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A60693 The unworthy non-communicant a treatise shewing the danger of neglecting the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper, and rectifying the mistakes of many in this age concerning it : the first part / by William Smythies ... Smythies, William, d. 1715. 1683 (1683) Wing S4380; ESTC R2617 44,747 144

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The Unworthy Non-Communicant A TREATISE Shewing the Danger of Neglecting The Blessed Sacrament Of The Lords Supper AND Rectifying the Mistakes of many in This Age concerning it The First Part. The Second Impression Corrected By William Smythies the Morning Lecturer at Saint Michael Cornhil London LONDON Printed by T. Milbourn for Samuel Lee at the Feathers in Lumbard Street 1683. TO THE WORSHIPFUL Richard Alie Esquire Master Mr. Edward Turgis Wardens Mr. Richard Dawson Wardens Mr. Gilbert Vrwyn Wardens Mr. Edward Thursfield Wardens Sir Robert Clayton Aldermen Sir James Smith Aldermen Sir Thomas Gold Aldermen Mr. Thomas Tyther And others of the Court of Assistants of the Company of Drapers London Honoured Sirs YOU have been pleased to heap so many of your Favours upon me and mine that I cannot but take this little Occasion to ease my Mind by Complaining to the World that I never yet had the least Opportunity to express my Thankfulness but however it is some Satisfaction to me that I have not ceased to Pray to God for You and your Families in that Congregation in which you have been pleased to place me It was a very remarkable and unexpected Providence which directed you to make Choice of me for the Morning Lecture upon the Recommendation of my Two ever honoured Friends Sir James Smith and Mr. Thomas Tyther considering the great Interests that had been made for other Ministers better deserving and better known in the City in which I was then a Stranger By this I accounted my self the more abundantly obliged to take Care that I did not Do the work of the Lord negligently And that I might have the better Direction in it you were pleased to Command That so much of the Pious Will of Mr. John Raney should be shewed to me as related to the Performance of my Duty and I hope it will not be Offensive to you if I shew some part of it to the World as followeth And further That before the beginning of every such Lecture on the Sabbath Day Morning in St. Michael 's Church the Lecturer for the time being do Reverently Read such Good and Godly Prayers allowed by the Church of England as hath been heretofore usually performed And my desire is That the said Preacher and Lecturer in and by all his said Lectures and Sermons do chiefly Aim at the suppressing of Sin and building up the Kingdom of Grace in the Hearts of the Auditors And that he shall upon the first Sabbath Day Morning in every Month being the usual Communion Day Exhort his Auditory for the reverent and due Receiving of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and give such Godly Instructions and Directions for the same as shall be most fitting for that Occasion When I had heard this part of the Will of the Religious Donor I resolved by the Grace of God assisting that I would observe what he so piously required of me That I have made it my Business to suppress Sin my Auditors can Testify and that I have observed his pleasure in Exhorting to the Receiving of the Blessed Sacrament may appear to you by this short Treatise only with this difference that I have made it the chief part of my Work every Month with very few Intermissions to Exhort my Auditors not to neglect it because since the Death of that Worthy Benefactor the Sin of Neglecting hath abounded more than the Sin of Unworthy Receiving I have with a sorrowful Heart observed That all those Sermons which are designed to direct and prepare the People to Receive the Holy Sacrament have signified very little because there are but very few in this vicious and divided Age that do partake of it The good Success which I have had Praised be the God of Heaven for it and the continued Importunities of some who had forsaken the Communion of the Church and others who had forsaken all Religion as to the Practice of it but are now become very Constant and I hope very pious Communicants have prevailed with me to Publish those Arguments which I have been many Years insisting and inlargeing upon And if they have the same Influence upon the Readers which they have had upon the Hearers it will exceedingly rejoyce me And you will have the less cause to repent of your Choice and be the more willing that I should still perform that Service to which I have no other Title but the Continuance of your Favour and good Opinion of me Which that I may deserve shall be the constant Endeavour of Your most humble and faithful Servant William Smythies Cripplegate June 12th 1683. TO THE READER Reader I Hope you will Excuse me that I have disappointed your Expectation for I have disappointed my Own My daily and almost hourly Interruptions would not permit me to Transcribe the whole Copy as the Printer earnestly desired before I committed it to the Press And the Truth is I was unwilling to do it for fear that a Review of what I had done should alter my Mind and frustrate the Desire of my importunate Friends By this through my Vnskilfulness in taking Measures I have been forced to break off very abruptly being Confin'd to a short and cheap Treatise After I had considered the general Pretences of Non-Communicants I intended to speak of some particular Cases which I think to be of great Moment The Young Mans Pretence the Poor Man's Pretence and the Melancholly Man's Pretence for Non-Communicating which are all of them very deplorable Cases I intended likewise to have Treated upon another General Head and that is The Vindication and Recommendation of the Way of Administration in the Church of England and to shew that it doth exceedingly tend to the Promotion of that true Piety and Holiness which all good Men do highly Contend for and which is the great Design of the Blessed Sacrament I have of late spent a great part of my Time and Thoughts upon this Argument and have observed the Apostles Rule In meekness to instruct them that oppose themselves But I need not trouble my Self or the World about a Vindication of the Church in any thing because it hath been sufficiently done many Years since And is again undertaken by many Ministers of this City Men of very Great Eminency whose Books are not onely sufficient to satisfy all that are willing to be satisfied but to make them Champions for the Church as many good Men have been who were Disaffected to Her To this I adde a very earnest Request If you have been mistaken concerning the Duty or Danger of Communicating read with a desire to be satisfied If you have lived a sinful Life read with a Willingness to be Reformed that you may neither be an Vnworthy Communicant nor an Vnworthy Non-Communicant and if you receive any benefit give Praise to the God of Heaven Farewel THE CONTENTS IT is the great Duty of every Christian to frequent the Sacrament pag. 10. Mistakes concerning the Danger of Vnworthy Receiving p. 17.
