us from the Jaws of Hell and Earth and hath procured for us endless life and glory hath required it of us Here is the Authority of just Power and the Obligation of astonishing Love We are bound by the submissions we owe a Sovereign Lord and by the gratitude we owe an adorable Benefactor The Son of God the King of both the worlds The Redeemer of Men 't is He that commands and his commandments are not grievous had he put upon our necks a yoke heavier then the Iewish ceremonies had he injoyn'd a greater number of costly and laborious Rites than those and required so many of such services from us as would have taken up all our time and imployed all our strength and wearied all our powers Yet these we ought to have observed without repining and thought all but small homage to his Greatness and small acknowledgment of his Love All these had been nothing in compare with what he hath done for us freely without merit or obligation Nothing to his leaving the bosome of the Father and the glories of the upper world and the Hallelujahs of the blessed Nothing to his descending to a world of Infamy and woe Nothing to his suffering the scorns and contradictions of Sinners the Death of the Cross and the wrath of God So that we had been wretchedly ungrateful should we have stuck at any of these or as much as murmured at them But our Lord hath not given us any such tryal of our Love and obedience He hath deliver'd the world from the Yoke of Ceremonial bondage And besides Baptism hath appointed but this one Rite for us to observe A Rite that is neither troublesome nor costly tedious nor laborious And what Prodigies of baseness shall we make our selves if we refuse to take notice of this his gracious Institution With what face can we look up and call our selves by his name How shamefully are we upbraided by the practice of those we count barbarous Let us look abroad into the world and consider the most brutish Idolaters They will cut their beloved flesh and burn their dearest children and sometimes suffer themselves to be crush'd to death by the Carriages that bear their Idols because their Infernal Gods require and are pleased with such testimonies of their homage Hath the Devil such obsequious servants Are those Cruel Rites whch he appoints observed with so much duty Will those poor wretches do and suffer any thing rather than displease their ugly Deities And are we Christians Professing Servants of the Son of God our Sovereign and Redeemer and do we neglect this his main just and gracious appointment Is this too much to do for him and do we owe him so much less than Cannibals do their Idols Certainly those men of the Desart those wild Savages of the Woods shall rise up in judgement with such a Generation of pretending Christians and shall condemn it Methinks their diligence and exactness in those hard and painful services should cover us with blushing and confusion at our carelesness and neglect of the easie duty our Lord requires from us And we shall see great reason to be ashamed of our omissions if we consider that our blessed Redeemer had lived a Life of poverty and dishonour for our sakes He had instructed us in the way of Happiness by his excellent Doctrine and Precepts and had gone before us in an incomparable example and now he was just about to compleat his Love by offering himself unto death to deliver us from it and thereby to give an instance of the most amazing goodness that ever was At this time he injoines his Disciples to do something in Remembrance of Him And Lord What is sufficient to be done in memory of such Love Had he required the dearest of our bloud and the choicest of our substance to be offer'd to him in acknowledgment should we have thought such demands unreasonable Would ordinary ingenuity have scrupled to make those Sacrifices for such kindness But he calls not for these He looks for no First-born of our bodies nor chief of our Flocks No He appoints only a feast of Memorials and commands us to remember his Love in that And shall we not observe him in so small a matter Hath he not deserv'd to be remembred by us or do we know any better way to signifie our remembrance of him then that which himself hath prescribed Should we not do as much as this at the request of an ordinary dying Friend And is not the greatest and the best that ever creatures had worthy of such a testimony of affection from us I am sure there is no one can be so brutish as to deny the justness of the Duty and methinks none should be so unworthy as to refuse complyance with it I beseech you therefore if the Considerations of Duty can do any thing with you If there be any obligation in the highest Authority if there be any allurement in the sweetest love If your profession of subjection to Christ be not only a Complement and if he have any real interest in your Souls give this proof then of your being in earnest that which you would be thought Refuse no more of his Invitations Neglect no more of his calls Consider