us and baffle our purposes and resolutions This drives us upon our knees again and we pray God not to leave us to our selves and by degrees we gain greater measures of strength and in some sort get the mastery over the inclinations of corrupted nature This holds much more in the Sacrament when we go to it with fresh desires and more vigorous resolutions of living a holy and truly Christian life and when we reflect upon our failings and miscarriages since our last receiving with deep humiliation and sorrow Thou O Lord God art full of compassion and mercy long suffering plenteous in goodness and truth O turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me give thy strength unto thy servant and help the son of thy hand-maid We need no invitations to satisfie the natural desires of the body which is nourished and cherished and oftentimes pampered by us Nature has laid upon us a necessity of daily food for the preservation of life to repair those decays which we daily suffer without this we consume and dye Now if we believe the blessed Sacrament to be the food of the Soul that we grow and are strengthened in grace by this bread of life the true spiritual manna that comes down from heaven that is designed by God for this purpose and conveys his blessing and sanctifying graces to all worthy receivers that by virtue of this nourishment we either retain or recover our vigour and healthfulness of mind and that without it we languish and decay in the inward man there would be no keeping us from this heavenly banquet at the Lord's table where there can be no fear of a furfeit where we eat and drink health and salvation and where Christ himself is the entertainer and the entertainment 100. For thou O Christ as the Greek Priest prays in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostome just before the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they carry the gifts from the Prothesis to the Altar where he consecrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou offerest and yet art offered up thou receivedst the Elements into thy holy hands and yet at the same time thy body and bloud are distributed thou O Christ makest this bread in the Sacrament to be thy flesh mystically which thou still givest for the life of the World Can we eat too much or too often of this bread of life whereby we are nourished to immortality the holy Elements being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so St. Clement in his former Epistle to the Corinthians must be understood that is not of the doctrine of our blessed Saviour for that is mentioned in the following clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much less of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things pertaining to our bodily sustinance and things of this life as Junius thought fit to explain but of the divine viaticum of the Sacrament that we may not faint in the journey which we are taking to the other world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which there can be no other relative but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which express testimony of this Apostolical writer for the Divinity of our blessed Saviour I could not but observe by the bye to help to confound the arrogance and blasphemy of that profest Arian Sandius so that these words seem clearly to relate to the Sacrament where the sufferings of Christ are so livelily represented to our sight 3. By frequent receiving of the Sacrament we are more and more made partakers of the benefits and blessings and merits of Christ's holy passion and death It is the great artifice of the Roman Church to keep up the credit of their private Masses to which antiquity is a mere stranger to make the people believe that the Priest hath a power of applying the efficacy and merit of Christ's sacrifice to their particular benefit for whom he intends it so they contribute somewhat in the way of charity or gift and are but present in the time of the celebration But 't is certain that before superstition and corruption of Doctrine had overspread that Church and before they had perverted this most solemn part of the Christian worship into a mere piece of pageantry and theatrical shew all that was anciently designed by the mentioning the names of the living to say nothing at present of the commemoration of the dead at that time as is clear from the Canon of the Mass still in use was onely by way of intercession that God would be pleased for the merits of his Son's death which they were then commemorating to have mercy on them to forgive them their sins and to pour down of his grace abundantly upon them and not onely upon them but upon the whole number of Christian people throughout the world But this cannot yield such peace and quiet and satisfaction to my conscience as my own particular application of the merits of Christ's sufferings to my self what another does for me cannot be my act when I am obliged to do it in my own person and not by my representative I am to eat his flesh in the Sacrament and drink his bloud if I would live in him and by him Now Christ by his death hath satisfied the divine Justice and reconciled us to the Father who no longer imputes our sins to our charge and condemnation the bloud that he spilt upon the cross is the seal of an everlasting covenant for this cause he is the mediatour of a new covenant that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant they which were called might receive the promise of an everlasting inheritance Heb. 9.15 So that now heaven and salvation are made over by God by virtue of this expiatory Sacrifice to all that truly believe in his Son's name This Sacrifice was made once for all upon the Altar of the Cross but the merit reaches backward to the first being and original of things and looks forward to the end of the world and to eternal ages It is as to the fruit and efficacy of it as present to God as if Christ were born every day into the world again and really every day offered up or as if it were but yesterdy or but just now offered it being all-sufficient and of infinite value and fully accepted by God as a just price and ransome Now that he suffered this bitter and cursed death upon the cross for me and that I may apply all the saving benefits of his passion to my self he assures me by giving me his body and bloud Every time we receive the Sacrament worthily there is a new confirmation of our pardon the spirit of God beareth witness with our spirit that we are his children and reinstated in his grace and favour 'T is an infallible pledge of our immortality and that he will raise us up at the last day as much as if his natural flesh and
