constant performance of Piety and Good-Works But now 2dly If the Question be of a dying Penitent then indeed it will be a matter of more difficulty to answer it For if on the one hand I may not be so uncharitable as to conclude at all adventures the utter invalidity of such a Repentance because for ought I know 't is possible for a man in the very last act of his life to be struck with such a true contrition for his sins as might if he had lived have produced a real Amendment and then God who is able to discern this will consider him accordingly Yet neither on the other can we ever be sure that such a Repentance is sincere nor by consequence may we at all Adventures supppose in favour of it The truth is a Death-bed Repentance is in the best prospect we can take of it exceeding dangerous and in the case before us I am afraid desperate Nor have we in all the Holy Scripture so much as one Example of any one that purposely put off his Repentance to this time and yet was saved upon it and the Instance of Felix in my Text is a terrible one to the contrary He was touch'd with St. Paul's Preaching and feared the Judgment of which he spake But he put off the Apostle to a more convenient season and we do not find that ever that more convenient season came or that he had ever any future call to Repentance It is not to be question'd but that if a man be come to this sad pass he ought by all means to be exhorted to repent because otherwise to be sure he must perish and 't is possible this may save him But what that Repentance is which a wicked man then exercises we cannot tell and the effect of it must be left to God's Judgment to declare and it will be our parts instead of being over-inquisitive into these secrets to be careful not to expose our selves to a condition so full of danger in which there is much to be feared but little Hope and no Security And now what more remains to engage us to a speedy or rather to a present Repentance but that having thus largely shewn the danger of deferring our duty I very briefly close all with a more excellent Prospect II dly Of the Comfort and Satisfaction that will arrive to us from the Consideration of having perfected this great and necessary Work This is a Point on which it were as easie to speak great things as I think 't is needless so to do If to Live in a State of Friendship with God and to be able to look forward into Eternity with Comfort If to be freed from the stings of Conscience and the Terrors of Everlasting Punishment and instead thereof to be full of a well-grounded Confidence that Heaven and all its Glories shall be one day Ours in short If there be any such thing as a Felicity to be attain'd either in this World or in the Next such a Christian as this possesses it all For he enjoys the Love the Favour of that God who is the Great dispenser of all Good both in Heaven and Earth O the Peace and the Tranquility The Pleasure and the Satisfaction of that Man who lives in such a State as this Whose Conscience acquits him whose Innocence supports him in the midst of Dangers whose Piety and Virtue chear his Soul and fill it with the most excellent Comforts whose Present Condition is full of Hope and whose Future Prospect is to be for Ever Happy How will such a Christian as this Triumph over all the Miseries and despise the Blandishments of a vain uncertain sinful World Even Death its self the last and greatest of Terrors will not be able to amaze him But rather He will welcome it with a chearful mind and with St. Paul desire to depart and to be with Christ whilst able with him to cry out I have fought a good fight I have finish'd my Course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which God the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day But O Wretched Sinner Who by thy unreasonable Delays in a matter of such vast concernment both to thy Present and Eternal Happiness not only exposest thy self to the danger of Damnation in the other World but deprivest thy self of the only true and real Felicity of this Men indeed may flatter themselves in their Evil doings and find a great deal of seeming satisfaction in their ways of Wickedness But when all is done the Remembrance of this one thing That in a little time they must die and come to Judgment will ever and anon come in and embitter all their Enjoyments and convince them that 't is the way of Piety that alone is the way of pleasantness and her paths the paths of peace But I must not pursue these Reflections any farther I will therefore conclude this whole Argument with those excellent Words of the Son of Sirach Ecclus. v. xviii Make no long tarrying to turn unto the Lord and put not off from day to day Before Judgment examine thy self and in the day of Visitation thou shalt find mercy Humble thy self before thou be sick and in the time of sins show repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy Vows in due time and defer not until death to be justified AN EXHORTATION To Mutual Charity and Union AMONG PROTESTANTS IN A SERMON Preach'd before the KING and QUEEN AT HAMPTON-COURT MAY 21. 1689. ROM XV. 5 6 7. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God THE Words are part of that affectionate Application which the Apostle here makes of his excellent Discourse concerning the Exercise of Christian Charity in that great Instance of Condescension to the Infirmities of our Weaker Brethren in the foregoing Chapter The Occasion of it was this There were in those first times many among the Jews who tho' they were converted to the Christian Faith yet still continued zealous for the Law and not only carefully observed themselves all the Rites and Ceremonies of it but would also by any means impose upon all others also the observance of them And how earnest they were upon this account and how much they hated the Gentile Converts upon whom the Apostles did not think fit to lay any such burden many Passages both in the Acts and in St. Paul's Epistles do sufficiently declare But as in all other differences it seldom happens that the whole heat of the Controversie rests only on one side so here tho' the Jewish Converts were both the first beginners of this Dispute and the more zealous pursuers of it yet
contrivance of State Policy nor the effect of Priest-craft That when we discourse of another World after this and a final Inquest to pass upon all our Actions and a Vast Eternity of Rewards and Punishments according to what they now do whether Good or Evil we do not alarm Mens minds with false Fears and ungrounded Terros but speak to them a Truth which the very Gentiles themselves have universally acknowledged nay which their own Consciences will not suffer them to disbelieve however they may sometimes endeavour to stifle their Convictions and have the Impudence to deny what at the same time with Felix they tremble to think of In short That whether we look into the frame and constitution of our own Souls within us or contemplate the Dispensations of God's Providence in the affairs of the World without they both speak to us this great Truth That God will bring us to Judgment 1. If first we look back into the Principles of the Heathen Theology what point shall we find more universally acknowledged by them than this of a Judgment to come This we may see illustrated not only in the flights of their Poets in the Harangues of their Orators in the Dictates of their Philosophers and all which have been particularly collected by the Holy Fathers of the Church in their Writings against them and may be seen at large in the Works yet extant of Justin Martyr Eusebius Theodoret and others But as Tertullian well observes even in their common Conversation in which Men usually the most speak according to their Natural impressions they still testified the same belief And by calling God to witness and judge of their Actions by commending themselves and their Cause to God when they could find no remedy or relief from Men they plainly shew'd it to be a principle rooted in their very Natures That there is a God who sees and observes what passes here below and will one day set to rights all the present seeming irregular dispensations of his Providence in the Government of the World and render to every man according to his Works I shall not in this place enter so far into this Argument as to shew you in the particular expressions of the Ancient Heathens themselves how clearly and peremptorily they have deliver'd themselves as to this Point of a Judgment to come But thus much I suppose I may take the liberty to conclude from what I have already in General observed That it cannot be deni'd but that Christianity set apart the belief of a future Judgment must be allow'd even upon the meer Principles of Nature to be very highly probable which the Gentiles themselves without the help of any Divine Revelation have so firmly and universally received And indeed so clear are the Evidences of it that wheresoever we turn our eyes whether into the Nature and Constitution of the little World within or into the Government and Administration of the greater without us we cannot but acknowledg the reasonableness of this belief For 2 dly If we consider the Nature of our own Souls within us we shall find a Conscience even in the most wicked Men that will plainly bear witness to this great Truth There is a certain Principle implanted in every one of us that not only directs and informs us what we ought to do and what to avoid but does moreover check or encourage us according as what we have done is either Good or Evil. Now upon this Sentence which our Consciences here pass upon all our Actions we find either a pleasure and confidence and satisfaction if we have done well or else a fear and terrour and distrust if we have done ill And this not with reference to any Reward we are like to receive or any Punishment we may be in danger of suffering in this present World The greatest Monarchs being no less sensible of these Motions within when their Consciences do either approve or condemn them than the meanest of their Subjects and both the One and the other tho' the Action were never so secret no less than if it had been done in the presence of the whole World And what is all this but a plain Evidence planted in our very Nature to keep us in a continual expectation of some account to be given of our Actions in another World beyond