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B20902 Mensalia sacra, or, Meditations on the Lord's Supper wherein the nature of the holy sacrament is explain'd and the most weighty cases of conscience about it are resolv'd / by the reverend Mr. Francis Crow, late minister of the Gospel at Clare in Suffolk ; to which is prefixt a brief account of the author's life and death. Crow, Francis, d. 1692. 1693 (1693) Wing C7365 75,143 146

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that tho we fa●l in many things yet our heart stands to it delighting in the Law according to our inward man to shew that a man does not repent but his engagement is still pleasant to him as if it were to do again a man would do the same thing if it were every hour to let the world see there is not a heart drawing back from God and that the heart that is naturally unstable may become fixed for God And yet tho this making and renewing Covenants by this Ord●nance be so useful Christ hath not tied him●elf to Sacramental Seals for that Faith that eats and drinks the Blood of Christ without a Sacrament doth save And that Covenant wh●s●●ver believes in Christ shall be saved passeth the s●als effectually to a believer tho there were never an occasion of seali●g i● s●cram●ntally Crede manducasti B●lieve ●nd tho● h●st eaten saith A●stin God needs no Seal to b●n● himself but to secure and settle u● Yet since we are graciously allowed the opportuni●y of contempla●ing a crucified Saviour here these two th●●gs among many others ought to be wonder'd at viz the price and the purchase And this adds to the wonder of bestowing Heaven on us that it comes as the reward of our service tho purchased by Christ All Heaven to them who had little or nothing on Earth all Christs ●lood for them who had nothing of his Spirit or Grace by Nature O wonder that a Heaven full of pleasures should be at last the portion of them who have had hearts full of sin and lives full of blemishes If a poor Beggar came i●to the King's Treasury and saw all the bags of Gold and Silver and one should tell him they are all laid up for you what would the man think It would strike him with a strange astonishment But wh●t are these to Bags that wax not old and Treasure in Heaven laid up for you wher of if we had once a believing sight would make u● for ever think less of earthly riches nay you would be ready to go home and throw your bags of Gold and Silver to the Moles and to the Bats and say get ye hence ye stumbling-blocks of mine iniquity But again wonder at such a price paid for us so worthless worth nothing and yet cost him so dear Good Lord what do we for him that laid out so much for us If we have nothing he needs nothing yea he requires nothing but to accept his bounty and be ravisht with his love Tho we be utterly unable to pay being broken debtors yet let us even be ready to praise and be thankful debtors For this very End is this Eucharistical Feast instituted At this Festival Commemoration let the Founder of the Feast be remembred with praise and honour And here take we hold of the most solemn occasion for the most passionate and thankful remembrance of that love that gave us so great a gift as Christ to do and suffer for us And without this affectionate frame of heart we now frustrate the very end of the Institution 16. Here have we the Beloved standing and knocking and putting in for entrance at the door of our hearts saying open to me my sister my love my dove my undefiled one Here is my divine lasting love that for all her sinful sloath and sleepy temper she was fallen into yet he never chang●th her name but courts her love with kindest compellations still But the motive he presteth his acceptance by is melting and convincing above all open to me f●r my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night He begs a place in our hearts by all inconveniences he suffered for us O the dark and dismal night of his undergoing the wrath of his holy Father when our iniquities were laid on him Thus stands our Lord now knocking and begging our good will and likeing our Love and fellowship by all the wounds he received on the Cross for us Here are we called to behold they pierced my hands and my feet and shall not this pierce our hardest hearts to see the anguish of his Soul The rejected and slighted obtestations of a crucified Jesus will rise up aginst many in the day of their distress that they were besought to mortify their lusts and live to God by every drop of Christs blood shed for them but they would not hear That the requests of a suffering Saviour may have their due influence is this ordinance appointed bringing all his pain shame and sorrow to our remembrance We see he hath a good mind to be in our eye and thoughts If you see a Criple lay out his sores they beg tho' be hold hi● peace And if our suffering saviour this day be unlapping his w●●●●d and laying his s●res open to view shall not they beg more powerfully and prevaile and remember all the wounds of our Lord he had in the house of his friends Now the very great voice of all his wounds are 1. Repent Look on me whom you have pierced and mourn 2 Believe when you see your ransom and sacrifice slain If Justice say I have enough and am satisfied why do not we think it enough even apply it and rest in it Take peace and content yea rejoyce in God thro' Jesus Christ by whom you have now received the atonement 3. The voice of Christs sufferings is my Son ●dive me thy heart If I have loved thee and washed thee in my blood It 's reason I have love again 4. It says 〈◊〉 bey and hearken to thy High pri●st Hear him in all he hath to say he hath de●●ly bought your obedience and attention to all his motions and Instructions Prov. 8.31 ●2 The force and stren●th of that t●erefore is never to be studied and unde●●●ood enough Get Christs Cross to give your lusts a deadly wound rest not till you see him and feel th m thereby disabled and miled to his Cross As for your Darling the world in its profits pleasures and honour hear Christ saying It frowned on me and will my ransomed smile on it It was despised and a little thing with me who knew so well a better and shall it be great with you Remember that to take Christ in and put Christ on are the two great Calls of Heaven in the Gospel And since your suffering Redeemer i● taken into heaven these gates of Glory flew wide open to him at his Ascention shall he be kept out of our hearts Are they better than it No but there was he better known and here his own received him not for they knew him not nay not only ●eaven hath received him and therefore so should our hearts but there hath he entred for us which also hath its own weight for his entring into our hearts here 17. Here come we to get more grace and strength to re●●st the Devil and stand again●● his temptations Now our encouragements to encounter this enemy of ours that roaring Lyon 1.
