That Lord Iesus whom here thou seest in his spirituall grace farre better than any carnall bravery can expresse a naked simple Christ present to the naked plaine and honest eye of faith I say him thou shalt one day behold at his second comming confounding all the pompe of the world so that not a stone shall bee left upon a stone Say with Paul If I were to know Christ upon earth Matth. 24 3. 2 Cor. 5 16. yet would I not in the flesh Fourthly the fulnesse Fourthly for the fulnesse of these Elements For wee see that our Lord Iesus would separate and sanctify both as well as one to typify full nourishment Bread is the staffe of life wine the cherisher of the Spirit Both make full nourishment and therefore well succeede the Passeover which was wholly to be eaten or burnt Exod. 12. Vse To teach us to abhorre that cursed Popish stelth and sacriledge in taking the Cup from the people pretending that the other of bread conteines it For what is that to us that God can exhibite the power of both in one We looke in the Supper not what his unlimited but his revealed power is hee will so worke by power as he is pleased and willeth to worke not otherwise Therefore in reversing the signe they doe quite disanull the Sacrament Other uses shall be added when we come to their proper places to treate of the second generall Christ nourishment and how wee ought to come in the sence and triall of our wants to the Supper Of the acts of the Supper Now I come to the outward acts of the Supper Ere I speake of them in speciall this I adde to the former that all acts and rites of this Sacrament are then duly performed not onely when persons are duely qualified to give and receive but also when the Institution is punctually followed because that is our Canon to goe by in this kinde which neither Minister nor people must transgresse eyther by excesse or defect For if once any liberty be allowed men to chop or change herein certainly there is not greater varietie in dressing our bodily diet each stomack affecting her owne way as there would poove diversity of fashions in giving and receiving the Sacrament Therefore one ancient institution must overrule all persons times administrations And looke what I sayd before about the choyce of Elements and such like things the same I say of the administration of that Sacrament that all must fetch their warrant from hence I doe not meane that each circumstance of action which our Saviour or the Disciples performed is necessarily included in the Institution No there may be sundry personall acts done in this or any other service of God which when they are done become worship and yet are arbitrary to doe or not as the persons are disposed onely plaine and unavoydable respects of defilements and true scandall are to be avoyded But by Institution I meane those essentialls of matter and perpetuall rites about it which our Saviour himselfe and his Disciples performed These I affirme are indispensable both one and other It being as sinfull to offend in the due forme of Baptizing as in changing the Element and so as unlawfull to alter the words of Institution in giving the Supper as in changing the Elements or in taking away their number And hence it is that Paul 1 Cor. 11.20 1 Cor. 11 20. being to correct the foule abuse crept into their Supper by Love feasts calls them to the Institution wherein seeing no such thing could be seene therefore he pares it off as superfluous In like sort the Church of Christ hath abhorred all such additions of trash and humane invention as crept in in their ages as Creame Salt Oyle added to water detraction of the Cup in the Supper disanulling of the union and turning the materiall of a Sacrament into the forme so that there should not bee a difference in the thing signifying and signified and so at this day we renounce the errors of the Greeke Church mixing water with wine and their old abuse of fire in Baptisme to marke the face of the infant and infinite others of the like sort some of which defile others disanull the Institution both infringe it Yea so solemnely ought the Institution to be performed that by vertue of it other vices and errors of persons not so avoydable are to be tolerated and excused from annulling the ordinance though they are foule eye sores The use whereof is first to prepare way to speake of the severall Acts following in this our discourse with better savour to teach us to observe them thâ— more strictly and to profit by the use thereof Secondly to make conscience as neere as possibly wee may of the punctuall institution of Christ abhorring all other as the way to superstition and confusion and beleeving that all the grace and blessing belonging to the Sacrament next to the ordeyner himselfe depends instrumentally upon the sacred and inviolable institution of the Lord Iesus Now to the particular acts and first of the Minister then of the people to repeate nothing before said of his qualification Note That the Minister being in Gods stead betweene him and the people is to act those all and onely acts which the Lord Iesus himselfe did at the Celebration of the Supper not as if he shared with Christ in the power of eyther ordeyning or sanctifying the Elements of himselfe since all which he doth is both in the name of and for the use of his Master for whom hee is onely to make way in the hearts of the people But as a Minister he is for and in place of Christ himselfe Christ being in him or the Father himselfe in Christ rather the doer of all as the Prophet of his Church And the acts he is to discharge are foure Taking blessing Breaking or Powring out and Distributing of the signes of both kinds 1. Taking First touching the taking of the bread and wine it conteineth these two things First the culling out or chusing Secondly the setling of them unchangably to their service For the former The Lord Iesus Luk. 22 1â— Luk. 22.19.20 tooke bread and likewise the cup that is out of his wisedome he chose out from among all other creatures these two bread and winee to decipher the spirituall nourishment of his body and blood so that by this choise they have the prerogative to doe that which no other creature besides may 2. things 1. Separation from common use Now in such as choise there must be a separation of Elements from their dishonour to honour From basenesse and vilenesse to glorious use for what comparison is there betweene earth and heaven the common creature in daily use taken from the Bakers basket or the cellar and the heavenly body and blood of the Lord What shall then reconcile these Surely the divine power of Christ hee must take off the common and base
have ever beleeved the promise and found favour with God then I say the grace of God within you shall stirre up your soules to an unfaigned humiliation and brokennesse and shall recover you to a sight of his promise The Spirit of God shall not suffer you to runne from God with such full bent of heart but your checks and cumbats working with the experience of mercy and former pardons shall revive the seede of God within you So that yee shall not wholly shake off the spirit of regeneration The grace of your Baptisme shall be as a second boord after shipwracke to recover you and shall send you to the Supper with hope of regayning that light and comfort which your revolts have darkened and eclipsed else should the Sacrament be of no power to succour distressed consciences in their relapses But this I adde such shall finde it hard to binde up their breaches and wish they had never revolted Vse 4 Fourthly let this be an rise of Instruction about that one particular of Christ our nourishment in redemption a doctrine seldome pressed in the Sacrament and therefore I will take some paines to presse it The Supper of the Lord offers to all beleevers a portion of Communion with Christ in his Afflictions And as baptisme is our prest-mony to bind us to Christ in all estates to bee his souldiers as well as servants to our end so the Supper confirmeth us in the grace of our Baptisme Therefore know that its not for nothing that we receive Christ crucified both body and blood under bread and wine to put us in minde of taking up our crosse dayly making it our dayly bread That we drinke at this Supper as its wine of refreshing so it is a Cup of blood and the wine of the indignation of the Lord upon his Sonne Esay 63.2.3 Esay 63.2 3. And although Christ dranâ—e the dregges and trod the wine-presse threof to free us from the guilt and curse of it yet not from suffering for Christ The Sacrament is a badge of our conâ—ormity with Christ or at least of our renued courage in his afflictions Phi. 3. Christs cup was so bitter that he praied oft Father take it away So must thou looke for the like that if God should compasse thee about and hedge in thy way Phil. 3 12. adde sorrow to sorrow and make thee a Marah of a Nahomi remooving thee on the suddaine farre from prosperity Oh! Ruth 1 20. thou mayest say The Lord Iesus hath dranke of this cup unto me The extreame bitternesse and anguish of it he hath taken off if thou be his thou mayest say Blessed be God this Sacrament offers me a discharge from sinne curse Satan hell and Death I know the hardest have shot the gulfe of these yet still there remaines a relique of bitternes for thee to drinke to frame thee to the love selfe-deniall patience and victory of thy Master 2 Cor. 5 ult Esay 53.12 and much more to bee content to beare as hee did He bare for no sinne of his owne but thine onely and he bare that he might helpe thee to beare and in all thy afflictions be troubled that he might take the sting and venome of them away and make them tollerable Do not then greet the Lord unkindly and treacherously when the crosse comes as if the Lord had sent it in wrath to cut thee off to take away thy right Lam. 3. and to cast downe thy soule out of her place No although the Crosse may seeme darke uncouth Lam. 3 35. and to have such sad circumstances in it as for the present thou seest not how to winde out of But remember thou receivest the Sacrament no ofter than the Lord Iesus offers himselfe to thee in the heaviest bitterest and most unspeakeable crosse that ever was borne What gall was not mingled with his drinke Mat. 36.46 48. Wherein was he afflicted save in that which was most precious even the love of his Father and for what save for sinne that was more irkesome to him than death If the Lord then crosse thee so not in some petty filip of a finger but in a tedious sort even in what is most pretious consider the Lord hath done it that hee might make thee partaker of his holinesse Heb. 12. conformed to him in his meeke yeelding to his Fathers will to the contempt of the world nay of thy vile and proud heart to selfe-deniall in all blessings to mortification of thy ranke lusts yea hee doth it that thou mightest put thy mouth in the dust and be low when he will have thee so that rottennesse might enter into thy bones and thou mightest have peace in the day of trouble Be then under it as he was whose cup thou dost drinke of and shew what strength thy oft drinking of it hath put into thee Be sensible of Gods stroke in a moderation neither too much nor too litttle Labour to suffer the will of God let it clense thy soule and purge that scurfe which it was sent for and trust God and pray that he would deliver thee from that thou fearest Heb. 5.5 waite for the good of it the whilest and for release of it in due time not consulting with flesh how or how farre or when but trusting him with it who hath infinite wayes above thy reach to effect it If the Martyres could endure their bodies to bee burnt to ashes gladly upon this ground how much more thou who never enduredst the firy triall nor yet the anger of God in thy smaller trouble If he have removed that by his agony bloody sweat and desertion what else save sweat conformity to thy head remaines for thee Let it then be instruction to thee to draw more and more strength from the Sacrament to enable and susteine thee in thy bearing of it Alas we come for the staffe of bread and the wine of rejoycing to fit us to obey But not for the helping us to eate the bread of affliction and to beare the cup of indignation aright as Micah 7 9. Mica 7 9. Oh! what a stranger it is But of this so much CHAP. VIII Touching the Sacramentall Acts of the People and so the third Generall of the Description viz. The End of the Supper NOw my promise made at the end of the 6 Chapter requires that I come to the Sacramentall Acts of the People The which I will handle as the use of Exhortation from the doctrine of the former Chaper falling fitly inâ—o the streame thereof Fiftly then is Christ Sacramental our nourishment Then let all his People obey his charge first to take this body and blood of his to them secondly to eate and drinke them Touching the former I meane this receive and beleeve that this flesh and blood of his is given thee for thy particular nourishment All the former uses presuppose this obey in this and all the rest shall follow duely For the better conceaving of this
in the soule not because thy are substantially one but notionally Yet this notion is realnesse in her kinde Man and Wife are one flesh no more two but one how by vertue of divine institution this union is reall and true yet not meerely Physicall and naturall onenesse but in the kind of it a matrimoniall union The like may be sayd of all civill unions of the family which by vertue of the ordinance of God assisted by law and order become bodies united I doe not allude to these as if they did hold in all points but for two causes First to shew the power of divine ordinance to unite and make things one Secondly to shew that the disproportioÌ„ of the natures of things united eyther for kind or distance is no let to reallnesse of union in a word it s the ordinance of Christ which hath an indeleble and irreversible power of the conjoyning of the Lord Iesus to the Elements in a reall and sacramentall kinde so farre as serves the turne not to subject Christ to a base creature but to subject the creature in her property to be a close and neare uniter of the soule with Christ to whom else through the incapablenesse of flesh it could not so easily have beene knit and made one withall All vnions serve to make God and the soule one This point will the better appeare if we goe a little further and shew that even the greatest and deepest unions that are serve to make way for the union and communion of the soule with her first originall hereafter in glory and here in grace The very personal union of the Trinity how should it be better conceived than by the mystery of redemption wherein God could not possibly have satisfied God nor man bee brought and united to God except there had beene a personall union that is a samenes of deity in the differing of persons The like is true in the union of Christs Godhead with the nature and flesh of man why was it but to serve Gods holy purpose to reconcile and unite flesh to God by the person of Emanuel So also that spirituall union of the whole body and soule of a beleever with Christ why is it but to prepare it for eternall union with him The union or communion rather of the members of Christ into one body and being to what serves it but that the whole Church may be one with Christ and her head that by him shee might be one with God himselfe who shall be all in all in glory wholly possessing and possessed So also wonder not if this inferior union of Sacraments be so reall and close seeing its cleare the Lord in this condescending so low to the Capacity of man unites himselfe no otherwise to the Elements than that in and by them as channels of conveyance he might when and where he sees it good to use them derive himselfe into the poore beleeving soule in a fuller assurance of Communion with her So that our Saviour saith Mervaile not that I said unto you he that eates and drinkes my flesh and blood Ioh. 6 43. shall abide in me and live for ever To man such a union is impossible betweene a creature and the Creator betweene basenesse and glory But it is the Word and ordinance that causeth it and which hath setled this Sacramentall union indissolubly that our soules might fare much the better and the union of the soule with Christ himselfe might bee more familiarly conceived Rule 1 To adde somewhat for the better opening of this union let us first understand what it must be and then what it cannot be First of necessity it must be such an union as the nature of the things united will admit Then secondly such as the ends of a Sacrament will suffer For the former A further opening of this by two things The nature of the things united will not admit either a locall or a Physicall union They will and may admit a spirituall one First not a locall viz. That as the Bread and Wine are locally present so that the Body and Blood of the Lord Iesus be also locally present this I say the nature of the Lord Iesus his Body will not admit 1. What they admit not viz. a locall or naturall For although it be a glorified body yet it is a true naturall body and therefore limited and so cannot Consubstantiate with the Elements in all places where they at one and the same instant are present to the sence of the receiver Which confutes the Lutheran error of locall Presence as if of necessity there must be a corporall Presence or else those words This is my body cannot bee verified No wee deny it because it râ—sists the Nature of the things united and present Secondly neither will their nature admit a physicall Presence or union that is such an union as by which the proper formes and beings of the things united are lost and become under a new forme of mixture or composition For the Natures of Christ and the Bread are incompatible in point of mixture or compounding because the one is a spirituall the other a corporall thing which admit no such mixture as corporall things of like nature doe as wine and water So then if this union bee not mixt it is much lesse Transubstantiate for in that the one doth not mixe with but evacuate and disanull the other leaving nothing of substance behinde But the nature of these Elements admit a spirituall union 2. What they wil admit viz. spirituall union nothing hinders why the things which are furthest distant or remote in place may not yet bee present in truth and realnesse for the sound of a Canon-shot 40. miles off from my eare yet is present by the meane of the ayre bringing it home to mee and the body of the Sunne of light and warmth distant farre from mee yet by the ayre which carryeth the beames of it is present and made one with my bodily touch and feeling And againe nothing hinders why two things physically disjoyned may not yet spiritually be one and joyned together by vertue of the power of the ordainer In a word the Nature of the things united will admit a reall union although no corporall unnion eyther locall or mixt and much lesse transubstantiall therefore the things united in the Sacraments are onely spiritually and really united Rule 2 Secondly the union of a Sacrament must be such as the scope and end of a Sacrament will suffer and no other It s such an union as the end of a Sacrament will suffer But the end and purpose of a Sacrament cannot admit any other union betwixt the signes and things signified save spiritually reall For then must we destroy the scope of a Sacrament in a double respect 1. Of relation 1 Relation for except there bee maintained in the Sacrament distinctnesse of Termes and Relation of one to another so that a bodily thing may
Act of taking note 1 Take that it stands in relation to a gift offered in the Sacrament And the gift is Christ and his benefits 2 Things in it Now to take them is to doe these two things First to concurre with the giver in the offer of this nourishment Secondly 1 Concurrence to apply and make it our gaine for the purpose which it serves for The former of these hath two branches according to the nature of the offer made in the Sacrament the former is concurrence of consent the latter of obedience in both stands faith That this may bee conceived marke that the Lord offers this gift either by promise or by charge The former is the ground of the latter and therefore the soule concurres with him in both duely consents to his promise without cavilling obeyes his charge without rebelling takes by both Partly in consent in 6 partice Touching the former first let it appeare how God offers and promises Christ Sacramentall and then it will easily appeare how freely faith consents The promise is conceived thus This is my body that is given for you This is the new Testament and the cup of it in my blood shed for you In this conceive these sixe especialls which in a short view to see will both revive and profit the Reader breefely 1. 1 The excellency of the offer The excellencie of the gift 2. The fulnesse 3. The aptnesse 4. The propriety 5. The graciousnesse 6 The manner of exhibiting and these will shew how faith consents First the Lord saith This is my body and blood that is my nourishment meate indeed drinke indeede not earthly fading mortall but heavenly eternall hee which eates it shall hunger no more he who drinketh it shall thirst no more it s the Lord Iesus from heaven heavenly What saith faith I consent Lord the reason is strong I take thee Secondly the fulnesse 2 The fulnesse of it This my food is no scant and halfe diet it s my flesh and my blood that is my selfe in my Satisfaction and Efficacie and my whole selfe no part excepted the whole Diamond unbroken and with my selfe all that I can afford all my graces to nourish the whole soule in each part for each defect for full encrease not a particular gift to the mind as knowledge or to the heart as patience but all Christ and all his grace for the perfecting of the whole man in his measure What saith faith She consents its royall Oh Lord I yeeld and take it 3. The Aptnesse of it Thirdly the aptnesse The Lord offers thee not meate and drinke which thou art uncapable of as if whole loaves or flagons should be offered thee too heavie and grosse for thy receiving But its apt prepared for thee meat layd unto thee in morsells in a cup a meet draught for thee a body given and broken A cup of the new Testament in my blood What saith faith I consent Lord I doe take it as prepared for mee Fourthly propriety 4. The propciety of it The Lord addeth It s given for you shed for you for you in person and for your wants and uses in especiall So broken and shed as if no other but you were regarded in it yea though given for the sinnes of the world yet specially for you and your nourishment What saith faith She consents Lord I leave not my portion for another to take I take my owne my selfe Fifthly graciousnesse Lord it s a Nourishment given 5. The graciousnesse of it Offered to you what is freer than gift It s not urged extorted by force on your part although if yee went from sea to sea to get it it were cheape on the price but freely and of mine owne accord given when it could not be expected with a most plaine beteaming heart meaning as I speake not to deceive nor defraud What doth faith Lord farre be it from me to warpe from thy meaning I enquire no further I consent and take it Lastly the manner of exhibiting it 6. The manner of exhibition I offer it thee under signes of bread and wine the staffe of life and cheere of the spirits It is no other nourishment than I offred thee in my Promise That offered me as thy pardon peace and strength so doth my Supper The manner of exhibiting is diverse but my offer is one and the nourishment is the same onely heere I offer it in a more familiar and apt manner to releeve thy infidelity let not that which I offer thee for the better in the more effectuall manner proove for the worser and be weaker in efficacy What saith faith She answers Thy way is best I consent I take it in the way thou offerest it Thus wee see how faith concurs with the promise and consents to it Vpon the Promise depends the charge For marke The 2. Act Obedience of faith the Lord addes Take it therefore eate and drinke it Why because it s so qualified for thee and so necessary that thou canst not take it but thou shalt prosper and be happy thou canst not refuse it but thou must needs pine and perish Therefore I who by promise have thus drawne thee doe also by my Authority Command thee I know many thinges as excellent and weighty as they are yet are not esteemed because they are unknowne Therefore I who know them better than thou doe require and charge thee upon thy Allegiance Take eate and drinke this my body and blood that thou mayest prosper and fare well What doth faith She obeyes the command and saith I doe so Lord I take them as thou commandest I concurre with thy command as with thy promise Thus wee see the first worke of faith to concurre with the offer of Christ her nourishment Thus much for that The use of it ere we come to the second is threefold first The Vses 1. of distinction or difference betweene a true Taker of the Sacrament and a false a beleeving one and an unbeleeving It s worth our noting because every foole will be prating and say he hath taken the Sacrament to day Oh its high holiday with him His garments are all white But oh foole what taking is thine Onely of the Elements onely the worke wrought If this will commend thee to God for a true taker it s well else all is lost But oh wretch Thou art a taker indeed but a Theefe thou takest that which is none of thine by sacriledge Thou takest not by concurrence with a promise Thou neither consentest to that nor obeyest the charge thou runnest not with God but out-runnest him preventest him and snatchest his nourishment from him as a dogge which hee hath given onely to children And this I will proove Thou hast neither a consenting eye of faith to see what the Lord gives thee nor yet a consenting heart to be affected with it nor yet a consenting hand to receive it more than sense convinceth thee