what is done in this When the long Series of our present Lives shall be reviewed and our Consciences now our Judges then become Witnesses and give Testimony for or against us according as we have done either Good or Evil. But that which will be a yet farther Confirmation of this Argument is That the nearer we approach to our latter End still the more Powerful and Vigorous are these impressions of our own Consciences upon our Souls How does the Sinner then begin with Horror to reflect upon his Life past and to hate and fear the Consequence of his Evil doings when he is just ready to die and by consequence is passed all apprehension of any farther inquest in this Life more than he did at the time of his commission of them Whilst the Good and Vertuous man embraces Death with such a Quiet and Composure and oftentimes with such a sensible Joy and Satisfaction as if he were about to receive some great Good by it to be sure did not Fear any Evil from it This certainly can be nothing else but a still more sensible evidence of the Belief of a Judgment to come rooted in our very Natures and that there is to be a Restitution of rewards and Punishments in another Life besides what is made to our Actions in this 3. To all which if we add 3 dly The farther strength that will be given to this Principle from the Consideration of the present Irregular Dispensations of God's Providence as they seem to us in this World to oblige us to expect some Judgment in the Other I do not see what the greatest Sceptick can have to oppose against so firm and clear a Demonstration of it It is I presume agreed among all sorts of Persons that admit the Being of a God that as he is the Author of all Perfections in all other things so he can have nothing Defective or Imperfect in Himself That as this World was not at first made by Chance and Fortune but by a most Wise and Good and Powerful God so neither is it now Govern'd by Chance but by the Providence of the same God who first made it Now if God be Infinitely Perfect then he must be Perfectly Wise and Just and Good and we may as well suppose him not to be God as not allow him to be all this But if he be so and if this World be indeed subject to the Guidance of his Providence then We must of necessity acknowledg a Judgment to come It being plain that as the Affairs of men are order'd in this Present World they shew but very little sign of an exact Justice and Goodness in the
And to conclude this Point The last cause that moves many to delay their Repentance is that thô they are convinced both of the Necessity of repenting some time or other and that it is highly reasonable for them to set presently about it yet when all is done their Lusts are too strong for them and they cannot so soon resolve to part with their Sins and enter on a Course of Piety and Religion There is something in the Nature of Sin so fatally bewitching to us that if once we suffer our selves to be overcome with the Habit of it 't is after that one of the hardest things in the World to recover our liberty and prevent our selves from being altogether hardned by the deceitfulness of it He that committeth sin says our Saviour Christ is the servant of sin Whether it be that the force and power of an Evil Course gains insensibly upon us till at last we have no more strength remaining to overcome it Or Whether it be that the longer we continue in Sin the more God's Grace is withdrawn and the less assistance we have of the Holy Spirit to extricate our selves out of it But this is plain that even the best Men find it a hard matter with all their Industry to keep themselves from its dominion and to fulfil their Resolutions though never so soon taken up of discharging their duty and living as becomes the Disciples of Christ. I do not in the least question but that we are all of us sufficiently convinced of the reasonableness of what I have now been inforcing of setting immediately about our duty and I believe there are but few if any among us who if they do not at this time yet have at least some time or other resolved to do so But I fear it would be a melancholly reflection to most of us to think how little we have fulfilled these Resolutions hitherto and may give us some cause to fear whether we may not be but too likely still to continue in the same careless and impenitent state for the time to come The truth is in such a degenerate Age as this wherein Vice is become almost reputable and to be religious esteem'd pedantry and preciseness When the Evil Customs of Men have prevailed so far above the Commandments of God that a Man must yield to be a little Wicked unless he will run counter to the general practice of the World and not a little negligent of his duty to maintain the Company and Conversation of the Times 't is not an easie thing for a Man to break through all these difficulties and resolve to save his Soul whatever censures or troubles he encounters for the so doing And therefore though we all of us know well enough what we ought to do and cannot but be sometimes apprehensive of the dangers we run by our not doing of it yet alas we still go on in the neglect of our duty Ever thinking and resolving to amend but never able effectually to set about it And thus have I given you such a general prospect as the time would permit of those Causes that so much indispose Men to a present Repentance I go on to the other thing I proposed in order to the Cure of it II dly To shew the Danger of deferring the performance of it For if such a delay as this be not only very unreasonable in it self but shall be also very fatal in its Consequence if there be really nothing in all those pretences that usually keep men from a present discharge of their duty and an infinite Hazard to be run by it Sure then we ought to begin immediately to do that which can neither be too soon begun nor at all delay'd without a very great danger Which we must some time or other do and which will still grow more difficult and uneasie to us the longer it is that we put off the doing of it And 1 st Let me ask him that thus neglects his Repentance and thinks it will be time enough to set about it hereafter when the heat of his Youth is past and he begins to come to a greater strength of Reason and Discretion to govern himself and to bring his Passions into subjection It may be gives it yet a longer delay and reserves the business of Religion for the Close of his Life and an immediate preparatory to the hour of his Death Is he sure that he shall ever arrive to that time which he thus warily sets out for this great Work I need not tell you how uncertain our lives are What Diseases what Accidents lay siege against us every Moment And if notwithstanding all this some do live to a good Old Age yet how many Thousands there are that fall in the strength and vigor of their years And we cannot say but that this may be our Condition as we are sure it has been the Condition of many Others who it may be as much flatter'd themselves with these Projects as We do now and are therefore in vain lamenting their mad Security in the Concern of their Salvation But this I must needs say a greater provocation there cannot be given to God Almighty to cut us off in the midst of our years and deprive us of that opportunity we so presumptuously set out for to repent in after a long life spent in Sin and Impenitence than thus to go on in our wickedness and designedly to live in a disobedience to his Commands till we are no longer like to continue in this World 2. But however 2 dly Let us allow of this that we had by some means or other an Assurance of our lives and could be certain we should arrive to that Time we thus lay out for the business of Religion Yet how are we sure that we shall not then be altogether as unwilling and much more unable to repent than we are now 1 st If we consider our selves only upon the Common principles of Nature without reflecting upon the Grace of God without which yet we can do nothing as to the Business of our Duty Even these will tell us That the more inveterate any Habit is the more difficult it is to leave it and the greater pains it will cost a Man to overcome it And he who finds it so hard a Matter to conquer his Lusts now what will he do hereafter when the Indulgence of many years more shall have rooted them in his very Soul and made his sins become even natural to him 2 dly But then secondly If we examine this matter according to the Principles of Christianity these will shew a yet greater improbability of our repenting hereafter than at the present It being not to be doubted but that as upon the Use of God's Grace He bestows a more liberal portion of it so by refusing and resisting the Motions of the Holy Spirit God withdraws his hand and lessens his Grace and it may be at last totally deprives Men of it The truth
