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A57383
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A communicant instructed, or, Practicall directions for worthy receiving of the Lords Supper by Francis Roberts.
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Roberts, Francis, 1609-1675.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing R1591; ESTC R28105
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135,670
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280
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and so the right of our Redemption might belong unto him 3. That in our nature which had offended he might fulfill all righteousnesse both in his actiâ—e and passive obedience suffering and interceding for us 4. That he might be a merciful and compassionate Hâ—gh Priest for us in things pertaining unto God Haâ—ing an experimental fellow-feeling of our temptations and infirmities 5. That as Christ became the Son of man by Nature â—o we in him might become the Sons of God by Adoption and Grace 6. That he being our Mediatour and Advocate in our flesh we may come boldly to the Throne of grace for obtaining mercy and findâ—ng grace to help in time of need 3. Why was it necessary Christ our Mediatour should be God Answ. It was necessary our Mediatour should be God as well as man 1. That his Godhead might uphold his manhood from being swallowed up with Gods infinite wrath and the fruits thereof for our sins which wrath no meer creatures no not Angels could undergo and not be utterly overwhelmed 2. That his obedience Active and Passive his Intercession and other acts of his Mediatorship might be filled with such excellency worth and efficacy as to be every way satisfactory and well-pleasing to God and sufficient for the salvation of all his Elect. IV. That Jesus Christ God-man hath taken upon him the office of a Mediator betwixt God and man in order to the salvation of his Elect. There is one God and one Mediator betwixt God and man the man Christ Iesus Consider here 1. How 2. In what state Christ executes his Mediatorship 1. How doth Christ discharge and execute this his office of Mediatorship Answ. Christ executes his office of Mediatorship chiefly three ways Viz. 1. As a Prophet 2. Priest and 3. King And these are the three branches or parts of Mediatorship 1. Christ is the Prophet which Moses foretold the Jews God should raiâ—e up like unto him and charged them to hear him in all things under penalty of destruction As a Prophet he in all ages makes known to his Church his Fathers Will for his Elects salvation Hence he is stiled Counsellor The Shepheard and Bishop of our souls He is made unto us wisdom And he is fully acquainted with all his Fathers counsels and bosom secrets therefore able to discover to us the whole counsel of God The onely begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Christ reveals Gods Will to his Church 1. Outwardly in his Word and Ordinances wherein the summe of all divine mysteries necessary to salvation are contained compleatly This is the light without us even the Word of Christ. 2. Inwardly by his Spirit opening and illuminating our dark mindes that we may spiritually and savingly understand the counsels of God in his Word This is the Anointing from Chrâ—st which teacheth all things 2. Christ is our Priest Our great High Priest A Priest of a far more perfect order then Aarons even A Priest for over after the order of Meâ—chizedech Christ as our Priest 1. Made satisfaction for us purging our sins by his own blood once for all when he was on earth In which act himself was both Sacrifice Altar and Priest Sacrifice as Man Altar as God Priest as God-man 2. Makes continual intercession for us in heaven appearing there as our Advocate with the Father 3. Christ is our King Our King of Righteousness Our King of Peace Yet have I set my King upon my Holy Hill of Sion Châ—ist acts and executes his Kingly Authority and Power 1. By calâ—ing his Elect effectually 2. By goâ—erning them visibâ—y and inâ—isibly 3. By recompencing their obedience with gracious rewards their failings with just fatherly chasâ—isements 4. By supporting them under all their trials afflictions and persecutions 5 By over powring and ordering all even the worst and most unlikely occurrents for his own glory and his peoples good 6. By restraining subduing and crushing all his and his peoples enemies 7. And finally by judging and justly rewarding all men and Angels at the great day Thus Christ executed his Mediatory Office as a Prophet Priest and King for us 2. In what state or condition did Christ thus execute this his Office Answer Christ executed his Medâ—atory office in a double condition 1. Partly in a state of ignominious Humiliation 2. Partly in a state of glorious Exaltation Christs Humiliation he being the eternal Son of God was exceeding deep and ignominious that principally in these five degrees 1. In his Conception in that he was in fullnesse of time made of a woman conceived by the Holy Ghost in the wombe of a Virgin of low estate and degree He that comprehends heaven and earth is comprehended in the narrow wombe of a Virgin Who can sufficiently admire his disvesting himselfe of such Majestie and investing himselfe with such meannesse 2. In his Birth in that he who is eternall before all time should be borne in time He who brought forth the whoâ—e worâ—d should be broughâ— sorth in the world And that so meany But at home but abroad not in a Palace but in a common Inne not in the best room in the Inne but in a Stable there being no room for him in the Inne There he was borne wrapped in swadling-cloaths and laid in a manger O wonderfull abâ—sement 3. In his whole life In that he was made under the Law to do and endure it Coorsely entertained and used in the worâ—d impudently tempted by Satan and continually subject to humane sin-lesse infirmities and in some fort below us therein 4. In his death in that he who was Truth was betrayed by Iudas and falsely accused by the Jews He who was Safety was forsaken by his Disciples denied by Peter He who was Love was hated and rejected of the world He who was Righteousnesse was condemned by Pilate and abused by the souldiers He who was Holiness and the Son of Gods love wrastled under Gods wrath And he who was Life died shamefully painfully and curâ—edly on the Cross as the Evangelists abundantly testifie 5. Finally In his Burial In that he who was the Resurrection should be buried and remain in the state of the dead three days as a bond man under the grave 2. Christs Exaltation after this his Humiliation was great and gâ—orious And that especially in fiâ—e other degrees also 1. In his Revâ—ving in the grave He who was dead and bâ—ried quickned himself in the grave by his God-head loosing the bands of death when he was fastest bound by them His Reviving in order of nature must go before his Rising and he rose alive not dead Conâ—equently his Reviving the first degree of his Exaltation began in the grave wherein was the last and lowest degree of his Humiliatâ—on 2. In his