than no where what better proofe of the Lord Iesus at his best than this that he is offered to thee in no lesse mysticall union for the end of a more mysticall one I meane as united to poore bread and wine that he might also unite himselfe in the whole grace of his Sacrifice to thy soule and body What better und easier conveiance couldst thou wish than this for so feeble and weake a spirit as thine is When once that people which followed Christ sitting upon an Asse Colt and riding as a King to Ierusalem cryed Hosanna and sayd Blessed be he that commeth in the name of the Lord Thinke we not that they saw Christ at the best Why did they else except they had beheld his spiritual Kingdome cut downe Palmes and strew them in the way stripping themselves of their garments to set him thereon Surely they were not so offended at the meanenesse of his palfrey and basenesse of the outside but they saw in this his riding a cleere representation of his glorious grace and the Maiesty of his person So shouldst thou in this union of Christ with base crummes of bread or drops of wine behold a more spirituall presence of Christ who careth not for such creatures but for thy soule and being farre from stumbling at the basenesse of the Asse or Elements raise up thy soule to a more heavenly sense of the Lord Iesus comming into thy heart and spirit bringing thee to God and uniting thee to the fountaine of thy blessednesse in a farre closer manner than ever Adam was And is not this union the Lord Iesus at his best yes verily From this Sacramentall union proceeds that exhibitive nature of Sacraments carrying the Lord Iesus into the soule of all the elect that communicate For to what end is union Sacramentall save that the Sacraments being thus possessed of the Lord Iesus mystically in them might exhibite to all and effectually carry into the bosomes of the elect the power of this Lord Iesus and convey as Vessells channelles and Pipes that grace which they containe I doe not meane that by vertue of the worke wrought or by the force of Divine institution there is any naturall holinesse put into them or magicall power of inchantment to take hold of the soule No in no wise for how many thousands are there both young and old who after the enjoying of the Sacraments doe put most woefull barres in their owne way that the power of Sacramentall union might never come at them So that when the Covenant comes to bee dispenced unto them they fare as persons utterly disabled to receive it Nay neither dare I thinke that by vertue hereof it s of absolute necessity that all Elect Infants must receive conversion of grace just in the act of their Baptizing for what were this but to ascribe more to the Seale than to the Covenant yea to invert their order and to ascribe greater power to an ordinance under which they walke 20 30 40. yeeres carelesly without discovery of any grace at all rather than to the lively power of the Covenant preached and working from that time forth an apparant change So that although in charity I am bound to thinke no other save that all such as receive Sacraments duely concurre with the grace of the Spirit for future improvement Yet to tye the Lords hands behind him and to make the Lord of Sacraments to become their underling as if hee had put himselfe out of Authority and office wholly to be subject to his Sacrament what indignity were it for the ordainer No not so But so farre so often and where it shall seeme good to himselfe to make use of his Sacrament for the good of his Elect for whose good they serve there doubtlesse these Ordinances doe both present and conferre the grace which is put into them Else to what end should they have it except they might convey it Now summe up all and answere Is not the exhibitive power of the Sacrament the Lord Iesus at his best Is not a reall tender better than a bare signe or a promise onely without performance He that promiseth an hundred pounds to lend or give to his poore friend and presently tenders the money that he might be before hand doth he not lend or give at the best Nay more than this not the Sacraments onely are thus exhibitive of Christ to the soule But by vertue of the union I have spoken of the Lord Iesus himselfe is there present where his institution is duely observed to be the Baptizer of his members and to be the steward and nourisher of his family that is to bestow himselfe upon the soule Touching Baptisme first true it is That our Lord Iesus himselfe never baptised any outwardly howbeit as then so much more now being ascended he it is who in the outward Baptisme of the Minister doth give gifts unto men and doth still baptise all his with the holy Ghost and fire A poore sinfull man doth what he can doe but further he cannot goe He dives the infant into holdes it in and receives it out againe from the water baptising it in the name of the sacred Trinity But this our great Baptist he is all in all for the doing of the worke It is he who casts in the salt of his divine healing power into corrupt and of themselves accursed creatures and Element and element he removes the curse death and barrennes of the waters utterly unable to engender he takes off their base uncomelinesse he darts and plants in them the efficacy of his owne death and resurrection both for merit of pardon and of holines he sanctifies clenses them that they may become hallowed and purging instruments And as a planter takes the sien of the Apple-tree and pitches it into a Crabtree stock so the Lord Iesus takes the pretious sien of his owne Righteousnesse the Power of his owne death and grave the strength of his resurrection and exalting and pitches both into water so that water becomes Christ-water Christs death and life so that the soule is washt with the one as the body with the other The soule by faith in the covenant feele her descent into the water to become a spirit of diving her into the laver and blood and grave of the Lord Iesus her being under the water to become the spirit brooding and fructifying the water to become a seede of life abiding in the wombe of the soule to regenerate it to the life of Christ Her arising up from the water to become a spirit of Resurrection as Peter excellently speakes 1 Epist cap. 3. verse 21. and a baptising of the soule with the activity and raising of her up with Christ from her death grave basenesse and misery unto immortality and glory Yea in all three the soule feeles the power of a new and omnipotent creation of her to God ingrafting her in God never to be pulled from him any more as at first And as the
was as weake in the grace thereof Act. 2. end and the sealing power of it The Gospel hath more fulnesse of seede and begets more unto God than the Law could doe and therefore Baptisme is a farre fuller Sacrament to confirme the soule in her new birth than the other was So for nourishment The Gospel exceeds by many degrees the ministery of the Law in Point of her building up and nourishing the soule in the grace of the new birth the Gospel hath filled the brests of the Church with farre more milke and stored her with farre more provision than the old Testament could doe For thereby the Spirit is powred our upon all flesh Ioel 2.28 Esa 44 3. Looke what difference there was betweene them and us for the fulnesse of bodily food that in a sort may bee said for spirituall fulnesse How many Creatures for kind or for Circumstance as in case of blood or strangled might not they touth the Hog the Conie the Hare and many other both beast and foule tame and wilde which to us are cleane and sanctified How much more doth the Lord afford us fuller feede of the Sacrament of the Supper than their passeover Even as a feast exceeds an ordinary Therefore Paul calls theirs a ministry of the letter ours of the Spirit not because they had not the Spirit but in comparison of the fulnesse and power of ours The new more effectuall Now for us our Sacraments are farre more effectual The very change of the old into new argued the excellenter efficacy of them As the traine of a Prince personally riding in progresse is richer than an Herald or Harbinger The Sabbath wee know was changed at the resurrection to honour it So the Sacraments at his annointing to his office and at his passion to magnifie them How should they so doe if their Trayne were not greater I meane if the spirit of Christ and his sealing perswading setling comforting pacifying power were not greater Also except that blessed traine of his Graces more glorious and plentifull as humility heavenly-mindednesse patience hope love zeale ability to walke with God more closely to discharge our callings more fruitfully to suffer more willingly to live by faith more setledly and the like gifts of Christ Sacramentall attended them Hence is that of Austin so common Our Sacraments saith he are in efficacie greater than theirs in profite more gainefull in performance more easie and in number fewer Beside ours in their understanding are most sublime in observation most pure and in signification most excellent They lived in the Porch of Sacraments we in the Parlour Let us take heede least as they in their age when no Nation under heaven enjoyed any Sacraments save themselves were so puffed up by their priviledge that they disdained all as Dogges in respect of themselves cleaving onely to the barke of these Ordinances without any seeking after the Spirit and power of them and so opened a way to Gods wrath to bring into their steed the Gentiles who alwayes thirsted after them so let us feare least wee stand so much upon our dignitie above theirs that in the meane time there shall be found even among us baptized ones and communicants far more blinde prophane carelesse than the Iewe was yea and some of us who goe for better be found as formall barren as far from the Covenant as estranged from forgivenesse and as destitute of the life and sealing power of Baptisme and the Supper as they of their Circumcision and Passeover If it be so our dignitie shall so lift us up to heaven that it shall throw us downe to hell and I will not only say the Lord will not be pleased with us as with them 1 Cor. 10.5 1 Cor. 10 5. but as it is Heb. 2.2.3 Heb. 2.2.3 by how much more powerfull grace is put into his Sacraments and by how much more eminent waies and ordinances hee hath honoured us by so much the more shall our condemnation for our unbeleeefe be more fearefull than theirs who had so dimme a Covenant and so weake Seales in comparison of us Rather let us labour to enjoy the priviledge of our priviledge above them in carrying about us that evidence of faith and that peace of conscience and that joy of soule which our Sacraments seale up to us that wee may be as much better than they as our Sacraments excell theirs in efficacy and then that kingdome of Christ within us as well as that without us shall be a kingdome not of words onely and signes but of power also And so much of the former generall of this Chapter Agreement and difference of the 2. new Sacraments Touching the latter how farre Baptisme and the Supper doe differ or agree briefely understand that as they agree in Circumstances concerning Sacraments in generall so also in the definition of a Sacrament wherein as specialls contained under one Kind they communicate They are both ancient and within three yeares one as ancient as the other they are both alike publique as being equall legacies of the Church militant they have both one founder although the one by mediate Commission as Baptisme by Iohn the Baptist by extraordinary calling the other immediatly by Christ himselfe they both agree in the Name Necessity of a Sacrament Againe whatsoever is true of the definition of a Sacrament is equally true of both these as in the next Chapter shall more fully appeare For why In both the Lord conveyes spirituall grace by visible resemblances set apart by himselfe and furnisht with power to that end But in a word that I would say of their mutuall agreement Their Agreement is this First they both agree in the offer and representation of whole Christ joyntly and undividedly to the soule Touching the first 1 In the joynt offer of Christ Know that when we call the Sacrament of Baptisme the Sacrament of entry and ingrafting of us into the body of Christ and of begetting us to Christ yet wee divide not Christ imputed from Christ inherent wee must not thinke Baptisme gives us an estate in Christ for justification onely for it estates us in Christ wholly both for wisedome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption though justification makes us truly the Lords yet because the Sacrament conferres whole Christ therefore it conferres him as God offers and the soule needs him that is both for justification and sanctification Christ our pardon and Christ our life for without both equally ours all Christ is not ours A speciall point to be noted for the better understanding of the act of faith in applying Imputation and Sanctification both at once to the soule of which point I treat elsewhere So againe the Sacrament of the Supper conveyes Christ to the soule wholy and undividedly Practicall Catechisme not onely for the encrease of our Sanctification but our Iustification also Part 3. Article 2. For although Iustification as it is a benefit of Christ
God Reason 2 Secondly If the Lord onely found out his Sonne to be the foundation of this Covenant meant him sent him made him enabled him to ratifie it by the bloud of the Covenant accepted all this offers it seconds and assists it by his owne Spirit to make it effectuall Who can doubt that he onely is the Author of these Seales whereby this effectualnesse is convei'd Reason 3 Thirdly If he onely be the Author of blessing the word of promise to breede faith in the Covenant which is the lesser Who but hee shall breed the assurance of faith and the reflexion thereof upon the soule that it may know it selfe to beleeve Now how is this done ordinarily save by the seales If hee then be the Author of the lesser efficacie who but hee is the Author of the greater by the sealing Ordinance Reason 4 Fourthly If no externall blessing accompanying the Covenant for so the Lord was wont to perswade obedience Deut. 7. and Chap. 32. Deut. 7 32. Hos 2. Ezek. 33 c. can come from any other Author save the Lord as the blessings of raine dew plenty health long life successe Deut. 5.29 Deut. 5 29. and the like who shall dare usurpe the authority of Seales and Sacraments which are the most eminent annexes to the Covenant of all other Reason 5 Fifthly If the Lord Iesus himselfe was the onely stablisher of the Testament and Covenant by his death and bloud for without death no Legacy is of valour then who but himselfe shall make Sacraments which are in effect nothing else save the power of his life and death Reason 6 Sixthly If the Lord onely can authorise divers signes for the Sacraments as supr Chap. 2. if he onely can abrogate old ones if he one day shall abolish all old and new their nature and use as past use who but himselfe shall frame Sacraments It resting in one and the same power to make Lawes and to abolish them I conclude then that God alone is the Author of a Sacrament Conclus As indeed the Scripture doth witnesse The Lord only Gen. 17. Gen. 17. appointed Circumcision The same Lord Exod. 12. Exod. 12. ordained his Passeover the Lord extraordinarily gave commission from heaven to Iohn to appoint Baptisme Luke 3 1 2 3. Luke 22 18. and the Lord Iesus with his owne sacred presence and hands ordained the Supper before his death Seeing after his Resurrection he could not being partly an act of humiliation and so all Sacraments were given by the Lord in their severall kindes for their severall uses as in the next points shall appeare And to say the truth if it be once granted that the Lord is not the sole ordainer of Sacraments what a wide doore must of necessitie be set open for both usurping Ordainers and counterfeit Sacraments Where should the period be or why should not hundreths as well as three or five be admitted to the heape Vse 1 For use therefore hereof this teacheth us to abhorre all Sacraments which have not God and Christ for their ordainer If they cannot shew their pedigree in the Lords Genealogy Nehem. 7 63. nor be bookt in his Records nor have his stampe set upon them Math. 22 21. we say of them as our Saviour of the Penny Give unto Caesar that which is his So give to the Pope his Vnction throw him backe his Sacramentall Orders and Penance wee abhorre whatsoever savors not of God as copper coine Yea and we loath whatsoever of Gods first ordaining they by their abuse have corrupted namely as corrupted and seeing God and Christ never gave us a Sacrifice for a Sacrament wee abhorre to meddle with it as a Sacrifice propitiatory for the quicke and the dead and for their Baptisme we loath it also as administred by them as an horrrible defiling of Gods Ordinance professing to depart from their Sacraments both for their new inventions and for their adulteratings of the old and bidde them take them as their owne for now they have used them thus they are no longer Gods As for their distinction of Apostolicall and Divine we take what they grant if they be not Divine although an Angell from heaven did ordaine them wee should abhorre them How much more when their Pope or their Clergy or the body of their defiled Church For were their Church a chaste Spouse shee durst as well forsweare her husband as cast off subjection in embracing his Sacraments and usurping power to appoint other which is so farre beside her commission that she may as safely devise a new Covenant Scripture and Doctrine as doe it Vse 2 Secondly this teacheth us to esteeme so much the better of Gods Coyne as wee scorne the base stuffe of Popery Gods stampe upon the Sacrament should make it honourable and precious in our eyes If some civill ordinance hath honour in it because God hath put it upon it if marriage be so solemne if the Crowne of an earthly King be so sacred how holy is his Sacrament He who profanes it by sacrilegious adding detracting or profaning either by superstition or unprepared use shall finde God will not hold him guiltesse for taking his Name in vaine Wee delight when wee have any curious thing of a choise workeman to say It is a Picture of such a ones drawing It is a Musicall Lesson of such a ones setting a Watch of such a ones making How should Gods Master-peeces than affect us Not to over-prize them to keepe them in Pixes and under Canopies of gold but to preserve them in their spirituall integrity Vse 3 Thirdly it should teach us to behold them not in their outside but as they are in Gods ordination not the outside of a man which we see but the soule which is not seene is the man so not the outward thing but Gods Ordinance in it is the Sacrament Of which more in due place Vse 4 But Fourthly and especially seeing God is the Author of Sacraments let us be â—uled by him in the right manner of receiving them Looke what Iosia 2 King 21 23. 2 King 21 23. said to the people Keepe the Passeover to the Lord your God according to all that is in the Booke of the Covenant so heere I say Receive to the Lord be ruled by him in Preparation in action and the fruite of both It s onely in him that ordaines to order also and prescribe the due manner of using them Take we this item with us before wee come to the Doctrine of right receiving that it may set a spurre in our sides to quicken us to due preparation and using of them for he who gave them to his Church will most severely punish all ignoraâ—â— rash unbeleeving unrepentant uncharitable indifferent commers to his Sacraments and every such one stands to Gods Tribunal as we shall heare in due place Vse 5 Lastly let this point teach us to whom to goe for the spirituall life of faith
cleere to expresse the more darke were yet as darke to them as the things themselves What way should be found to beate in instruction into such dullards Bray a foole in a mortar yet shall not his folly depart from him Prov 27 22. Secondly Simplicitie Question Why the Elements so triviall The latter is the simplicitie of materials in the Sacrament A question may be asked why the Lord should appoint so homely triviall and common Elements As we see water in Baptsme is a common thing bread and wine usuall ordinary creatures nothing in them strange farre off precious or solemne to the sence Why rather chose hee not to describe the price of those graces offered in the Sacraments by some rare and costly objects Answer This indeede sounds best to our superstitious and fantasticall hearts as to Naaman when he heard of Iordans waters by by 2 King 5 11. the better waters of Abana and Pharphar were presented by carnall reason But as God had another purpose to him in the healing of him by waters he meant not to magnifie the one above the other but rather to magnifie his power and grace above them both so heere More distinctly these two maine causes may be assigned for the meannes of the Elements 1. The generalnesse 2. The safetie of them For the first water First For the generality bread and wine are Elements generally to be come by and provided with ease Rare is that country that wants them now it was meet that the most geneall materials be appointed for Sacraments least else the preciousnesse and difficulty of getting them should either hinder the use at least frequently for many congregations are so brutish at this day that they shun oft communions for the matter of charge or else give occasion to the curiosity of men to devise diversities of supplies and so to bring in a confusion But the Elements being so generall that scarce any country is to be found that wants them and if some odde ones should yet the use of rootes serving for their bread is the more pardonable this danger is prevented The 2. and more chiefe is prevention of carnall worship Secondly safenesse that the Ordinance may be preserved more safe and entire from sensualitie and pompe If the Lord had appointed a feast of pompe and state costly junkets rich attires of Priests to usher and serve in some rare costly cates either naturall or artificiall as at this day the Papists boast of their brave Sacraments and rich setting them forth with embroydered attires Exod. 32.3 sumptuous Canopies Pixes Processions and Pageants lo all the glory of spirituall Sacraments would turne into outward pompe and ostentation as we see Ahaz more solicitous of the state of his Altar which he offered upon 2 King 16 10. than the substance of worship and sacrifice No sooner was poore Moses gone out of sight but the Israelites must have a Calfe of gold to looke upon to offer unto to feast and play and dance before it this pleased their Idolatrous humor well And even just so it well pleaseth the carnall humor of Papists to have such places of worship so painted embellished such materials in this worship as might amuze their fleshly eyes and sences eate up their spirit and inner man checke the life and savor of faith and please a lazie and sensuall heart with shewes and shaddowes that they may depart as wise as they came Contrarily the Lord strives to provoke us to serve him spiritually and therfore setteth meane objects before our sence to the end we may know that there is some further object there for us to looke at than the bare Elements That so by how much this feast comes short of mens banquets by so much the more the heart might not rest upon outward receiving but seeke a supply of outward by inward and spirituall dainties not seene and seeke the things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Even as a father seeing his child proud of fine clothes Col. 3 2. make him a sute of sackin or leather to take downe over-great delight in himself so heere to crack the pride of carnality the Lord clothes his Sacraments meanly and so puls up the heart to himself It s noted Luk. 22.19 Luke 22 19. That after Supper Christ tooke the Cup c. And why Surely that the body being already ful might the lesse look after nourishment remembring a far greater work was in hand Vse 1 The use is to condemne all Popish carnall serving of God for as much as those things which to men are glorious are base to him Heathens shall rise up in judgement against such who by that little glimpse of a God a farre off could say What good doth gold or pompe do in a Church If God be a spirit give him a sound heart a righteous life and then small pompe may serve great sacrificing dishes of plate are not necessary I speak not against comely decencie in the worship of God who is as truly a God of Order as one that loathes carnal bravery Vse 2 Secondly the very basenesse and poverty of the Elements should raise us up to a spirituall view of the use they serve for and cause us to beware that wee cleave not to them They tell us State and Pompe is not in us Wee onely serve to convey your hearts to God wee dare not filch away from God the glory of his intention onely by our proprietie and separation for holy ends and Sacramentall relation wee would raise the soule upward and carrie it within the veile to behold the Treasure of Christ in the fruits of his bloud-shed Therefore even as Peter being hungry yet dwelt not in the Kitchin but in his Chamber was rapt up in such a trance as presented him a sheete full of Gods provision bidding him Arise and eate Act. 10 10.11 so should our soules be farre from dwelling upon the creatures and arise and eate Gods Provision with an heavenly heart by faith Behold the Sheet of God let downe from heaven in which Christs delicates and feast upon the hills Esay 25. is offered to us discerne these a farre off Luk. 17.37 as an Eagle would doe a Carkasse and ceaze upon this prey lie not like a Dorre in the dunghill onely resting in the Elements which alone are beggerly rudiments but the body is Christ Col. 2 17. We use to say and answer Minister and people Lift up your hearts Wee lift them up to the Lord Oh! that as wee have spoken well so there were such an heart in us That as wee see all things in the Sacrament drawing us from a carnall religion and all externall pompe as farre off as our base Trades and businesse of the world so wee might be ashamed to have our spirits taken up in them while heaven is offered to us From the matter of Sacraments Thirdly their forme wee come