commanded to Remember the Day in which they came out of Egypt and to keep the feast of unleavened bread seven daies And then and there solemnly to declare to their Children the Cause of it namely That they did this because of that which the Lord their God had done for them when they came forth out of Egypt To which end it was the Custome of the Jews at this Solemnity to have their Children propose to them the Question What the meaning of this Solemnity was And thereupon the Master of the House gave a full Account to them of the History of their Deliverance and which from thence they called the Haggadah the Annunciation or Remembrance Because of their using it at this Time to commemorate or shew forth that wonderful Deliverance which God had wrought for them Such was the Nature of that Remembrance which God commanded the Jews to continue in their Paschal Supper of His bringing them out of Egypt And the same is the Remembrance which our Saviour here commands us by this new Feast to continue in his Church of his dying for us We are to celebrate it as a solemn and Publick Memorial of that great Deliverance which our Blessed Lord has wrought for us and to declare to all the World thereby what a Sense we have of his infinite Love and Mercy to us Nay but this is not yet all we are to do if we will answer the full extent of the Duty here required of us We must not only make in this Holy Sacrament our Publick and solemn Recognition of Christ's Death and Passion but we must do it with that Affection that Joy those Resentments that become so great and excellent a Memorial So these kind of Expressions in Holy Scripture are for the most part to be understood and so it is plain we must take the Word in this Place And this is the other thing remaining to be considered for the full understanding of the Text. viz. II. With what Affections we ought to come to this Holy Table and Do this in Remembrance of Him It were too much for me here in the close of my Discourse to resume the whole Consideration of this great Sacrament and enter again upon a particular View of it and shew what kind of Affections we ought to raise in our Souls proportionable to the several Parts and Respects of it If we are indeed so sensible as we ought to be of our Saviour's Love to us in thus giving himself to the Death for us If we have so seriously weighed as becomes those who are called to this Feast the mighty Benefits and Advantages which are derived to us thereby what Miseries we have escaped to what Blessings we are entituled by his Sufferings the Sense of all this will soon teach us what Motions and Affections ought to fill our Souls that may be suitable to so great and blessed a Memorial For indeed who can be so ignorant as not to know without my Remark when he comes to the Holy Table and there beholds the Minister of God setting forth as S. Paul speaks evidently before his eyes Christ crucified for Him when both his Words and his Actions call upon Him to consider How the Son of God humbled himself even to the death for our Redemption and submitted his Body to be broken his Blood to be spilt as He there sees the Bread broken the Wine poured out in this Celebration that here certainly he ought with the greatest Ecstasie of Love to contemplate this Love of his Saviour to Him and break forth into the highest Expressions of a grateful Thanksgiving for this mighty Demonstration of his Favour and Affection to Him When from this He begins to reflect on that wretched Condition in which we all of us must have been had not the blessed Jesus thus graciously undertook the great Work of our Redemption and by dying for us delivered us from that Death to which we were condemned and raised us up to the Hopes of Eternal Glory Where is the Soul so dull so un-affected with the Contemplation of such a glorious Change as to be able to keep in his joyful Resentments of so wonderful a Deliverance and not rather burst forth into new Songs of Praise and Gladness for all the Benefits which God and his Redeemer have been so wonderfully pleased to do unto Him But above all who can think on that Value which the Blessed Jesus has put upon our Souls that he thought the Salvation of them to be a Price worthy his own Death and Sufferings to redeem them and then consider That even these very Souls for which Christ died will yet be exposed to the hazard of a greater and worser Damnation than that from which they have been delivered if we shall still go on impenitent in our Sins And not presently resolve here to sacrifice all his Passions at this Altar to lay down all his Lusts at the Pedestal of the Cross and vow Himself entirely to the Obedience of that Saviour who as S. Paul tells us for this very End gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all Iniquity and purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Such Resentments as these will naturally arise in every pious Soul when he comes to this Sacred Feast and therefore I shall not need to give any particular Directions concerning them Only I would take occasion from this last Import of the Remembrance to which our Text calls us To exhort you when you come to this Holy Institution that you would take Care to raise up all these Affections and Resentments to as great a Heighth as you are able and having done this that you would then cherish and improve them that being not only warm and vigorous upon your Souls at the present but also rooted and engrafted into them they may not easily cool again but become operative upon your Lives may encrease your Love and confirm your Faith and enflame your Devotion and keep you firm and steady to your Duty till some new Occasion shall again call you to a new exciting of them This will be indeed to render your Remembrance such as your Saviour here requires of you And the frequent Returns which by the Blessing of God you here enjoy of this Memorial beyond most Christians in the World shall not only put you in a Capacity of coming still with better and more affectionate Resentments to this Holy Sacrament but shall by the Blessing of God prove a most useful and excellent Assistance to the promoting of all the other Parts of your Duty you shall live as becomes those who know what mighty Engagements their Saviour has laid upon them to what Hopes they are called and by what means their Redemption was purchased for them And as this Exercise will be the best means to prepare you to come worthily to this Remembrance so will it be also the most powerful Motive to engage you to
come frequently too When you shall begin effectually to perceive the Benefit of your Communicating in the still new encrease of Piety and Holiness in all your Actions When being full with a constant Sense of the Love of the Blessed Jesus here set forth to us you shall find it to be the Desire and Longing of your Souls to come often to this grateful and pleasing Declaration of it When in a Word being accustomed to consider the Blessings and Advantages of that New Covenant our Blessed Master has sealed to us in his Blood and here offers to renew with us in this Sacrament you shall wish if it might be every Day to repeat it and think you can never enough declare your Desires of being admitted into the Conditions and Advantages of it And thus have I offered to you what I suppose may suffice for the full Explication of the Words before us And from the Account of which we may now easily see What is the true Nature and Design of this Holy Sacrament Namely that it was instituted by our Saviour to be a Sacred and Solemn Memorial of that Death and Passion which he underwent for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages which accrue to us thereby That as by the Paschal Feast among the Jews God perpetuated the Remembrance of his preserving them from the destroying Angel first and then delivering them from their Egyptian Bondage and engaged them to a constant annual Return of Joy and Thanksgiving to Him for so great a Blessing So by this better Passover should we in like manner keep up for ever in the Church a lively and affectionate Commemoration of that better and more glorious Preservation which our paschal Lamb the Lord Jesus has by his own Blood obtained for us and set forth to the whole World that grateful and vigorous Sense which we have of so wonderful and blessed a Deliverance Now this being the true meaning and Design of this Holy Sacrament we may from hence see How great and dangerous the Mistakes are which some have run into concerning it with reference both to Faith and Practice For 1. If this Sacrament as we have before shewn was instituted as a Memorial of the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ It is then plain That it is not our very Saviour Christ Himself neither in the State of his death nor in any other that is here presented to us There have been in the Church since the time of Paschasius Radbertus one of the first considerable Innovators that we meet with in the Doctrine of this Holy Eucharist among others two different Opinions concerning the Real or Corporal Presence of Christ in this Sacrament and both maintained with no small contention at this day One That the Bread and Wine are converted into the very Natural Body and Blood of Christ so that nothing of the Bread and Wine themselves at all remain but only in shew and appearance which is what they called Transubstantiation the other That the true Substances of the outward Elements the Bread and the Wine do indeed remain but that the very Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in an extraordinary and supernatural manner joyned to them so that in the Communion of them we do together with the Bread and Wine receive the true Body and Blood of Christ into our Mouths truly and really present which they call Consubstantiation Now however the latter of these be much the more pardonable Error of the two as neither doing any Violence to our Senses which evidently tell us That what we see and receive in this Sacrament is certainly Bread and Wine nor contradicting the many Passages of Scripture which declare to us the same thing yet are they both very great Mistakes The natural Body of Christ being not capable of existing in more Places than one at the same Time nor to be divested of the inseparable Properties of a Body such as Extension of Parts Space Figure and the like in which the very Nature of a Body as it is distinguished from a Spirit does consist But these Opinions do not only involve a plain Impossibility in the very Nature of the Thing it self but moreover do carry a manifest Incongruity to the Nature and Design of this Institution For if the End of this Holy Sacrament were as our Text shews to be a Remembrance of Christ a Sign and Figure of his Body broken and of his Blood shed for us then certainly as in all other Cases the Sign must be different from the thing signified so here the Sacrament of Christ's Body is not his Body but the Memorial of it the Sacrament of his Blood is not his very Blood but the Figure and Representation of it And thus these latter Words Do this in Remembrance of Me become the best and clearest Interpretation of the former This is my Body which is given for you and shew that we are to interpret it after the same manner as when we read in the like kind of Speaking in the Old Testament This is the Lord 's Passover i. e. the Memorial of that Action when the Angel passed over the Houses of the Children of Israel and destroyed them not when at the same Time he slew the Egyptians But here it may be asked Do we then exclude Christ altogether from this Holy Sacrament and leave only an empty Sign a meer ceremonial Remembrance of him and no more God forbid Nay but I dare say We esteem Christ to be no less present tho' in another manner than they Inasmuch as in this Sacred Ordinance he communicates Himself in the Benefits of His Passion in a more especial manner to every faithful Receiver of this Blessed Sacrament and makes the Bread which he eats and the Wine which he drinks become not indeed by any such needless and absurd Change as we before mentioned but by Grace and Blessing by his divine Power and Spiritual Communication his Body broken and his Blood shed for us to all the Effects of Piety and Justification The Elements are not altered they continue not only after the Consecration but in the very receiving of them the same they were before Bread and Wine without any bodily Substance besides either veiled under those Appearances or received together with them But by Faith at the same Time that we take these into our Mouths we take Him also whom they represent into our Souls Not as bringing Christ from Heaven but raising up our Minds and our Hearts to that Holy Place where he is we unite our selves to Him and have all the Benefits of his Death and Passion communicated to us for the Forgiveness of our Sins for the increase of his Grace and Favour to us here and to be at once both the surest Earnest and the most effectual Means to bring us to everlasting Happiness hereafter This is that real but divine and spiritual Presence of our Saviour in this Sacrament which we firmly believe and which secures
