches to save their Souls even at the last moment of their Lives An opportunity the like of which never was before nor ever will be Here was an happy day for them to have secured Christ's Favour who would not have denied his Grace to them had they been but willing to accept of it upon this extraordinary occasion Kings and Princes bestow extraordinary Acts of Grace at their Coronation or upon some remarkable Solemnity Now had been the time for these Malefactors to have laid hold on Eternal life which they never had any hope of before But how do Men let slip the opportunities God puts in their hands So have I my Blessed Jesus many a time when I have been in a good frame when thou hast put good Thoughts and Resolutions in my Heart what opportunities had I to to make my self for ever But I have return'd to the love of the World despised these opportunies of Grace and justly deserved thou shouldst deny them me for ever Dear Saviour visit me once more with thy Salvation with the Day-spring from on high and I will admit thy Beams into my Soul that I may be enlighten'd edified sanctified and preserv'd for ever 33. And when they were come to the place which is call'd Calvary there they crucified him and the Malefactors one on the right hand and the other on the left HEre begins the act at which Heaven and Earth stood amaz'd What a spectacle was here The Son of God nailed to the Cross and hanging betwixt two Thieves Did not the hands of the Soldiers that nailed the Saviour of the World to the Cross tremble Did not their Hearts fail them when they tied him to the Tree No their hearts were flint and adamant No other could have been engaged in the Service O wonderful stupidity they knew not what flesh they touch'd They knew not it was a Body fram'd by the Holy Ghost and the fruit of the Virgin 's Womb Here O my Soul here the work of thy Redemption is commenc'd O look upon the Heavenly Creature that hangs here and think what Riches are treasured up in his Cross Here he shew'd himself a Mediator indeed hanging in the middle betwixt a Penitent and a Prodigal betwixt Heaven and Earth betwixt the Living and the Dead They crucified him What did the Angels think to see their Lord and Master thus used What dost thou think of it O my Soul Job's Friends seeing the greatness of his misery sate silent by him in the Dust seven Days Look O my Soul upon this object sit silent and admire for thy Lord's grief is great 34. Then said Jesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do LOrd Jesus What a Miracle of Mercy dost thou work here I know not which is the greater wonder those thou dist formerly when conversant on the Earth or that which I see now perform'd on the Cross. To pray for Men who had abused thee to a Prodigy To beg of thy Father to forgive their Insolencies and not to exclude them from the possibility of Repentance Can I think of this and not believe that this was to teach me how I must behave my self toward those that have done me wrong Canst thou forgive such injuries and shall not I forgive them that trespass against me One would have thought that these affronts and indignities which were offered to thee would never have been forgiven yet they are no sooner offer'd but thou intercedest for their Remission O let no injury that 's henceforward offer'd me seem too big for pardon O let me freely pass by the offence committed against me that my Father which is the Heaven may forgive me my Trespasses 34. And they parted his Garments and cast Lots VVHat a rich Spoil did these Soldiers get and they knew it not If a good Christian that understood the great Mystery of Godliness had got such a Treasure how would he have valued it what Joy what Comfort would it have been to such a Soul Not that there is any great virtue in the Cloaths of the Son of God A Man might have kept them and yet by leading an ill life have perish'd Eternally but Who would not have preserv'd these precious Relicks if he had known what Person it was that wore them It would have done him good to have looked upon them and admirable Reflections he might have made upon them But to Men that knew not God these things were of no value O my Soul Thou hast not priz'd the good Things thy God hath bequeathed to thee How little hast thou valued the Means of Grace thy Saviour left behind him Henceforward learn to make a better Use of them that they may be Health to thy Navel and Marrow to thy Bones 35. And the People stood beholding and the Rulers also with them derided him saying He saved others Let him save himself if he be Christ the chosen of God IT could not but cause strange Admiration to see him who had been known to be a Prophet mighty in Word or Deed come to such a doleful and dreadful End But for any Man to be so impudent as to deride him in his Misery this was extraordinary bold and insolent Yet Men that have done a very ill thing think themselves obliged to justifie it by their Gestures and Actions partly to keep themselves from Reproach and partly to