signifie and intimate a spirituall and a spirituall be represented by a carnall yet each distinct in their nature the Sacramentalnesse perishes simbolicalnesse and resemblance being wholly extinct by mixture and confusion of things united Then secondly of materialnesse 2. Materialnesse For if we admit such an union as is transubstantiate which indeed is no union of two in one but an excluding and swallowing up of one by another what shall remaine of the Element behind If they answer the accidents of them This being premised that its impossible accidents can subsist without their subject I answer meerenesse of accidents take away materialnesse or corporalnesse and therefore disanull as much the substance of a Sacrament as if wee should hould that the Elements could swallow up the things signified But secondly the end of a Sacrament will easily admit such an union of things as whereby the Lord Iesus and all his good things may bee conveyed to the soule really this being as much as a Sacrament serves for and concurring equally and fully with the scope and purpose of it whatsoever is more is superfluous And therefore resisting that end must needs be a false and erronious union not from God Vse 3 The use of this whole doctrine is manifold It is first instruction to teach us what must discerne and judge of this Sacramentall union what nature it is of Surely not Popery not flesh and blood for they being destitute of the Spirit of this union cannot comprehend it It s a Riddle which onely hee can conceive who plougheth with the Lords Heifer Rom. 8. 1 Cor. 2. which onely conceives it Carnall men cannot judge of spirituall things because spiritually discerned If wee would know eyther what this union is not to wit popish and carnall and locall or what it is to wit reall yet spirituall then judge what eyther the nature of the things united or the scope of a Sacrament will admit and there rest goe no further If then it seeme strange how a thing may be as truly reall spiritually as carnally seeke the Spirit of God who is the knitter of this knot and that will teach thee that the power of the word which appointed light to be and it was and the evening and the morning to be a day and it was and man to be and he was did also ordaine the Body and Blood of Christ to be really one with the Elements without locallnesse or mixture and therefore so they are Vse 2 Secondly looke what difference there is in the things united in the point of their Sacramentall union the same difference and distance must bee observed by the Communicants in point of partaking them To wit that still the severall nature of these things be preserved entire and yet by the one carnall thing the other which is spirituall be bettered and enlarged Touching the first the soule the spirit the faith of the receiver looke at the spirit of the Sacrament the Lord Iesus crucified The hand the eye the mouth of the receiver looke at the Elements onely Doe not thinke then that the carnall part can meddle with the spirituall nor the spirituall with the carnal as it is so but the outward man sees touches tasts and digests the outward the spirituall beholds tastes and enjoyes the spirituall each must keepe his owne bounds If I would discerne an outward thing in the Sacrament I must use my sence my touch my tast and if these convince it to bee carnall so it is Againe if I would discerne a spirituall thing there I must consult with my inward man and the inner sence of faith and thereby I must pronounce an inner thing to be present If I want eyes and sence I can perceive no outward thing If I want faith in my soule I can perceive no spirituall thing each thing or object must bee perceived by the proper instrument belonging to it To the end I may perceive there bee true Materialls in the Sacrament and not onely bare accidents without a substance the outward sense is triall sufficient sight touch and taste will not easily erre about their owne objects as our Saviour tells his Disciples Looke upon and handle me for a spirit hath no object of Touch Luke 24 39. flesh blood and bones as ye see me have Againe if the question be of a spirituall being or body and blood of Christ let sense and teeth goe there faith and the Spirit of Christ must convince it if that feele the beames warmth and see the light and tast the influence issuing therefrom then certainly they are there for the Spirit cannot bee deceived about her owne object Onely this I adde Neither of these can be severed from other for by the externall the Lord hath appointed to convey the spirituall and not without them and in that relation of each to other even the meanest ought to be honoured and the outward sense ought to bee so busied about the objects of sence as thereby to helpe succour and strengthen the weakenesse of faith in the object that is spirituall More of this in the Act of Receiving Vse 3 Thirdly therefore this Doctrine of Sacramentall Vnion confutes this Dotage of Popish Transubstantiation The Papists not content with the vnion we speake off cast oyle into the flame and maintaine a conversion and confusion of Christ and the Elements by a corporall presence and realnesse And as one once demanded by Boner whether Christ was not blood and bone in the Sacrament made him a merry answere let me so disgrace Popery that yet I may speake with reverence yes my Lord I thinke not so only but that there he is boots and spurs and all Meaning that such is Popish excesse and ridiculousnesse in this that it deserves to be esteemed in the Church as a laughing stocke And sure it is as themselves also say they receive not from God a Sacrament of Vnion but offer up to him a sacrifice of their owne for propitiation I say the Papists by this foppery under colour of magnifying the Sacrament doe quite destroy it Marke then what I sayd before Vnion still must be conceived according to her kind not corporall but mysticall and by ordinance As then its a truth except the Elements and the Lord Iesus were one no bad receiver could be guilty of eating his owne condemnation so yet if this vnion be conceived as transubstantiall it is impossible it should be Sacramentall For Sacramentall union still is symbolicall which its impossible to conceive in things changed into a naturall samenesse and substance As wee know in common speech we say No like thing is the same because a like thing is like to another Identity then in Christ and the Elements disanulls Sacramentall union and therefore the Sacrament it selfe This error of theirs as it came from the forge of carnall reason first and the savor of the kitchin How popish errour grew so it received varnish from the erronious conceiving of
thine heart may be pull'dup to Davids practise Psal 116.10 who finding himselfe in a sad time delivered from the anguish of his spirit resolved to pay his vowes for it in the mids of Gods House and said What shall I give to the Lord If he could take up the Cup of salvation and praise the Lord how much more shouldest thou take the Cup of salvation which the Lord purposely puts into thine hand Yea thou should say Psal 119 57. Oh Lord my portion I have determined to keepe thy Law Yea and I have sworne and by thy strength I will keepe my oath even to obey thy Commandements Surely if men can breake into so many vowes and promises by occasion of a sicknesse or streight that if God set them at large they will so and so requite him which yet proove broken vowes for the most part then what vowes should received sealed mercies produce from us except we be base hirelings and hypocrites where the Lord himselfe is before hand with us in the grace of the Sacrament yea while the smoke yet goeth up how should wee ascend in it as Manoas Angell to heaven Iudg. 13.20 Surely those Papists who abuse Gods Sacraments to cursed ends as to combine themselves in hellish plots and cruelties and to adjure each other to secrecie which is as farre from the end of a Sacrament as if one borrowing his neighbours horse to fetch his rent should abuse him to take a purse yet even their wickednesse shall not be much worse than theirs who vow better obedience and take the Sacrament upon it and shall yet forfeit so solemne a band and returne to their vomit But for this last branch and for this Chapter thus much CHAP. IIII. Of Sacramentall Acts and the use thereof and of the celebration and sollemnitie of the Sacraments Why Acts requisite HAving spoken enough of a Sacrament as touching the constitution thereof it remaines that wee finish the Description by adding somewhat touching the actuall celebration of Sacraments For it is impossible that the excellencie of their nature of which we have treated should reach to us without a communication and imparting them to us The Lord himselfe who ordained Sacraments is the holder out of them also to the soule Now seeing the Sacraments containe partly things spirituall partly carnall the former whereof are to be carried and conveyed by the mediation of the latter it followeth that the externall Elements must be conveyed by externall and sensible agents to sensible objects by sensible Rites and administrations The Lord himselfe the Agent is a Spirit and treateth not with us immediately either by word or presence Needs must he therefore set forth a deputed Instrument to be for him and that is his Minister Againe the soules of the faithfull are invisible therefore cannot immediately be touched therefore their bodily and personall presence is required that so the conveyer and they to whom the things are conveyed may meete and consent together And as formerly I said that the things offered by God to the Church are spirituall under outward Elements so the offering thereof to the Communicants is spirituall and by the Spirit of Christ yet this spirituall offering is made by outward Acts and Administrations which I call holy Rites appointed by God himselfe and passing betweene the Minister and people that so the gifts also offered may therein passe and be conveyed First then a little of the Persons and then of the Acts requisite to celebration of Sacraments that the Lord and the soule may meete each other The Persons are two we see the Minister and people 1. Persons which are two 1 Minister The Minister then is such a sacred person as is lawfully from God by men appointed as a Sequester betweene God and the Congregation serving to this end to be betweene God and the people for the conveying mutually of good things betweene each other and by name the good things of Christ Sacramentall In whom we must consider both his calling and person he sustaines Touching his calling he ought to be a man truely separated from men and this life to God and holy use In whom 1 Calling Heb. 5.4 hee must be called by God as was Aaron and lawfully warranted by men as the voices of God to the Congregation that he is meet for such use Hee must be of competent understanding Ephe. 3 2 4. and skill in all the Mysteries of Christ and godlinesse He must be of competent gifts to teach 1 Tim. 3 2. utter and expresse the same to the people For how shall hee exhibite those Seales as from God which he neither understands in the ground thereof to wit the Covenant of grace nor yet the Doctrine and Nature of the Seales hee offers How fearefull a derogation is it to the Sacrament in which all things should be Symbolicall when he that is in Gods stead to the people shall neither know the nature of the Covenant to be able to preach it nor of a Seale either to teach or deliver it What a confusion is it for the Minister so unqualified to occupie the roome of God himselfe As if the Lord sealed a Covenant to his people and a Seale which he knew not the meaning of The like I may say of the life of the Minister Seeing the Lord is holy 1 Tim. 3 2. Heb. 7 25. and offers holy things and such an high Priest it behooves us to have as is holy blamelesse and separate from sinners How necessary is it that the Minister be also in this symbolicall That by the grace of his person the Lord may seeme to draw his people to an holy carriage in the Sacrament saying Be yee holy who beare the vessels of the Lord. Esay 52 11. What a Trumpet of prophanenesse is it to the people and a meane to abhorre the Sacrifices of the Lord when even that sacred person which offers the holy things of God is himselfe profane Hag. 2 12. What an opinion might it breed in the ignorant seeing such a sight that God is like themselves in putting no difference betweene the holy and profane Psal 50 21. But if our duty and worke be done any way it skills not how as if all were alike in Gods account 2. Person The second thing in the Minister thus duly called is the Person he sustaines That is laid downe in the old and new Testament Exod. 29 9. Exod. 4 16. 2 Corâ— 5 20. clearely In the old when the Lord bounded Moses and Aarons office he saith that Aaron should be or serve for all uses betweene God and the people in point of worship and spirituall respects And Paul 2 Cor. 5.20 saith Wee are Embassadors for God as if by us God and Christ besought you c. Note then there is a double relation in the Minister as in all so especially in Sacramentals one wherby he conveyes to the people from God his gifts and
the purenesse of God whose deputie hee is Much lesse to adventure with a mouth defiled with oathes rayling contention ribaldry with hands defiled with uncleane covetous acts with a body members guilty of incontinent intemperate lusts of drunkennesse lasciviousnesse ill companionship or the like scandales to approach the prâ—â—ence of God and his people Let holy outward acts be celebrated with sutablenesse of outward members For certaine it is as the honour is great which the Lord puts upon his Ministers in this kinde to seale the grace of his Covenant by his Sacrament to the people so the sacriledge of unholy and audacious dealers with these Ordinances is doubly dangerous If the people in their unworthy receivings be damnable how much more the Minister who defiles not himselfe onely in corrupt receiving but the Lord himselfe as farre as hee can by profane administration The second person is the Congregation who also are bound to answerable acts in accepting and embracing the offer of God in the Minister Of which also in speciall wee shall treate in the two next Chapters there it shall be sufficient to signifie that as all acts Sacramentall are as essentiall to Sacraments as the materials themselves so the want of Sacramentall receiving disannuls the Sacrament as well as the want of offering So that the people also have their parts to act herein Theirs are these legacies to them they belong They are therefore with all holy preparation of themselves and theirs Exod. 12.4 by prayer to offer themselves to the Lord in the Congregation presenting themselves soules bodies with such comely chaste reverend and holy thoughts affections and behavior as may testifie them to be meete guests of such actions before in and after the actions demeaning themselves so as they may sanctifie the Lord thereby and not pollute his name who draweth so neere them in these mysteries yet this I adde as in the former that although such carriage is that which the Lord commands and will severely be râ—venged of the contrary yet if through the sinne of man and decay of Gods Order such shall be admitted as doe contradict this rule that we doe not thinke this eye-sore and defect to disanull the Sacrament But with mourning and heavie hearts both for the sinne and sacriledge of such receivers and givers of the Sacraments to looke up above both and with so much the more serious preparing and sanctifying of our selves to come to the Lord beleeving that the prophanesse of the vile shall not hinder the faith of the well prepared sithence we come into the presence of that God of piercing eyes who can pierce betweene the joints and marrow and both behold the humblenesse of beleeving soules Heb. 4 12. to reward them and discerne the impudencie of the contrary to accurse them and yet not thereby to prejudice the comfort and hope of them that are truly prepared and abhorre to come in their sinnes And of this Chapter also thus much which I have divided from thâ—â—ormer though concerning the same description because I saw that Chapter to grow somewhat larger than the rest CHAP. V. Of Baptisme the Description of it opened and the use thereof annexed HAving thus treated of a Sacrament in generall wee come to the particular Sacraments of the Gospell and first of Baptisme For although our chiefe scope be the Supper yet because the other is much unknowne and therefore neglected we will take it in our way to some consideration Three things on it First by shewing what â—ue performance is required to it Secondly what the grace of it is Thirdly what the use of the Doctrine and all these in one Description whose parts all be examined Baptisme then is the first Sacrament of the Gospell What it is consisting of Water which is Sacramentally Christ or wherein by water duely applied not only the presented partie is made a member of the visible Church but also sealed up to an Invisible union with Christ and thereby interessed in all those benefits of his which concerne the being of regeneration By calling it the first Sacrament I point at the precedencie and order of Baptisme The which al those names of Baptisme The first branch both in Scripture and elsewhere doe approove It s the seede of the Church as the other is of food It issued first out of the side of our Lord Iesus upon the Crosse It s the creating instrument of God to produce and forme the Lord Iesus to a new creature and to regeneration in the soule Tit. 3 5. It s called our Vnion with Christ our marriage Ring our militarie Presse-money our Matriculation Cognizance and Character of Christ our emplanting or engrafting into him and his Body Rom. 6 3. 1 Cor. 10.2 our Ship our Arke our red Sea our putting on of Christ For as all those goe before our Nourishment Communion Cohabitation Service fruit Manna or foode from Heaven so this Sacrament must goe before the other Breeding begetting and bringing out of the wombe doth not more naturally goe before the feeding of the Infant by the mothers breasts than this wombe of the youth of the Church Psal 100.3 goes before the breasts and milke thereof the Church being no drie Nurse but a Mother of her owne the sonnes and daughters of her owne wombe Vse 1 Which convinceth thousands of their preposterous sacriledge in that they prâ—sse in upon the Church for her pappes and nourishment when yet they are bastards and no youth of her body no sonnes of her love or desires And therefore she abhorres them and hath drie breasts for them whom she never bare The Lord Iesus abhorres to be food where he hath not beene seede flesh and bloud indeede to feede whom he was never seed to beget Let all who desire to taste of the sealing power of the second Sacrament to nourish them as Saints first proove the sealing power of the former Sacrament to beget and make you Saints Doe not impute such folly to the Lord Iesus as to give the milke of his breasts to still-borne ones or to set them into his stocke who are rotten and dead twigges 1 Pet. 3.21 as if the bare outward washing of the flesh were sufficient to regenerate and give title to nourishment This is to dissemble with God the Church and our soules and to turne both Sacraments to our perdition Beware al such mockers least the Lord be froward with them that fight against the God of Order least in stead of finding nourishment before breeding as they rob God of his Order so they meete with wrath and judgement before mercie and salvation yea least God accurse their single emptinesse of Christ with such a double barrennesse as will admit no conception or birth Vse 2 And Secondly it taxes the confused devotion of such as would not be baptized till death having yet enjoyed the Supper usually all their life As if the Lord were not able to grant and
their whole life Vse The use is to convince the most parents of their profanenesse or neglect in this kind who as they never came it may be themselves within the covenant of God by an actuall faith so are as farre from seeking it for the infant but rest in the bare name of being borne in the Church and under baptisme as if that would beare downe all for time to come Matth. 3 6. meane time senslesse of their owne misery and their deriving of it to the child resolved to suffer it to lye in it owne perdition for ought in them lyeth They please themselves in the feature of it or in some circumstances of other content a sonne an heire to the wealth looke at pompe or cheere feasting and mirth who rather should houle and weepe for themselves Iam. 4 9. and theirs and after they have sought their owne ends at last bring it forth rather to a Church-complement as they basely account and for an Eclesiasticall ceremonie of water than a spirituall Baptisme of regeneration and so afterwards spending the time in mirth and jollity but suffering the child both elder and younger to run riot and become worse the child of Sathan than ever before and to weare the livery of God in despight rather than service to him Oh! how fearefull an account have these to make And although I deny not their child is baptized visibly and their sinne cannot barre the Lords covenant of grace if he please to call it yet what woefull accessaries are they to the woe of it How much better is it to be childelesse and barren than to be fruitfull under such a curse And it were to be wished that even such parents as scorne to be thought profane or onely civill and carnall Protestants were not guilty of this neglect As one said of Herods killing his sonne with the infants Better to be Herods swine than sonne So of these The second person in this worke is the assembly The second person Assembly Her duty Hers is the legacy of Baptisme her part is as the Church of Christ to bring it forth duely when it shall duely be demanded Also to present themselves there in publique with reverence both at word and Sacrament to recognize the former grace of Baptisme offered themselves that they may be stablished therein or else by remembring their owne breach of vowes to be abased by the occasion to present the infant to God by the Minister to looke up to heaven for it by humble confession Prayer and thankes and so to conferre the marke and seale of the Sacrament upon it Vse Which point serves to correct and rebuke the common errors and abuses generally prevailing in Congregations against this duty few abiding the Sacrament but rending Gods seale from his covenant sacrilegiously others staying rather to gaze and gape and to heare and see bables than for any holy end and after the name given posting out with as much unreverence as they were present with small humiliation love or communion and so as if it concerned not them leaving the action to them whom it imports and by their example teaching others to dâ—e the like for them and bringing in a profanation of the ordâ—â—ance The third person Minister his duty The third person is the Minister deputed by God and the Church to stand betweene them as sequester of blessings and duty from God of blessing whose baptisme hee offers and whole person in his acts hee resembles from the people of duty and service in their name bringing forth the Sacrament to publique use Before both hee must behave himselfe with gravity and holinesse separating the Element and touching the laver with the blood of the lambe 1 Tim. 3.15 and 4 12. Exod. 40.9 that it may be sacred blessing the fountaine by prayer and praise of his lips beseeching the Lord to assist to sanctifie and to baptise the party with the Holy Ghost and fire Matt. 3.11 Matth. 28.27 and so by the words of the institution In the name of the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost receiving the child and dipping it in water to pronounce it openly to be a reall member of the Church of Christ A great worke and yet there is a greater even to be an able Minister of the covenant â— Cor. 3.6 and to understand the doctrine and use of baptisme competently to teach it sensibly to the people that he may not as a dumbe Idoll bring forth a thing to the people which himselfe knowes not I have spoken of the use before onely this I adde That although any of these three persons faile of the Sacramentall duenesse service I doe not inferre a nullity of the Sacrament so long as the institution is preserved but a necessity of sinne in such offendors for whose cause it might bee just with God to punish the children howbeit by vertue of his Covenant and election Rom. 11 28. he is and will be the God of his owne and the sin of man shall not infringe the mercy of God in due time from calling to himselfe and converting even the children of such sinfull ones freely to himselfe in the Ministry of his Gospell Touching that I have said of Sacramentall dipping Digression to dipping to explaine my selfe a little about it I would not be understood as if scismatically I would instill a distaste of the Church into any weake minds by the act of sprinkling water onely But this under correction I say That it ought to be the Churches part to cleave to the Institution especially it being not left arbitrary by our Church to the descretion of the Minister but required to dip or dive the infant more or lesse except in case of weakenesse for which allowance in the Church we have cause to be thankefull and sutably to consider that he betrayes the Church whose officer hee is to a disordered errour if hee cleave not to the institution Dipping the meetest act To dippe the infant in water And this I so averre as thinking it exceeding materiall to the ordinance and no slight thing yea which both Antiquity though with some addition of a three fold dipping for the preserving of the doctrine of the impugned Trinity entire constantly and without exception of Countries hot or cold witnesseth unto and especially the constant word of the holy Ghost first and last approveth as a learned Critique upon Matthew Chap. 3. Verse 11. hath noted that the Greeke tongue wants not words to expresse any other act as well as dipping 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Causaub if the institution could beare it And sure it is if the Lord meant not as hee saith that the infant should bee dived to the bottome yet hee much lesse meant hee should bee sprinkled onely upon the surface But rather betweene both extreames hee should bee baptized which word signifieth the true act of the Minister to dip or dop the body or some part of it into