be a solemn renewing of the holy Covenant first enter'd into by Baptism consenting to the Covenant we are there to renew 3. To be a living means to exercise and encrease Grace by representing the evil of sin and the infinite love of God in Christ 4. For a solemn profession of our Faith love and Obedience 5. For a sign and means of Vnity and Communion of Saints Christ hath appointed their consecrated representations to be in the eye of the Church in their manner and measure to supply the room of his bodily presence while he is in heaven The table in the tabernacle Exod. 25.23 24. May represent this Table of the Lord overlaid with pure gold and a crown of Gold round about it because of Holiness becoming it and a King sitting at it At this table should we be asking our own Souls what our thoughts are of Christ and what we have for him that it may be no idle visit you make or fruitless view you take of him but let your requests and great askings be ready on the string for more grace to your selves or true grace to your Relations what is upon your hearts for your Soul child yoke-fellow or son the Church of God Make sure you have grace before you come if you can I say if you can for every worthy communicant cannot profess himself certain of his sincerity but so far as he can discern by observing of his own heart he is truely willing to have Christ and his benefits on the terms that they are offered i. e. To take Christ in all his offices as King to rule him as Prophet to teach him and as Priest to pardon and save him And next we must be careful to exercise grace given They who have no grace can act none and therefore mustly by and sit idle here gazing on an unknown Christ And if any be here who know themselves to be ungodly ones I think they had best rise and run from their own damnation Some feed without fear or remorse for sin yea perhaps resolve to keep up some lust they know of To what end is this ordinance for you It 's a day of Darkness and no Light 2. The great voice of this Ordinance is Behold me Behold me We are called here to look on a pierced Lord Jesus And what shall we see in him See the maker of all things bowed down under the burden of our sins and weight of Gods wrath Look on him whom you have pierced and mourn Look on his wounds and weep Look on his Love and wonder Look on his satisfactions and Believe Look on his Victory and rejoyce Look on his purchase and contemn your earthly interests Here is the best and brightest glass in all the world God gives us to behold his son in and we may come as near him here as any ordinance can bring us When you look on the Elements stay not there till you ascend and see him who is invisible When by faith you come to see him whom your Soul loveth prostrate thy sinfull Soul with a holy wondering that sinfull dust and ashes may draw so near Study to get the fixed eye on him as loath to take it off being so well pleased with his beauty and worth Learn to think the less of other objects after you have seen the Lord. As Mahometans put out their eyes some of them after they have beheld Mahomets tomb that they may never defile their eyes with an other sight after so goodly and glorious a one The name of the Lord being so eminently engraven on all we are about should strike a dread and holy reverence on all our hearts the day the table the supper we are at are all the Lords but what if we be not the people of the Lord truly if we be not he bids us not welcome and what if we be here and the Lord not with us Then we had far better be else where But how may we know if we have him present even his sweet society and blessed company It 's his table we sit at and that is no small honour for he is a ●ing and that is not all he will sit with us him●elf and give us his own company and we may know it by this when the King s●tteth at his table my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof Song 1.12 Whence Obs 1. Believers w●ll observe what others doe not viz. When Christ is at the table and when not and it will be empty to them when he is absent 2. That Christs own presence must be depended upon both for sensible comfort to believers and for reviving their graces and making them lively It 's the exalted K●ng o● glory 's own presence that makes his own grace in our hearts livel● and savoury It 's our keeping near him and his condescending to keep near us makes all his gracious work in us to bud and blossom 3. O the great condescention of God to sinful mortals that when he was invisible by reason of that infinite distance between the divine nature and ours he made himself to be seen in the flesh and now by his ascention having made his flesh also invisible by reason of the vast distance between his place and ours he hath made his flesh in a mystical sence even to be seen and tasted in the sacrament O if he hath humbled himself thus far unto our senses let us not by an odious ingratitude humble him lower even under our feet and trample on this precious blood of the Covenant by rushing on this so solemn and sacred a thing with a careless and unprepared frame taking no pains to get a broken and