16 17 18. 3. To believe that Jesus of Nazareth who appear'd in Days of Pontius Pilate and was Crucified is that Son of God and our Redeemer and Mediator and is both God and Man in one Person Act. 10. 38. Rom. 1. 3 4. 4. To believe that without Faith Repentance and an holy Obedience to the Commands of the Gospel we have no interest in Christ's Death and the Benefits of it Heb. 5. 9. 5. To believe that there is an Heaven and Hell and Eternal Rewards and Punishments after this Life according to the good or evil Lives of Men 2 Thess. 1. 5 6 7 8 9 10. 6. To believe that the Dead Bodies of Men shall Rise again in the Great Day of Judgment 2 Tim. 2. 17 18. 7. To believe that the assistance of God's Holy Spirit in order to a sound Faith and true Repentance is a Gift which may be had by earnest Prayer Luke 11. 13. 8. To love God with all our Hearts and with all our Souls and with all our Minds i.e. with great Sincerity Matth 22. 37. 9. To rely upon God and trust in him in all dangers and necessities whatsoever and firmly to believe that all things will work for our good if we love him Rom. 8. 28. Heb. 13. 5 6. 10. To believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the revealed Word of God and to read and search and meditate in these holy Scriptures in order to know we must do to be saved John 5. 39. 11. To prefer the Will of God before the Will and Favour of Men when these two come to clash or interfere one with another Act. 5. 29. 12. To live and walk in a lively sense of God's Omniscience and Omnipresence Act. 23. Luk. 1. 75. 13. To have great high and reverend thoughts of God and conceptions suitable to his infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power 1 Pet. 3. 15. 14. To let our Speech be always with Grace season'd with Salt that we may know how to answer every Man Col. 4. 6. 15. To be frequent and serious and attentive in praising of God and praying to him for his Help Assistance and Protection especially Night and Morning Luke 2. 37. Eph. 6. 18. 16. To walk worthy of our Baptism even in newness of Life Rom 6. 3 4. 17 To make great Conscience of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to come often to that Holy Table and to prepare and examine our selves in order to our worthy receiving of Pardon and Remission of sins 1 Cor. 11. 26 28. 18. To express willingness and alacrity in God's service and to be ready unto good Works Tit. 3. 1. 19. To have pure aims and designs in Holy Duties and good Works viz. The glory of God and the good of others Matth. 6. 22. 1 Pet. 4. 11. 20. To be zealous and fervent in Devotion and in expressing our love to God Tit. 2. 14. Rev. 3. 19. 21. To bring a very serious mind with us to the House of God and to behave our selves there with all decency and gravity 1 Cor. 11. 22. 22. To be not only a hearer of the Word but a doer of it also Jam. 1. 22. 23. To fix our Thoughts upon God in the publick Prayers of the Church and to offer to God the desires of our Hearts in joyning with the Congregatian in their Prayers Rom. 15. 6. 24. To sanctifie the Lord's Day both in private and in publick Acts 20. 7. Rev. 1. 10. 25. To be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates Tit. 3. 1. 26. To obey our Pastors and Teachers that have the rule over us and to submit our selves to them as those that watch for our Souls Heb. 13. 17. 27. To maintain our Ministers and to communicate to them in all good things Gal. 6. 6. 28. Faithfully to discharge the Duties of our respective Relations As 1. Husbands to love and honour their Wives Eph. 5. 25. 2. Wives to be obedient and subject to their Husbands Eph. 5. 22. 3. Parents to provide for the Souls and Bodies of their Children 1 Tim. 5. 8. 4. Children to honour their Parents all their days Eph. 6. 1. 5. Masters to encourage their Servants to Goodness and to be just in paying them their Wages Eph. 6. 9. 6. Servants to serve their Masters in singleness of heart fearing God and to please them well in all things Col. 3. 22. 7. Ministers to be patterns of good Works Tit. 2. 7. 8. Widows to trust in God and to continue in Supplications and Prayers night and day 1 Tim. 5. 5. 9. Virgins to mind those things that may please the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 7. 32. 29. To learn to be very meek and humble upon all occasions Matth. 11. 29. 30. To hunger and Thirst after Goodness and Righteousness Matth. 5. 6. 31. To purifie the Heart or inward Man from evil Desires and Affections and to season it with holy Thoughts and Contemplations Matth. 5. 8. 32. To labour to make Peace among dissenting Neighbours and to be peaceable our selves and as much as in us lies with all Men Matth. 5. 9. Rom. 12. 18. 33. To rejoyce in being reviled and persecuted for Righteousness sake Matth. 5. 11. 