the water And the essence of Baptisme in the very symbolicalnesse of it urgeth no lesse For what resemblance of ingrafting putting on of Christ is there in sprinkling what typicalnesse is there of our descending into and ascending out of the water both which are expresly spoken of Christ in his baptisme of Iordan What resemblance of our buriall or resurrection with Christ is there in it So that I doubt not but contrary to our Churches intention this errour having once crept in is maintained still by the carnall ease and tendernesse of such as looking more at themselves than at God stretch the liberty of the Church in this case deeper and further than eyther the Church her selfe would or the solemnenesse of this Sacrament may well and safely admit I doe not speake this as a thing meete to disturbe a Churches peace but as desiring such as it concernes in their places to looke to their liberty and duty in this behalfe The fourth person the infant The fourth and cheefe person yea equall object of Baptisme is the party baptised For not onely the Church may and doth baptise her infants but also adultos growne ones also if any such being bred Pagans and brought within the pale of the Church shall testifie their competent understanding of the new covenant and professe their desire to bee seazed with Baptisme for the strengthning of their soule in the faith thereof professe it I say not basely and slightly but with earnestnesse and entirenesse cutting off their haire and nailes and abhorring their Paganisme A short touch of the baptisme of infants But the truth is the exercise of the Churches baptisme is upon infants Here the Anabaptists rise up pleading the corruption of such baptisme and urging the first baptisme of catechised ones and confessors of sinne and cravers of the seale upon the worke of the Ministry foregoing in knowledge and faith which can be incident onely to Adulti or growne ones They alledge that we seale to a blank to no covenant and therefore it s a nullity Sundry learned men have undertaken to stop their scismaticall mouths to answer their peevish Arguments my scope tends another way in this Treaty so farre as my digression may be veniall I say this for the setling of such as are not willfull that I take the baptisme of infants to be one of the most reverend generall and uncontroled traditions which the Church hath and which I would no lesse doubt of than the Creede to bee Apostolicall And although I confesse my selfe yet unconvinced by demonstration of Scripture for it yet Reasons for it first Sithence Circumcision was applyed to the infant the eighth day in the Old Testament Secondly there is no word in the New Testament to infringe the liberty of the Church in it nor speciall reason why wee should bereave her of it Thirdly sundry Scriptures afford some friendly proofes by consequence of it Fourthly the holinesse of the child externall and visible is from their parents who are or ought to be catechised confessors penitent and Protestants in truth which privelidge onely open revolt disables them from therefore I say The seede being holy and belonging to the Covenant the Lord graciously admits them also to the seale of it in Baptisme 1 Cor. 7 14 Quest Howbeit here a further quaere arises And How it is capable 1 Pet. 3 21. because the Sacrament of Baptisme is here handled by us not as halfe a Sacrament onely including a washing of the flesh but an entire Sacrament holding out and giving an invisible grace by outward meanes By what authority shall we say an infant may be presented to that whereof it is not capable To that I answer Answere First it s not meete that Baptisme being the Sacrament of new birth which can be but once should destroy her owne Analogy by frequent administring therefore if but once the most comprehensive way is to doe it in the infancy when the outward admission of a member is allowed to it Secondly although the child be not capable of the grace of the Sacrament by that way whereby the growne are by hearing conceiving and beleeving yet this followes not that infants are not capable of Sacramentall grace in and by another way Pittifull are the shifts of them that have no other way to stop an Anabaptists mouth save by an errour that an infant may have faith It s easy to distinguish betweene the gift conveyed and the manner of conveying it For if the former be the latter in such case will poore needlesse But if the infant be truly susceptive of the substance of Christ none can deny it the Sacrament Now to understand this marke that infants borne of beleeving parents are of the number of those that shall be saved though dying in their infancy none of our reformed Churches will deny It is enough therefore that such before death doe partake the benefit of Election in Christ together with the benefits of Christ in regeneration adoption redemption and glory Now that the Spirit can apply these unto such infants is not doubted of though the manner thereof to us bee as hidden and mysticall thing yet so it is the Spirit of Christ can as really unite the soule of an infant to God imprint upon it the true title of a sonne and daughter by adoption and the image of God by sanctification without faith as with it Now if the thing of baptisme be thus given it why not baptisme Nay I adde further I see no cause to deny that even in and at and by the act of baptisme as the necessity of the weake infant may admit the Spirit may imprint these upon the soule of the infant Vse Let the use of the point bee to all such as are growne to yeares of discretion to looke backe to their Baptisme Let such blesse the Lord for his bounteous prevention of them with the Sacrament even before they had any strength to conceive it Why should the Lord so doe except to heape hot coales upon thy head oh poore wretch and to teach thee to conclude Esay 65.1 Iam. 4 8. Psal 119.10 that he who was found of thee when thou soughtest him not will much more draw neare to thee when thou art fayne upon him and seekest him with thy whole heart What a mercy is it to know the Lord to be a provoker of the soule to imbrace that covenant the seale whereof hee is content to bestow before hand for the hope of time to come Who should so play the Traytor in coole blood having found the Lord so faithfull in his love and to cavill thus I was baptized and made my covenant when I knew nothing nay I did make none my selfe but others for me Let them looke to their stipulation and promise I made none Can any Trecherous wretch so requite the Lord Rather if any sparke of love be in thee wilt thou not breake thy heart by this early mercy before
can heale worse diseases the disease of my nature the distempers of pride envie worldlinesse selfelove impatience 2 King 2 14. infidelitie and what not As Elisha having the cloake of his Master with the promise of his Spirit smote the waters and caused them to goe this way and that till he went o-over dry so doe thou cry Where is the Lord God of Baptisme The Lord Iesus in the water the Spirit of regeneration Oh! let the Arke carrie mee safe and free from the gulfe of wrath and destruction 2 Kin. 2 21. First O holy Lord let thy Spirit cast his salt into these waters which my sinne hath made barren and accursed even as all other creatures and sanctifie them by union and put a blessing upon them implanting the root of the Lord Iesus into my soule by dipping me into them that so as verily as I behold my childs face and my owne flesh cleansed from spots by outward water so surely we may find our soules and spots thereof to be washed by the bloud of Christ this true laver of the new Birth unto remission of sinnes and eternall life Thus much of this point I now come to the third and last The 3. general The end of it The third generall in the Description is the end whereto Baptisme serveth And that is the sealing up of all the grace mentioned before to be the soules owne in assured perswasion and possession I say not that this is the end which all baptized ones attaine unto nay not all who yet by the word and faith doe attaine some comfortable fruit of Baptisme But this I say is the end which God intends in the Sacrament To seale up the soule to an assured feeling and reall partaking of those holy things of Christ which are here offered I meane not that this sealing of Baptisme is inherent in it To seale our regeneration so as if the Spirit of regeneration were but an attendant to Baptisme no in no wise but this where the Lord meanes to bestow upon a beleeving soule which though it relies upon his Word and Promise yet finds many doubts and feares this grace of knowing it selfe to beleeve to be regenerated to be elect to be heire to heaven which reflexion is the worke of the holy Ghost there the Lord useth the Sacrament of Baptisme to be the instrument of this assurance and to make up the evidence of the word full and effectuall For even as the seale annexed to an evidence makes it past question as I said before so doth this Seale added to the word perfect the evidence of it and therefore we may truly say carries in it the last best and uttermost evidence which the Lord hath to bestow upon the soule to put her out of question To repeat things spoken already is not my purpose By looking at the Covenant onely apply the generall to particular The seale of Baptisme lookes at the extent of the Covenant Thou knowest what it is to have the Lord to be thy God in Christ I spake even now at large of the grace of Baptisme The selfe same is the extent of the Covenant it reacheth not one inch shorter than that I spake there Now marke as large as that is so large is this Seale of Baptisme and the Lord keeper of the great Seale is the Spirit of Christ he it is who brings it forth to the soule that needs it and hungers after it by the taste of the graciousnesse and sweetnesse of God in the Covenant And he aâ—kes the soule and saith Poore soule have not I oft convinced thee by my promise of my faithfull meaning Have I not said I will never faile or deceive thee Yes Lord but I am sold under carnall sence and infidelity Well but what saist thou if I bring forth the markes the wounds the water and bloud of the Lord Iesus side sprinkle them upon thee when Tamar knew not how to convince Iuda lo she sends him the cloke staffe Gen. 38 25. and signet asking him Whose they were and when he saw them he was convinced This course was better than words it had a reall relation in it So here the Spirit brings out the very instuments of assurance and laies water upon thy flesh to secure thee Christ in his life and death is thine and shall not this be a reall relation above the naked word unto thee Yes surely if together with the outward presenting of the things he also clap the Seale upon thy soule and leave a print upon thy soft heart which may assure thee he hath been there to fetch out thy slavish feare and infidelitie Ephe. 1 13. Reade Ephe. 1 13. where this Spirit is called the sealer of the Promise it s called the earnest of our Inheritance and purchased possession Reade also Ephes 4.30 where it is called the Sealer of our redemption Ephe. 4.30 By which phrases all the whole grace of Christ is meant viz. That the Spirit in Baptisme seales our Vocation our Iustification Adoption Sanctification and the rest one as well as the other Vse 1 Now for use Branch 1 If this be true what cause of mourning is there for us in these times that the grace and sealing power of the Spirit in Baptisme is so unknowne to the body of Congregations in this Church How few behold Baptisme with such an eye Oh! how do the most turne it into a ceremony Some of the richer sort making it a ceremony of Pompe and sensualitie the poorer of common passage and forme which when it s over the Pageant is done The better sort acknowledge but an initiating ordinance serving to make men visible Christians But as for grace especially this exceeding grace of the sealing Spirit of Adoption and assurance what one of an hundred sees it Oh lamentable We reade that when certaine disciples of Iohns baptisme at Ephesus Act. 19 2. were asked by Paul If they had received the holy Ghost since they beleeved They answered They knew not so much as whether there was an holy Ghost or no. So may I say of our people Alas they are so farre from the Seale of Baptisme that they know not whether there be any such thing or not They know not that God hath any Ordinance of so high nature or no as this to convey assurance into a man of his regeneration And how can such chuse but live a sad drooping course Branch 2 Nay to this I may adde that it is the case of thousands of Christians whom we should highly offend if we questioned them who scarse see neede of such a sealing Ordinance They praise God they have beleeved their salvation and since that they have been rid of all feares and doubts and walke on and on without ayle or annoiance Indeede they found some adoe with themselves ere they could attaine faith But when they once got it they got all at once and since feele small doubts or oppositions to
flesh they shall be conveyers of holy things the blood spirit power life of the Lord Iesus into the soules of the faithfull Oh Father then as thou and I are one Ioh. 17.22 so declare that looke what I upon earth have done that thou hast ratified in heaven let not thine elect make any question but that its thy will as well as mine that these Elements be sanctified for such use Secondly as he begges of his Father Consent so especially he craves blessing upon them As Salomon in that his prayer begs Oh Lord since it s thy will to dwell in this house which I have built 1 Kin. 8.28 therefore I beseech thee shew it by reall effects Whensoever thy people shall be hem'd in by their enemies be afflicted with famine pestilence sword or whensoever they shall pray for any good thing Oh Lord looke downe from heaven and let it be enough that thy people looke toward this house Oh then meet them and blesse them So our Saviour here Oh Father I know thou hearest me alway and by name in thy consent to this separation of the Sacrament But Lord shew it both at this time to my disciples for ever to the end of the world Let them not looke toward this ordinance in vaine but put the savor and foyson of thy Sons grace strength refreshing into them that they may actually conferre upon all hungry beleeving soules my righteousnesse of satisfaction and sanctification of merit in the one 1 Cor. 1 30. Exod 20.1 and efficacie in the other to sustaine them and encrease their comfort both in their reconciliation and holinesse as the neede of each requires 3. He begges of his Father that his poore doubtfull and weake people might understand this blessing to be granted as well as himselfe that they might come confidently to this Sacrament 4. That by vertue of this his prayer and blessing the Church might approach with confidence to the Throne of Grace to doe the like that is to blesse the Sacrament both Minister and people with hope to receive the like blessing upon their receiving Vse 1 Ere wee goe to the next branch this may affoord us speciall use let it be exhortation then to all poore humbled ones in the sight of unworthinesse to all fearefull distrustfull ones of themselves that mourne for their dead dull receivings and that the Sacrament comes and goes from time to time with small fruit Oh! Why is it thus with you Is the Lord here and you are not aware Doe yee fare as if the Lord bade yee come hither in your owne strength Hath he not bestowed blessings upon it and blessed it yea and in spite of all divels in hell coâ—ruption on earth formalitie of the wicked it shall be blessed Why then looke yee no more firmely to the effect of this prayer Let me adde one thing more This prayer of Christ was but the first of his requests in this behalfe Lo as he is our Advocate in heaven he plies this worke still and followes this first sute with his Father to the uttermost that he would apply the power of his death and bloud to his Word preached and Sacraments ministred in his Church so that no opportunitie is now wanting to second this blessing doe not feare least God should have forgot this old prayer for with him two thousand yeares is as one day â— Pet. 3 8. But say it were not so yet we have an Advocate daily to put him in minde of each occasion Ioh. 11 42. So that if the Lord Iesus be all-way heard when hee prayeth it s well for us though old suits might be forgotten which is impossible But alas alas The cold comfort we feele by the Sacrament is the fruit of our little denying our selves cleaving to the Prayer and the Promise This is my welbeloved c. If Iohoshaphat could so confidently goe to God 1. Chro. 20 9. so long after Salomons blessing the Temple pleading to be heard how much more thou in the prayer of the Lord Iesus Did not Rebecca and Iacob laugh and take courage thinke we when they heard Isaac tell Esau Gen. 27 33. That Iacob was already blessed and should be so Why dost thou not laugh then to heare a greater and surer blessing from Christ Why goest thou out of this Blessing and Promise into thine own warme Sun to compasse thy selfe with thy owne sparkles Esay 50 11. Thinkest thou it is with this great Master of Requests as at the Court that many requests may be made ere one granted No no The Lord heard his Sonne in his feares much more his desires bring thou faith and feare not to receive a Sacrament under such a blessing as the Prayer of Christ lies in pawne to procure Heb 5 7. Let thy heart be never so hard Lam. 3 17. empty barren and farre from prosperity if thou come in faith the blessing is thine It s noted by the Evangelist That when Christ pray'd Ioh. 12 28. Glorifie thy name c. answer was made I have glorified it and will glorifie it againe Our Saviour tels his disciples This was for their sakes If thou canst by the eare of faith heare this voyce it belongs to thee Vse 2 Secondly it should not onely be instruction to all Ministers to sanctifie the Sacrament to the Church and themselves But especially it should teach them to be humble in so doing and to come unto God in all abasement Gen. 18.27 even as dust and ashes when they come to aske the blessing of God upon this or other Ordinances at the hands of God If a man having many children especially his eldest Sonne and heire so obedient and loyall that he never askes any boone of his Father but thee comes in great honour and reverence to aske it Will not this teach all the rest except Impes and degenerate to be much more so Behold here thy elder Brother the Lord Iesus Lord of all yet subject and begging every thing he needs not for himselfe but for his Church and shall it not smite into thee one of the basest of all the family of God much more humblenesse in thy prayers Vse 3 Thirdly it should teach both Minister and people in their blessing of the Sacrament when they feele their owne wofull basenesse to be admitted to such a service as being privie to horrible prophaning of such Ordinances and guilt of other sinnes to behold themselves their Prayers and Preparations in the person and prayer of the Lord Iesus in which they may be accepted as if worthy When they have once praid for blessing Pray againe with Hezekiah The good Lord accept me Chro. 30 18 19. though no way prepared according to the preparing of the Santuary Isaac bids Iacob come neere my sonne that I may feele and know if thou be indeede my sonne Esau Gen 27 28. and so comming in his linnen and roughnesse hee tooke him
secondly they neither breake nor powre out to the use of the Congregation thirdly they professe to have so little neede that God should give them his broken Sonne that they bid him take him backe to himselfe for they care not for him nay they give him backe with a mocking of God and say they offer him an unbloudy Christ and unbroken whereas its sure if the Lord Iesus had done so hee had blasphemed and not satisfied Heb. 9 22. Cursed be all new offering of a Christ as a propitiatory Sacrifice to God or offering of a Christ without bloud Thou shalt as soone satisfie wrath by thy owne or by an Angels or Saints Prayers as by a Christ unbroken and unbloudy A Christ neither broken nor bloudy is an Idoll nothing in the world neither meete to satisfie nor to nourish So that forasmuch as the Church of Romes Sacrament is a Christ no Christ no price no pardon no peace reconciliation or eternall life is to be found there We beseech God for ever to deliver us from her and our selves depart from her as a fatall enemy and destroyer of the Sacrament of the Supper Vse 2 Secondly This teacheth both Minister and people to bring with them pure hands and holy bodies and spirits when they touch breake powre out take and eate these pretious mysteries For what communion can be betweene light and darkenesse Christ and Belial 2 Cor. 6.16 The very Sacramentall acts alone require holinesse of all that thus draw neere unto God least he be revenged of their profaning his Ordinance And how carefull should the Minister be himselfe to act this breaking and powring out not leaving it to another since thereby the voluntarie Act of the Lord Iesus is obscured hee himselfe still freely giving himselfe by the onely hand of his deputed Minister Vse 3 Thirdly and especially let it be exhortation to all Christs people to acknowledge the admirable wisdome of this his ordaining the Sacrament for us in so lively a manner Exhort to diverse things and under such powerfull signification That whereas we come to the Supper for our nourishment and growing in faith and gracc in Christ Lo the Lord offers these under the lively sâ—â—nes of the Lord Iesus himselfe and not onely so but cruciâ—â—d and broken and powred out for us even meete nourishment meet to be apprehended by us in the act of his suffering to secure us of our justification by removing of wrath in the act of his preparednesse to nourish us by cutting himselfe out into morsels for us Oh! what life and sappe is there in a Sacrament so offered to a poore soule as crucifying Christ before our eyes and giving him so into our hands What thankes should this draw from us If Esay Chap. 63.1 could in the meditation of this point so many hundred yeares before Esay 63 1. ravish his heart how much more we How should the instruments of our soules peace with God and welfare in him cause us to cry out as he did Who is he that commeth up from Bozrah in his red garments be sprinkled with the wrath of God upon soule and body by agonies desertions outcries and dolors incomprehensible under that justice and wrath the winepresse fiercenesse whereof he trod And although he thereby was powred out to death yet he so trod out that wrath that it shall never seaze after upon a beleeving soule Oh! not only to thinke of this as Esay did a farre off but to behold the very thing in the Sacrament in a broken powred out bloudy Sacrifice made ready to our hand both to forgive refresh and revive the assurance of both to our soules what thanks and joy should it breed in us How should it magnifie the power of the death of our Lord Iesus in us He himselfe was wholy taken up in the joy of it as bitter as it was and shall not we Ioh. 12 24 25. Reade Ioh. 12.24.32 when some Greeke Proselites preassed to have a sight of him two or three dayes ere his suffering he pulls them to behold him dead not alive Except the wheate corne fall and die it abides alone If I be lifted up I will draw all unto me meaning by the word and Sacraments of this Passion And shall not these ravish us much more Vse 4 Fourthly what compassion and mourning should this sight worke in us Reade Zech. 12.10 Zach. 12 10. They shall see him whom they have pierced and mourne and be in bitternesse as one for his onely Sonne I exhort none to whip themselves for Christ for wo be to such as mourne for him whom they should rejoyce in No no weepe for your selves Come eate this Passe-over withâ—â—wre herbes Exod. 12 8. and behold your selves in this Sacrament who brake rent and powred out the heart-bloud of the Lord Iesus to the earth Truly if thou be not sensible of this thy sinne and broken for breaking the Lord Iesus thou art a Cain to this Abel Gen. 4.10 and his bloud shall cry for vengeance against thee Hearken to the voyce of Iustice crying out Either rend this sinfull cursed soule in pieces for her hypocrisie infidelitie profanenesse or teare the flesh of thy Son for him Aske oh Lord why should not I have beene torne and broken rather for my owne sin But thou hast laid the iniquitie of me upon him Oh! how I am stung for the cause Therefore I mourne not because thou did spare me and lay my guilt upon him but because I was that speare those nailes that brake his holy hands and sides Oh! How few come into the Congregation thus abased Behold thy owne just destinie in the broken body of Christ and mourne Oh thus my pride hollownesse worldlinesse had handled me if the Lord Iesus had not stept in Moderate that frothy lightnesse of spirit which beholds Christ in the Sacrament as an object of all joy and mirth Oh! Let it be thy sadnesse first and thy gladnesse after If the sight of a Page being beaten for a Prince will cause the Prince to mourne and see his errour in the Pages strokes what shall the Page do then when he sees the Prince smitten for his prankes Oh! such a broken heart would make Christ sweet in the Sacrament such a mourning would bring joy For why As thou shouldest have suffered unsatisfyingly except Christ had satisfied So he having freely broken himself for thee hath prevented thy breaking and caused thee to blesse him and say Oh! because thou hast delivered me from this anguish I wil take up the cup of salvation and praise thee Thou stepst in Oh Lord when Angels durst not betweene wrath and my soule Psal 116.13 that the snare being broken I might escape Vse 5 Fifthly concurre therefore by faith with this broken Lord Iesus in the Sacrament first behold the order of it then the act it selfe For the first Remember Two things 1 Order that all true right to the Lord