holy heart to intertain him with To take this sacrament into an earthly dirty heart is to take this heavenly bread and throw it into the dirt O do's any of you think to come hither and take these holy mysteries into your covetous proud lustful unrenewed hearts It 's plainly to resolve upon laying up his richest treasures in a noisom Sink and what an indignity is this Christ is in heaven himself and will not enter into any but an heavenly heart here And he who exposeth himself so much to the view of your senses calleth you to Spiritualise your earthly senses let that mouth that cateth at this table never speak vanity nor lies that hand which is reached out to receive him be no more a right hand of falshood or injury to any these eyes which look on your Lord here be no more gazing on Vanity or forbidden objects But to raise your hearts above beggarly Elements which you see this day with eyes of flesh consider this ordinance signifies and seales Christ and his Covenant with all his rich promises of grace and glory The body of our blesed Lord is really in heaven for he is risen and ascended but his body is as truely sacramentally here as really in heaven making the most clear representation of his death and solemn commemoration of it that the
our condition only in our Nature as Man he was too feeble to assure us and as God only too high to attract us so that our Elect and Chosen one hath a Nature for our Comfort and a Nature for our Confidence And now by Christ's Incarnation a ne●rer approach is made unto us by the Divine Nature than ever could have entred into the Heart of Man to conceive Some say the Spiritual Glorified Body of Christ is the Medium of the Beatificial Vision to Saints and Angels above That the God-head shines through it in all its brightness as the Sun shines through clear Christal And lastly Wonder that two Natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than any thing in the World and yet without confusion The Flesh of Chri t is the Vail Heb 10.20 alluding to the Temple where the Vail hid the glory of the Sanct●m Sanctorum and gave entrance to it So 〈◊〉 we draw near by Christ's Incarnation w●ich rebates the edge of the Divine Glory and Brightness that Creatures may converse without Terror Who can behold God out of Christ And what could we do with a Christ but in our Flesh How hopeful to ●o●k to a Saviour in our Flesh This is the sight this Ordinance gives us of Christ In our preparations we are chiefly to look to our Selves to see whether we have a right to Christ and be fit for him but in this Action we are chiefly to look to Christ and as a blind Man cannot look to t●e Sun shine it never so brightly so cannot we without Faith look to Christ Run your Race with Patience looking unto Jesus Heb. 12.1 2. They who would run well must keep their Eye to Christ and indeed man● run n●t well they look so little to him Some look back to the World they 're left behind with Lot's Wife others too much to discouragements and difficulties and too little to Christ and his Promises and some look to sin and not to Christ If the wounded Israelites had only lookt to their wounds and not to the brazen Serpent they had never been healed But the Command of Christ is look unto me and be saved Quest What is the well-disposed eye for looking unto Jesus or rather Who gets the right look of Jesus in such an Ordinance as this Ans 1. A discerning-look 2 Cor. 3.18 many go forth to Ordinances that know not whom they go to see Whom went ye forth for to see Matt 11 7. few take up Christ in his Natures Offices and Excellencies a King a Saviour a Physitian a Peace-maker c. 2. Seek a tender look of Christ to look upon him whom you have pierced and mourn Zach. 12.10 Song 7.4 Seek a heart-melt●ng look of Christ such a one as he gave Peter Luke 22.61 3. A love look Song 4 9. Isa 17.7 Look upon him till you Love him 4. A transforming look 2 Cor. 3.18 look upon him till you be like him in some measure here and long for that perfectly assimilating look 1 John 3.2 5. A self-denying and sin-forsaking look of Christ expressed by going forth and beholding him Song 3.11 6. A stedfast look Get a believing look of Jesus here that will make you follow your look when you are gone so as your blessed Jesus may be more kept in your eye in all your work in all your way even running your race with patience looking unto Jesus as ever you would hold out unto the end and not be wearied and faint in your mind 20. Here come we to renew our Covenant and remember Christs Merit and God's Mercy Qu. What is the Covenant we come to renew Ans The same you entred into at Baptism to take God to be your God to submit your self to his Laws for your Rule of Life and to his Righteousness for your Salvation that you will Love him and serve him and having Sanctified and saved you from the dominion and damnation of sin you 'll still strive against its remainders through his grace and strength in the use of all appointed means Qu. How are Covenants to be renewed 1. We must look what sad breaches have been in this Covenant since it was last renewed how careless we have been of many