Evangelists Read the History of Christs passion in them before thou commest to the Lords Table that the memory thereof may be fresh and lively in thy thoughts at the Lords Table Think with thy self how Christs life was as it were a continued Passion and a daily dying He was very meanly brought forth into the world borne in a stable wrapped in swadling cloathes and laid in a Manger He was no sooner born but Herod seeks to murder him murdering many poor Infants lest he should misse him He is no sooner baptized but Satan assaults him Tempting him to Despaire Self-murder worshipping of the Devil in perâ—on but prevailed nothing Is he in his publick Ministery How is he hated reviled blaâ—phemed and persecuted by Scribes and Phariâ—es by his own people the Jewâ— yea by his own kindred And when he was nigh the period of his Minisâ—ery what torrent of sorrows sufferings flow'd in upon him Remember what he endured in the Garden in the High Priests Hall and in Mount Calvary and then behold and consider if any sorrows were like his sorrows 1. In the Garden How was his soul surrounded with sorrows even to the Death How bitter was the Cup which he then began to drink which set him into an Agony so that he prayed thrice most earnestly to his Father to let that Cup passe from him if possible and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground hereby his spirits being brought so low that there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him With this Agony probably Christ was so weakened that the next day he was not able to bear his Cross but Simon was compelled to bear it after him And immediatly after his Agony Iudas betrayes him to the multitude of the Jews with a kisse who apprehended him bound him and led him away to the High Priests House Thus as the first Adam sinned in a Garden the second Adam suffered in a Garden Now then when thou art at the Lords Table Remember Christs Garden-sufferings think so lively of them as if thy self hadst been in the Garden with the Disciples imagine thou hadst heard him pray so earnestly against his bitter Cup thou hadst seen him sweat drops of clotted blood so lamentably in his woful Agony that the earth was all besprinkled with his blood and that thou hadst lookt on to see him betrayed so villainously by Iudas his own Apostle into the hands of his enemies 2. In the High Priests Palace and the judgement-Hall How was Christ denyed by Peter How was he mocked â—mitten blindfolded buffetted spit upon crowned with Thornes having a Reed in his hand being scornfully bow'd unto and derided with haile King of the Iews cruelly scourged blasphemously intreated falslely accused causelesly exclaimed against by the people and unjustly condemned by Pilate against his own conscience When thou art at the Lords Table Remember those passions of thy Saviour Imagine thou hadst stood by all the while and sadly beheld all these passages his cheeks swoln with buffetting his face defiled with spitting on his head wounded with thornes his back torn with scourges c. Oh behold what a woful spectacle 3. In Mount Calvary in that filthy Golgotha how woful and tragical was his end His body was stripped of his garments His limbs were cruelly stretched upon the Cross His hands and feet pierced with rugged nails and fastened to the cursed tree He was ranked betwixt two crucified thieves as if he were the Arch-malefactor he hanged from the sixth till the ninth houre most painfully upon the tender wounds of his hands and feet He was forsaken by his disciples and friends derided by his enemies by the very thieves that were crucified with him being a thirst in his pains abused with gall and vineger given him to drink And which was heaviest of all he was in a sort deserted of God so that he bitterly cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and so he yielded up the Ghost after which a souldier with a spear piercing his side and heart there gushed out water and blood Now when thou art at the Lords Supper â—emember all those sad passages Think thou hadst stood with Mary and Iohn under â—is Crosse and hadst seen and heard his intolerable reproâ—ches his bleeding wounds his tortured body his bitter cries his dying groans think thou hadst his dead body all besmeared in his own blood like Ioseph of Arimathea in thine armes Remember this story of Christs death and remember it seriously pathetically Imagine The Sacrament-day to be as Christs Agony-day His Condemning-day His Crucifying-day The Lords Table to be as the Crosse whereon he was crucified And the breaking of the bread as the breaking of his body with all these mortal Sufferings This is the first Act or degree of thy Remembring Christ crucified to remember him Historically 2. Mysteriously Remember the Mystery of Christ and of his Death This is a farther and an higher degree of remembring Christ crucified at the Lords Supper Christs Death was not a common and ordinary Death full of miseries only but a speciall and extraordinary Death full of Mysteries also Among other Mysteries of Christs death The Causes and Effects of his death are singularly mysterious Remember them in communicating 1. Causes of Christs death were either 1. meritorious or 2. impulsive 1. Meritorious procuring causes of Christs death were the sins of Gods Elect imputed to him Christ in himself was totally without sin no guil was found in his mouth He was a Lamb without blemish without spot He was Holy harmless undefiled and separate from sinners Pilate his Judge cleared him saying I finde in him no fault at all The condemned thief justified him We indeed justly but this man hath done nothing amisse But Christ becomming Surety for sinners even for all his Elect that were ruined by Adam's sin stood charged with their whole debt which they were no way able to satisfie for in the least degree And so all their sins were at once imputed to him and death the due wages of their sins was inflicted upon him that his Elect might be fully acquitted and discharged Hence those passages He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us Admirably the Evangelical Prophet Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him strieken smitten of God afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheâ—p have gone astray we have turned every man to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him Heb. hath made to meet on him the