Iesus his nourishment to thy soule in renewed grace Spirit of prayer of uprightnesse watchfulnesse bearing the Crosse well issues from thy renewing of faith in his reconciliation and forgivenesse If thou have lost thy peace by an ill conscience beware thou come not first to the Sacrament to fetch strength to returne to thy former course of walking with God till first thy pardon and peace be renewed that were to soder not to mend thy breach yea it were to dawbe with untempered morter Christ is first broken as a satisfier of wrath and then as a nourisher of a poore emptie soule Touching the second Learne to apply the Lord Iesus broken in the Sacrament for thee in a confident manner 2 Act. If hee have beene really thine broken for thy renewed pardon yea the oftner the better lay thy soule in the clift of this Rocke Exod. 33 32. get thy selfe into his wounds and lie in his sides and thence shalt thou draw nourishment to sustaine thee whence thou drewest strengh to make thy peace This broken Christ his bloud his powring out containes both thy peace and thy grace and by an inseparable union of the Spirit is given for both Lesse than the bloud of Christ dead upon the Crosse could not save thee and lesse than it can not restore any grace of his Spirit decaied in thee as the Spirit of prayer watching sobernesse heavenlinesse of heart But if the Sacrament have revived the one feare not the other will follow There is a knot of unions in Sacramentall broken Christ get one and get both faith will teach thee how to get both and doth sweetly claspe with Christ for welfare in both Touching the substance of which I speake lesse here because I shall handle it in the second generall head of the grace offered in this Sacrament Vse Onely this one thing I adde here that the broken body and bloud powred out of Christ is offered thee in this Supper to nourish thy faith in Christ crucified afflicted wounded for thee that hereby thou mightst draw strength from his Passion to suffer and overcome in him or for him whatsoever the Lord shall thinke good to lay upon thee whatsoever then thy Crosse be especially if bitter wearisome unusuall darke and tedious to be borne come to the fountaine of patience and victory the Lord Iesus broken for thee Hee hath overcome the chiefe dint of all crosses in taking the fire wrath and sting of sinne out of thy conscience and this is one maine helpe to settle a restlesse heart under deepe affliction that Christ broken hath taken away guilt and brought pardon and peace And secondly having so done hee hath overcome the force of the Crosse and hath brought patience selfe-deniall calmenesse humblenesse under the same into thee so that in him thou shalt be upholden endure and beare thy yoke not murmour not thinke long not use shifts but by the promise sealed by the Sacrament beleeve the Lord will in due season give thee beauty for ashes Esay 61 3. and the sweet fruit of righteousnesse and patience more sweet than the trouble was grievous These the Sacrament doth confirme and settle the soule in daily if Christ broken bee wisely applied and put on by faith To conclude all I say if the Lord Iesus Sacramentall be a broken Christ for all uses Vse 6 Sixthly how cursed is the condition of all such receivers as are yet to seeke of him in any benefit of his Sacrifice and Crosse Oh! how fearefull is the Sacrament to all such as never understood the Doctrine of Christ broken How shall they be the better for the Supper Oh! what terror should it worke in such consciences as can not by experience speake one word to their soule of the benefit of Christ in either Surely if the Lord Iesus broken were never given them no other benefit of his Adoption or Sanctification either in grace and glory can be theirs And by consequent that fulnesse of Christ which here is exhibited to the faithfull to save and refresh them becomes by their unbeleefe as unfruitfull to their soules as if Christ had never dyed nor Sacrament ever beene offered them For they are still the same neither good day mends them nor bad payres them for any pardon or grace that ever Christ broken could yet helpe them withall But for the third Act thus much Now the fourth and last ministeriall act of the Supper The fourth Act. The distributing is the distribution of it to the people with a charging them to receive it as from God For its expresly added that our Saviour having taken blessed and broken the Elements did give them himselfe to his Disciples He called them not about him and suffered them to serve themselves of them but dealt out both Bread and Cup to each of them and susteyning a double person both of the divider and of the thing divided charged them each and all to receive and apply them as the offer of God And to say truth to what end served the former acts save for this last Touching the severall distribution of Christ I doe not thinke that he did severally give it to the person of each disciple immediately but that reaching out the severall morsells he gave personally to them who were nearest and so by them he conveyed it to the remotest sitter till all were served And this he did not onely in the bread but in the Cup also as Saint Luke doth particularly mention and so the other 1 Cor. 11.21 Luk. 22.20 and Paul 1 Cor. 11. expresseth Now in this last act I consider two things Two things heere First personall Secondly peculiar application of the Sacrament For the former he would intimate thus much 1. For personall application that the Minister in his reaching out the Elements to each receiver is the hand of the Father applying the Christ of the whole Church to such a man and such a woman in person And as each communicant susteines a double person eyther of membership as hee is belonging to the whole body or of person as he is to answer for himsefe to God so in the former respect he communicates no other Christ than the Christ and head of the body and so calls God our Father and Christ our Christ seeing he hath no right to any Christ save in the Communion of Saints By vertue of which he approves himselfe to be a true member of the body clayming no right to Christ otherwise than the Christ of his whole militant Church But in the second respect as each person or beleeving receiver stands in his owne place and receaves speciall grace for himselfe so hee calls God my Father and Christ my Christ and therefore comes not to receive any implicite Christ Iohn 10.28 or as the Church receives him but comes to receive him for himselfe in person for his owne pardon assurance peace support and so his owne as no mans else Each Christian hath
the Lord Iesus that so it might never faile nor wanze away any more Then surely it behooves that the Lord Iesus be as well the keeper of this life and the nourishment thereof as hee was the first the breeder thereof Answere 4 Fourthly the Father to this end must really convey into the person of Christ all such power and vertue as may enable him to be the life and nourishment of his members and therefore he must fill him with himselfe bodily and make him the treasury of all graces wisedome righteousnesse 1 Cor. 1.30 sanctification and redemption all good things necessary for the making of such as are not his to become his and such as are his to be more his or his in a more full and assured manner to prosper grow and thrive in him unto perfection Answere 5 Fiftly he must also qualifie the Lord Iesus with the gift of conveying this holy nature of his and this blessed nourishment of his unto his people and this he doth not onely by the union of flesh with God but especially by the death and satisfaction of Christ by which as by a wide dore he opened the treasure of life and nourishment which was in him and merited that the life of grace in forgivenesse and holinesse might be theirs and that himselfe in his flesh and blood broken and powred out might bee a most effectuall seede of life and foode of life to support them Answere 6 Sixtly to this end hee hath the authority to send forth the word of reconciliation and of nourishment unto his people and as by the power of vocation to call them from death to life that all who heare the voyce of God might live so also to create in their soules by that word of his Esay 57.17 the gift of faith to pull them to himselfe to unite them to himselfe and to convey his owne spirituall life by this union of faith unto them causing his blessed Spirit to concurre so with the word as to settle it upon them and having so done to give them this priviledge that they shall as truely bee maintained at his cost Iohn 17.11 be kept in his name be upheld in grace prosper in it be defended against all enemies within or without which might impeach this their welfare growth fruitfulnesse and perseverance as ever he bred life in them at the first Answere 7 Seventhly and lastly they receive by this priviledge as true right to claime plead for and expect the Lord Iesus to be their nourishment as the poore dumbe creature by the instinct of nature being brought forth runnes to the Damme for milke Or as the Infant comming forth of that wombe which gave it life cryes for the brest of the same mother and pleades to be nourished by her By these steps it may be conceived in generall how the Lord Iesus is made of the Father the true foode of his members The second question viz. How Christ is so in the Supper But as yet here is nothing of Christ our Sacramentall nourishmen Vnderstand therefore the Sacrament to stand in relation to the word of promise wherein Christ is made the poore soules owne to feede her As I noted in Baptisme so heere againe observe Christ in promise and Christ in the Supper differ not save in the manner and degree of exhibiting him out nourishment Looke then what the Spirit of the promise workes for the soule that it much more worketh by the Sacrament First persents the promises Take some instances First it presents the soule of every one truely bred with those choise promises of Christ her nourishment searching them out of each corner Tells her Esay 25. Esay 25.7 That the Lord makes her a feast upon the mountaines of fat things of wines refined and pure and the dishes of the feast are Christ in his graces plucking away the veile of darkenesse remooving death and feare bringing joy and peace Esay 55.1 Esay 55.2 he offers him in all kinds of things usefull and nourishing wine honey oyle bids her eate good things and delight her selfe in fatnesse In Pro. 7. Prov. 7.1 he invites her to his feast and provision of all choice dainties not for necessity onely but for fulnesse for delicacy for variety and delight for safety for durablenesse In Psal 23. Psal 23.3 hee leades her as a shepheard into his pastures streames folds guards her against dangers and death annoints her head with balme Cant. 4.13 and fills full her cup. In the Canticles he makes himselfe her husband to marry himselfe to her and bestow all at once upon her his garments smell of mirrhe Cinnamon and Cassia In Psal 84. Psal 84.11 he denies her nothing that is good for her either for light or defence in those Parables he makes her a feast Luk. 15.23 brings out the Calfe In Iohn 6. Iohn 6.55 tells her his flesh is not onely life but meate indeede and his blood drinke indeede And plainely saith They that live in him shall abide in him and out of their belly shall spring up waters of life they that eate him shall not dye but live for ever In Revel 3. Revel 3.18 he offers himselfe to her in all respects Attire for nakednesse Gold for poverty eye-salve for blindnesse himselfe a supply of all necessities How much more then doth hee leade her to this great Sacramentall promise mentioned in the Text This is my body given for you this is the Cup of the New Testament in my blood 2. Brings the fulnesse of Christ into the promise Againe the Spirit of the promise brings the Lord Iesus and all his fulnesse of nourishment into that promise the spirit of nature doth not so prepare the nourishment of the infant and seale it in the brest for more easie fastning than the Spirit doth settle all the fulnesse of Christ in a promise so that it offers it selfe to the hungry soule Besides 3. Puts the truth of the promiser into it it put the faithfulnesse of the promiser into the promise all the tendernesse and compassion of Christ to the wants of the Church and the truth of his meaning not to faile her in any good thing he can helpe her with Furthermore it strips her of all her owne strength 3. Strips the soule of her selfe tells her that although shee be borne of God yet except hee cleave to her as a feeder as a father a nurse a supply she cannot subsist shee will goe to worke else with her owne tooles and compasse her selfe with her owne sparkles Esa 50. ult and deceive her selfe with her owne trash shee cannot doe any duty get out of any temptation beare any trouble of her selfe without Christ shee can doe nothing Moreover hee sheweth her 4. Leads her to the sufficiency of Christ all her sufficiency is from Christ The worke and life of grace requires his daily hourely acting power in her to set it on
encrease in every true Receiver especially being assisted with other helpes inward and outward the mercies and blessings of God which as Talents are put to advantage for Gods glory The third degree Stablenesse in grace The third is stablenesse in grace Wee see that mens bodies in time by continuance of health and groth come to a pitch to a measure of groth This is a third prospering It is not with the soule as with the body which ceaseth to grow when it is at her pitch or declines rather when it is growne to her full point What it is But herein a pitch of bodily groth resembles spirituall that as the man growne to his full period enjoyes as it were himselfe and all his former yeares which he hath lived becomes now of a growing a growne man is come now to his best to his full strength ability and sufficiencie for service so is it with a Christian He growes in Christ to the measure and fulnesse of him Ephe. 4.13 Eph. 4.13 So that whereas before in his beginnings and proceedings hee found much ignorance in minde much error in judgement much infirmity in spirit much to seeke of direction and wisdome in his course Also much unsetled wearisome off and on up and downe in holy practise many combats and conflicts with his bubbling rebellious inconstant treacherous withdrawing spirit lo now it s otherwise now he is growne to some stay setling ripenesse and experience in Gods matters Heb. 5. Heb. 5. ult more exercised in his spirituall senses to put a difference betweene good and evill persons and things not so blinde as formerly but light in the Lord judicious observative sober in affections staide in minde and resolution Ephe. 5 16. 1 Iohn 2.13 Act. 11.27 1 Cor. 7.35 Ephes 4.12 having his heart at better bay and more awe for teachable subjection to God more firme in purpose of heart to cleave to God without disstraction 1 Cor. 7.35 not easily carried away by each Doctrine and dice-play of men not mistaking truths not slighting them not partially affecting them but moulded in them fashioned by them and keeping his fashion as a man would doe of his apparell against each noveltie So also constant setled rooted and stable 1 Cor. 15. last reade it not ungrounded in the foundation not to seeke when Satan buffets but knowing his devices 2 Cor. 2.11 2 Cor. 2.11 and also strong to resist couragious in the use of the Armour and so persevering in his course This is that which Paul Ephe. 3. cals Christ dwelling in the soule by faith as the Inhabitant who keepes in his owne Christ Sacramentall doth this Epes 3.17 is not as a Stranger or a Sojorner who comes and goes but a Ledger one that holds his abode and delights in his dwelling Oh! this is a great degree of Christs infusion and influence into the soule when he pitches there settles and dwels there for what else is the stablenesse of the soule in grace save Christs dwelling in it by his grace and is no flittet thence And this third degrâ—e of nourishment the Lord workes in all his who have attained the former two They come to be as the Scholler riveted into his Rules or the tradesman in the myrie of his occupation not to seeke of it It is the promise of Christ to all his that they shall grow up thus in the body not by any vertue of their owne but by the Spirit of the Lord Iesus their nourishment And to this end especially they cleave to this Sacrament and improve the promise of it This is my body This is my bloud even to settle the soule by the frequent receiving of it upon the Lord Iesus for stablenesse strength courage that they may enjoy the Lord Iesus in all the Sacraments they have received and retaine the power of all the Ordinances they have used all the graces they have growne in all the duties they have done afflictions they have endured examples they have seene workes and governement of God which they have marked I say that from all these the Lord would bring such an holy experience of heart resolution of purpose setling of spirit upon the Lord his threats commands and promises as not doubting but they are firme and sure Matth. 7 ult and therefore a rocke and foundation sufficient to rely upon in all windes stormes and weathers whatsoever This I say is that third degree of Christ our nourishment which each communicant lookes for at the Supper The fourth degree Fruitfulnesse in grace 1 Cor. 15. ult What it is The fourth and last is fruitfulnesse in grace See 1 Cor. 15 ult where the Apostle joynes these two last branches Be yee unmooveable and setled alway abounding in the worke of the Lord. Wee see it in plants and men The plants must be well spread and rooted in the earth before they can grow fruitfull at least in plenty A little roote will not nourish large branches and boughes Sometime the root is so bare and fleet that it will scarce furnish the tree with leaves but a large deepe root hath many strings and little suckers which worke for the tree and feede her with nourishment so that the roote abiding deepe aod fast in the earth the fruit is plentifull Wee know nature is never more fruitfull in the active principle of generation than when the strength of the body is well confirmed So then this is the last step of spirituall prosperitie when this fourth is added to the three former to wit fruitfulnesse in a good course And it is the perfection of that influence and communion which we here enjoy in the Lord Iesus our nourishment That meate indeede and drinke indeede is this abundance and fruitfulnesse When out of the abundance of the heart the tongue is fruitfull in uttering the hands in working the feete in walking the members in service the whole tree in bringing forth fruits of righteousnesse Esay 61 3. calles such accepted and beloved of the Lord as we esteeme exceedingly of bearing trees especially if yearely and plentifully It is from the roote of the Lord Iesus that the soule doth grow thus fruitfull The indwelling of Christ is the abundance of influence the lesse of Christ the soule hath the lesse sap and fruit the nearer the communion the greater the influence The greater the treasure is from which a man draweth the richer the supply We say It s sweet to take from a great heape An heape wil serve for all uses a poore unstockt man is easily perceived in his wares the small store and choise therof hee that hath little mony to lay out is bare in his household attire family diet scarse hath for necessitie but nothing for delight and plenty So is it with a man that is no prosperer in grace hath only froÌ„ hand to mouth he cannot verifie our Saviour his specch That out of the abundance of the heart he bringeth good things abundantly but
bitternesse Verse 23. save onely that lust hath chained up your senses and hearts that ye feele nothing amisse and ye doe but abide under this chaine Iohn 3 ult till the day of wrath and vengeance Oh that ere that wofull houre sweepe you to hell the Lord would awake you either by his Word or Workes to see in what a wofull condition ye stand Seeing the Church doth not excommunicate you oh that you would cut off your selves as Alians from this Communion Oh that your flesh might be destroyed and your jollity subdued that if possible your soules might escape in the day of the Lord 1 Cor. 5.6 Vse 2 Secondly let this be reproofe to such as goe for religious and perhaps may be so for wee cannot tell Reproofe but leave it to God and themselves to try to whom after all this long while of Sacraments the doctrine and mysterie of the Supper is both unknowne and untasted What juster complaint can wee take up among many than this that Christ the nourishment of his people is so little knowne Looke to it if the Gospell and the pearle hidden in it be yet hidden from you 2 Cor. 4 4. the God of the world hath blinded you with the ease and forme of an emptie profession that the glory of Christ should be still eclipsed from you Beware least there be not in you still a common heart a of the world which causes these spirituall things to be so harsh and unsavory With examination The first and that in five But to such as desire to be affected with their ignorance in this kind I say but this Examine and trie your selves about this weightie matter I meane the knowledge and use of Christ in the Supper and let this make amends for your ordinary egresse and regresse to this Ordinance without searching your selves I know right well Sacraments were never so common so monethly so ordinary and here and there Sermons or some kinde of preparative are made before them but who is he almost that knowes what Christ offers to be unto his truly bred ones the youth of his wombe in his Supper To whom are those flouds of Hony and Butter knowne Iob 20.17 which are in Christ for the soule that is starven and needs him Oh if Christ in the promises of nourishment were your delight your neede would make you seeke out and search after the seale annexed to the Promise that by it your bare faith naked and barren soules of the power of Christ to purge and sanctifie you might be doubly refreshed Tell me in particular Did it ever enter into you that the Lord Iesus serves to feede as well as to breede all his To nourish his in those graces of the Spirit which Baptisme hath begot in thee Doe ye know the way unto him by the Supper as to the Church by the path for making your Iustification Adoption Reconciliation more evident to your soules Doe ye lot upon it that there if any where even at the feast of Gods mountaines the broken peace of your consciences the joy of your soules the confidence contentation and liberty thereof to goe in and out with God is to be revived Why make ye then no more use hereof Why doe Sacraments then as clouds passe over your heads leaving so few of these drops upon them Oh! if you knew the gift of God truly that here is the fountaine for you to drinke at Ioh. 4.10 to quicken and enlarge the graces of the Spirit faith love courage thankes uprightnesse mercy patience and fitnesse for the Crosse all which you so infinitely want how could it be but that honest and good hearts would presse in for a childs portion as oft as God offers it Who shall beate ye off from this house of Gods provision if ye were privy to those bare walles at home from whence yee come If it could but sinke into you indeede that there is no want no disease no sinne temptation let enemy Crosse but the Lord Iesus hath there a supply for Physicke ease strength redresse Oh! a man might as soone rate a Begger from some great house of almes as discourage you from the Supper If there the Lord Iesus emptie his treasures of wisedone and direction for the order of your tongues marriages families companies buyings and sellings and so to make your whole round of conversation sweet reformed Oh! how is it possible that yee who complaine so much of your wants in all these should not come to Christ here as those sterven Leapers fell upon the full tents of the Aramites here catching up meat for hunger 2 King 7.8 drinke for thirst apparrell for nakednesse gold and pearles against povertie both for the present and for time to come But alas yee know it not Secondly trial in foure particulars Againe if ye shall say yee hope yee have got these in the Sacrament I answer I know some doe but seeing I speake to the body of Christians who doe not it cannot hurt any to try that also I may truly say All such as find Christ such nourishment to them may be knowne by their fruits Oh! they are healthy and prospering they discredit not Gods diet are not meager evill favoured surfited with ill humors pride ease the world revenge hypocrisie This Physicke and Diet of Christ broken and crucified hath given corruption her deadly bane more or lesse in point of reigning and deluding and defiling them they loathe to decline from Gods truth and the power of it the wayes of starters and revolters and time-servers are as vile to them as drunkennesse or uncleannesse They hold their own towars God in some poore sort and this pulse of God as it s counted although indeede restorative flesh and bloud of Christ is made flesh of their flesh and runs in their veines and ministers vigour spirit and life unto them to keepe them in Christs body in the midst of all the pollutions and declensions and coolings and cursed examples of this world Secondly this Supper of the Lord Iesus battens and makes them thrive in grace makes their grace more more savory better qualified enlarged in measure more humble meeke patient and heavenly than when they first beleeved This grace of the Sacrament heales them of an hide-bound heart dead and stale weary and ready to stand still in grace Every Sacrament addes a little of Iesus Christ his tallnesse thicknesse depth and makes them increase in favour with God in credit with his Church to reach further than formerly they did and to be enlarged in holy abilities for God and his Service loathing to stand still as much as to bee quite dead Thirdly they shall find it by their setlednes of spirit and holy purpose of heart to keepe the commandements Psal 119.57 and to cleave to the Lord as Barnabas saith Act. 13.27 Act. 13.27 They shall wax more rooted grounded both in truths especially the maine and in the