duties how unkind to Christ with how little zeal for his Glory and hatred of Sin hath he been served 2. When you have seen your Sore repent and seek pardon resolve on new obedience if you know of any sin you purpose not to forsake it 's certain you come unworthily and your sin you can never forsake till God shew you cause to hate it and then no man is willing to abide with what he hates 3. It ought to humble us deeply that no bounds even most sacred can hold us and that he is even mindful of his Covenants in giving out the mercies of it and we so unmindful of performing the Duties of it 4. We must make and renew Covenants in Judgment Hos 2.19 with a right understanding of the Terms of the Covenant even Christ and you becoming mutually one anothers in a Marriage Covenant now no more your own but his as bought with a great price Read and understand the Articles of the New Covenant frequently for no wise man will Seal an Obligation he knows not the Conditions of 5. It must be expresly with resolution to break with strange Lovers ●osh ●4 23 Cords of Vanity and Bonds of Iniquity must be broken and if resolution be right you 'll instantly set about the Practice of what you intend you will make haste and not delay Psal 119.16 6. We must bind our selves in the highest manner to obedience even under the Curse threatned upon our breaking as well as expecting the Promise if we keep it Neh 10 29. There the Covenant was sworn and else where written and seal'd ch 9.38 See also Isa 44.5 7. Renew your Covenant with earnest desires to God for Grace to keep it with humble acknowledgment of our own inability for any part of it knowing that the God we Covenant with must perform the Promise of Grace before we can perform our promise of Service Psal 113.32 Hos 14.8 John 15.5 And above all depend on Christ the surety of the Covenant by Faith and importunate Prayer that be see all may be made good on both hands that when he hath by his good Spirit helped thee to hearty endeavours and sincere performances thou mayst see thy self infinitely obliged to his grace and merit for covering the defects of thy best duties and pardoning all short-comings Psal 119.122 Christ is the surety of the Covenant for paying our Debt and undertaking our Duty Q. What are the benefits of renewing Covenants We ought to have them now in our eye 1. Heart-establishment and clea●ing to God called the Bo●d of the Covenant Our unstable souls need engagements not to go back We give up our heart to God intirely here to perform duty and avoid sin and snares and this by God's blessing
is nothing● for the unparralleled pattern and spring of all love is here represented to the life believe his love and let him have love again you may well believe it for he that loved us so as to lay down his life for us when enemies how will he delight in us when washed in his blood and renewed to his likeness and if Christ have his due he will have love again And if true love it longs to see him and can deny it self to please him it will desire to know his will and delight to do it We must prove our love as our Lord did his John 14. ●1 A soul in love with Christ reckons him chiefly worthy of his love endeavours the nearest Union with him and is still going out after him Hence spring Langour and melting to enjoy him and receive his impressions resignment of will to him and a concern for his interests Love the Lord all his Saints for he keepeth their souls Love him once and all he saith and doth will be more acceptable to you and all that you do in love will be pleasing to him Love him and you will be loath to offend him ●esirous to please him and satisfied in his love Love God and you are sure of love again Prov. 8.17 Now that you may love him contemplate his goodness and see him in the face of Christ and behold his love in the design of our Redemption in the person of our Redeemer in the promises of grace and in all the benefits of R●demption Yea if you would love him look to the sin he hath pardoned Luk. 7.47 the spots he hath washed the Covenant he hath made the Adoption he hath bestowed the Hell he hath redeemed you from the Heaven he hath appointed and prepared for you And now get some further preparations for him and it too by loving him better and loathing your selves more We might all love God more 〈◊〉 we could love our selves less Could holy Mr. Pradford sit and weep at dinner till the ●●●rs ●●ll on his trencher because he could love Christ no more and we sit dry here at his own table with hearts void of Love to him 24. Here have we our gracious Redeemer with died garments glorious in his apparel travelling in the greatness of his strength staining his raiment with the blood of his enemies and ours trading the wine press of Gods wrath alone mighty to save ready to pardon This ordinance of the supper ●ives us the best occasion of airing our selves in the sweet and spacious field of our Lords sufferings And we cannot be good Christians if we do not hartily imbrace the opportunities the Gospel gives us of calling his Cross to remembrance The bent of every believers mind stands this way else how can