12. 34. To be merciful kind tender-hearted and charitable and ready to forgive Eph. 4. 32. 35. To edifie others by our Conversation and to preserve them as much as in us lies from Sin and Damnation Matth 5. 13 14. 36. To love our Enemies to bless them that curse us to do good to them that hate us and to pray for them which despitefully use us Matth. 5. 44. 37. Rather to lose our Right than quarrel and go to Law about small things Matthâ— 5. 39 40. 38. To use great simplicity in our Speeches and Answers Matth. 5. 37. 39. To give and to lend to our poor Neighbor what is reasonable Matth. 5. 42. 40. To humble our selves sometimes before God by fasting Matth. 6. 16. 41. To be confident God will provide for us in the use of honest and lawful means Matth. 6. 31. 42. To seek God's Kingdom and its Righteousness with more earnest Affections than temporal Things Matth. 6. 20 33. 43. To reform our selves before we seek to reform others Matth. 7. 5. 44. To do to others what we would have others do to us Matth. 7. 12. 45. To enter in at the strait Gate and to deny our selves in our Honour Ease and Pleasure for a better Life Matth. 7. 13. 46. To confess and own Christ and his Religion before Men Matth. 10. 32. 47. To be industrious in the discharge of the Duties of our Calling Rom. 12. 6 7 8. 48. To love without Dissimulation Rom. 12. 9. 49. To be patient in Tribulation Rom. 12. 12. 50. To rejoyce with them that do rejoyce and to weep with them that weep Rom. 12. 15. 51. To condescend to Men of low Estates Rom. 12. 16. 52. To provide things honest in the sight of all Men Rom. 12. 17. 53. To
thou dost hate them I desire to do all things in thy Name and by thy Assistance I would willingly come to that Sincerity thou so much delightest in Oh! Guide my Steps and if I take false Measures put me in the right Way again Oh! Let me not swerve from thy Commandments Let my Confusion be continually before me that I may humble my self under thy mighty Hand and may be exalted in due time through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. XXIV Of judging our selves the Third Preparative Duty in order to our worthy Receiving of the Blessed Sacrament The CONTENTS Judging our selves contains three Acts Confession of Sin Self-Condemnation and inflicting Judgments on our Selves The Nature of these Acts explained This judging our selves proved to be pleasing to God What it is that makes it so Confession of Sins if rightly performed is a great Work Men are loth to confess those Sins which they are loth to leave Carnal Men wonder at the great stir that some Penitents make In inflicting Judgments on our selves the Word of God must be made our Rule The Prayer I. I Mention this Judging of our selves as a Duty preparatory for the Holy Sacrament because it is certain that St. Paul makes it so 1 Cor. 11. 31. If we would judge our selves we should not be judged God's judging of us or proceeding to Judgment against us hath in all Ages appeared very terrible to good Men because it speaks his Anger and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10. 31. And therefore David doth so often deprecate God's Judgment particularly Psal. 143. 2. Enter not into Judgment with thy servant for in thy sight no man living shall be justified And Psal. 119. 120. My flesh trembles for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy Judgments And Psal. 66. 3. How terrible art thou in thy Works or Judgments And though Psal. 26. 1. he prays Judge me O God yet by that he means no more than that God would plead his Cause and vindicate his Innocence which was abused bespatter'd and oppress'd by his Enemies God's judging of us differs very much from judging our selves and when we are exhorted to judge our selves it is not to oblige us to beg of God to send Judgments upon us but it is to do something whereby the Judgment of God we have deserved may be prevented and averted and upon attending to the scope and drift of the Apostle in that Advice we shall find that it consists partly in accusing our selves and confessing our faults partly in condemning our selves for the faults we have committed and partly in exercising acts of Justice and executing Judgment upon our selves of which we are to speak in order II. The First Act of judging our selves is confessing our Sins and accusing our selves and Act very proper after Self-Examination confessing I mean such Sins as upon strict examination we find our selves to have been guilty of without being afraid of giving our selves Names too harsh and too reproachful It 's true no Man is obliged to accuse himself of Sins he was never guilty of and to charge our selves with the guilt of Fornication or Adultery or Murther or Blasphemy or Theft c. which through the restraining Grace of God we never thought of and have been strangers to is to tell God a lye except we understand those Sins in a Spiritual Sense and in this case a Man or Woman may say they have been guilty of Adultery by departing wickedly from their God whom they were solemnly Marry'd and joyn'd to in Baptism and the Supper of the Lord and by doting upon a miserable transitory World which St. James calls Spiritual Adultery Jam. 4. 