the expresness of his command and that this Law is peculiarly his His in such a sence as Baptism excepted no other Law is For his other injunctions are but enforcements of the Laws that God had written in the old Scriptures and in our hearts But this is his own proper commandment by obeying him in this we particularly own him as our Law-giver and by refusing we renounce him But if the considerations of Duty should not prove so powerful with you there are others which generally use to be of more force namely those taken from our interest And here II I desire you to consider the great benefits that a worthy Communicant receives from the holy Sacrament This is not a meer barren Ceremony or unprofitable Rite but an instrument and means to produce and to convey unspeakable blessings to us Here we receive 1 Confirmation of our Faith All habits are increas'd by being exercised and this Ordinance requires great exercises of the grace of Faith For here we make a solemn declaration of it and thereby bind it stronger upon our souls And to the exercise of this Divine Grace and the sincere and publick profession of it there is no doubt but God will superadd his special aid and blessing that out of weakness it may be made strong So that if your Faith be weake and trembling if you are perplext with vexatious doubts and temptations to unbelief apply your selves to this holy Ordinance as to the proper remedy Declare your Faith and pray for more If you believe God will help your unbelief Mark 9. 24. 2 Our Repentance will be heightned by our Due Communicating at the Lords Table and that in respect of all its great Acts viz. 1. Sence and
Lord and a Seal of the Covenant that God hath made with us in him Two things then it is principally designed for 1 To Remember us of our Lord and Saviour and 2 to be a Seal of the Covenant of Grace of each briefly 1 'T is for a Remembrance not only of his Person or only of his Sufferings or any other particular part of his Ministry But we are by it required thankfully and affectionately to call to mind All that he hath done and all that he hath suffer'd His Life Doctrine and Laws His Passion Resurrection and Ascension His Victory over Sin Death and Hell and the gracious Covenant that God hath made with us through him These are all included in his Body and Bloud as I intimated before of which the Holy Sacrament is a Sign and Memorial And the remembrance of these which we are call'd to by the Divine Institution is not only some slight and passing thoughts but a solemn and most serious fixing of them upon our minds in order to the inflaming our affections with love and our wills with resolution that we may live answerably to that excellent Religion of the Holy Jesus which we profess 2 'T is the Seal of a Covenant The new Testament in my bloud The Covenant is That God will give pardon of Sin and eternal Life upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance This He seals to us in the Sacrament and assures us that he for his part will make good his Promises and we on ours seal that we will endeavour to perform the conditions So that the Lords Supper is a Sacrament by which we confirm those ingagements we are entred into at Baptism Then our Sureties undertook for us that we should be faithful in the Convenant and in this holy Ordinance we take all those obligations upon our selves and in our own persons promise to act according to them This plainly and in short is the nature and design of the Holy Sacrament concerning which there are some other expressions in Scripture which I shall consider briefly in order to the further explication of the sacred Mystery The chief are these 'T is called 1 The Cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 The communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ 1 Cor. 10. 16 and in the duty t is said 3 That we shew the Lords Death 1 Cor. 11. 26. 1 The Cup of Blessing viz. of Praise and Thanksgiving Our Saviour Matth. 26 gave thanks when he took the Cup. The Jews used to conclude their paschal Supper with a Cup of Wine at which time they sung an Hymn and therefore call'd it the cup of praising and blessing And the Heathens also after their feasts had their cups of Praise to their Gods which some take to be the Cup of Divils mention'd by the Apostle I Coa 10. 