we be said to live by the faith of the son of God who gave himself for us And if we be not led by a natural complacency to converse with a crucified Saviour how dwelleth the Love of God in us Or how can we clear an interest in his Death for us Hath he the heart of a Christian that cares not to meditate on the death of Christ Did the Apostle bear always about the dying of the Lord in his body and should not we do the same in our hearts Now since our great business here is about Christ crucified let us enquire a little what doth the Lord require of us The sum of all is in three words Behold me Receive me and Walk in me First observe how that great Gospel-invitation of the Gentiles Isa 65.1 15. is doubled Behold me Behold me 1. To shew how serious a suiter Christ is for our souls 2. to shew our natural aversness from looking unto Christ 3. To shew how much of a Christians work lies in looking unto Christ 4. To take in and comprehend all kinds of people and sorts of sinners 5. To hold out the delectably variety of sweet Sights a soul may have of Christ in his Natures Person Offices and Excel encies and Usefulness 6. To teach that tho' the first look of Christ should not please yet to look again and not to leave looking till we can find something in Christ to a●lure us Secondly Receive me rest in me and build upon me Receive him that is come so far to you and suffered so much for you When I was abundantly well with my Father always rejoycing before him and was daily his delight yet my delights were with the sons of men And down came I to be cloathed with your flesh a course garment for the Lord of Glory to go in ●●at in your nature I might bear your curse and dy the death you deserved to dy and to redeem you from that misery you must have groaned under for ever And should such a Comer not be welcome Be summoning up all the powers of your souls to give him the hastiest Reception Lastly as you have received him so walk in him by a constant depending on him drawing vertue from him and keeping Communion with him yea farther we are to walk in Christ as we have received him i. e. with the same freshness of affections bent of will satisfaction in him and obsequiousness to him daily repeating that consent and renewing that Covenant we made at first with him Thus are we to behold him with an eye of faith receive him with a hand of faith and walk in him by a life of faith and so shall we have the blessed end of our faith the salvation of our souls 25. The sanctuary of the Lord may be profaned by us when we little think of it The truest notion of profaneness is a contempt of sacred things Heb. 12.16 Now we shew our contempt of them not only in keeping far from the things of Christ and salvation but by setting about them with an ordinary and common frame careless in preparing to meet our God in them with a broken heart becoming best an ordinance that sh●ws forth a broken Christ for us In common providences we cannot know love or hatred by all that is before us But here is something before us whereby we may see Gods love to our souls and his hatred to our sins If we could by this Sight be stirred up to hate our vile lusts and love our dear Saviour more then were we fit guests for the table of the Lord. Let us not look off this precious attonment here represented till our hearts be turned against the sins that put our Lord to all the pain and shame he suffered for them Let never any of us love our selves till we can heartily loath our selves for sin and then Christ will love us and delight in us Next to our considering what sights shall we have of Christ our thoughts should be taken up with what a sight is he like to have of us We come hither to see Christ And be sure the King comes in to see his guests if there be ever a one that wants the wedding
There is nothing to be conversed with in the lower world that may compare with this to stir up dead hearts to serve a living God It 's by beholding a bleeding dying Christ for us that we become a ready obedient and zealous people for him Tit. 2.14 5. Here have we the best occasion for exercising every Grace Love Faith Hope Patience Prayer Praise forgiving injuries and bestowing kindnesses 6. Herein get we the best advantages against sin by seeing what sin cost Christ and by sealing most solemn Covenants against it 7. This is all the Picture Christ hath left of himself no Image or Crucifixes 8. It offers Christ and conveys him with all his Treasures most expresly Take eat take drink 9. There being so much of Christ in it and nothing but Christ shewing forth nothing but his Mercy and Grace his Merit and Fulness his Love and Pity his Grace and Righteousness 10 It 's a feasting it with God at a heavenly Table on Earth where he bids all his children welcome and gives the best entertainment in the whole world Rev. 3.20 Song 5.1 43. Our great business here being to remember Christ our suffering Saviour and Redeemer Qu. What in particular are we called to remember at this Table of the Lord A. 1. That love that laid the first Foundation-stone of our Redemption by a dying Christ and let us here praise the Lord