or to repent them of their Sins have been so far indisposed to all the Offices of Religion that their longer respite has proved of no more advantage to them than if they had not had the least notice of their approaching End These are things which every Discourse of Mortality for the most part abounds with and a daily Experience renders any long insisting upon them needless to us We live in the midst of the Monuments of Death Thousands fall every day besides us and ten thousands at our right hand And it is only of the Mercy of God that we are yet alive to consider these things and to prepare to die And sure then it cannot but be a very great danger as it is certainly a very great presumption in any Man to neglect this and defer his Repentance to such a Time as he can never be sure he shall live to see And this is an Argument which every man 's own reason will at the first view offer to him to convince him of the danger of procrastinating his Repentance And such as ought never the less to be consider'd because it lies so obvious to our understandings as to be the common Topick of every one in the managing of this Exhortation But yet since such is the Infirmities of our Nature that we are apt to overlook many times what is the nearest to us and common Arguments like other ordinary things are not usually so much regarded as otherwise the true weight and value of them would deserve they should be I will endeavour to improve this useful Reflection by desiring these two things may be farther considered in it and which perhaps are not so commonly attended to 1 st Whether he who delays his Repentance now out of a prospect that he shall hereafter have time enough to enter upon the practise of it does not besides the danger which arises from the common uncertainty of life and the miseries and casualties that ordinarily accompany it to prevent his Repenting at all expose himself moreover by this very thing to the particular hazard of the Judgment of God to cut him off in the midst of his Sins What such Persons as these may think of their putting off their Repentance to some future season I cannot tell But I must confess when I consider the full import of it I cannot but look upon this as one of the most provoking Crimes in the World Nor do I think it possible for any man to add a higher Aggravation to his Sins than being admonish'd of his danger and so far convinced of the necessity of Repenting as to resolve some time or other to enter upon it nevertheless still to go on in his Evil way and desperately resolve not to begin to be religious till things are come to the very last Extremity and it is absolutely necessary for the saving of his Soul For 1 st He who neglects to repent at the present out of a presumption that he shall hereafter have Time enough to do it when Age and Infirmities are crept upon him and he is no longer in a Condition to pursue the pleasures of his Sins What does he but in effect declare that the best of his Time is fit to be consecrated to the service of his Sins and the refuse only to be reserved for God which he knows not well otherwise how to dispose of I need not say how reproachful a thing this must be to Religion to esteem it a Work fit only for that part of our lives in which we are not good for any thing besides But sure I am that Man must have a very mean Notion of God Almighty who can think him of so Easie a Temper and so indulgent to Sinners as to be willing to receive them at any rate and after all the Indignity and Scorn with which they have treated Him all their life-long to be glad to take them upon their own Terms and rather than go without them to accept even of this slight and seeming submission from them It must be confess'd indeed that great is the mercy and long-suffering of God beyond any thing we are able to express or to conceive But then there is mercy with him that he may be served and feared not affronted and abused by us His Goodness leads to Repentance but gives no encouragement to our Impenitence And he who thinks that God will accept the Refuse of his Time after a long life spent in the service of sin and the business of Religion put off on purpose to this last period as supposing it would then be soon enough to provide for Eternity will I fear instead of an Acceptance meet with the same reproof those of old in the like case did who kept the best of their Flocks and of their Herds for themselves and offered to him the Blind and the Lame and the Sick for sacrifice Mal. i. 10.14 I have no pleasure in you saith the Lord of Hosts neither will I accept an Offering at your hands Cursed be the deceiver that hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my name is dreadful among the heathen But 2dly He who thus delays his Repentance does not only provoke God by continuing at the present in sin and that too out of an unwarrantable presumption that he shall be accepted at the last though in the mean time he continues Impenitent but 't is plain has no true Honour for God at all nor thinks of Repenting even then because he loves God and desires to please him but merely because he is afraid he shall otherwise be damn'd and lose his Soul to all Eternity For else had such a one any real sense of Religion or did he even then intend in good earnest to set about the practice of it it is not to be imagined wherefore it is that he at present neglects the performance of it Nor can any other account be given why he does not begin the next moment to be religious but only this that he does not truly love God nor desire to serve him nor by his good will would ever think of doing of it Now this will yet more aggravate the heinousness of such a delay and betray a desperate contempt of the Divine Goodness and Wisdom As if God either were not able to discover our Hypocrisie and distinguish between a real Penitent and a pretending Votary or would otherwise so far connive at it as to accept of a shadow of Repentance a form of Godliness reserved on purpose for the last business of our lives and then too put on only because it could no longer be deferr'd not out of any love to God or Religion but merely for fear of his Eternal Vengeance And when such is the desperate Provocation which every Sinner by delaying his Repentance adds to all the rest of his Impieties I cannot but think we ought
it would have been impossible for us ever to have come to the knowledge of it to be most dear to us and not upon any account to be forsaken by us But when to this we shall add That these Truths are not matters of meer Speculation only to employ the Mind and exercise the Soul in the Contemplation of them That the concern here is not a useless Theoreme which whether we believe or not we are neither at all the worse now nor shall be ever the less happy hereafter but such by our keeping or betraying whereof we shall finally be Happy or Miserable for ever That therefore to give up these Truths is to become the vilest Traditors the Betrayers not only of our Religion but of our Souls too and that to all Eternity we cannot certainly but think it to be very much our concern to take the advice of the Apostle and earnestly contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints Such is the necessity of this Contention And two things there were wherein St. Jude here exhorted them to the Practice of it proportionable to the two great dangers to which I have before said these Christians were then exposed For First The Christians to whom he wrote were at this time actually under a Persecution for their Faith and by consequence under great Temptations to Apostatize from it And this danger was by so much the more to be apprehended for that a sort of Hereticks were crept in among them who the better to preserve themselves from those Evils which Christianity then brought upon all the faithful Professors of it had among their other Errors set up this for one That it was lawful in such Tryals to dissemble their Faith and to escape Persecution for it Now in Opposition to this base Cowardise of these Men we must first interpret the Contention here spoken of to imply a firmness and resolution of Mind to undergo any Evils rather than to deny their Religion That they should not like those vile Hereticks seek by unworthy Compliances to preserve themselves from danger and ruine their Souls in the other World to save their Lives and to preserve the little Interests of this And the same should be the resolution of every good Christian now Persecution ought to be so far from affrighting him from his Faith that he ought then most firmly to adhere to it when he sees others the most violent in opposing it What tho' he should be called to suffer for it Death ought never to amaze that Man who is able to look forward into Heaven beyond it and there see that Crown of Glory which these light afflictions that are but for a moment shall place upon his Head for all Eternity A true Christian is never greater than when he is under the Cross Nor can any thing be more glorious to the Faithful Disciple than to follow his dear Master not only in Well-doing but if the Will of God be so in patient Suffering