shalt eate this meat and drinke this drinke indeede never to decay True apprehension of the Promise first will cause it Say then thus Lord thou saydst seeke my face in the supper thou saydst come take eate What meanest thou but this that I should concurre with thee and bee of like mind consenting to thee that thou dealest plainely and speakest as thou meanest without hooke or crooke Oh Lord what should let me I am convinced that if thou hadst not meant well thy selfe and Christ might have spared infinite labour Therefore I consent Thou sayst take as freely as I offer be to mee as I am to thee play not the traytor 2 Cor. 6 11 12. Be enlarged to mee for I am enlarged Oh Lord so I am I beleeve I dare not distrust and descant and play the slave with thee but see cause why thy word should bee esteemed as pure true faithfull as thy selfe is I am the cause of my owne sorrow could I be to thee as thou to my soule my people as thy people my thoughts affections as thine Oh how happy I will strive for it So for obedience say as Peter Luke 5 5. At thy command I will let downe I will take thy Sacrament Alas what villany were it to thinke thou shouldst seeke thy good in it and not mine should not I creepe and crouch for it rather than urge thee to command mee Nay should not I feare that if I disobey thee in thy charge thou wilt threaten mee with condemnation for not discerning thy meaning Oh! I obey with all gladnesse Give power to doe as thou bidst and I will doe what thou wilt And to end this point deny thy selfe and come in the sence of thy utter perishing to the Lord for this grace of the Supper Come to the Lord with that speech which the Israelites were bid to come to the feast of the Lord Deut. 26. verse 5. A perishing Syrian was my Father So come with a soule in love with his dainties and like to sterve for want of them The drowning man hath the most Taking hand of all the most catching fastening hand of all 2 or 3 of his fingers will take more hold than an whole hand of one that is well enough bee it never such a paulsey-hand trembling and shaking yet if a taking hand it is the hand which Christ calls to his body and blood The latter work of faith 2 Branch Application of faith is the application of the grace offered unto thy soule for the gaine thereof When thou hast beleeved the promise once doe as hee who hath bought and payde for his bargaine incorporate thy selfe into the benefit of it and apply it to thy selfe Take the Lord Iesus thy nourishment so as he may in truth really nourish and doe thee good in all thy whole soule in all the powers of it in thy whole body and all the members and in all thy whole course of each part and service thereof See it bee well with thee in all that thou prosper in all and blesse God for faith when thou feelest her carrying from this body and blood of Christ Layd out by a similitude in 4. Branches into every faculty and member of thee Faith in relation to Christ in the supper may bee compared to the Nourishing soule and her naturall faculties in man and that in foure particulars 1 Faith Sacramentall resembles the stomacke in the body The stomack we know so takes the nourishment 1. By the stomacke as that it unites it to it selfe and alters it in the property that it may become her owne and beginne to loose it owne forme that it may put on a new Till the stomacke have thus held closed and digested the meate lo it may bee voyded up againe This is the first worke Faith takes the Lord Iesus and closes with him puts him into the stomacke of the soule digests him there unites him to it selfe suffers him not to depart away from her as he came but holds him makes him hers and alters him in some degree for her owne Nourishment When the hand takes Bread flesh drinke to put it in the mouth lo its true meate in it selfe but not the bodies as yet but if the stomacke have once layd it in close lo it ceases to be bread and flesh and beginnes to bee the stomackes and to undergoe a due change that it may afterwards bee the bodies food The Ivy doth not so close with the tree or the Misle to the Appletree for her owne end altering the juyce for her owne use as faith Sacramentall alters Christs body blood makes it another turnes it into matter prepared for her selfe Faith truely saith by vertue of the ordinance and Spirit of the same loe This body is mine my meate I lay claime to it this blood is mine All the grace of the Sacrament is mine I clare not leave it behind mee for it s given for mee as meate for the body And as the stomacke closes with meat as her owne so doth faith with the Lord Iesus for why By as due right this nourishment is hers Secondly faith is like the naturall Appetite in the body 2 By Naturall Appetire wee know such is the Nature of that facultie in the healthy and stirring that there is alway a passage from the stomack to the veynes and so the appetite is cleare the stomacke kept cleane and fit for continuall Attraction of new nourishment So is faith in the soule it holds the soule in such perpetuall holy motion and passage of old nourishment that it is alway healthy and empty and open to receive in new Perpetuall expence of nourishment prepares her appetite to new refreshing The soule that is desirous of meat by starts and fitts is clogged and makes not away with the former but when the use of nature hath conveyed one meale away and spent the strength of one lo the veines grow very attractive and pinch the stomacke to covet more and to bee in perpetuall appetite Faith is the stirring work-man or hous-wife in the soule never surfited with humors or clogged so with distempers but that shee retaines some sweete appetite after new refreshing Otherwise Christ yesterday to day and for ever would grow fulsome and wearisome with her but by this meanes the appetite is in continuall health and temper ever sending forth supply for new dueties occasions of the heat and life and therfore ever capable of new nourishment with delight Hence it is that though the meat bee not much which shee takes yet she thrives merveilously and a little in an haile stomack goes a great way how much more then when hunger makes her feed fully Thirdly faith is like the great carrying veine in the body 3 By the carrying veyne from the liver the fountaine of blood and nourishment and to the smal veins in the extremities of the members For as the one derives the blood into each part by a proprietie of nature
secretly distributing the masse into severall parts according to their variety of substance and need so is it with faith she comes to the masse and full heape of blood and nourishment she finds an hoorde of fulnesse in Christ and there fastens her pipes and veine of conveyance and thence she carryes to the uses of the soule whether for blessings a sober thankfull heart or for crosses an humble meeke beleeving and confident upon the promise of Christs protection heer shee layes in grace to rule her selfe well in marriage then in family in hearing in prayer heer shee catches at grace to resolve her doubts to bane her corruptions to better her conscience to comfort her in forgivenesse none comes amisse as the need and measure of each part requires so she drawes and derives from Christ her wisedome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption And looke how the distribution of nature doth by secret instinct derive meete juice for each part not that to one which is the others due but the tenderest to the most fleshly and the viscous or course to the stiffer as muscles and joints so is it heere the derivation of faith is wiser than of nature And the veines of last concoction Secondly having so done the lesser veines neerest to each member to bee nourished by the heate and concoction of it doth turne this proper nourishment into the substance of the nourished that both may be one and this is the eminent worke of faith also that turnes the Lord IESVS into the beeing of the soule spiritually it doth not only carry meet juice to the part leaving it there unapplyed but makes the meat and the member one The Lord Iesus by faith dwells in the soule inhabites it is one with it bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh and by his owne strength prayes heares meditates in her by his owne strenght patience love humilitie puttes an influence into her for the like so that of his fulnesse the soule hath grace for grace yea Esay 26 He doth all her works for her and in her hee is afflicted and suffers with her rejoyces in her and shee sayeth Now live I yet not I but Christ in mee Lastly faith is like the naturall soule her selfe in her Operation 4. By the Natural soule for as wee see men well fed are fit for worke so is it here Faith exercises the grace of the soule received from CHRIST Sacramentall in the severall passages of life concerning each mans calling Looke how it is with ten men that have bin wel fed at one feast although they have 10. several workes to doe yet they go cheerfully about them the plowman to toile the Merchant to project the Scholler to his study the traveller to his journey the workes are severall but the same feast affords strength and cheere of body and spirit to each of them for the menaging of his taske even so 1 Kings 19.8 in the strength of this cake and water this Lord Iesus his body and blood the refreshed soule goes about every lawfull service which the Lord calls her too One hinders not another But there is enough in Christ to fulfill all and to fit each for his taske So that if he be put on well as the Apparrell lo in the warmth and comfort of it the soule is ready to goe from duty to duty from her rising to her lying downe who of her selfe was good for nothing And thus she boasteth 1 Cor. 1.30 boasts of the Lord and sees that as her selfe cut off from him is as the branch that withers so all her sufficiency is from God and as the sea sends forth al l waters and receives them so doth the Lord receive from faith the honour of his al-sufficiency These few things may serve for a draught of this Truth how faith Sacramentall applyes Christ to be her Nourishment having taken him in the Promise Vses Now I conclude with breefe use partly of admonition and partly of exhortation to all Gods People First be warned against the lets of this Application Admonition in many Caveats Beware least thy vaine heart bee seduced by Satan to forsake the Lord in the plaine way of his ordinance as if because it is seely to fleshly shew therefore thou stumbling at it shouldest be carried from that which should doe thee most good to do thee most hurt Helpe thy hand of faith by the hand of sence assure the one by the other but hurt it not Resolue to get the Lord by his owne way Misse not the gripe and hold of a Promise for a shaddow of thy owne conceit Let not wandrings of thy mind suspicions and jelousies against God and thy selfe the guilt of old receivings the examples of the common sort of Communicants who make a custome of going as they come the temptations by thy owne unworthinesse emptinesse and basenesse carry thee from the steddy beleeving of the promise Tye not God to thy girdle rather fasten thy Boat to his Barge to be carried by the motion of it Nourish not an evill eye against others that they grow by their receivings and prosper but not hou Turne envy into faith and the fulnesse of him who hath blessed him can also satisfie thee Let not an evill heart of unbeleefe possesse thee to thinke the Sacrament will proove no better to thee than it hath bin rather thinke it s the way whereby GOD hath appointed to break through the pikes therefore the Lord will not suffer thee to live so barren as formerly Thinke not basely of CHRIST as if hee oversaw all thy sorrowes wants lets doubts annoyances corruptions temptations as if hee cared not that thou still welter in them and get not out Although they have continued long 2 Pet. 3 8. yet know a thousand yeeres with him are as one day hee hath a day of salvation an accepted time and will one day pick out speciall Sacraments and by them speciall graces for speciall needs cure thee of all the deadnesse world hollownesse pride and selfe which is in thee if thou mourne under thy burden say Corruption shall downe and grace shall outlive it and I shall yet see better dayes and best at last though I feele little seeing GOD hath saied it I beleeve it Doe not appoint GOD his measure nor his time but wait and try thy patience perhaps GOD lookes for it Light is sowne for the righteous let them waite till it come up Such health growth stayednesse and measures as God hath alotted thee shall bee thine that Demensum which thy wise steward sees best is better for thee than a greater Thou hast no promise of such a measure but of grace sufficient If thou hast any dram of it know its pretious thou art not worth the ground thou goest upon the breath thou drawest and wilt thou carve for thy selfe in the degrees of grace Vse 2 Exhortatiō Secondly and lastly come and bring thy faith to Christ thy nourishment and
not for the fruit Vse all these in their kindes but enjoy these and in so doing ye have the perfection which nothing else can and these doe affoord to the soule But heere yee will say is the difficulty I answer I will point briefely at two or three branches of direction and so conclude Directions for it three The first delight in God Psal 37. The first is this Delight in the Lord for this perfection of soule-content which he offers in his Christ The perfection of love is joy let him have perfect delight of thy heart for his perfect nourishment If David said well Delight in the Lord and he shall give thee thy hearts desire how much more then set thy heart upon him when he hath already done it that hee may doe it more Vse the Ordinances of Word of Prayer yea of this Sacramentall Christ our nourishment as a stirrop to get up into this full safe pure and durable object of delight in the Lord his Christ and Spirit who when all these poore helpes which serve to proppe up a Pilgrims travell as so many baiting-places till he get home shall faile yet shall be the eternall delight of the soule in glory Beginne this complacence and well apaiednesse of heart heere and if it be hard pray to God to give thee a judicious heart to understand the weight and worth of the things and to delight groundedly in those things which are best approved of God to deserve it As if a Iueller assure thee of the value of a pearle he neede say no more And pray also that all thy affections may follow love joy feare to forgoe it sorrow if weakened and all the rest as in a Gentlemans house let the Master welcome a stranger and all the servants will striue to doe the like Beseech him that his Spirit of comfort by faith may not only shew thee the good things he hath given thee 1 Cor. 2 12. 1 Cor. 2 12. but shed a lively sweetnesse and joy in them into thee so that as the Vine said Iudg. 9 11 13. Thou wilt not forsake this thy fatnesse and sweetnesse for any thing Beseech him to purge thy conscience from all creeping defilements of thy selfe world Satan or crosses which might dampe it and so raise up thy soule by them above all this earth which might eclipse it If it be an heaven upon earth now and then to beleeve a promise to savor a Truth to receive a Sacrament to be in good company to resist a lust to revive a grace what should he be who is all these and whereby should the heart be sooner raised up to him than by that which makes all this good cheere the Sacrament of the body and bloud of the Lord Iesus Oh! maintaine no melancholy distrust against this But as Hanna 1 Sam. 1. 1 Sam. 1 1â— when she had heard Eli was quite another and wept no more so be thou Peninna still was a chokepeare and so shall there never cease some thing or other to correct thy content but yet Peninna now was no more thought of Remember if food and gladnesse alway go together as Act. 14.17 Act. 14 17. How shalt thou hold up thy face before the Lord of this feast if thy sad heart poison it Secondly 2 Maintaine communion with him adde thiâ—â—s maintaine this Communion with God daily As the influente of Christ in the Sacrament is a speciall peece of our communion with God so when wee are gone it should make us fond to hold it that wee might bee as it were drunk with the wine of his cellars and the pleasures of his house That so wee may keepe a communion with him daily from Sabbath to Sabbath and be alway breaking bread and receaving as those disciples at Ierusalem who attended the comming of the Holy-Ghost David was so ravisht with that hee felt in the house of God that he saith had I but one thing of God this it should be Psal 27. That I might behold his face in the beauty of his Temple and holinesse and yet he might never come into the Priests Sanctuary much lesse rhe Holy of Holies to see the merciseat and the Arke under it covered with glorious Cherubins which wee may doe daily This is to spend our whole life in Gods House Psal 23. ult Psal 23 6. Not to be never out of it which old Anna her selfe could not but to retaine that savor of immortalitie and hope of eternall life which the communion of Saints in the world and Sacraments doth breed in the soule Oh the smell of these spices in the garden which the North-winde of the Spirit doth afford to our nostriles Cant. 4 16. Cant. 4 16. should so perfume us as all other fellowship should stinke unto us as no douht Peter his nets did and all the world when he was with Christ and Moses and Elias upon the Mount and would have built three Tabernacles Math. 17 4. and said It is good to be there As those brutish ones longed When will the Sabbaths be gone and the new Moones be past meaning those feasts of continuance for weekes so shouldst thou long for them When will they come And with David Psal 84. Psal 84.3 Oh my heart fainteth and my feete long for to goe to thy Temple How rare are such in these dayes in which though our cups and vessels be of silver and gold yet our receivers are wood and stone for the most part and such as savor not this bread of life and food of Angels How should we be afraid lest this Idoll of forme eate up all as those leane Kine in Gen. 41 18. Gen. 41.18.16 20. and lanke eares devoured the fat and full ones Where is hee who so comes to the Sacrament as loth to leave it and to goe into the aire of the world againe I â—â—mmend not the excesse of these old Monkes who forsooke the course of the world for to live alway in holy services But this I say few such there are who doe so much as hold any savor of this communion of Christ Sacramentall a few dayes after Oh! then such as have found this hoord of grace in the Supper keepe it daily also that it may attend ye fortie dayes till the Mount of God Directions for it Therefore let our daily course hold this communion But how may some say I will adde one or two words of direction First in the due exercise and quickning of the graces of the Spirit within us both the life of faith in all estates blessings and crosses in all meanes ordinary and extraordinary in their season as well as the Supper all having their particular use also in all duties of both Tables and the fruits of this faith I meane the graces of hope love to the Saints the partners with us in this communion Psal 16 2. Psal 16 2. and patience humilitie courage thankfulnesse and the rest of
is for the King so should our triall be faithfull because it is for the King of heaven It s for his honour and yet also for our comfort to be true to the Lord and our selves Else wee shall finde as wee binde and the Lord will be froward with the froward Phil. 18 25 and subtill with the subtill The Sacrament will not afford that peace to the false which it will to the faithfull with the true honest and plaine the Lord will bee good and plaine If sweete gainefull or naturall corruptions bee so incorporate and beloved that wee are loth to search them out and like Laban search every where Gen. 31 34 35 save where our Rachel sits upon her Idoll the Lord will leave us to our defilement and deprive us of the fruit of our triall Now that our triall may be honest observe two things First nourish tendernesse of conscience and uprightnesse Ofttimes many a secret evill of smaller consequence may annoy some man even a glance of the heart or eye when as a grosser evill will not touch another It s not easie for one that hath his glove on his fingers to take up a needle or a little pinne which the naked hand will easily doe The tender eye will water and twinckle at a mote falling in it as if some great hurt befall it and the weazand will streine at a gnat Secondly be willing to take any helpe which may further thee in thy search Sometimes a faithful friend who observes thee a stander by may sometimes see that which a Gamster spies not Sometimes it will not be amisse to see and reade thy owne triall in the booke of a Crosse for each Crosse hath her superscription and will either tell us what grace the Lord would try or what sinne he would correct yet I say the best trier is our owne conscience and experience 5. Direct Lastly let our triall be Direct aime at the end of thy receiving the Sacrament and the reviving of thy faith or thy repentance of evill Search out in thy selfe either those spirituall graces which are most like to further or those evils which are in directest opposition to a comfortable receiving the Sacrament The Sacrament is a most spirituall communion with God spirituall evils will most choke it as infidelity hypocrisie apostacy unthankfullnesse falling to the creatures let these and such like be most pursued Contrarily the most spirituall graces doe most chearish it as daily faith in the Promise both of pardon and holinesse purenesse of heart heavenlinesse of minde selfe-deniall humblenesse thankefulnesse and such like be sure to finde out these and so thy search will stand thee in best stead toward the end thou aimest at And thus much for those properties of Sacramentall triall according to which the particular object is to be framed as in the following discourse shall appeare Vse 1 Now for the Vses of the point First let it be terror to all such Terrour as for all this dare rush upon this holy feast with unwashen hands and with profanation or neglect whether presumptuously or carelessely without triall Be it knowne unto you ye take the Name of God in vaine in an high degree and are guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord as tramplers of it under your feete and crucifiers of him the second time therefore he shall not hold you guiltlesse You boast much that ye have received to day and eaten your maker as the Papists say but ye have eaten and dranke your owne bane and poyson This Sacrament shall bee as that cursed water was to the belly of her who being defiled durst come to drinke of it as if innocent 2 King 5. And as Elisha said to Gehazi Went not my spirit with thee when thou runst after Naaman So Is not the Spirit of Christ privy to thy profane neglect and bold adventuring being in thy sinne Although the Lord come not really to plucke thee from thy fellowes in open vengeance yet be sure the Sacrament shall be as Iudas his sop to harden thee in thy sinne and seale thee up to impenitencie and damnation Once a Monke did villanously poison a Christian Emperour with the wine of the Chalice but thou poisonest thy selfe How much greater is thy villanie Therefore although I scare thee not from receiving utterly to which by nature thou art prone enough yet for the present I admonish thee abstaine till tried and examined But perhaps thou wilt object Object Alas I doe come indeede for I am commanded to doe so by God and by the Minister I answer Answ So were the Israelites bidden to goe up against their brethren of Benjamin But yet the Lord smote fortie thousand of them when they went Hee who approved the justice of his owne will that sinne should be punished yet punished them Iudg. 20.20 even them who went about it being themselves as guilty The question is not about the doing of the duty but the right manner of it So I say to these that Gods Sacrament be received is necessary But who are they that are fit for it God hath no such neede of Sacraments that he cares not how they be received But most righteously hee urgeth the duty yet punisheth the ill doer Thou wilt still cavill and say thou hast oft done thus and are not yet stricken from heaven I answer the more is behinde the Lord can smite with dumbe strokes in a worse manner But dost thou so abuse his patience and heape up wrath to thy selfe But thou wilt say I will abstaine then and so I hope to escape for this charge concernes no other save receivers I answer thou excusest a fault with a crime thou canst not thus escape for God shall judge thee for both not comming and not preparing But thou pretendest that its hard to trie thy selfe and thou art ignorant hast no gifts Well yet be admonished Wisdome is easie to him that will understand thy ignorance comes not from seelinesse but wilfulnesse Those whom thou canst mocke as simple ones can yet remember and repeate all these directions And hast thou lost thy wisedome in this businesse Oh! but thou saist I am forgetfull Why Save that thou hast no heart for thou canst remember any quarrell or wrong to revenge thy selfe But thou wantest leasure Alas the Trevant complaines of an ill penne inke and paper But the fault is in his sloth else all were well For why Thou canst finde a day in a weeke spare to hunt to game to drinke to be in company to sit in the alchouse if thou carrie thy corne to market thou dost somewhat else besides thy businesse and so if thy heart stood to this worke thou shouldst finde leasure enough for it too But thou saist Few doe thus and thou dost but as the multitude Shall number and companie qualifie thy judgement in hell If thou wouldst bee loth to suffer with them be loth to sinne with them And to end this use breake off