21. So that by this we are taught to remember our Lord at his Table with praise and grateful acknowledgements And therefore the Ancients from hence call'd the Lords Supper the Holy Eucharist namely a Feast of Thanksgiving and the Solemnity was always attended with an hymn of Praise 2 Communion or Communication of the body and bloud of Christ viz. The Sacrament is a sacred Rite in which God communicates and imparts to all worthy Receivers the Benefits of Christs Incarnation and Sufferings He doth then ratifie confirm and solemnly exhibit them to those that duly attend upon that Divine appointment 3 As often as ye eat ye do shew the Lords death viz. 1 Declare unto men with joy and glorying that we believe he dyed for such purposes and that he hath procured inestimable benefits for us by his Death That therefore we will adhere and stick unto him and that neither death nor life shall seperate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord. And 2 Imports our shewing and declaring this also unto God and pleading it with him for his pardon and his grace for the sake of that meritorious Passion which we set forth and commemorate These passages fall under the Account I have before given of the Ordinance and shew how we are to Remember our Lord in it and what we may expect in so doing Thus briefly of the Nature and design of the Sacrament I might have run the matter into a large Discourse but I resolve all convenient brevity In what I have said you will find all things that are necessary and essential to the Ordinance For the niceties and disputes that are about it you need not trouble your selves with them But so much of it as I have represented I mean in the substance of the particulars 't is fit you should know And therefore I intreat you especially those of the more ordinary understandings to return back and fix your thoughts a while upon those periods and read them over and again till you have a clear and distinct apprehension of the Subject they explain I know the thoughts of most are very confused and much in the dark about it and while they are so they cannot demean themselves as they ought in the performance of the Duty nor receive those benefits that otherwise they might from it I beseech you therefore not to content your selves with a single and running reading Many Divine Truths will not enter into our minds at first sight or if they do they are gone as soon as they are received Though they are never so plainly exprest yet they many times seem dark till we look again Or though they strike our minds fully yet they pass out of Memory except we reflect and think them over I hope therefore you will do your selves this right And I thus urge you to consideration of my accounts not as if I fancied I had made any discoveries in them which were not made before No These are known things among the Intelligent sort of Christians But I do it because I speak to the meaner and less improved understandings And perhaps from the Representation of the affair which I have given the others also may receive the advantage of a clearer order and method to their thoughts and be deliver'd from many unnecessary and uncertain notions that they have imagined to be of great consequence to be believed and known when either they are not true or not considerable CHAP. III. I Come now to the main thing I design viz. II To urge this great duty which I have thus explain'd and to do what I can to persuade you to the conscientious practice of it Now there are two things that commonly oblige men to action namely Considerations of Duty and of Interest And there are both here in the highest degree to ingage us I shall discourse of each 1 We have the Motive and Reason of Duty and Duty in such circumstances as have the greatest obligation in them A Lord who hath all right to our obedience both by nature and by dear purchase hath commanded us to do this And A Saviour who hath rescued
enmities and embrace our enemies and shed abroad our kindness upon all about us yea and extend it to all the world in prayers and good wishes And now This Spirit of Charity is a most divine temper and a great happiness 'T is a sweet serene and pleasant thing a reward to it self if there were no other Whereas envy and malice and all the degrees of them are an hell and torment to the Soul they are great sins and their own punishment And a right use of the holy Sacrament will abate and remove these and therein also administer blessed and unspeakable advantages to us 4 Our Hopes are nobly advanced and strengthened by this Ordinance When the good man considers the Iustice and Holiness of God and the perfection of his Law and then takes a view of his own sinfulness and innumerable imperfections His Spirits fail and his hope is giving up the Ghost he sinks into trouble and almost into the regions of despair Now all the relief that a man can have in such a state is to be drawn from Gods Covenant to pardon sin and to accept of faith and repentance instead of perfection This is the Tenour of the Gospel and the foundation of our hopes and this Covenant is sealed and assured to us at the Sacrament so that thence the fainting Soul may derive life and quickning And when the drooping Christian comes from seeing God putting his Seal to his pardon and to the promises made him of eternal Life His hopes recover and his spirits return unto him His Soul leaps for joy and all his powers are full of content and pleasure And over and above this God is pleased at such times especially to vouchsafe more abundant manifestations of himself to the Soul sealing his love upon it and giving it so much assurance as may deliver it from its unreasonable doubts and suspicions and make it in part partaker of our Masters joy But this will be a particular by it self Therefore 5 The holy Sacrament is an excellent means to heighten a Christians Ioy and Comfort For there we are in a special exercise of our Graces and by them are prepared for Divine peace and pleasure That peace of God which passeth all understanding Phil. 4. 