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
AN EARNEST INVITATION TO THE SACRAMENT OF THE Lords Supper By IOSEPH GLANVILL Rector of Bath The Second Edition LONDON Printed for Iohn Baker at the Sign of the Three Pigeons in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1674. To the Right Reverend Dr. Peter Mews LORD BISHOP Elect OF Bath and Wells MY LORD I Was just sending away the last sheets of the ensuing plain discourse to the Press when the news came of your being made Bishop of this Diocess I was exceedingly transported with the tidings of so great a blessing befaln this part of the Church and could not restrain my joy from running out into this Application Address which I intend not so much to congratulate your new Dignity as the happiness of Us your Clergy and this whole People in the relation we now have to so excellent a person Your Lordships wisdom justice piety and diligence have made themselves so eminent in the long continued happy and applauded Government of one of the most famous Vniversities of the world that we confidently promise our selves great felicities from the Paternal Presidency and Authority of such an experienced Governour And I believe there is not a concern'd man who is sensible of the advantages of good order but blesseth God and the King for so gracious and desirable an Election This My Lord I might speak upon the publick Fame of your known merits but besides that I have had particular experience of your wisdom and candour which gives me a greater passion to declare the veneration I have for you and I wish I could do it in a way sutable to your great worth and mine own resentments of it but instead of a proper testimony I must beg your Lordship to accept of a sincere one and such I here make you in this small offering the slender First-fruits of your Diocess The Discourse I first design'd only for the use of my own people but I knew not how to get transcribed Copies enough for them and I consider'd too many others needed some such exhortation as well as those of my particular Charge and therefore thought that this little Essay might not be wholly useless to the Publick I have writ it in a plain and unheeded style because I judg such most fit for practical matters especially in applications to the populace and take it for an establisht eternal Rule for such Addresses whether by preaching or writing that they should be performed in the way that is most easie and natural and nothing ought to be studied in the language for such occasions but how to express the matter most sutably and plainly But I need not have made this Apologie to your Lordship who know That good sense in an easie and proper phrase is for ever the truest and best eloquence There is more cause I should crave your pardon for prefixing your Lordships name before a discourse of so many other imperfections This my Lord I do and have this to plead for the obtaining it that I was transported by the occasion and the desire I have to make known how happy I esteem this Diocess in so venerable a Prelate and how much particularly I am rejoyced at this welcome Providence being Right Reverend Father Your Lordships most affectionate Honourer and humble Servant I. G. TO THE PEOPLE of my Charge My Dear Neighbours ALthough We of the publick Ministry cannot expect to do much by our perswasions and indeavours in such an Age as this Yet we ought to persevere in our work with Courage and Resolution and not suffer our selves to be overborn by any difficulties or discouragements what soever For Duty belongs to us but events unto God who will reward the Labourers whatever be the success of their Labours And as every Minister of Religion ought to be active and resolved in the work and patience of the Gospel So he shall then best acquit himself in it when he studies the proper needs of the Age and place wherein he lives and accordingly directs his indeavours to provide for them Now there is nothing that I know that is wanted more in our Days than a due sense of the necessity and advantages of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the general neglect not to say contempt of which hath I am persuaded been a great and sad occasion of the debauchery and divisions that are amongst us And I verily think that there could not be a more effectual means to reduce us to Sobriety and Vnion then a frequent and reverend use of that divine Iustitution From this persuasion I have earnestly and often as you can bear me witness press'd this great duty upon your consciences and affectionately recommended it to your practice I have represented its Nature with all possible plainness and urged its Necessity with a vigour in some measure suitable to so great an occasion I have told you the danger of wilful neglect on the one hand and the benefits of due performance on the other But notwithstanding all there are too many of you that seem yet insensible and unconcerned I have publickly desired those that are either ignorant or dissatisfied to accept of my private help and Instruction and have offer'd them the utmost of my assistance for their better information and direction And after all this I know not what I can do more to serve you in this great interest of yours except I put something into your hands that may be ever with you and that you may consider on all occasions Publick Teachings by word of mouth are too much looked upon as customary exercises and on that account they loose their force with some and the greatest part even of the better Auditors cannot keep their minds so close and intent to a Discourse spoken as to receive it in its full evidence and power or though the hearers are never so diligent and careful our words are forgotten quickly and the affections that they raise vanish without any considerable effect upon their wills For which Reasons I have resolved upon this Course to cast some of the plain things I have preach'd concerning the Holy Sacrament into writing That those who are unfit for that great duty by reason of Ignorance may have the properest means of Instruction that I can provide for them always in their power and when they please before their eyes And that those that deprive themselves of the Benefits of this most excellent Ordinance by reason of the Mistakes of their erring understandings may also have the most suitable help I can give towards the setting their minds right and the reconciling them to their Priviledge and Duty For these purposes I shall as my manner is represent what I have to say in the most distinct and easie way I can contrive avoiding all things that are hard either in notion or expression And strive as near as is possible to speak all along to the most ordinary understandings For I look upon plainness as the best dress for Truth and my great