from the Fountain of Israel even for electing Love chusing us in Christ 2. Let us remember how the heart of God was set on man's Redemption who like one that dearly loves the purchase says I 'll rather give more than it's worth than go without it God says I 'll give my All for the redemption of my Elect. Christ says I 'll give my best blood Shall the Father and the Son be so zealous for my Redemption and my Soul be so little affected with my own Salvation and my Redeemer's Service 3. Remember here the difficulty of man's Salvation none but God could do it Isa 45.21 It 's no easy matter to save a soul If any other in Heaven or Earth could have done it as well as Christ it 's reasonable to think that God would have spared his dear Son but such a High Priest became us and best suited our circumstances as was separated from the whole creation for divine qualities and perfections I have found a ransom said God There was nothing could be thought on to any purpose by Angels and Men for our relief Only Divine Wisdom contrived Divine Love bestowed and Divine Power did effect and execute this whole work and of all the People there was none with him 4. Bear in mind how gloriously God's Grace is advanced by our Redemption and what Honour and Glory redounds to the wise and gracious contriver of it never such a rent of praise was raised as this brings him in This is that Glory of praise that is said to be above the Heavens The Glory of making and beautifying and enriching of Heaven and Earth is nothing to this Glory that excelleth of Saving Sinners by such a Saviour 5. Nor is there any thing more pleasing to god in all the World than a due Remembrance of the Death of Christ in this Ordinance which may be gathered from his Displeasure against a Church that did it but unduly 1 Cor. 11. Now all Duty must take its rise from this Principle and Motive of loving God for Christ and acknowledgments of Divine Goodness in giving his Son O! never think he hath dealth hardly with you in keeping or taking any thing from you if he hath given you a part in Christ And this is a point of such Affinity with the Vitals of Christianity and of Graces thriving in the Church of God that even here should we desire to dwell viz. To learn and look on all things in Christ Eph. 4.21 To be taught the truth as it is in Jesus There is nothing rightly taught or known but as it is in Jesus 1. The Types and shadows of things to come are all opened in Jesus 2. The Prophesies and Predictions are all accomplished in him How dark are many Prophetical passages of the Old Testament till they face Christ and then the Vail is taken away as Calvin Expounds that of 2 Cor. 3.16 3. We must see our sin as he did bear it on the Cross as a most accursed thing that laid such load on his blessed back 4. And you must see your Soul in Jesus as he hath purchased it from Hell with his own Blood O! then how precious is my Soul that was so dearly ransomed 5. See your Selves in Jesus your new Covenant-state in Christ You never see your safety nor dignity till in him 6. And all the great and precious promises of God to you must you see yea and Amen in Christ all made to Christ our Head first and in Jesus unto us 7. And lastly You must see your good conversation in Christ Pet. 3.1 A●l your perform●nces in the re●●●●●ce to him and for him and by him 〈◊〉 to the Lord Christ as grateful recor●● to your Redeemer And Christians ought to labour after this feeing all things in Jesus Christ For 1. This is to see all thin●s in the tr●e light whereb● much contu●●on is cleared and many shadows fly away We are bid come to Christ and he will ●ive us light Eph. 5.14 And in his Light we shall see light 2. The great Gospel-Command and Invitation is Behold me behold me Isa 65.1 3. The Father is no further pleased than all i● seen and done in him 4. This makes all sweet and easy when we see all his yoke we bear and his work we do and his purchase we shall possess that is one so tender of our concerns as to pay our Debts and undergo our Curse And now shew your selves worthy partakers by resolving on this That you 'll meddle with nothing in Religion but in Christ you 'll walk in his Steps you 'll pray in his Name you 'll Suffer for his sake In a word you 'll to Christ's Cross for all you want you 'll take Life from his Death Hope from his Resurrection Pardon from his Merit and expectation of all good from that Love that parted with Christ And on these Terms I am sure Christ is well contented to give you a kind meeting at his Table and to Seal his everlasting Covenant with your immortal Souls 44. Q Why are we generally so little affected with ●●e great concerns of God and our Souls here represented A. I because of Unbelief which turneth all the precious concerns of Salvation to a romanti●k Story The greatest matters you can speak of do no more affect than they are believed Isa 53.1 1 Pet. 2.7 2. We want a lively sense of our Natural Bondage Sin and Misery are not laid to Heart and therefore what signifies Christ and his Sacrifice 3. God Mammon blinds our Eyes and corrupts our Hearts The cares pleasures and profits of this