Bloud as a perpetual and visible representation of it He still presents himself before us as hanging upon the Cross his Body rent and torn with wounds and his pretious Bloud gushing in a plentifull stream out of his side Thus he is evidently set forth before our eyes crucified among us still Gal. 3.1 as it were in Effigie These memorials he has left us of himself till his second coming to put us continually in mind how much he suffered for us This was the grand Reason of the Institution the better to imprint it on our minds that we might always have before our Eyes a lively Image and Figure of his Sufferings the mysterious Rites used in the celebration being for this very end and purpose and the whole Action solemn and fully significant For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lord's death till he come I shall comprize the full sense of these words in these four following Propositions I. That the holy Elements after Consecration retain their own proper Essence and Nature without any Physical and Substantial Change made of them It is Bread that we eat and Wine that we drink but with a distinction and note of Dignity and Honour it is this Bread and this Cup that is of ordinary and common they become mystical and sacramental they are altered and changed as to their use and effect and condition and not onely a divine Signification but a divine Virtue is imprinted upon them II. That the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Lord doth very fitly and fully represent and set forth his death III. That it is of perpetual Use and Observation and to be continued till the end of the World ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come that is till he come to judge the World at the last day and to put an end to the present state of things IV. That all who profess their Belief in a crucified Saviour and exspect the saving benefits of his Passion are obliged to a frequent celebration of this holy and tremendous Mystery which is here plainly supposed as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup. Which last Proposition I intend to make the Argument of my Discourse at this time Now the Reason and Necessity of the Obligation will appear if we consider these two things I. The End and Design of the Institution of the holy Sacrament II. The blessed Consequences and Effects of frequent Communion 1. The End and Design of the holy Sacrament is that it might be an everlasting Memorial of the Death and Passion of our Lord and Saviour He was pleased after the Consecration of both Elements to add particularly and distinctly not in the way of Advice to be followed if we think fit our selves but in the way of a peremptory and absolute Command v. 24. This doe in remembrance of me and v. 25. This doe ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me It is certain that we ought to remember the Death of our Blessed Saviour at other times as when we are upon our knees at our Prayers He gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Ephes. 5.2 by virtue of which our Prayers wing'd with a lively Faith in his Bloud and with Zeal ascend like a Cloud of Incense into the Holy of Holies and find acceptance with God We cannot employ our Thoughts and Meditations better when we are upon our Beds or when we are in private and especially upon our Days of Fasting and Penitence when God onely is witness to these spiritual Exercises No Argument can make us more and better sensible of the defiling and damning nature of Sin than the consideration of a crucified Saviour that his Bloud was shed on purpose to expiate and attone it This will make us reflect upon our sins with a hearty sorrow and regret which brought the Son of God to so sad and shamefull an end How ought I to abhor and loath my self when I consider that the sins which I have committed though so many hundred years after contributed to his dying and make me an accessory of the guilt of the Jews who were the cruel Instruments of his Murther Nothing can more and better inflame our Zeal and Love to God and to Christ than frequent Meditation on our Saviour's Death that God should contrive this admirable way of our Redemption by the Death of his onely Son whom he sent out of his own bosome on purpose to be a Sacrifice for Sin and whom he set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his bloud for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God Rom. 3.25 and that Christ should willingly undergo all this for our sakes O blessed Saviour how can we recompense this thy infinite Love towards faln Man Jesu God! I cannot doe I cannot suffer enough in the way of a just acknowledgment of thy inexpressible Kindness and Pity to my poor Soul which thou hast redeemed from the nethermost Hell and from the Wrath of God which would have been the more intolerable The reading also of the Narrative and History of our Saviour's Sufferings and Death as they are recorded in the holy Gospels together with a reflexion on the several circumstances of them must needs leave deep impressions upon our memories This tragical story wherewith the Heathen of old used to upbraid the Christians as Votaries and Worshippers of a crucified God was so universally diffused throughout the World that it was impossible that it should be forgotten and the sight of a Cross which assoon as the Roman Empire turned Christian became an Ensign and Trophy of Honour every where to be met with in their Banners and upon their Bucklers and Helmets upon the Diadems of the Emperours upon their Medals upon their Churches and Spires of their Towers and in their solemn Processions would quickly refresh their memories and put them in mind of the great Saviour of the World whose Hands and Feet were nailed to it and his Armes extended upon it to receive and embrace all who fly to him for refuge from the assaults and pursuits of offended Justice But Christ who knew the best and most effectual method to keep alive for ever the Memory of his Passion and Death has ordained this holy Sacrament as the most proper Instrument to make us truly and really sensible and mindfull of it It is not then a matter of mere indifference whether we will receive the Sacrament or no we cannot with any pretence or shew of Reason take a liberty of dispensing with this Law of our Religion as if it were wholly in our power to come and abstain as we please For certainly all Laws were given with an intent that they may be observed and obeyed If they oblige to a Duty and require any thing to be done the Omission is culpable and is more or less aggravated