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
representations of Faith so that thou dost not as much as know what it is or wherein it consists These all have been and often are the cases of many well-disposed Christians The good man is not absolutely assured of his salvation or he doubts sometimes of many doctrines and opinions that he hath been taught to believe as Fundamentals or his understanding is confused by variety of odd notions and therefore he thinks he hath not Faith and dares not approach the Holy Table If any of these be thy condition rectifie thy thoughts and thou wilt be rid of thy vain fears Consider the matter freely look on it in the light of Scripture and Reason and thou wilt finde that those conceits about Faith were groundless Lay this down for certain that the plainest and most obvious account of it is truest For God would not make that the great condition of the Gospel which is difficult to understand Now the plain scriptural rational Notion is this Faith in the general is the belief of a Proposition affirmed Divine Faith the belief of something upon a Divine Testimony Gospel-saving Faith is such a belief of Divine Testimony as hath influence upon the heart and practice and conforms them unto it If now we believe other Testimonies but not that which God hath given us by and of his Son our Faith is meerly humane and we have nothing to do with the holy Sacrament If we believe the Revelations of God in the Gospel but that belief hath not yet had such power upon our affections and conversations as it ought and as we desire In this case we may and 't is our duty to come to the Lords Table to profess that degree of Faith which we have and to pray for more that it may be made so strong and lively as to transform our hearts and all our powers into the likeness of it and into his likeness who is the Author and finisher of our Faith And finally if our faith hath already had this effect upon us we are to come to the Sacrament for further confirmation of it This is the short and plain account of the matter and if I should run it out into further discourse this part would be disproportioned to the rest If my brevity leave any of you unsatisfied in this or any other thing belonging to my subject I am at hand willing and ready to give you further satisfaction But 2 It may be the weakness and imperfection of thy Faith makes thee think thou hast none In this case ask thy self the question Do I think that Christ Iesus was an Impostor and that the Gospel is a Fable Thou startlest and abhorrest these thoughts Hence thou mayst be assured that thou hast some degree of Faith But that it may be is very small and low Be that the case Ask thy self then again whether thou hast any desire that thy weak Faith should be strengthened and thy imperfect Faith should be improved to greater and nobler measures If thou art a person fit to be dealt with under this Head of Conscience it is thus with thee thou art sorry for this imperfection and desirous of growth and improvement And if so apply thy self to the Holy Sacrament as to the proper means of growth and remedy of thy imperfections Here thy Faith will be exercised and by exercise it will be felt so that thy doubts whether thou hast any or no will be cleared off experience will assure thee And how thy Faith will by the use of this Ordinance be quickened and advanced I have shewn already Thus to the Objection from the supposed want of Faith But III The good man thinks that he wants Repentance too He cannot repent he saith and therefore is not worthy In answer I take notice that In Repentance two things are considerable viz. 1. Sorrow for sin and 2. Turning from it to a life of Holiness and Virtue I It may be thy sorrow is not so intense and great as thou thinkst is fit and sutable to such an occasion Thou canst not weep and grieve so much for thy sin as the evils of it requires and yet thou mayst not wholly want the grace of Repentance All indeed are sinners and all must repent But men are sinners in different measures and degrees of guilt and their sorrow and humiliations will likewise be different Deeper Convictions and greater agonies and pangs of sorrow may be expected from them whose sins have been capital and notorious than from those others whose lives have been more civil and less tainted with ranting enormities It may be then thy Education hath been sober and thy inclinations not bent towards the grosser vices thou hast not committed any horrid crimes or such sins as look gastly in the conscience and consequently thy Conversion hath not those terrors and that dread in it those melting sorrows and violent expressions of grief that thou observest in some others Though it be thus thou hast no reason to be discouraged if thy sorrow be so much as to engage thee to humble thy self before God sincerely to beg grace and forgiveness and to obtain from thee hatred of thy sins and resolutions against them that sorrow of thine is godly sorrow and part of true repentance though it have not the greatest degrees of vehemence These may be wanting on another account also in them that are truly penitent their tempers may be more cold and their passions calmer than others are and on this score their resentments less notable and the expressions of them less eager So that violences in sorrow are not alwayes arguments of true repentance nor the absence of them a sign of impenitency and hardness If thou art so sensible of sin as to desire and endeavor to overcome and forsake it thou art a penitent in part and thou oughtest to come to the Sacrament for the strengthening of that sense and to gain more assistance and more resolution to subdue thy sin And if there be any real defect in thy sorrow repair thither that it may be awakened and excited to degrees more becoming and effective But 2 The Objection presseth as to the other part of Repentance I cannot leave my sin and therefore dare not approach the holy Mystery But dost thou desire it dost thou endeavor it If so though thy desires are imperfect and thy endeavors weak yet it is thy duty to present thy self at the holy Table There thou mayst expect to have thy desires increast and thy endeavors heightned and encouraged And how both the former act of repentance which is sorrow and this of aversation are promoted by the Sacrament I have particularly shewn in the former periods to which I refer you for fuller answer to this and such like objections Thus of the scruples that arise from the first Head the apprehension of our own unworthiness I descend to another II Some abstain from the Sacrament because of the Unworthiness of Others wicked men are admitted and they will not