too What shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter Nay in all these things we are more than Conquerors through him that loved us But Secondly This was not the only danger they were then likely to run nor it may be the greatest And the hazard of corrupting their Religion by the Artifices of those Hereticks who were unawares crept in among them was yet more to be apprehended than their total Apostatizing from it And therefore St. Jude here exhorts them to contend earnestly for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints i. e. to be very wary and circumspect to maintain it in that purity in which they had received it and not suffer any little Sophistry or Insinuations of their Enemies to lead them into any Errors contrary to the truth of it And indeed whosoever shall look into the Annals of the Church will find this to have ever been the more fatal danger of the two And that the Devil has in all Ages gain'd more by the secret cunning of his false Teachers than by the open violence of his Persecutors There 's many a Christian who has carriage enough to Die for his Faith that yet has not Skill enough to defend it And those whose business it is to deceive never fail to set most upon such as they think are the least able to do so And therefore it cannot certainly but be very advisable in us all and especially for those who are the most ignorant to be very careful of themselves as to this matter Not to hearken to every little Pretender that will but undertake to lead them but if any such offers himself to them to draw them away from the right Faith either absolutely to reject him or rather to bring him forth unto the light to refer him to their Teachers who instruct them in the Truth and who are therefore the fittest to defend the Interests of it And so maintain that wise indifference which ought to be the resolution of every good Man in the search of all but especially of divine Truth neither obstinately to refuse a better Instruction whenever it shall indeed be offered to him much less to be cheated out of his Religion by Noise and Confidence by high Pretences and no Arguments and so by his easiness betray that Faith which our Apostle here calls us so earnestly to contend for And this is a Caution that cannot be unseasonable at any time But yet some times there are wherein 't is more especially to be recommended to Christians And such was that wherein St. Jude wrote this Epistle Which therefore brings me to my next Point III. Of the reason which the Christians at that time had more especially thus to contend for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints I shall not now say any thing of that general Obligation which lyes upon all Christians thus to contend for the Faith viz. the Eternal Salvation of their Souls according as they are careful or not in so doing though this ought certainly to have always its weight too with us both because I have already said somewhat to this before and because I am now only to consider the particular Reasons which those to whom St. Jude here wrote had at that time so to do And those whethersoever of the two things we consider which I have before shewn they were herein exhorted to are such as ought very much to have engaged their care in this Contention For First As to the renouncing of their Faith They were actually under a Persecution for it Their Interests their Ease their Inclinations all sollicited them so to do And as if all this were not enough some who called themselves Christians among them not only encouraged them by their Example but even maintainâ—d it
on that one most just and reasonable Method never to leave our own Faith till we can be clearly and evidently convinced that we have a better offer'd to us in the stead of it and then we shall either free our selves altogether from the Attacks of our Adversaries who seldom care to meddle with honest and understanding Men or I am sure we shall not run any great Hazzard by their Attempts But above all Thirdly Whilst we thus contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints let us be Followers of their Lives as well as of their Doctrine This is that which must save us when all our Disputes will otherwise stand us in no stead To believe aright will do us but small service if we do not live so too And I am persuaded would we but be prevailed with to do this as we ought it would not only most effectually secure us in the Truth but be the most likely means in the World to draw over others to it And indeed what pity is it that a Chureh which has in all other respects so many admirable Advantages above its Adversaries that it is defective in no other mark of being truly Primitive and even in this is less defective than others should not be blessed with this too Consider I beseech you that we rely upon none of those broken Reeds which others lay so much stress upon to make you happy in another Life though you are not upright and holy in this If there be then any concern for your own or your Church's honour if any value for your Immortal Souls if you desire the Blessing of God now and the benefit of his Promises in the World to come if these Motives which one would think should be of all others the most considerable may be allowed to have any influence at all upon you think then upon these things and fulfil ye our Joy in the practice of that Piety whereunto ye are called Be as Good as ye are Orthodox as free from all Corruption in your Manners as God be thanked you are from Error in your Belief Accomplish that great Work which Heaven seems at last to have begun among us And as we are now apparently more concern'd for our Religion than we have perhaps any of us heretofore been so let us go on in well-doing more and more Let us grow in Grace and then we shall also grow in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ till finally we all come in the Vnity of the Faith and of the Knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect Man to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. OF THE Nature and End OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE Lord's Supper A SERMON Preach'd at St. PAVL's COVENT-GARDEN Decemb. 30. 1688. 1 COR. xi 24 This do in Remembrance of Me. THese Words are part of that Solemn Form in which our Blessed Saviour first celebrated the Holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood anâ— establish'd it as a sacred Institution to be continued for ever in his Church in remembrance of that Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for it Whether our Apostle recounted the History of this great Institution according to what some of those who were present at the first Celebration of it had delivered it unto him or whether as seems most probable he had received the manner of it by some extraordinary Revelation from our Saviour Christ himself This is plain that what he here reports to them of this matter was no idle Story no vain Account of his own Invention but a true and exact Relation of what the Blessed Jesus then did when in the same night in which he was betray'd he took Bread and when he had given thanks brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which is broken for you This do in Remembrance of Me. So that our Text then you see contains a positive Command of our Saviour Christ himself of something which he ordered his Apostles to do with reference to this Holy Sacrament And my business at this time shall be to consider what that was and how far we at this day are to look upon our selves to be concerned in it I shall reduce what I have to offer upon this occasion to these two general Considerations I. Of the false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words Which having done so far as may be necessary to the following Discourse I will then II. Shew what indeed it was that our Blessed Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them All of us to Do in Remembrance of Him And by that time I have clearly examin'd these Two Points I presume I shall in some measure have laid open the whole Nature and Design of this Holy Sacrament and in that have answer'd the End of these Solemn and Extraordinary Assemblies And first I am to consider I. That false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words It is the Opinion of those of the other Communion That our Saviour Christ here spoke to his Apostles not as the Representatives of the whole Body of the Church but as those whom he was now about to consecrate to the peculiar Office of the Ministry in it And therefore that commanding these To Do This He did at once both command them to continue this Holy Sacrament for ever in his Church and also at the same time invest them with a Power to Consecrate and Take and Distribute it to others as he had done to them To which if we did add their other Notion of this Sacrament viz. that in the Celebration of it there is a true and proper Offering made for the Sins and Satisfactions both of the Dead and the Living we shall then find the full import of our Text according to their sense to be this DO THIS that is Receive the power which I hereby give you of consecrating i. e. of converting these Elements of Bread and Wine into the true and proper Substance of my Body and Blood and having so done Offer them up to my Father as a true and real propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins and Satisfactions for the Punishments and all other the Necessities of all my faithful Disciples whether they be alive or dead whether they be yet on Earth or gone to Purgatory Such is the Account which those of the Church of Rome give us of these words And in this they are so very confident that they not only Anathematize all those who shall say either that Christ in this Command did not institute his Apostles Priests or that he did not Command that they and other Priests should in like manner offer up his Body and Blood but have also made it the very Form of Ordaining Priests at this day in their Church having delivered the Patin and Chalice into