that a general decay of piety came in afterwards and luxury eat out the vitals of Religion and these holy duties which had been the great comfort and desire of their souls in the day of their afflictions became to be neglected and the pleasures and vanities of the World had dull'd their appetite that they no longer relished this heavenly food this bread of Angels and if they came to the Sacrament it was onely at the solemn times of the year as at Christmas and Easter out of respect to the Law of the Church and the custome of the place where they lived that they might not be guilty of a scandalous omission of a duty so necessary rather than out of a thirsty desire and longing after it But if we can have the patience to compare the forwardness and zeal of the first Christians with the dulness and stupidity of this age how ready and desirous they were to embrace all opportunities of commemorating the death of Christ according to his own institution and appointment and how willing most of us are to decline them and that upon very slight and oftentimes unreasonable pretences if we dare compare their mortifications and severities in order to a due preparation with our slight and perfunctory performances how we are forced to doe that twice or thrice in a year which they earnestly long'd for almost every day it will make us tremble to consider how much we are degenerated and are faln short of those glorious examples which those ancient worthies set us and how little of the power of Christianity is to be found at this time among Christians notwithstanding all that great noise and profession which is made of it Our Scholastical disputes and quarrels about the Sacrament have destroyed and swallowed up our devotion and our charity and that which was designed by Christ for an instrument of uniting mens minds together in Christian Communion and love is now become an occasion of difference and irreconciliation They were not troubled with those hot debates which have since so miserably distracted the Peace of Christendom they contented themselves with a simple belief of the mystery without busying their thoughts about nice and curious speculations whole Churches were not then excommunicated for not assenting to a monstrous opinion contrary to common sense and reason and the universal experience of Mankind they did not under a pretence of exalting the mystery destroy the nature of a Sacrament as now is done in the Roman Church It must now no longer be a representative but a real propitiatory sacrifice for the living and for the dead and Christ's natural body must be brought down from heaven upon a thousand Altars at once and there really broken and offered up again to God the Father and his Bloud actually spilt a thousand times every day and mixing it self with ours Nor did they on the other side degrade it into a bare empty sign and entertain slight notions of it or approach it without a due and becoming reverence or abstain from it upon frivolous excuses as the manner of some is For had we that high value for the blessed Sacrament as we ought did we believe it necessary to receive it often not onely necessitate proecepti but medii too did we believe seriously and consider of what great use and benefit it would be to our Souls we would be more diligent and conscientious in the use of it and think our selves under an indispensable obligation of frequent Communion which arises also from a consideration of the blessed effects and consequences of it which is my second particular And of these I shall name onely three 1. By it we gain a close and intimate communion and conjunction with Christ hereby we are one with Christ and Christ with us that is upon our humble and penitent and devout receiving of the Sacrament he descends into our hearts by the sweet influences of his Grace he is really present with us by his Spirit and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us and still gives himself to us in these holy mysteries For we must not fansie an immediate and personal union he indeed was pleased by assuming the humane nature to unite the word to it whereby he became God and Man which wonderfull union is therefore called Hypostatical because he had the two natures fully with all their natural and essential qualities concurring in his own proper single person But the union of Christ with the devout soul is purely spiritual not an union of his personal excellencies and endowments but a communication of his Grace and Spirit whereby the soul is exalted above its natural capacity and is transformed from glory to glory and is made partaker of the divine nature that is filled with love and purity and such God-like qualities By this we are joyned and united to him as members of his body of his flesh and of his bones that is of his mystical body the Church as the Apostle explains himself Col. 1.18 and not of his natural body on account of a concorporation or assimulation or conversion of the Sacrament into our bodily substance Thus as the Apostle St. John speaks we have communion with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. By virtue of Christ's pretious bloud shed upon the cross we are reconciled to God he has entred into a new Covenant with us which Christ has solemnly ratified by his death and is willing to receive us to mercy and favour upon the conditions of hearty sorrow for our sins wherewith we have offended the eyes of his glory and of a holy life and through faith in his Son we can put up our prayers to him with some assurance that he will hear us and communicate his favours and blessings to us so far as he in his infinite wisdom sees fit and give us of his Spirit and the same communion we have with Christ the soul is ravished with the contemplation of his infinite love and goodness to lost man and to it self in particular and is filled with astonishing reflexions of the merits of his death as much as if he were personally present upon Earth again This indeed is better understood than exprest words being too scanty and the imagination not able to reach and comprehend what the pious soul knows by experience And if this be the blessed effect of our devotion and meditation if when we are upon our knees and are employed in holy thoughts we then seem to be out of our bodies and rapt into heaven and there lie prostrate before the throne and the Lamb how much more when we are kneeling before the Altar and are admitted to the participation of the body and bloud of our Saviour and are performing the most solemn part of the Christian worship exerting with all possible vigour and intention of mind for so we ought to be affected acts of