unknowne language Iustly therefore both fall into the ditch of perdition What one of a whole assembly knowes for what cause he is met Or what doth hee expresly beleeve about the Sacrament either touching the ordainer the matter the forme the end And put case they all knew that which Popish doctrine tels them concerning a Sacrament yet how much better were it for them to be ignorant of it than to know it So that both their knowledge and their ignorance are accursed I cannot thinke of a Popish Assembly but that description of the Poet of the house of the Cyclops comes to my minde wherein all darknesse and confusion dwelleth so that no man can tell what another saith And how can they chuse when no man in speciall knowes what he beleeves but wraps up his blind faith in the faith of the Church and yet hath no guesse what his Church beleeveth Aad yet more wofull it is to thinke that many of us who have lived in the light of the Church of God doe hasten to nothing more than to such Popish scurfe and filth being weary of the dazeling of Sun-shine Vses 2 Secondly let this bee terror to all blind and ignorant receivers of the Sacrament Terror which God knowes swarme through the congregations of this our kingdome Not to speake of the thousands that live under no meanes of light who are rather to bee pittied that they discerne not the right hand from the left whom God in due time prevent with light ere the besome of his wrath sweepe away them and the causers of their misery Iona. 4 ult what shall I say euen of the tayle and scurffe of those places which have long lived under cleere knowledge of the word and Sacraments and yet through an incorrigible disease of ignorance are yet as farre to seeke of knowledge as if they had lived among the wilde Irish Such a wretched fagge end of people there is in the best places whom no sunne will tanne no heate will warme Neither good meanes amend nor bad payre but as the windmill sayles ever moving but never stirring out of their place so are they ever learning but never comming to knowledge As for the doctrine of the Sacrament of the Supper it is as easie to catch an Hare with a Tabor as to make them conceive what manner a thing it is as if the Lord had branded them with his black-marke If the Gospell be yet hid it is hid to none but such as are lost Whose eyes the god of this world hath blinded that they should never see the light and be saved And yet which is worse who so bold so merry so quiet and so conceited that all is well with them Give them their red broth with Esau their belly full their lusts and pleasures and take the Sacrament who will If they once a yeare at Easter do receive with others they thinke the holinesse of the time and the crowd of Receivers shall shroud them but as for any sence of what they doe what they want what judgement they rush upon for their cursed prophaning and trampling the blood of Christ under feete and not discerning the Lords body it s the furthest end of their thought To whom if they could heare I would say In Gods feare looke to your selves With Admonition Hos 4. This smooth streame of yours will carry ye to hell laughing ye are never like to know your sin of ignorance till it have brought ye into utter darkenesse and gnashing of teeth If any sence or sparke of God remaine and if ye bee not wholly forlorne and hopelesse consider this that if thousands of such as know the doctrine of the Sacrament yet for lacke of faith and love shall perish What shal become of you that obstinately and wilfully refuse so much as to know your sweete idiots life heere shall turne to the most bitter sence of wrath in hel there ye shall fill your selves with that ye have loved even lye in darknesse for ever and yet your darkenesse shall be rather want of comfort than of conscience for the light of that shall so gnaw ye for your contempt of knowledge that yee shall need no other hell than that within your owne bosomes Prevent it betimes therefore Vses 3 Thirdly this is Admonition to all ignorant ones to lay to heart and prevent the causes and steps to it and the lets of true and saving knowledge First let it warne all Ministers Admonition 1 To the ministers Parents Governors and guardians of others to consider the terror of the Lord and the sinne of not discerning of the Lords body That they tremble to be Accessaries to the damnation of their soules Say not They are old enough let them answere for themselves for if you informe them not if ye who are set over them know their ignorance see them running into the gulfe and stop them not Ezek. 3 18. 1 Kings 20 42. your lives shall goe for theirs their blood shall be required at your hands Let not sloth ease love of your owne pleasures and spending the time in riot and profanenes or else in a vanishing course of worldly busines and carnall liberties forestall your hearts and cut off occasions of teaching them the truth of God Catechise preach convince and informe them of all truths and by name of the Sacrament doe not turne the wisedome of Church to a snare If they reject your counsell lo ye have saved your soules they shall perish in their sinne because their soules were pretious to you and neglected by themselves And secondly 2 Branch To the people Admonition 1 let all sorts beware of this whirlepoole of destruction Take heede of those lusts which drowne yee in wilfull blindnes love of your money your drinke your filthy uncleannesse your pride and selfelove These will bewitch ye and in your bosome will cavill against the light and meanes of grace Herodias did not so hate Iohn Baptist as these lusts hate the light least they should be gastred Marke 6.25 Iohn 3.20 They know the absence of meanes is the oyle to their flame when there is none to controll or reproove they are alive and jolly But the word comming in their feast is marred they cannot be quiet and merry Beware of sloth and ease lothnesse to stirre alledging the way is long the weather bad businesse lying upon hand when in truth heart is gone and will is not at home Admonition 2 Beware of stumbling at the wants or sinnes of such as have knowledge Nourish no prejudice against the Ordinances and ministry That it was a merry world ere they came They cannot endure men should use any liberties They are worse themselves in secret than those they preach against They shall not tye us to their girdles c. I say abhorre all such errours of the wicked as foment this ignorance Admonition 3 Cast off all prejudice of knowledge as the tediousnesse and difficulty the
one body at once as selfe and Christ in equall termes to a soule The red earth had never had the breath of life put into it if it had not beene a meere dead patient and at Gods dispose to be as he would have it The flesh of Christ had no subsisting in it selfe save in the Godhead Rom. 11.32 and what is else that of Paul God shutting up all in disobedience that he might have mercy upon all Not of the willer or the runner but God c. Rom. 9.16 The Doctrine of imputation what doth it import saue that righteousnesse stands in counting that as ours which is none of ours What else is that of the Apostle Romanes Chapter 11. verse 6. If of Workes not of Grace Rom. 11.6 else Workes were no Workes If of Grace not of Workes else Grace were no Grace Trie thy selfe then by this Rule Triall by this Dost thou observe this backebyas of corruption in thy soule alway playing her parts and resisting grace Is this spirit of originall sinne as irkesome to thy spirit as the most odious sinnes of swearing or theeft Is it so much the more suspected by how much the more fine spunne and subtill running in the streame of thy best Religion Dost thou feele it in the Worke of the Law of the Gospell of Sanctification still resisting Grace and starting as much from the Word as the Sacrifice from the Knife of the Priest Dost thou wholly set thy selfe against it both selfe on the right hand deceiving thee with thine owne hopes and deserts and on the left scaring thee with feares of unworthinesse Art thou as well afraid of a white Divell as a blacke yea more Dost thou tremble to thinke that selfe should share with God in thy conversion Dost thou chuse rather to bee as base as dung and dogges meate yea when thou hast done all dost thou thinke thy selfe no neerer heaven thereby than if thou wert a Publican Dost thou confesse that there is no bloud no merit no congruity in selfe to purchase any dramme of grace And that it is just with God rather to seeke himselfe glory by abasing all flesh and carnall proppes than to suffer selfe to perke above him or mixe with him Yea canst thou say oh Lord I chuse to lie as the dust under thy footstoole and to be at thy pleasure as a fatherlesse Orphan to doe with mee what thou wilt yea when thou art under the deepest abasement and selfe-desertings and without a subsisting in thy selfe canst thou say Verily gladdly will I bee under this buffeting 2 Cor. 12.9 though it bee as a pricke in the flesh that Gods grace may bee another selfe and a new principle of comfort to stay my selfe upon Yea in this want of carnall stay I wait upon the promise to be my stay If it be thus in any true measure in thee it is a sweet signe The fourth ground I come to the fourth ground of trying faith to wit by the act of it The act of faith And that in two things First in the naked and free consent of the whole soule to the truth of God which is that he will ease the loaden soule comfort the mourning and satisfie them that hunger after righteousnesse Math. 5 4 5 6. The Lord requires that the soule simply relie it selfe upon this bare Word of his because he will performe it without descanting this way or that against it Esay 1.16 Psal 32 1. Secondly in the relying upon the meere and free act of Gods not imputing sinne or imputing righteousnesse to the soule yea a righteousnesse inhering in another and not in thy selfe The Lords act of esteeming and reckoning to the soule the righteousnesse of Christ is as reall an act as if hee had infused a reall habite of it into the soule to dwell personally in it as it dwelt in Christ Triall by this Trie thy selfe then by this rule thus First canst thou say truely that in the beleeving of Gods promise thou didst directly goe from a word to a word without adding or mixing the slime of thy owne conceits to defile the purenesse of it Didst thoâ— with Peter emptied of himselfe obey and say At thy Commandement Lord I will let downe though else I should not Luke Chapter 5 verse 5. Luke 5 5. Canst thou say oh Lord thou bidst a loaden wretch come unto thee to take ease as if there were no more circumstance in it than onely so Lord I have found my soule loden and pinch'd by thy Word therfore I come to thee for ease beleeving that seeing thy selfe art the Author of both words therefore thou who wouldst so really lode me canst as truely ease mee Canst thou say Lord in thy words is neither hooke nor crooke and therefore as I seeke to adde nothing to it so neither doe I detract nor dare I Revelation Chapter 22. verse 18. Rev. 22 18. Ephes 4 21. but take thy truth as it is in Iesus even truth it selfe subject to no exceptions or cavills of flesh I enquire not why thou dost it or why for mee and not for many hundred thousands that lie in their blindnesse still Secrets are for thee but revealed promises are for mee and therefore to thee I leave the one and claspe so much the more closely to the latter by how much the former is more above mee If thou canst find in thy heart thus freely to concurre with free grace saying Luke 1 38. Luke 7 30. Bee it to thy servant as thou hast spoken I dare not despise thy Counsell for my salvation or gainesay and give thee the lye but put my seale to thy word that it is true I say againe Iohn 3 3â— if in any true measure thou canst doe thus it is a sure signe And secondly if the Act of God in heaven justifying a poore wretch by his bare accompting him his righteousnesse when yet corruption abides in him exceedingly yea his perfect righteousnesse can so farre prevaile with thee as to say O Lord thy one witnesse and approbation of mee is to my conscience as a thousand though I neither see thy face nor can heare thy voyce yet O Lord I accompt my selfe as thou esteemest me even thy perfect righteousnesse in the midst of my greatest sinfulnesse and all because thy accompt is a done deede and my faith compts it done in earth because it is done in heaven I say this act of thy faith is a good signe The fifth ground is from the end of thy beleeving The 5 ground The end and that is that God may have the glory of his rich grace in saving a lost soule The last and full end of God in thy pardon and savation is not that thou mightst be happy but that himselfe might be glorified This the Lord so lookes at that all other ends are but second hand ends unto him although reall ends Try thy selfe also in this The tryall of this
all good signes of faith revived for the Supper Steppe 5 Fiftly try thy selfe by the testimony of a good conscience That will appeare by this It dares not equivocate and dally with God by serving him very studiously in one part of thy christian course but forsaking him in many but say thou with Paul Act. 23.1 I have exercized my selfe in all good conscience continually Try thy selfe then by this rule Triall by it thus Canst thou say as oft as thou art going to the Sacrament Oh Lord I make a shew of very solemne preparing my selfe and trying my faith when I goe to thy table But if it were onely my practise now at this time and at no other I should goe and come from thee with a sad heart No Lord I blesse thy name Gal. 2.20 I doe live by faith dayly I can say with Paul The life I live is by faith in the Sonne of God I appeale to thee who knowest that if I goe to heare the word I mixe it with faith if I pray I looke to my Advocate if I have a Crosse I live in faith in Christ for strength Heb. 4 2. selfedeniall and patience to support me if I prosper I beleeve all is pure to the pure and given me in mercy and in this faith thus trained and set on worke I humbly come to the Sacrament looking that as in other parts of life and of worship the Lord hath beene with me so he will not leave mee to my selfe in this 1 Sam. 7 12. Tell me canst thou say thus in truth be it never so poorely It is a sweete signe of a revived faith Steppe 6 Sixtly try thy selfe by thy Sacramentall experience The Sacrament being one meane of a Christians food and growth it becomes every one having communicated not by and by to vomit up his morsells but to digest the bread of life till hee finde it his owne blood of his veines flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone By this meanes every ordinance dwelling in the soule will adde nourishment to it and better it dayly which could not be if it bee forgoten as fast as it is enjoyed Triall by it Let thy tryall from hence be this Dost thou dayly quicken up thy selfe at each Sacrament in the memory and experience of former fruit received especially when thou hast found it sweetest unto thee at any season when thou hast felt thy selfe most emptied in thee faith most cleere and sensible thy soule freest from earth and sensuality and so of the rest hast thou kept this experience by thee as a childe holds a sweete thing in the palate as loth to forgoe it Dost thou by this tryall goe to the Sacrament afterward with more hope and expectation of the like Or if thou have found the contrary that thou hast had but a dead Sacrament of it what dost thou Poast it over and forget it hoping it will be better or dost thou record it often and use it as a spurre of greater care and serious dealing with God next time being afrayd to tempt him and yet loath to forsake him although hee should hold thee off still 2 Cor. 12 8. If thou canst thus revive thy faith by thy experience it is a good signe Steppe 7 Seventhly Gods people so oft as they draw neere to him in duties dare not rush upon him but first humble themselves in dust and ashes as most base wormes and corruption Genes 18.27 Then they pray for assistance in the ordinance meditate and conferre about the right doing Tryall and the fruit of it Try thy selfe then by this When thou goest to the Supper dost thou swell in the conceit of thy former strong faith Dost thou rush upon God without prayer or meditation Or rather dost thou jogg◠the arme of the Spirit as the clapper shakes the corne into the milstone that it may let fall the benefits of Christ out of the Sacrament into thy soule That thou maist come to receive with better savour and strength than thine owne Dost thou begge with the Apostles Lord revive my faith Luke 17.5 Lord make make it a sweet exceeding day Lord let not the meeting of profane blind receivers defile me Let the fellowship of thine Angels and my brethren refresh mee give me that I come for Lord and deceive me not Darest thou not through ease and sloath neglect the sanctifying of one ordinance by another Dost thou engrave the promise thus in thy heart and blow up the poore sparkle within thee It is a good signe Steppe 8 Lastly try they selfe thus Dost thou hold and close with this faith of thine thus revived till thou appeare before the Lord in the ordinance Sufferest thou not Sathan to come betweene thee and home the cup and the lip to rob thee of thy wedding garment but dost thou claspe it unto thee that it may not fall off till it have possessed thee with the gaine thou camest for Dost thou lay in too day now for the bread of the day And each Sacrament doest thou say Heb. 13.8 Christ Iesus yesterday to day and the same for ever It s a signe of faith quickned in thee So come and prosper So much for the latter tryall I conclude the Chapter with some use Conclusion And because the whole is one use of tryall which is the scope the shorter use shall serve I will not trouble the Reader with former uses as to mourne for the woefull faith of ordinary receivers or reproofe of Gods owne for counting this tryall tedious which God hath made a sweet yoake to his I will partly warne partly exhort partly comfort the good receavers and so end Vse 1 First then I warne them that they slight not this duty Admonitiō rest not in former faith thinking the Lord tyed to their girdles Tempt him not to alter his course by your sloth but hold on still this tryall of faith Remember it s the cheefe Sacramentall grace of all the rest All other without this are fruitlesse or counterfeit This must give both being and lustre to all Bring this and feare not The Divell will fight against this as the King of all If he can wrest this away he cares for no more because upon this hinge the doore turnes I meane the joy of well or sorrow of ill receiving hangs upon it Vse 2 Secondly be exhorted to bring this faith Dare not venture without it Exhortatiō Faith in the Supper answers the act of sprinkling the posts of the Israelites doores when they first ate the Passeover Exod. 12.21.22 Branch 1 Tell me Durst any Iew not sprinkle his owne doore with blood Durst he not as well omit the Sacrament Did hee not feare the destroying Angell in case of neglecting it Was not the promise of passing them over when all Egypts first borne were slaine in the doing of it Therefore as thou wouldest shunne danger of greater nature looke to
of this tryall both in Scripture and reasons For the former whereof First the Analogy of the old Passeover will proove it wherein sundry charges were given which typifie repentance and that in each part of it As wee know the sorrow and yrking of heart and mourning bitterly for sinne committed was urged under the ceremony of sowre hearbes Exod. 12.8 not onely to shew what it cost the Lord Iesus ere he could satisfy But to shew what they are who come to this Sacrament even such as peirced him by their sinnes Zach. 12.10 and therefore ought to come in bitternesse to the signes of his body and blood and eate this sweete meate with sowre sawce So also the Lord required a separation from the filthinesse of the heathen when they came to eate the Pascall Lambe Ezra 6.21 Ezra 6.21 yea from all legall pollution Numb 9.6 Num. 9.6 which as it concerned the Iewes alway in any offering or worship so especially at the Passeover And the Apostle 1 Cor. 5.7 1 Cor. 5.7 urgeth one other solemne ceremony of casting out leaven He that kept in his house any leaven at that time more or lesse was to be cut off Now least wee should thinke this to have lost his force under the Gospel he saith Purge out therefore all sowre leaven meaning their Communion with that incestuous man which sowred their holy assemblyes that yee may be a cleane lumpe even as yee are unleavened And why For Christ is our Passeover sacrificed for us therefore let us eate him with sincerity and repentance And the weaning and abstinence of the poore Lambe from the damme foure dayes before Exod. 12. â— typified no lesse than separation of such as worship God thus from the love of their sweet lusts and liberties that they might bee free for the Lord And when the Apostle urges the Corinthians to examine themselves 1 Cor. 11.28 what entends hee save that having defiled themselves by their love feasts they would search and cast out that sinne ere they came to the Sacrament Secondly from Reasons Now for Reasons First every ordinance requires repentance least the ordinance be defiled 1 Tit. 1.15 To the pure all things not onely meates are pure But to the impure all things both blessings crosses and ordinances are defiled The sinne of man can put no defilement into the things themselves but it makes them so to the sinners that use them It is a rule concerning both Minister people Esay 52.11 Psal 26 6. Prov. 28 9. 1 Tim. 2 8. Be ye holy that beare the vessells of the Lord. And I will compasse the Altar with washen hands And the prayers of them that turne their eares from the Word are abominable S. Paul requires us to lift up pure hands 1 Pet. 2 1. without wrath and doubting And S. Peter bids them that would heare to grow thereby to clense all superfluities away Epist 1. Cap. 2.1.2 Reason 2 Secondly no man can comfort his owne heart that hee hath saving faith except he have repentance Act. 3.26 Act. 15.15 But true repentance argues faith because it onely purifies the heart True faith workes by love 1 Tim. 1 5. and the end of the commandement is love from whence from a pure heart and whence is that from faith unfaigned Levit. 10 3. See Gal. 5.6 Act 24.16 2 Cor. 5.17 Reason 3 Thirdly the Lord will be honoured in all that draw neare to him None can honour the Lord in their worship save the holy and repentant Those that presume otherwise the Lord will be honoured in their destruction Reason 4 Lastly holinesse affords sweete confidence to the soule that it shall be welcome to God None shall ever see his glory without it Heb. 12 14. 1 Pet. 1 16. therefore none should behold him in his beauty of holinesse or in his ordinances without it Bee yee holy because I am holy These few may serve Tryalls of repentance But I hasten to the triall of it And first very breefely of the substance of it wrought in the soule 1 By the substance Tit. 3.5 This may bee tryed by the roote of it No repentance can subsist without an inward principle That is the spirit of renovation wrought by the word and Baptisme putting into the soule a seede of God and the image of God as farre as in these suburbes of heaven I meane in the militant Church may be obteyned Now for the opening of this to the Reader let him in a few points conceave and try himselfe about it First in the mother and nurse of it In sundry particulers 1. The mother of it That is faith shedding the love of God Rom. 5.5 into the soule being of it selfe destitute of all such list ability life or savour The Lord in reconciliation by faith becomes our sanctification God having freed us from our old yoake will put upon us a new most willingly which eases our heavy hearts and pacifies the conscience sets the minde in frame and shewes us Christ in his true and lively colours not a Christ of loosenesse but as the truth is in Iesus Ephe. 3 18. 2 Cor. 5.9 That having the roote of his love set in our hearts we may conteine his sweetnesse and it may let us on worke yea constreine us to doe the like to him Oh! How should this try us What is our repentance Is it a cutting off some shreds of evill or a pang of goâ—d devotion now and then in tempest thunder and lightning in our passion of feare or when God pleases us Or is it an inward workeman at the roote of our hearts and doth it engraft and inoculate us into his stocke Pro. 6 27. Doth it as a corner stone hold in and encompasse us that wee can more forbid fire in our bosome to burne us than the love of God to compell us to love him and turne our heart to him It is a good signe Secondly try it in tne materiall of repentance 2. By the matter Act. 26.18 It s a conversion or turning home to God from our Idols a setting of our face backward from evill and our backes forward to goodnesse and that in a contrariety As if a foole going on pilgrimage to Rome and her Idols should there be smitten and turned home with Naaman to the true worship of the living God This tryall will search also for the repentance of most is no such turne Men have rectified thoughts sometime of a good course and their sinnes yrke them and tyre them and cause them to ease themseâ—ves by complaints and turne aside from them in their accusing moode But it is with them as it is with Sea-men who can hold their course as well when they coast about as when the winde is on their backes So doe these their lusts keepe still in their spirit though they keepe them out of sight as David did Absolon 2 Sam. 14.24 forbidding him his presence