neither more nor less and lying along with our Heads in one anothers Bosoms as the Apostles now did and which I suppose no Christian of whatsoever Church or Persuasion he be does at all think himself obliged to do But my meaning herein is this That in those things wherein the Nature of this Holy Sacrament consists and which the Holy Scriptures have recounted to us on purpose to direct us in the Celebration of it in those we are not to depart from our Saviour's Institution nor to presume to set up our own Innovations as the Council of Constance has most presumptuously done in opposition to and even in defiance of our Blessed Lord's Appointment To receive the Holy Sacrament in this or that posture with such or such particular Ceremonies these are things wholly foreign to the Nature and Design of this Blessed Sacrament and therefore such as may in different places and Ages be different And every Christian ought to comply with what is used and prescribed in that Church with which he communicates But for those things in which the very Nature of this Holy Sacrament is concern'd for such parts as constitute the integrity of it and serve the more lively to set it off as a memorial of the Death and Passion of Christ and which therefore we must look upon our Lord and Saviour to have sealed with his express Command Do this In these I say we are to keep close both to the Example of our Saviour and to the Command of the Text and when he has distinctly instituted this Holy Supper in Two Kinds not dare to command Men under the pain of an Anathema to believe that One alone is sufficient And this may suffice for the Explication of the former part of my Text What it is we are to understand by that Phrase of my Text Do this I go on Secondly to enquire Secondly What it is to do this in Remembrance of Christ. It is I think agreed on all hands That the Design of our Saviour in this Command was to set forth the great End of his Instituting this Holy Sacrament viz. That it was to keep up in our own Minds and set forth to others a solemn and lively Remembrance of his dying for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages that accrue to us thereby And however it be pretty hard to reconcile this plain Design of this Institution with what those of the other Communion now make to be the main business of it namely to be a true and proper Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Living and of the Dead in nothing differing from that upon the Cross but only in the manner of the Oblation A remembrance being ever of things absent from not present with us and the same Sacrifice very improperly said to be a Type or Memorial of it self yet so clearly is this design of this Holy Sacrament here declared to be for the remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion that they have chosen rather to encounter all these Absurdities than to adventure to deny what our Savior has so very plainly delivered as the End of this Institution But though it is not therefore to be doubted but that the Intention of our Blessed Lord in this Command was to oblige us by such a Solemn Ceremony as this to continue the Memory of his Death yet we are not therefore to think that all we have to do when we come to the Holy Table and attend on this Great Memorial is simply to remember or call to mind the Sufferings of our Saviour No this is not sufficient to answer either the meaning of this Command or the design of this Institution The word in the Original which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and imports not a bare calling to mind but a renew'd Commemoration It regards the Affections of the Heart as well as the Action of the Mind In a word it denotes not so much a private Remembrance as a publick and solemn Commemoration when in our Apostle's Phrase ver 26. we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate and shew forth to others at the same time that we thus call to mind our selves the Lord's Death and that with all those pious motions and resentments that befit so excellent and so advantageous a Remembrance To know therefore what it is that our Saviour here requires of us when he bids us to do this in Remembrance of Him two things will be necessary to be considered by us First What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Secondly In what manner and with what Motions and Affections we are to do it And First let us examine What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Now this in general St. Paul here tells us is his Death ver 26. that is that bitter Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for our sakes when he established this Solemn Memorial of it For says he as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the LORD 's Death till his coming But because a bare Remembrance of the Death of Christ without any farther Consideration either of the cause and manner of it or of those infinite Advantages which accrue to us thereby will afford but a very imperfest Memorial to us We must therefore for a full discharge of this duty and to raise up in our Souls those suitable resentments we ought to bring to this Holy Administration take a farther and more particular prospect of it And consider First What our State and Condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us Secondly What that Death Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and has therefore commanded us to remember in this Holy Sacrament Thirdly What the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby And First To do this in Remembrance of Christ will engage us to call to mind what our State and condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us For however we were by Baptism wash'd from all the Guilt and delivered from the Punishment of our Original Pollution and admitted into the Covenant of Grace and made Heirs of the Promise of Eternal Glory yet we are not therefore to think our selves ever the less concerned when we come to this Holy Sacrament and shew forth that Death of the Lord by which our very Baptism it self was consecrated into a laver of Regeneration there to call to mind that wretched State in which we once were and must for ever have lain had not the Blessed Jesus given himself up unto Death for us I should indulge too much your Curiosity in an Argument of this moment should I enter on that vain Speculation which the School-men first started and has since been made the Sport and Diversion of our Modern Scepticks in Religion Whether God could not otherwise have provided for
the Pardon and Salvation of Mankind than by the Death of his Son For since it was the Pleasure of God to pitch upon this way of doing it to what purpose is it for us vainly to enquire whether he might not have made use of some other This we ought at least to believe That God had his Reasons for preferring this and that however we ought not so far to tye up the Power and Liberty of our Creator as to presume to say he could not otherwise have redeem'd us than by the Death of Christ yet thus much we may and 't is our duty to conclude That none could have better or so well have answer'd the great Ends both of his Justice and of his Mercy or more illustriously have set forth the Riches of his Love and Favour to Mankind or more powerfully have engaged us to a suitable return of Love to him or more clearly have convinced us of the hatred of God to Sin or more effectually have stir'd us up to our utmost endeavours to live as we ought to do and as becomes those who had been so wonderfully redeem'd by the precious Blood of the Son of God himself But though this then be a Question otherwise of more Curiosity than Vse and raised for the most part rather to cavil at Religion than to magnifie the Power of it yet may it here perhaps be of some benefit to us to fill our Souls with the highest resentments of Love and Gratitude to our Great Redeemer to consider not only from what Miseries he has delivered us but with what a freedom and readiness and good-will to us he did it No God was not constrain'd nor any necessity put upon our Saviour Christ as if either the one must have died or that the other could not by any other means have reconciled Mankind unto himself It was the free Choice of both by this means the better to magnifie their Love to us and to secure our Love and Duty to them again that so as St. John says 1 Ep. iv 19 We may love God because he first loved us Hence it is that the Holy Scriptures every where set out to us the whole business of our Salvation as the effect of the free Choice and Pleasure of God So says St. John cap. iii. 16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life So says St. Paul 2 Tim. i. 9 where he makes the business of our Redemption to have been the eternal purpose of God before Adam had yet sinned or by consequence before there could be any necessity of Christ's dying for us who hath saved us says he and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the World began And of our Blessed Saviour the same Apostle tells us not only that He gave Himself for us Tit. ii 14 but that he did it with all imaginable readiness and with the same good-will with which God designed it Lo I come says he to fulfil thy Will O God Heb. x. 7 9. And again in St. John speaking of laying down his life for us he declares ver 18. No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Such therefore was the love of our Blessed Saviour to us in freely giving up himself to the Death for us And for the reason that induced him to it and the benefits which thereby accrue to us I shall not need to say either what or how great they were Indeed the time would fail me should I go about particularly to lay them all before you Miserable was the State and deplorable the Condition of Mankind beyond any thing that we are able almost to conceive We were all dead in Trespasses and Sins and must for ever have lain both under the Guilt and Punishment of our Transgressions had not the Blessed Jesus opened to us the Gates of Heaven and sealed a Gospel of Repentance with his own Blood for the Remission of our Sins Our Nature was decayed and that he has restored so that whereas before we had no sufficiency of our selves we have now a sufficiency of God and can do all things through Christ that strengthens us Our Sins had got the dominion over us and these he has not only very much prevented by his Grace but will also utterly wipe away by his Death and Satisfaction for us We were under a miserable Sentence of Death and Judgment But Christ has now took away the sting of the one and the danger of the other so that our Temporal Death is no longer a Punishment but rather a Blessing to us and the Eternal Judgment of God shall instead