7. and this is something more than that content that naturally ariseth upon and results from the Actions of holiness and vertue and is superadded by the nearer applications of the Spirit of God to the Soul This pleasure and satisfaction God is always willing to bestow upon us but we by our sins indispose our selves for it and it is not to be given but to prepared Souls And now according to the greater or less degrees of our preparations and exercise of our graces we shall have more or less of this spiritual joy and satisfaction in our Communions But besides the joy which is special and extraordinary The Ordinance in its own nature tends to delight and pleasure We had raised storms and tempests by our sins and provoked him whom we can neither resist nor avoid His Countenance was full of dread and terrours and Death and Hell stood ready for the command to seize upon us And must it not needs fill those with joy and transport that were just now in this dreadful state when they shall see the Heavens cleared and the storms gone to behold smiles and love in the face of the offended Majesty to be assured that he is reconciled and his Arms are open to receive us That Hell and Death are destroyed and Life and Happiness procured for us All these are set before us in the holy Sacrament and did we use it as we ought our souls would be transported with joy and we should have a delightfull foretaste of the happiness and triumphs of the Blessed and all our Lives would be Anthems of Praise and acclamation to the adorable Author and procurer of our Blessings And this 6 Is another happy advantage we derive or may do from the holy Sacrament viz. That it heightens and spirits our Gratitude and Praises Praise and acknowledgement of Divine favours are all the return we can make for them and we are to offer up these Sacrifices for our selves and all the other creatures But the commonness of our mercies takes away the sense of them and we pass them over with slight and customary acknowledgements This ordinarily is our course and 't is a very disingenuous and ungrateful carriage to the bountiful Author of our beings and blessings But now at the Holy Sacrament Divine favours are particularly and solemnly represented our remembrance awakened and our affections excited and the devout Soul pours it self forth into holy Eucharist and thanksgiving The heart is full and the mouth flows All the powers rejoyce and rejoycing breaks forth into Songs of Praise And so begin that blessed imployment which shall be the work and happiness of Heaven Thus we shall receive increase to our Graces and our Comforts from the frequent and due use of the Holy Sacrament and all other spiritual advantages are containd under these And as by these particulars we may incourage our selves to our duty so in them likewise we may see how we are to demean our selves in the discharge of it what acts we are to exercise and by what considerations we may stir up our graces inflame our affections and strengthen our resolutions And now the Benefits that I have represented to incourage and invite you to the holy Sacrament do not only concern the thorough and grown Christian but even all that own the profession of Christs Religion and have not renounc'd their baptismal ingagements by leudness and impiety For such have some degrees of Faith Love Repentance and other vertues But the unhappiness is that these in the most are very low imperfect and in a degree that will not secure their condition These graces must be advanced to nobler measures and to such degrees as may prevail over the contrary habits and dispositions Till the matter comes to this we are under the Law and a spirit of bondage in a condition of impotency and weakness and not arrived to the glorious Liberty and Power of the Sons of God This all that profess the Christian Faith and Hopes ought to aim at and indeavour after and the Sacrament is the most proper and likely means for the advancing of our imperfect Graces to that noble height So that all professing Christians are concerned in the duty and capable of the benefits And to all those that have such thoughts and such desires the Considerations I have presented will be of moment But for the rest that are careless and unconcerned dead to such spiritual Motives and stupidly careless of the duty and the priviledges that attend it They are not Christians but do as much as in them lies to renounce their Religion and to put themselves into the condition of Heathens and professed Infidels This is that I come next to discourse After all my perswasions and most