there were nothing of sad Experience to be alledged So long as men keep in societies though but civil Societies and are Obliged to observe Rules and Orders If any Controversie arisie the dissatisfied person partly by his obligation to those rules and orders and partly by the advice and councel of the rest of the society doth not presently separate but submit or if he be stubborn and insolent he may be turn'd out of the Society and be liable to severe penalties till he be more modest humble and compliant But if he thinks himself under no obligation to observe the rules and orders of that Society and no penalty be inflicted then he breaks away and makes Parties and brings all into confusion and disorder In the case of the Sacrament If every one who is admitted by Baptism to be a member of the Church of Christ doth account it his duty as a member of that Society to observe the rules and orders of the Church Peace and Union is maintain'd but if men think they are not oblig'd but wholly left at their liberty whether they will partake of this Ordinance or let it alone then it 's no wonder if the members of that society be Scattered into as many divisions and parties as the great Enemy of the Sacrament and of their Salvation please For many years after our blessed Reformation from Popery there were so many received the Sacrament that the number of inhabitants in every Parish was best known by the number of Communicants In those happy dayes of the Churches peace Masters and Mistresses came at one Communion their Servants after publick Catechising and private Examination by their Ministers came the next Communion It could not be Imagined but that there were some Unworthy Communicants amongst them There were such in the Church of Corinth and will be in all Churches to the end of the World But that Evil was nothing in comparison of the mischiefs that have happen'd since men took their Liberties and forsook the Sacrament Parishes now may better be computed by the number of Non-Communicants and those that run from the Sacrament rather than of those that come to it I cannot in this place forbear mentioning the substance of what I lately heard from a very Aged Grave and Pious Person who is now very conformable to the Church of England We were lamenting that the people would not be perswaded to come to the Sacrament and that their absenting was occasion'd by the sad Distractions and Divisions that are in the Church I was said he one of those who in the begining of the late troubles found fault with the Surplice and with the Cross in Baptisme and there were others who were discontented at those things who were good and holy men But I am confident if they could have foreseen the dreadful mischiefs that have happened unto the Church they would never have so much as opened their lips much less have done any thing against the Church as it then was I know there ought to be great care taken to keep off scandalous Communicants and there would be greater care taken if the Divisions of the Church did not hinder it But I think all sober People will say that if all the vicious men in England came to the Sacrament it would not be so great a scandal to Religion as the dreadful Divisions and Separations that have been in the Church since the People took their liberty to turn their backs upon that holy Ordinance and many Ministers made it their business to make them afraid of it by Preaching the danger of Unworthy Receiving but not of Unworthy Neglecting of it Another great Evil which is the Consequence of Non-Communicating is horrid Debauchery and Prophaneness such as never was or could be whilst the Sacrament was Frequented There are thousands in this age who call themselves Christians and often say that they hope to be saved but are so far from living like Christians that they would be abandoned by sober Heathens as unfit for Humane Society If we look into the Records of antient times we shall find that though there were grievious Wickednesses Impieties yet they were attended with some kind of fear and shame but in our age Wickedness insults as if it hoped to have a better reputation than Piety and Vertue in the World The Apostle speaking of the sins of Heathens Eph. 5.11 calls them the Vnfruitful Works of Darkness And in the next Verse he tells the Ephesians that it is a shame to speak of those things which are done in Secret But in our age wickedness appears Openly as if there were no fear or shame that belonged to it In former times they that were drunk were drunk in the Night but now t is Scarcely accounted a sin and therefore is become a Noon-day Entertainment In former times it was the sin of a rude ungovern'd Rabble When Hannah was falsely accused of being drunk count not said she thine handmaid for a Daughter of Belial Belial signifies without Yoak and it is as if she had said I am none of those unruly forlorn Miscreants that will be drunk I suppose the proverb may be very antient As drunk as a Beggar But now t is the sin if I may be so bold as to call it so of Lords and Gentlemen and is in as much Esteem amongst too many of them as if it were some brave Atchievement for which a man is willing to adventure the Ruine of himself and family Whoredome is another sin which hath exceedingly abounded It is an Old sin but the Impudence that attends it is new In Jobs time the eye of the Adulterer waited for the twilight Chap. 24.15 The Whore which Solomon speaks of Prov. 7.9 was only to be found in the Twilight in the Evening in the black and dark night and she was accounted to have an impudent face v. 13. But how impudent are those Whores who appear in the open streets at noon day tempting all that pass by to their filthy Embraces Wee read in the Scripture of the Attire of a Harlot but now there is in this immodest age no distinction but by the shew of women wee may suspect that the Attire of Harlots is all the fashion These two Sins have of late years so much abounded that there are thousands who are so far from living like Christians that they are degenerated from the common Principles of Humanity and would be a shame to Heathens if they lived amongst them These sins have made many to become worse than beasts in the esteem of all that are vertuous And I am sure they have made them become Devils to themselves and families There is another dreadful Sin which abounds and that is profane Swearing A Sin which men commit only because the Devil will have it so for there is neither profit nor pleasure in it Some are seldom guilty of it but when they are provoked to Anger and then they must be revenged by abusing the name