of being our Condemnation prove to us perfect Absolution and a glorious Reward This is the blessed Change which has been made in our Condition and which certainly ought to render the remembrance of our Text most dear and precious to us But I must not insist any longer upon this Point I am persuaded there is no one that now hears me so ignorant in the great Mystery of Godliness as not to be fully acquainted with this first and chiefest Foundation of all our Faith Nor have I mentioned that little which I have now remark'd of it so much to instruct you in what you ought to make a great part of your Memorial when you come to this Holy Sacrament as rather if it shall please God to stir up some Affections both in my self and you that may be suitable to a serious Reflection on all these things There being nothing it may be in the World more apt to fill our Souls with that due resentment we then especially ought to have of the Death of Christ when we come to this Sacred Memorial of it than to consider the wretched condition from which we were delivered by it nor more apt to engage us to live as becomes those who have been freed from such unspeakable Miseries and are now put into a capacity of Everlasting Glory and without which our remembrance of him in this Sacrament will be a Reproach and a Scandal not an Honour and a Service to him we shall forfeit all the benefits of that Death we are call'd to commemorate and as our Apostle phrases it ver 29. of this Chapter Eat and drink our own Damnation not discerning the Lord's Body This is the first thing we are to do in pursuance of the Command of the Text This do in Remembrance of Me. Secondly This remembring of Christ in this Holy Sacrament will oblige us to consider what that Death and Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and commanded us in this place to continue the Memory of in this Institution And this to be sure must be the proper business of every one when
he comes to this Holy Table But now what or how great those Sufferings were which the Blessed Jesus underwent for us it is not for me to pretend to declare unto you Great and terrible are the Accounts which the Scriptures every where give us of them How doth Isaiah set forth to us in his Prophecy the Type and Shadow of them He tells us That he should be a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief without form or comeliness or beauty that we should desire him He represents him as labouring under all the Miseries and Afflictions that were due to the Sins of a wicked and incorrigible world Surely says he he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows We esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all Thus did Isaiah speak of the Sufferings of Christ when he foresaw his Death and prophesied of his Passion And if we look into the Accounts which the Holy Evangelists give us of the Accomplishment of it we shall find those exceeding whatever we are able to comprehend of it 1. If we consider the Circumstances of his Suffering it was accompanied with all the bitter Aggravations of Misery that can well be imagined For indeed what else can we say of the Mockeries and the Insults of the Scorns and Reproaches that appeared in all the parts of his Passion Of the Baseness and Treachery of his Disciples and of the barbarous Malice and Cruelty of his Enemies How was he betray'd by one of his own Apostles deny'd by another forsaken by all condemn'd at one of those Feasts that brought together all the Nation of the Jews to Jerusalem And that for two of the most grievous Crimes that could be laid to the Charge of an innocent Soul Blasphemy against God and Sedition among the People Set at nought by the Soldiers Execrated and Abjured by his own Countrymen Adorn'd as a mock King that he might be the more derided by them and then finally to compleat the Tragedy Executed by a Death not only the most scandalous but the most painful of any in the World 2. Which therefore brings us to a Second Consideration of his Passion namely of the Pains and Torments of it And here I shall not enter upon any long Account of the Cruelty of that Death which has been thought sufficient by those whose kind of Punishment it was to give a general Name to the greatest Torments by derivation from this one as the highest and chiefest of all The Wounds of the Hands and Feet which the Nails made when he was fastned to the Cross the Agonies and Convulsions of his whole Body when he hung upon it the slowness of dying not to say any thing of those Furrows which in the Psalmist's Speech they had before made with their Scourges upon his Back All these sufficiently declare to us an extraordinary Suffering and may warrant us to cry out with the Prophet in the Reflection on it Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto this sorrow wherewith the Lord afflicted his own Son in that day of his fierce anger 3. And yet still all this was but the least part of his Passion and the anguish of his Soul those unknown Sufferings he underwent within far exceed whatever Torments his Enemies were able to put him to They were these that made him sweat great drops of blood in the Garden before ever the Officers had seiz'd him or begun to inflict the least Punishment upon him They were these that made him not only declare to his Disciples That his Soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death but carried him farther in the bitterness of his Grief to pray three several times to his Father with the greatest importunity That if it were possible this Cup might pass from him And when at last it could not be but that he must drink off the very dregs of it forced that vehement Expostulation from him My God My God why hast thou forsaken me It has been the rashness of some from all these Expressions of his Grief but especially from the last to conclude That our Saviour in his Passion underwent all the Punishment that all the Elect of God should have suffered for all their Sins and in short That he bore in his mind the very pains and torments of the Damn'd But it is not necessary nor indeed agreeable to a right Belief to run to any such Extremity His Sufferings were indeed great but they were not such as either excluded him from the love and favour of God in the midst of them nor accompanied with any despair which is always one and that not the least part of the Sinner's torment in another World He died and went down into the Grave but his Soul was not left in the regions of the dead nor did his flesh see corruption His Punishment was short in the duration and the intenseness of it though very grievous yet no more than was agreeable to the Nature of a Man to bear And we must not so speak of the Sufferings of Christ as to forget that though he was God when he underwent them yet that he died and suffered as he was Man Thus therefore must we call to mind the Passion of our Blessed Lord We must go through all the stages of it with care and exactness and neither diminish the Horrour of what he endured by an imperfect Memorial of it nor do violence at once both to the Nature and Innocence of Christ by straining it up to a greater heighth than either the Authority of Holy Scripture or the Honour of our Saviour or his Humane Nature in which he suffered will permit us to do This is the Second thing we are to remember when we come to the Holy Table The Third and last thing here required of us is Having called to mind the Sufferings of Christ and the Evils from whence we are delivered by them to consider finally what the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby It is not to be doubted but that there must be somewhat very extraordinary for which the Son of God should Himself come down from Heaven and not only humble himself so far as to take upon him the form of a Servant but being made in the similitude of a Man expose himself to all those vile and cruel Sufferings I but just now recounted And indeed the Benefits which he purchased for us by his Death were not at all inferior to the Punishment he underwent for the obtaining of them And to speak them all in one general Conclusion he purchased the Redemption of a lost miserable sinful World we were all before dead
in Trespasses and Sins we are now raised to the Hopes and Assurance of Everlasting Glory But here therefore I will be a little more particular And First By these Sufferings our Saviour Christ delivered us from the Curse which descended to us by our first Parents Transgression and from that Eternal Punishment which must otherwise have been the consequence of it For not to enter now into any scrupulous Enquiry concerning the Nature of Original Sin or the Grounds upon which God is supposed to impute it to us Or how far we should have been either condemn'd or not for the Actual Sin of Adam in Eating of the forbidden Fruit This at least cannot be doubted of by any That our Nature is now much degenerated from that primitive Purity in which Man was at first created that we have all the very best of us a strange Propensity to Evil and are born with an Impotency if not Adverseness to that Virtue and Piety which the Principles of natural Religion as well as of revealed require of us So that if we should allow the contentious Disputers of our Days that God will not impute Adam's Transgression to us for Sin nor condemn us for a Defect which we are not our selves consenting to but bring into the World with us yet would this have stood us but in very little stead Whilst we should every one of us have been Guilty of so many Actual Sins as had not Christ purchased a Redemption for us must for ever have sunk us down into Ruine and Destruction And certainly we ought then to esteem it no small Benefit of our Saviour's Passion that he has now delivered us from this Danger and removed the fatal Necessity we must otherwise have lain under of being for ever miserable without all possibility of preventing of it But this is only one Part and that the first and least of those Blessings which his Death and Passion has obtained for us For Secondly Our Saviour Christ has not only delivered us from those Dangers to which we were before exposed but he has put us in a new and better way of attaining to that nay perhaps to a greater Happiness than what we should have had if Adam had never sinned nor by consequence our Saviour Christ ever given himself an Offering for