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A62123 An answer to all the excuses and pretences which men ordinarily make for their not coming to the Holy Communion ... by a divine of the Church of England. Synge, Edward, 1659-1741. 1697 (1697) Wing S6375; ESTC R1735 15,409 38

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AN ANSWER TO ALL THE EXCUSES AND PRETENCES Which Men ordinarily make for their not coming to the HOLY COMMUNION Fitted for the Meanest Capacities And very proper to be given away by such as are Charitably Inclined Price 3 pence By a Divine of the Church of England The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed for Richard Sare at Gray's-Inn-Gate in Holborn 1697. AN ANSWER TO All the Excuses and Pretences which Men ordinarily make for their not coming to the Holy COMMUNION A Certain man made a Luk. 6. c. great Supper and bad many And sent his Servant at Supper time to say to them that were ●idden Come for all things are now rea●y And they all with one consent began ●O MAKE EXCVSE c. ●he design of this Parable is to repre●●nt the manner of Gods dealing with ●●e people of the Jews upon their re●●cting the Faith of Christ and refusing to embrace the Gospel The Apostles of Christ who were the Servants of God were sent and commanded in the first place to Preach the glad tidings of the Gospel to them and to invite them to come and partake of that Blessing and Happiness which was offered them by God through Faith in and Obedience unto his Son Christ Jesus But they generally having their hearts wholly in a manner addicted to the Love of this World had no inclination to receive so pure and Spiritual an Institution and did not only themselves reject but also persecuted others for embracing the Christian Profession despising and treading under foot the Son of God and counting the Blood of the Covenant wherewith they should have been Sanctified an unholy thing and even doing despight unto the Spirit of Grace which would have wrought upon their hearts in order to their Conversion As therefore the Man in this Parable who made the Supper was offended with those who did not come when they were Invited and therefore wholly Excluded them from his Table and sent his Servant to call others in their room as you may find it in the latter part of it So did Almighty God cast off the People of the Jews upon their obstinate rejecting of Jesus Christ giving them up to be destroyed and scattered by the power of the Romans And commanded the Apostles to go out into all parts of the World to gather a Church and a peculiar People unto him from among the Gentiles But my present aim in Reflecting upon this Parable lies clear Another way namely to represent and reprove those Excuses and Pretences which so many men do make for their gross neglect of the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ notwithstanding that God by the Mouth of his Ministers does so frequently call and earnestly invite them thereunto And indeed this matter is in so lively a manner represented in the whole design of it that I think it is scarce possible to draw a more exact Parallel For here In the first place we have Almighty God making a Supper for us for the feeding and nourishing of our Souls in Vertue and Piety through the Passion and Death of our Saviour Christ Jesus which he has appointed for ever to be commemorated by our Eating of this Bread and Drinking of this Cup in Remembrance of him To this Supper we are not once only but often bidden by the frequent Admonitions and Exhortations of God's Ministers addressed unto us that we should come and be partakers of this Holy Communion And as the Guests who were invited in this Parable had framed some weak and impertinent excuses for their not coming One had bought a piece of Ground another five Yoke of Oxen and a third had Married a Wife none of which things needed to have hindered them from accepting of the good man's kindness Just so we when from Month to Month and from Year to Year we continually turn our backs upon God's Holy Table have yet some sort of pretences wherewith we endeavour to satisfie our Consciences and to excuse this gross and scandalous neglect of which we are Guilty That our Saviour Christ Jesus died for our Sins that it is only for the sake of his Merits and Sufferings that we can hope for Pardon and Eternal Life at the hand of God That before his Death he left this command with all that should be called by his Name that they should Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup in remembrance of him whereby we are obliged to shew forth his Death untill his second coming And lastly that this ordinance is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ or in other terms the means whereby we do Communicate in the Benefits of that Sacrifice which Christ offered and in the merits of that Death and Passion which he underwent in his Body and by the sheding of his Blood for us and consequently that the Receiving hereof if duly performed is not only our duty but also a great advantage and benefit unto us All these things I say are so universally owned by all who profess Christianity that I need not offer any thing for the proof of them or any part of them But then surely one would think that when men who are thus perswaded do so often and for so long a time absent themselves from this ordinance there must be some insuperable difficulties and obstacles in their way which it is beyond their strength or power to remove or else that they would never at the same time both neglect their Duty and forego their Interest And yet I doubt not but to make it appear as plainly as any thing can be that there is nothing which we can at any time pretend as a hinderance of our coming to the Holy Communion but what either is really or ought to be no hinderance at all or else is such as it is in our power by that grace and assistance which God never denies to those who seek it wholly to remove and put out of the way To come to the matter then and that I may proceed in an orderly method I shall reduce all the impediments which men do ever alledge for their not coming unto the holy Communion to these Five heads that is to say either First that they are Sinners and therefore dare not come or Secondly that they are so continually engaged and taken up with Business that they have not time to prepare themselves for it or Thirdly that when they do endeavour to prepare themselves they find they cannot do it as it ought to be done or Fourthly that having formerly received the Communion they find themselves never the better for it and therefore think it to no purpose to come again or Lastly that they are not well satisfied with the manner of Celebrating Administring and Receiving this Ordinance in our Church and therefore cannot joyn with our Congregations in it Nor is there I think any thing that can be urged by way of Excuse for not coming to the Holy Communion but what I shall
