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
Sorrow for Sin 2. Confession of its and 3. Aversation from it For the First 1. The evil of Sin is never so well discerned as in its effects It is sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly And there is no greater evidence of its vileness and malignity then that we have in the sufferings of our Lord which are set before us in the Holy Sacrament And certainly sin must needs be an accursed thing saith the considering Communicant That the blessed Jesus must thus be made a Curse for it That is doubtless a mighty evil that cannot be expiated but by the bloud of God And Sin without question hath unspeakable malignity in it since it laid such a load of wrath upon the shoulders of Omnipotence as made him complain and sweat and groan and die The good man hath never such a sence of the evil of sin as when he is awakened by the signs and images of Christs Sufferings and when he sees it writ in Characters of Bloud Besides the baseness and ingratitude of Sin is made evident in all the representations of the Divine Love which we have at the Lords Table We see there that it is an abuse of the greatest and most tender Goodness and there is nothing that more affects ingenuous Souls than the sence of such unworthiness and this will beget the liveliest and most kindly sorrow They shall look on me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn Zech. 12. 10. The tenderest grief ariseth from the apprehension of abused Goodness And the more ingenuous Spirits are sooner brought to be troubled for their sins by a sence of Mercy than of Terrors Now there is nothing that gives a truer or greater representation of Divine Grace and Kindness than the Holy Sacrament and therefore this is a very effectual means to beget and increase a penitential sence and sorrow for sin And upon this 2 Follows Confession which is one expression of these The apprehension of an Angry Majesty drives a sinner to desperation and prevents his Confession When the Lord ask'd the man in the Gospel with some severity How camest thou hither not having a wedding garment he was speechless Terrors beget stupifying fear which stops the mouth and damns up all the passages to and from the soul whereas the discoveries of goodness and mercy open the heart and melt the seal upon the lips They invite Supplications and beget Confessions and therefore the Sacrament which is a memorial of the greatest sweetest and freest mercy tends in the nature of it to the producing humble confessions and acknowledgements and it doth it likewise 3 As to the Aversation of Repentance by the same way The top and perfection of Repentance is to turn from our evil wayes God invites his People to this by the Argument that is most powerfully press'd upon us in the Sacrament namely That of his pardoning mercy and kindness Return thou backsliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you Ier. 3. 12. His readiness to pardon is the great motive to return and the Sacrament is the Seal of the Covenant of Pardon Despair of Mercy keeps men on in a sinful course Thou sayest there is no hope say they in the Prophet Ierem. 2. 25. They thought their case desperate and it follows I have loved strangers and after them will I go The Devils persist irreclaimably in their hatred of God and Goodness because the unalterable Sentence is past upon them And if men come once to quit their hopes of Happiness they will also in a short time quit the thoughts of God and Virtue and give themselves up to the swinge of their Appetites and Inclinations Whereas on the other side Hope is the great Encouragement and Spring of Endeavour and where this is enlivened by a full and quick sence of pardoning Goodness that Soul will feel a mighty Motive to reform and turn from sin Now the Sacrament is the Seal of that Covenant which assures us of Grace and pardon and the firmest ground of our best hopes and most glorious expectations Thus the Grace of Repentance receives increase in all its exercises from this Divine Institution and so doth 3 That other most excellent Grace Love both as it relates 1. to God and 2. to our Neighbour 1 In the Holy Sacrament the Mysteries of Divine Love are unfolded in all their circumstances of wonder There we see pardoning redeeming bleeding dying Love Love suffering for all our sakes and Love procuring all things for our interests Love descending to the Grave and Hell and Love triumphing over both Love leading Captivity captive and obtaining gifts for men Light Life and a glorious Immortality Such Love and Love beyond what we can say and beyond what we can think is represented at the Holy Sacrament and this must needs fire every soul that is not as cold as the earth and as dead as the Grave Love begets Love and one flame kindles another And if we think of this Love and consider it as we ought when we come to the entertainment of Love this would excite our affections and turn our Souls into holy flames and so our dead Powers will live and our dull sleepy affections will awake into new spirit and vigour We shall live by Love and act by Love till we are received into the nearest embraces of Love and swallowed up in that immense ocean of Love Now Love is the best and most pleasing of all our passions and Love to God is the best and most pleasant of all Loves A Love free from those tortures and disquiets that shame and those griefs that are produced by absence and uncertainties loss and guilt when this passion is placed upon other objects This Love is the Fountain of Delight and the spring of Action that sweetents our troubles and stirs up our endeavours that makes duty agreeable and difficulties easie that is a present Heaven and the foretast of a greater This also 2 Tends to the encreasing our Love one to another It is a Feast of Love to our Fathers House and our Lords Table The Guests are Brethren and professing Children of Love Here are all the engagements to love set before us The Love of our Lord and his express Commandment job 13. 34. The Relations we stand in to God and to one another We cannot well choose but pity our Brothers Infirmities and pardon each others faults when we see how much God hath pityed our miseries and how graciously he hath pardoned our offences Our animosities will be abated and our thoughts of malice and revenge will die Our Indifferences will be kindness and our kindness Love when we consider the inexpressible Love of our common Lord and the blessed effects of that Love Reconciliation made Happiness procur'd and Sin and Death and Hell conquer'd A sence of these will swallow up all our little picques and displeasures and so fill us with the thoughts of Gratitude and Love That we shall forget our
hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled And now when thou hast exercised thy self in these acts and the time of the holy Communion approacheth Then 6 Imploy thy time in awakening and affectionate thoughts of Christ thy Lord. Consider the greatness of his Condescension the kindness of his Vndertaking the boliness of his Life the purity of his Doctrine the heaviness of his Sufferings the power of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension Turn thy thoughts earnestly and often upon these and such instances of the History of the holy Jesus and by them dispose thy self to a befitting remembrance of him at his Table And Lastly Gather up all thy thoughts and resolutions together viz. thy apprehensions of the vileness of sin of the Grace of the Covevenant and the merits of thy Lord Thy purposes of leaving every evil way and of renewing thy baptismal Vows and say to thy self Now is the time come that I must use these thoughts and resolves that I may obtain pardon and strength victory over sin and assurance of happiness My Lord invites me to the great representation of the evil of sin in his own sufferings to see his Body wounded and his Soul made an Offering for Sin in the Type of Bread broken and Wine poured out To remember his Conquest over Sin by Death and a glorious Resurrection To see the Covenant of Grace and pardon sealed He invites me to these Priviledges and call upon me to bind my self stronger in this holy Covenant and thereby to make my self the subject of those blessings it assures and conveys I say imploy thy Soul in such thoughts and bring them with thee to the Lords Table spread them before him there in humble Confessions Supplications and Acknowledgments and thou mayst then expect to receive the benefit thou art seeking after These are Preparations for a bare Penitent that hath yet made but little progress in subduing of his Sins And though the highest degrees of all these are not absolutely necessary to the coming of such to the Lords Table yet the more they have been exercised in them so much the better it is by so much they re more prepared and so much more they may expect of the benefits But if your minds that have not been used to spiritual things will not fix long on such thoughts and meditations Ingage them as far as you can proceed in the Method prescribed with that diligence and care that becomes one that is serious And then though your preparations be imperfect now they may be more compleat against another season If thou art sensible they have been so defective maintain and keep up that sense and resolve upon it to indeavor to fit thy self better for another Sacrament by renewing the same method which will be easier for thee in the progress than it was in the beginning As for the other sort viz. II. Those that have advanced in the conquest of their sins They are to act over all the former particulars that I have advised to the bare Penitents For being yet sinners and imperfect they have need to use that Method And there are these few other Directions to be briefly added that do further concern them 1 Call your selves to a particular account concerning your sins examining what vices you are most addicted to and what are the sins of your tempers or of your Profession and Calling when you have found those exercise particular acts of Repentance upon them and renew your resolutions against them Consider that allowance of them is inconsistent with sincerity and a state of true regeneration That 't is necessary you should oppose and subdue them and that the holy Sacrament is to be used as a means for that blessed end 2 Examine what ground you have got upon your sins since the last Sacrament whether you are now more tender and fearful of offending God than you were before whether your inclination to any evil be more weakened and mortified If so take encouragement hence to go on with more Christian vigor and resolution If not humble your selves for your unfruitfulness and indeavor to dispose your souls to make a better use of the next opportunity 3 Inquire into the state of your souls as to your Graces what Graces are wanting and what are weak which are growing and which at a stand and when you have found the condition of your souls as to these then exercise your meditations upon those particulars in the Life Doctrine and Precepts of your Lord whom you are to remember at his Table that may be proper for your case Apply your thoughts and cares and resolutions that way Design and resolve to attend the holy Sacrament for the supply of those wants and to endeavor to use it so that the needed graces may be obtain'd and the weak ones may be strengthened that those that are at a stay may be put into motion forwards and those that are growing may be further improved If you thus provide and imploy your selves in the method before remembred you will then be meet partakers of the holy Mysteries and may assure your selves of the blessings and advantages which they convey THis Subject would have required larger discourse but my present business was principally with the careless and negligent to whose condition I have mostly applied my self For the others that are solicitous for their souls and desirous to be further informed about this great and important affair of Preparation I shall advise them to get and carefully to read and digest two excellent Books of the Sacrament The former called Mensa Mystica or a Discourse concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by Dr. Simon Patrick and the latter named the Christian Sacrifice containing most excellent Meditations and Prayers both before and after the Sacrament In the first design of this little Discourse I intended to have added some things of that sort for your use But while I was thinking of it my Pious Learned and Excellent Friend the Author sent me one of those his last Books the Devotion and Piety of which is extraordinary and there is nothing that I know fitter to prepare your affections and to excite them to the noblest height of desire and love than those heavenly Meditations And you cannot use more proper judicious or affectionate Prayers than those he hath annext So that I was exceeding glad when I saw this useful much needed Work so incomparably well done that there was no occasion of my doing any more in it than earnestly to recommend that book to your perusal And I intreat you to get it into your Houses and from time to time to indeavor to warm your souls by it when you are preparing for the Sacrament and by it to fix you in your resolutions of living according to your ingagements there when you have attended on that blessed Ordinance And now my Friends I leave you to the blessing of God and the consideration of what I have said Whatever judgment may be made of it I have this testimony that I meant it sincerely And I shall never cease to pray that both you and I may sincerely practice according to it Your Faithful Monitor and Servant J. 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