4. And upon this account a Man may say he hath been guilty of Blasphemy in dishonouring the Gospel by his vain and wicked Life whereby he he hath given occasion to the Enemies of the Lord to blaspheme him and speak evil of Religion and after the same manner he may justly accuse himself of Murder if he have often stabb'd his Neighbour's Reputation by Slanders Reproaches and evil surmises against him and disparaging of him to those from whom he expected signal kindnesses But set aside this Spiritual Sense a Man is not obliged by any Law of God to confess that he hath been formally guilty of sins he never committed to his best remembrance but in those he hath actually run into either wilfully or by surprize he ought to be his own severe accuser especially to God whom he hath thereby grievously offended and he truly judges himself that upon a deep search of his Heart finding what Precepts of the Gospel he hath wittingly acted against cries out Lord I have been that rotten Sheep of thy Flock which by my ill example hath infected other I have been that Viper thou hast put into thy Bosom and which hath threatned death to those Bowels that gave it life and been a Rebel by my monstrous ingratitude to my Father which is in Heaven I have been that Prodigal that hath run away from his Father's House and travell'd into a far Country as far as Hell it self I have been that Fool that mad Man that hath said to his Soul Thou hast Goods laid up for many years eat and drink and be merry I have been that Satan that Adversary that have savoured the things that be of Men more than the things which be of God! I have been that bewitch'd Creature that have begun in the Spirit and thought to end in the Flesh I have been that Judas that have betray'd the Son of Man with a kiss I have been that brutish Man that by my careless life have as good as said The Lord sees not neither will the God of Jacob regard is O that I had Wings like a Dove for then would I fly away and bewail my folly in some Wilderness But in this Confession or Self-accusation some necessary Rules must be observed 1. A Man must not content himself with general Confessions but in the Accusation descend to particular Errors and Neglects of his Life General Confessions do well in Publick Liturgies and Offices of the Church in which a whole Congregation is to joyn but in private the case very much alters The Church according to the old saying non junicat de occultis judges not of secret things and knows not what particular Sins every Man is guilty of and one may have stain'd his Soul with certain Sins which another hath not and thereâ—ore wisely prescribes only general acknowledgments of Offences that the whole Assembly may comply with the Duty but in private every Man knows or may know where the Shooe doth most pinch him and therefore here particular Confessions are necessary He that in private contents himself with General Confessions shews no great desire to be better and notwithstanding his Confessions may allow himself in abundance of Sins and miscarry and perish for all his general Confessions But he that in his
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
mighty Hunger and Thirst after thy Love in my Soul Such an Hunger and Thirst that I may be unsatisfied with any thing but thy Love Let thy Love work upon me with that Efficacy that I may think my self afflicted and poor and miserable till I love thee fervently VI. Blessed Jesu Who would not love thee Who would not wish to be enamour'd with such Charity as thine is to the Sons and Daughters of Men If we love thee not it is because we do not know the Vehemency and Power of thy Love Had we a clear Sight of it our Souls would run after thee and nothing could stop them from clinging to so amiable an Object Lord give me that lively View of thy Love that nothing may charm me more than thy Love VII Great King of Saints pity me I would love thee but thou seest what Impediments come between thy Love and my blockish Heart Innumerable Temptations my perverse Will my Self-love my Passions and my other Imperfections Oh how these hinder me from loving thee O my Gracious Master Let me detest and abhor all these Enemies that would hinder me from loving thee Stretch forth thy mighty Arm and destroy these Foes that I may entirely love thee VIII O Jesu Thou art all Love all Goodness all Charity And Oh what Opposition do I find in my self to love thee O Love Divine Where is thy Strength thy Force and thy uncontrollable Power O my Lord Why dost not thou shew it Why dost not thou exert it for my Help Why do not thy Celestial Flames