fairly examine and I hope effectually confute under some one or other of these Particulars 1. Then some Men may say that they are great Sinners and therefore upon that account dare not come to the Holy Communion for fear least they should be unworthy Receivers and so instead of obtaining any Benefit thereby should only Eat and Drink their own Damnation To this I answer that if a Man lies under the guilt of any Sin and does not repent of it and Heartily resolve to forsake and amend it it is indeed a Presumption and a Sin for such a Person whilest he continues in that state to come to the Communion But then I must tell him also that not only his coming to the Holy Communion but even his very Prayers are an Abomination to God Prov. 28. 9. For what is it else but a perfect Affront and even a Mocking of the Divine Majesty for a man to make a shew of Worship and Honour to him whilest at the same time he goes on in willful disobedience to his known commands Which I wish were well and seriously considered by those men who make no scruple of addressing themselves to God in Prayer whilest by reason of their sins of which they have not repented they dare not approach unto his Holy Table But whatever sins a Man has been Guilty of in times past if he truly repents of them and Heartily forsakes them for the time to come God has so often and so plainly promised in this case to grant a full and free Pardon of them that they cannot justly be pretended as any obstacle which should hinder us from approaching to him in any of his Ordinances Since then it is in the Power of every Man at least of every one who by a long course of Wickedness has not provoked God wholly to withdraw his Grace from him by that Grace and Assistance which God continually offers unto us to repent of his sins and amend his Life If such a Man looks upon his sins as a Bar between him and the Holy Communion yet it is plainly such a Bar as is in his Power to remove and therefore can never justly be pleaded as an excuse in his behalf But some man perhaps may say that tho' he should beg God's pardon for his sins past and sincerely resolve to forsake them yet he fears that being frail he may some time or other be prevailed on by his own weakness or the strength of a Temptation to break those resolutions which he has made and return again to his sins And if this should ever be the case with him he doubts whether God would ever again admit him to Pardon and Reconciliation And therefore he thinks it safer to abstain from the Holy Communion rather then to run the hazard of being for ever excluded from the hopes of Heaven In answer to this I shall offer these three things First Altho' a Man does plainly foresee that hereafter he shall be most likely sometimes to fall into some Sins of frailty and infirmity such as a hasty Word or a suddain and unadvised Action yet this ought not to hinder him from coming to the Holy Communion For as St. James tells us that In many things we offend all Ja. 3. 2. So is there not any man upon the face of the Earth who can be Absolutely sure that he shall alwaies hereafter keep himself free from all manner of sin whatsoever On the contrary as there is no man but what has his share more or less of human infirmities so is it most reasonable to conclude that in the course of his Life these will sometimes unavoidably surprise and betray him into some Sins Against these our Infirmities therefore we must continually strive And we may reasonably hope that by God's grace and our own diligent and careful Endeavours we may every day more and more prevail against them But if this were a good Reason for abstaining from the Holy Communion because a Man cannot at once get a full and perfect Victory over them I cannot see how even the best of men who cannot pretend to absolute perfection could safely venture to partake of it And consequently this would be the way wholly to lay aside and abolish the very Ordinance it self Secondly but as for willful and deliberate Sins or returning again unto an habitual course of wickedness there is no man but by the grace of God and his own endeavours may if he pleases for ever secure himself against it For however God may think it fit for our greater humility and a farther tryal of us to leave us still exposed to some of the common infirmities of our Nature yet in respect of all habitual or deliberate Sins we may assure our selves that he is faithfull and will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that we may if it be not our own fault be able to bear it 1 Cor. 10. 13. Nor will he fail to draw nigh unto us whil'st we continue carefull to draw nigh unto him Jam. 4. 8. Let us then but stedfastly resolve that we will be hearty and industrious in doing what lies in our own power and we need not be discouraged by any such fears as these as long as we are secure that God will never let us want his assistance But Thirdly let us put the case as bad as may be that after a serious Repentance and most stedfast Resolutions of Amendment ratified and confirmed by the reception of the Holy Communion a Man should be so far prevailed upon by the temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil as to return again to his former wickedness in as high or a higher degree than before Yet even in this case we cannot conclude that such a person is forever excluded by God from all possibility of pardon and reconciliation There are indeed some passages of Scripture that do represent the condition of such an one to be very dreadful and dangerous As Heb. 6. 4 5. 6. and Chap. 10. 26. 27. 2. Pet. 2. 20. 21. But if on the other side we consider how often and how highly the Mercy of God is set forth and magnified even towards the greatest Sinners upon their true Repentance that he has no pleasure in the Death of the Wicked but that the Wicked turn from his way and Live Ezek. 33. 11. that he is long-suffering to us ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance 2. Pet. 3. 9. that tho' our Sins be as Scarlet or as Red as Crimson yet God is most ready upon our Repentance to make them as white as Wooll or Snow Isai 1. 18. From these and many such passages of Scripture I think we may well gather that if the most Profligate and Relapsed Sinner does even after a long time come at last to such a sense of his own Condition as throughly to turn from the