our Sins This is indeed the great Commendation of our Saviour's Love to us that not content to deliver us from those Dangers that before threatned us He saves to the uttermost those that come to him And here to unfold the Greatness of this Benefit as I ought to do I must run through all the excellent Advantages of that New-Covenant God entred into with us by the Blood of his Son But this would carry me into an Argument great indeed and worthy your Attention but beyond the Bounds of my present Discourse In general * If to have a Systeme of the noblest and most admirable Rules of Living that were ever communicated to the World such as by their own Excellence no less than by God's Command recommend themselves not only to our Practice but to our Love too * If to be endued with a supernatural Divine Assistance to enable us to fulfil them and overcome all those Temptations that may at any time seek to draw us from them * If to be assured That upon our hearty Endeavours and earnest Prayers to God this Grace of his shall still increase in us according as we sincerely apply our selves to make use of it or as other Circumstances shall happen to put us in need of it * If besides this Help to keep us from sinning to live under a Gracious Promise of Pardon for those Sins which many times we shall commit notwithstanding all our Labour to the contrary upon our humble Confession and hearty Repentance of them * If to know that for all these Ends we have a Redeemer in Heaven who stands continually in the Presence of God to make Intercession for us and represent to his Father that Death and Passion which he underwent on purpose that he might obtain this Forgiveness for us In a Word * If to be undoubtedly secured That whatever becomes of us now yet let us but sincerely labour what in us lies to fulfil our Duty and we shall be in a little Time eternally happy in the Consummation of all these Blessings in the Kingdom of our Saviour That yet a few Years and our High-Priest shall again return in Glory and pronounce the great and final Blessing upon us which shall instate us in Joys never to be forfeited If I say to live under the Conduct of such a Saviour and such a Religion to have the Comfort of so great Promises now and the blessed Assurance of such Glory hereafter may be esteemed a Blessing as indeed what can we think of it but to be the greatest Blessing that a merciful God could bestow upon his Creatures or a Divine Saviour purchase for his Servants All this and many other Benefits which I cannot now so much as mention to you Christ purchased for us by his Sufferings and calls upon us in this Holy Sacrament to remember with the highest Joy and the most grateful Acknowledgments Which brings me to the other thing proposed for the full Explication of the Duty here required of us viz. Secondly * After what Manner and * With what Affections it is that we are to Do this in Remembrance of Him For the former of these I. The manner How we are here to remember Him I have already observed That the original Word which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and implies not any calling to Mind all these things but a frequent renewed Commemoration of them And that especially such by which we may not only remember our selves but also set forth to others the Memorial of them So S. Paul interprets it v. 26 As often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate shew forth make a solemn Declaration of the Lord's Death until his coming And so indeed the very Design of this Institution will oblige us to understand it When our Saviour first celebrated this Holy Sacrament and commanded his Disciples by the like Sacred Ceremony to continue the Memory of his Death until the End of the World We are told by the Evangelists That he had just finished the Feast of the Passover into the Place whereof he substituted this Christian Feast and as all the Circumstances of it plainly shew designed this to have the same Place in the Christian that the other had till then had in the Jewish Church Now concerning that solemn Feast we read in the Book of Exodus cap. xii 17 That God appointed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Memorial that is for a solemn Recognition which the People was thereby to make every Year of that great Deliverance by which they were brought up out of the Land of Egypt And in the thirteenth Chapter they are
be adored To conclude Let MARY be held in Honour but let God be Adored Now to this God who alone has infinite Perfections and is a God hearing Prayer let us ascribe as is most due Salvation and Glory and Power and Praise and Thanksgiving for ever and ever Amen FINIS ADVERTISEMENT Of Books published by the Reverend Dr. WAKE THere having been lately a little trifling Discourse concerning the Blessed Sacrament published and spread abroad in the Name of Dr. Wake dedicated to the Princess of Denmark it is thought convenient here to let the World know how great an injury has been done to him in it To prevent such Practises for the time to come the Reader is desired to take notice that the Doctor has yet published no other Books than what are here subjoined nor will ever hereafter set his Mark where he is not willing to write his Name Printed for Richard Chiswell AN Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by the late BISHOP of CONDOM in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church 4 to A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the new Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The FIRST PART Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against Monsieur de Meaux and his Vindicator The SECOND PART A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist in the two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host in Answer to the Two Discourses lately Printed at Oxford on this Subject To which is prefixed a Large Historical Preface relating to the same Argument Two Discourses of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead A Continuation of the Controversie between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a full Account of the Books that have been of late written on Both sides Preparation for Death being a Letter sent to a Young Gentlewoman in France in a Distemper of which she died Printed for William Rogers A Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry in which a late Author viz. the Bishop of Oxford's true and only Notion of Idolatry is considered and confuted 4 to The Sum of a Conference between Dr. Clagert and F. P. Gooden about Transubstantiation Published by this Author with a Preface Printed for Richard Chiswell and William Rogers TWo Sermons One before the King and Queen the other before the House of Commons Both Reprinted in this present Collection Other Tracts by the same Author A Sermon Preached at Paris on the 30 th of January S.V. 1681 5. The Present State of the Controversie Sure and Honest Means for Conversion of all Hereticks and wholsom Advice and Expedients for the Reformation of the Church The Preface by this Author A Letter from several French Ministers fled into Germany upon the account of the Persecution in France to such of their Brethren in England as approved the King's Declaration touching Liberty of Conscience Translated from the Original French * Mat. xi 15 xiii 9.43 Mat vii 16 Luk. xiv 35 c. 2 Cor. v. 11 Mat. xiii 8 2 Tim. iii. 5 Joh. xv 22 1 Cor. i. 12 Ib. ver· 17 18 19· and 2 Cor. iv 13 2 Cor. iv 5 1 Cor. ix 22 1 Cor. vi 7 2 Tim. iv 3 Aristot. Eth. Nic. lib. 1. c. 1. Rom. xii 17 Mat. v. 44 Luke xi 41 xvi 9 1 Co. i. 18 21 23 25. John vii 17 Luke viii 14 Ib. Mat. xxii 15 Mat. x. 16 Andronic Rhod. Par. Eth. Nic. l. 1. cap. 4. Jo. v. 44 Jo. xii 42 43. Jo. viii 47 1 Joh. iv ver 6. col cum vers 4 5. John iii. 19 c. Acts xxiv 16. Rom. i. 28 See Pontif R. Ordo ad reconcil Haer. Luke xii 47 1 Cor. â—â— 14. Acts. xvi 14 Luke xi 13 See chap. xxxi 19 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ‡ See Munster and Fagius on v. 1 of this Chapter Crit. M. Vol 1. Titus ii 11 Psal. lviii 5 Mat. xvi 26 Psal. 132.3 4. Hos. v. 15 Isa. xxvi 9 See the Commination used on Ash-wednesday 2 Cor. iv 5 1 Cor. iv 5 See 1 Cor. v. 1 See the Rhemists Annot. on this Chap. Catholick Scriptur Point 26. of Indulgences n. 6. Mat. vii 14 1 Tim. iv 8 Prov. iii. 17 Maâ— xvi 24 Psal. xiv 1 Morin de Poenir l. 8. c. 4. n. 26. 1 Jo. iii. 21 Psa. 130.4 1 Joh 19. Phil. ii 12 Card Perron See this more at large Serm. VI VII Collect for the iv th Sund. after Epiph. Jude iii. V. 1. V. 2. See the R. Pontific O. d. ad Reconcil Haerer Spondeo sub Anathematis Obligatione Mâ— nunquam Quorumlibet suasionibus vel quocunque alâ—o modo ad Reversurum Et si quod absit ab hâc me unitate aliquâ Occasione vel Argumento divisero perjurii Reatum incurrens aeternae obligatus poenae Inveniar c. Acts iv 19 II. Chap. ver 18. 2. 1 Cor. II 9. Mat. v. 44 1 Tim. ii 5 2 d Com. Aquin. his School 1 Cor. xiv Mat. iv 8 Heb. xi 25 26. Heb. xi 35 Dan. iii. 15. 16. 17. 18. Mat. x. 28 Matth. x. 32. 33. Acts xxiii v. 23 c. Ib. v. 12 14 16. Joh. xvi 2 Acts xxiv 23 v. 24 See Grotius and Dr. Hammond on that Verse which in our Translation seems to imply quite otherwise viz. That he had a perfect knowledg of the Jewish Law Josephus Hist. l. 20. Tacitus Hist. l. 5. Verse 2. Verse 24. Acts xvii 31 Rom. xiv 10 2 Cor. v. 10 1 Thess. iv 15 c. 1 Cor. xv Matt. xxv 31 c. Rom. ii 6 c. Gen. xviii 25 Wisd. v. 4â— 5. v. 24 2 Cor. v. 10 ‡ Tacitus Hist. lib. v. c. 9. says of him That per omnem saevitiam ac libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit Et annal l xii c. 54. cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus tanta potentia subnixo * Joseph Antiq. Jud. l. 20. c. 5. pag. 616. Basil. 1544. The Account of which see above p. 159. Act. ii 37 Eccl. xi 9 Mat. xxv 41 The Socâ—nians 1st Deny Immortality to the wicked Smalc contr Frantz p. 415. Volkelius lib. iii. cap. 11.12 2dly They affirm That they shall be for ever destroyed Smalc l. c. Volk l. c. pag. 73. and cap. 33. pag. 133. Socinus in 1 John 2.17 Bibl. Fr Pol. p. 178. Woltzogen in Mat. iii. 12 and in Mat. xxv 46 And that 3dly By Fire Schlicting comm in Hebr. x. 27 apud Crellium in Bibl. Fratr Polon T. 1. see his Paraphr on the same vers ibid. Mat. xiii 42.xxii.13 xxv 41 46. Mar. ix 43 c· compared with Rev. xiv 10.xx.10 Rom. ii 5 6 8 9. Add for the reality of the pains Mat. xi