consume in me all that is contrary to thy Love Oh! When wilt thou establish the Life of Love even that Divine Life in my Soul IX O Omnipotent Love I leave my self to thy Management Enter enter into this frozen Heart and erect thy Kingdom and thy Empire there Undo what thou pleasest and build up what thou pleasest Let every Desire of my Soul become subject to thee Subdue every Imagination that would refuse to be at thy Command And make me willing to submit to any thing so I may but love thee X. Most lovely Saviour Shall any thing hinder me from loving thee Shall my Body I will subdue that Beast Shall my Sins I will drown them in thy Blood Shall the World or the Creatures here below No no I will renounce my Love to them I will despise them all They have too long excommunicated thee from my Soul I will make no more Account of my Praises of my Pleasures of my Vanities I will look upon them all as Dreams and Smoak and I will hate them as much as they have hated thee Great Centre of my Soul XI Great Sovereign of my Love Thou hast sent me into the World on purpose to love thee What a noble what an excellent what an holy End is this Think of the Honour think of the Favour think of the Dignity O my Soul that God hath laid upon thee That he that could have eternally enjoyed himself in his own Love should speak a Creature into Being and ordain that Creature to love him Oh how happy am I that God hath given me an Heart to love him O my Jesus Let me die a Thousand Deaths rather than lose thy Love XII O Love Divine Be thou the Life of my Life the Soul of my Soul the Spirit of my Spirit Let me think of thy Love and speak of thy Love and do Acts worthy of thy Love and let all my Conversation savour of the Love of Jesus Whatever I do let me do it for thy sake Let thy Love put me upon Acts of Charity and let every Vertue I exercise be the Product of thy Love XIII O Jesu Thou art my All All other things are nothing in comparison of thee And I would love nothing but in thee and for thee I would see thee in all things and love thee in every thing I do Thou art my greatest Friend my only Friend Thou art my Brother my Father my Husband and my Chief Thou art All in All to me And Oh that my All might be consecrated to thy Service XIV My dearest Saviour There is nothing in Heaven or in Earth so worthy to be loved as thou Oh how amiable art thou Yet the World doth not so much as think of thee They think of nothing but offending thee They hope to be saved by thee and yet do what they can to dishonour thee Let this very Consideration inflame my Love to thee Oh that I could love thee as the whole World ought to love thee XV. Great Son of God! I was bound to love thee as soon as I came to the Use of my Reason Yet how long hath it been before I thought of loving thee O my Lord how late do I begin to love thee How long have I hated thee How many Years together have I despised thy Love When I think of this I have reason to wish for a Sea of Tears nay for Tears of Blood to wash away my monstrous Ingratitude XVI O Beauty Eternal and Infinite If I were to live eternally here on Earth I were bound eternally to love thee How much more then during my short Stay here on Earth O my Lord consecrate my Life to thy Love Let every Day and Hour of my Life be employed in thy Love and make me ambitious of nothing more than to love thee to all Eternity XVII O thou Everlasting King At the Price of thy precious Blood thou hast bought every Moment of my Time that I might employ it in loving thee How much of that Time have I employed in loving the World and the Creatures How much of that Time have I lost in loving things I should not love 'T is time that I begin to employ my Hours about that for which they were designed And since they were given me to love thee Oh transform all my Desires into Aspirations and Breathings after thee XVIII O my Jesus Thou art so perfect and so lovely that if all Creatures in Heaven and in Earth should joyn their Forces together to love thee they could not love thee sufficiently and if I had a Thousand Hearts they would all be little enough to sacrifice to thy Love O then how am I oblig'd to employ that little Strength I have to love thee Oh that all Mankind might love thee Oh fill them all with a Sense of thy Love Draw them attract them unite their Hearts that they may love thy Name XIX O God of my Life Thou hast been always employ'd in loving me Thou didst create Heaven and Earth to testifie thy Love to me All that thou ever didst in this World for me was to shew how thou lovest me All the Spiritual and Temporal Blessings thou hast sent upon me tell me that thou lovest me But what greater Testimony of thy Love can there be than thy Dying for me As thy Love is perpetually exercised towards me so let mine be continually exercised towards thee And let me glory and
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