12.2 Rom. 12 2. Secondly the heart thus broken breakes out into confession 2. Confession and as Hosea saith takes words unto herselfe to expresse her sorrow Hos 14.2 for confession is the true vent of godly sorrow This confession is an uttering and powring of the heart out to God when once sorrow hath filled it to the brimme and therefore in all those texts almost where we have examples of sorrow confession followes immediatly Confession without this open full and affected heart is as saplesse and barren a thing and as unsavory a formality as can bee Onely this broken heart will breake out into open and ingenuous confession which else keepes the impostume within her selfe and hides it Thus David sweetely Psal 32 Psal 32.5 6. saith While I hid my sinne and nourisht an hard heart my bones were consumed and the fire burnt within mee But when my heart thawed then I acknowledged my sinne that is powred out my soule in confession and thou forgavest me the iniquity of my sinne This confession is sampled by the matter which is searched out and according to the sorrow which the heart conceiveth and by both becomes a most humble plaine tender and hearty expressing of sinne to the Lord not onely in the substance but the circumstances of aggravation It s no mincer or lesner of it but to the uttermost enlarges it against her selfe according to eyther the greatnesse the extension and effects the hainousnesse of it by the person committing it the person against whom the heart wherewith the time when place where and all to make up an ingenuous confession against it selfe Oh! that one under such meanes of mercy even in coole blood with the heart of a Traytor should with so high an hand with such spirituall wickednesse offend the Lord say it be by uncleanenesse by living in a course of unprofitable hearing hypocrisy formality vaine glory pride earthlinesse especially unbeleefe or as the case requires yea that I should sinne against such mercies and longsuffering of God leading me to repentance and that to the horrible scandall of Religion and hardning of many in the like sinnes Oh woefull wretch how shall I looke thee in the face Thus confession turnes up the bottome of the heart with shame and detestation yea treading it selfe under Gods feete as unworthy to breathe in his ayre or looke up to heaven and makes it selfe vile and odious comparing it selfe in her filthinesse with the pure eyes of God See the confessions of the holy men in Scripture Dan 9.8 Ezra 10.1 Ezra 9.6 Psal 51.3 Iob 42.2 1 Tim. 1 10. Ezra David Iob Paul and others confounded in themselves for their sinnes Thirdly the soule having thus arraigned and indited her selfe before God doth receive sentence against her selfe pronouncing her selfe by her guilt Thirdly sentencing herselfe to lye justly under the vengeance of God for her sinne and doth justify God in all his sayings that hee may be righteous whatsoever become of her Yâ—a shee brings her selfe even to the suburbes of hell as she deserves Psal 51.4 2 Sam. 24.17 looking at Gods glory above her owne redresse This exceeds any repentance of an hypocrite whose terrors and confessions are but to vomit up the morsells which loade the heart for the present but after are welcome This I say is the third step So to condemne her selfe as to applaud and justifie Gods sentence If hee say shee is a Traytor shee grants it if hee say she is cut off and accursed shee confesseth it righteous in all the Lords accusings and judgings shee prevents him and judges her selfe saying True Lord thy judgments are just If thou should'st make all my dayes miserable it were but just if all at once wrath should seaze upon body name minde conscience goods wife and children all were just yea whatsoever is not hell is mercy hell it selfe being but just and under this confuzion and heape of guilt and wrath shee lies as one held downe with it as one that lies under the ruine of some peece of building fallen upon and oppressing of his body As wee see oddes betweene a face made white with colours and appalled with a disease betweene a vizard and a countenance consumed and worne with lying bedred which though no man speakes utters it owne weakenesse And this spirituall subjection of a penitent heart lying under her sinne and shame the holy Ghost much expresses true repentance by saying of Ephraim Ier. 31.18 I was as an heifer that knew no yoake but after I was corrected I turned yea I smote upon my thigh yea I was ashamed and confounded because I bare the reproach of my youth This holds the pearking proud heart of man under the hand of God wholesomly and sometimes the anguish and confusion of the soule workes upon the body so David and Iob tells us Psal 32.4 Iob 33.20.21 Psal 6.6.7 that the wrath of God turned his moysture into the drought of Summer That his flesh was as a bottle in the smoake that it was consumed loathed deynty meate and was brought to the grave By which we must not conceive pangs of despaire but the wounds of the conscience under the guilt of sinne as sinne and wrath as wrath so much the more bitter by how much more susteyned by God in the hope of pardon for all true Repentance yea each seede of it presupposes some seede of true faith in pardon The fourth and last in this kind is Indignation and holy revenge of a mans selfe as his owne greatest enemy for his sinne The fourth Indignation Which followes upon the other because the soule that loves God hates whatsoever resists his righteousnesse and as it doth hath sinne in others so especially in her selfe because it knowes it selfe best which zeale and anger against sinne doth not onely stand in a meare pang of passion and distaste but even in a revenge of it selfe upon both it selfe and sinne and all instruments thereof in token of utter detestation And why because it meanes no more to meddle with it for if it did it could not attaine to this degree First it conceaves a true enmity against the sin simply as sinne and opposite to the Image of God be it greater or smaller and the deeplyer as it dishonours God most deepely This is a worke of the Spirit putting a contrary Principle into a man to hate that which he loved and love that which he hated a thing which to flesh is impossible for no man ever hated his owne flesh As it was with David that nothing could cause him to hate Absolon neither the murther of Amnon nor deflouring of his Concubines nor treason against his owne person so it is with a naturall man nothing can set oddes betweene him and his lusts the amity with them is so rooted When therefore true enmity is set betweene sinne and the soule that it can say Lord I hate it yea as my rankest enemy it s a
delight in the inner man prevent falls restore ye being fallen and cause ye to grow in grace more than ever Which if you had once tasted who should drive ye from the Sacrament Or should ye come to Church meaning to receive and to yet depart without it or which is worse give advantage to the divell and the world to set upon you the more fiercely by occasion of this defiling your selves No surely but be confirmed in comming the oftner the welcomer Vse 5 Fifthly and especially make we this Doctrine Examination a rule of triall to us about our Sacramentall repentance I have laid downe 3. grounds in this Chapter which might serve for this use to a carefull heart Likewise in the triall of our estate Chapt. 2. at the end I have said somewhat which sorteth well with this Point Yet least I should leave the Reader unsatisfied let me here helpe somewhat toward setting this triall on worke I will cull out some few leaving the Reader to apply the rest Triall 1 And first trie thy selfe by this marke Thou knowest the Sacrament is a reall setting before thine eyes the body and bloud of Christ slain and crucified Zach. 12.10 Now it was prophecied by Zachary that repentant soules should see him whom they have pierced and mourne How is it then with thee Dost thou mourne to see the Lord Iesus pierced at the Sacrament Dost thou as well take thought for him as for thy selfe Is thy heart broken to thinke how thy pride hollownesse and selfe-love have shed his precious bloud and beene the speare to pierce him I mean not that thou shouldst whip thy self for the cruelty of the Priests and Scribes as Papists doe themselves being as bad but that the cost of thy redemption doth abase thee and thy sinne humble thee even to hells brinke in thy owne sence And doth it deepely affect thee that thy sinne caused the Lord to lay such loade upon his Sonne Doth it make thy sinne truly irkesome to thee And darest thou not the second time crucifie Christ to thy selfe But rather carriest all thy beloved darlings to his Crosse that they may there lose their life and heart bloud sacrificing them in an holy recompence unto him Rom. 12. â— It is a good signe Triall 2 Secondly art thou willing by any meanes to be informed of thy sinnes not onely morrall but also spirituall those that doe most defile thy spirit and vexe the Spirit of grace Ephe 4.30 Is that Ministry most welcome to thee which carrieth in the spirit to search the depth of thy heart When thou canst overtake thy subtill heart and find out the turnings and trickes of it the farre fetch'd devices of it to keepe thee in such a course as maintaines selfe and fleshly ease destroying selfe-deniall and sincerity canst thou rejoyce as one that findeth spoiles Is it thy secret prayer that the Lord would set the righteous to smite thee Psal 141.5 And countest thou him a deere friend that will reprove thee Yea when thou mightest carrie a sinne slily and none the wiser hast thou one within thee that will give thee no peace till it be cast out And is secret sinne as base as open unto thee A blessed signe Triall 3 Thirdly is the uprightnesse of others the servants of God more highly esteemed by thee than thine owne yea than the opinion of others though they thinke never so highly of thee Feelest thou no bottome in other mens praises when thy heart tells thee they esteeme too well of thee And dost thou desire they might thinke of thee as thou art 1 Cor. 4.3 that they might as well pray as praise God for thee as being privy that the greatest part of thy vertues are not the least part of thy corruptions Dost thou still see an excellencie in the members of Christ above thine owne And some such base stuffe in thy selfe as oft causes thy best graces to be in lesse account Rom. 7.24 mourning that thou canst not reach that measure in tendernesse jealozie of heart plainenesse and truth which thou seest in others It s a good signe Triall 4 Fourthly canst thou yet acknowledge that good which God hath done for thee with true enlargednesse of heart and without swelling Canst thou joyne humilitie with thanksgiving without prejudice to each other And although thou feelest when evill is present as pride selfe yet thou darest not bite on Gods glory in thy obedience because there will goe some scurffe of thine in the streame But thy heart prayeth Lord let mee shine still and honour thee but dash all shining upon my selfe and getting up into thy saddle by mine owne stirrops It is a signe of a wise and holy seeking Gods ends and that thine heart is cleane Triall 5 Fifthly dost thou love righteousnesse it selfe as righteousnesse be the thing and subject of never so small a nature And dost thou hate sinne as sinne be it never so little in thine eye Is the one precious to thee for that pure natures sake which it resembles and the other loathsome 2 Thess 5.22 because it is opposite to it It is a good signe Triall 6 Sixthly when thou feelest thy heart touch'd for thy sinne and humbled in prayer darest thou not stay there but proceedest to renounce it as seriously Or rather doth not thy tongue goe before thy heart So that when occasion is offered it seemes sweeter and welcomer than when there was none As Peter vowed to sticke to his Master when there was nothing to trie him but when there was Mat. 26 23.56 then to sticke to him was too hard and heavy to him If it be thus thou knowest not thine owne spirit Take an ensample Thou professest that thou darest not be unrighteous but it falles out that thou art convinced of some bad dealing now thou art willed to renounce it that is to make such a satisfaction as thou hast damnified not being thine owne judge but as they who are wise thinke best If thou be as free in renouncing when either shame by open confession or losse by restitution lies upon it it is a good signe else thine heart playâ—s bootie Triall 7 Seventhly are the sinnes of others the sorrowes of the Church as sensible bitter and laid to heart by thee Psal 119.136 as thy own And canst thou drown both other joyes and sorrows of thine owne in these And accordingly to thy affections so are thy prayers endeavours procurements for the peace of the Church and against her miseries and those that cause it And canst thou forget thy selfe and thy businesse for this purpose It is well Triall 8 Eightly dost thou rejoyce alway to be crossing thy selfe in those succors and supports of thy sinne which thy corruption suggests to thee if grace did not gainesay As for example findest thou thy selfe eager of base gain And when it tickles thy spirit canst thou in the chiefe of that sweetnes cut off thy hand and foote
and hatefull provokings and wrongs c. The like cavils wee have against all other actions of love as giving lending c. So in Law cases if we be led by the rules of necessitie quitting of our selves from injuries which else we could not also love of peace serving providence for the manifestation of right and although we be losers yet resting in Gods will and learning to deny our selves to be more patient and content to offer and waite upon him who will pleade our cause abhorring all covetous or reuenging ends of our owne Many more trials might have beene added but I referre the Reader to the former grounds to helpe himselfe Vse 4 The last use is consolation encouragement to Gods people of two sorts Branch 1 First to all such as walke in love Consolation and make it their path and way Many a good Christian will say I cannot boast of many evidences but this I thank God I can say that my heart goes with the cause of God to his religion covenant Ordinances I love the Saints c. My affections and endeavours go that way yea when I cannot goe yet I can creepe and methinkes the dogge of a good man is welcome for his masters sake I abhorre that selfe-seeking and selfe-love which reignes in the world I practise compassion and love to all both meane and great knowne and unknowne neere and farre off and my prayers are cast in as a lot among the prayers and petitions of the Church I desire no welfare save in hers and as she fares so doe I desire to doe Oh! rich soule be comforted The Lord hath set his marke upon thee and called thee Hephziba Esay 62.4 one in whom his soule delights his Love his Dove his Vndefiled one Thy name is as a precious ointment therefore the daughters follow and love thee By thine example many have lost their brutish and savage qualities and bene taught to feede with Lambes They say of the Panther that she hath so sweet a breath that she allures all the beasts to her thereby So that hereby she hath her name So is it with thee the savor of thy amiablenesse shall honour thee wheresoever thou becommest till at thy death thy workes shall follow thee Marke 14.9 Act 9.9.36 10.2 Though the Scripture be witten yet as the name of Mary that annointed Christ and Dorcas and Cornelius are in the word so shall thine be in the Church Oh! enjoy thy selfe and come to the Sacrament with comfort for the Lord Iesus stands there ready with open breast to welcome thee Branch 2 Lastly it may also affoord encouragement to such as feare themselves in this triall of their love And I confesse as the manner of the world now is there is so little practise of this grace to be seene that it were enough to quench the love of the first Therefore I wonder not to heare so many to complaine of crackes and flawes in their love and to see that men learne to halt of them that are lame to be froward with the foward sullen testy unkind and unthankefull with such as are so Thy complaining therefore of thy selfe is just yet beware lest hereby thou debarre thy selfe of the Sacrament Tell me then Art thou heavy to feele such scurffe in thee That thou carest not how others fare so thou canst sleepe in a whole skinne And that the practise of gentlenesse and mercy Iames 3.13 doth so hardly fasten upon thee Dost thou combat within thy selfe against all naughtinesse in this kinde and nourish the motions of that spirit which is pure peaceable gentle and full of goodnesse and beare downe the other as much as is possible Deceive not thy selfe and I dare not barre thee from the Lords Table Although thou hadst poore fruits to boast of yet sith our Lord Iesus hath not forgotten a promise of reward to a cup of cold water to a Prophet in the name of a Prophet Math. 10.42 I cannot exclude thee from the benefite of the Supper Onely take heede least thou catch at such an encouragement to any evill end that still thou maist keep thy conscience defiled with the like pangs yet venture to receive But let the Sacrament bring a speciall reviving of love unto thee the very sight of thy brethren at the house of God let it renue that poore sparckle that is in thee Heb. 12.25 Thinke that thou art come to the soules of merifull and holy men and art as in a corner of heaven while thou maist sit among them And if this encouragement belong to thee it shall worke kindely and not by contraries And for this use and the whole triall of love thus much CHAP. VIII Of the desire after the Sacrament and the triall theof WEe are now come to the last The 5. grace Desire Entry but not to the least of those five graces preparing for the Sacrament which is desire or longing after those good things contained in it Concerning the handling whereof I shall not hold the Reader long in the grounds of this grace as I have done in the former Because those points which serve to the opening of desire either concerning Christ himselfe our alsufficient nourishment or else the triall of our owne wants of both which I have both in the former and in this latter Treatise spoken shall not here neede any repeated discourse Onely my method shall be this 1 I will briefely speake a word of the object of this desire 2. I will prove the Doctrine 3. I will make use of it sundry wayes and therein if any thing may be added either for the procuring of or the triall of the soundnesse of this desire I shall mention it and so conclude Affections are strong and vehement things in their pursuite and not stirred up or provoked in us save by objects of great allurement and perswasion especially spirituall affections require eminent objects to raise up to improve them Natural affections of joy love hope sorrow feare or desire must have sutable objects to quicken them up otherwise they lie flat upon the earth How much more must it needs be so here in holy and divine affections whereunto our nature is lesse enclined and the flame for lacke of daily supply of oile and matter to nourish them doth easily decay and vanish Sacramentall desire and longing therefore must needs presuppose some more than ordinary object to excite and maintaine it else neither would a carnall heart easily rise to it nor it a good heart hold appetite and desire to it long together The object of desire is Christ Sundry wayes therfore it pleases the holy Ghost in Scripture to expresse this object to the eye of the soule The thing it selfe being in substance one the Lord Iesus the nourishment of the living soule in grace and goodnesse yet the eloquence of the Spirit appeares in no argument so great as in this one to wit the due laying him
out in his colors that the dead spirit of man might behold and esteeme him as an object well deserving her best affections Hence it is that in the Song of Salomon so many allusions taken from carnall objects of desire Much described in Scripture Cant. 6.5 are used to provoke the soule to the like spiritualnesse of desire As when he is brought in like an amorous bridegroome of choise personage beautie and proportion and that from head to foot as if some curious Absolon were to be seene in whom from top to toe there was no blemish His head lockes eyes lips body and all his liniments are painted out to us that it may appeare he is the chiefe of ten thousand The like course takes our Saviour himselfe Math. 13. ver 44 45. in the Sermons and Parables which passed from him wherein his chiefe drift is to magnifie grace under the name of the kingdome of heaven meaning nothing else save the power and efficacie of the Gospell offring to the soule his satisfaction and sanctification for pardon and life eternall And sometimes he compares himself to a pearle of great price which he who found sold all to buy it Also to a Treasure hidden in a field which so affected him that saw it that he bought the field it selfe to purchase it Hence also it is that both in old and new Testament the Lord expresses the grace of Christ by the similitudes of all kinds of creatures which either by their preciousnesse or by their usefulnesse doe draw mens affections Rev. 3.18 Psal 45. Luke 15. Esay 55.12 Of the first ranke are gold silver precious stones wrought gold robes apparrell and white linnen treasure ointments of the latter sort are bread corne wine oyle milke hony waters c. Not as if these were as good as grace but that hereby the carnall soule of man of it selfe easily snared with the love of such things yea meaner might understand that look what excellency is in al these together for the content of our outward appetite that infinitly much more is in this for satisfying of the soule sith all these are used but as shadowes to discover this And to say the truth let us marke well Illustration of it and we shall perceive one principall scope of Paul that chiefe of Apostles in all his Epistles is this to set forth the priviledge of Beleevers to be such as doth not consist in some shreeds but in admirable glory He would have us to know Christianity is not making a shift to rub through or some covering of our infirmities supply of some wants or clensing out the staine of some odious sins But an estate of excellencie choise welfare and curious contentation to the soule such as Adam at his best never enjoyed Reade these Texts Col. 1.9 10 11.12 Col. 1.9 where he speakes of a beleever thus as That he may be filled with all spirituall understanding That he may walke worthy of the Lord unto all welpleasing That he may be fruitfull and encreasing in the knowledge of God That hee may be strengthened with all might unto all long-suffering and joyfulnes So Eph. 1.17.18 Ephe 1.17 he desires that They might know the hope of their calling the rich inheritance of the Saints and the glorious power of Christ mortifying them and quickning them by the power whereby he raised himself So Eph. 3.17 Ephe. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that being rooted in love ye may comprehend the bredth and depth c. and know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fulnesse of God See also Philip. 3.3.10 Phil. 3.10 I count all things but dung in respect of the excellencie of Christ The power of his resurrection the fellowship of his suffrings and conformity to his death Nay in one place he saith Col. 2.9 10. Col. 2.9 2 Pet. 2.1 2 3. That in him we are compleate Saint â—eter also witnesseth that Christ is no bare gift but that The Divine power hath given us all things pertaining to life and godlinesse through him To what end do I heape up these Surely that the Lord Iesus his excellencie rests not in himselfe but is derived to all his members and that to the end that he may be all in all with them and winne the honour and love of their affections Sacramentall desire must have her object To come a little neerer then to our matter in hand it must be some eminent object in the Sacrament which must draw the soule to it in this Sacramentall desire It must be more than the eye can see for that 's no object of any affection at all scarce so much as a naturall appetite But what is that Surely that spiritually which the Elements resemble naturally I meane full and compleate nourishment If the soule can see this it will draw desire without question Now we know that Bread and Wine united containe in them perfect food and cheerishing to the whole man that is to the body and spirits of nature Even so Christ our nourishment in the Sacrament is comepleately so to the soule both for renewed peace and holinesse And to open this wee may see when the holy Ghost lights upon Christ Sacramentall he forgets his ordinary stile and rises into an unusuall one Pro. 7.1.2 for then it makes the Father an extraordinarie great housekeeper brings him in as a man that builds himselfe a sumptuous house upon seven hewne Pillers prepares his fatlings and dainties Esay 25. his wines and spices Nay then it tels us that in those dayes the Lord wil make a feast in the mountaines Luke 14. a feast of all choise delicate things fat meats and wines throughly stale and refined Nay then it brings him in as a King who is disposed to magnifie himselfe in the making a feast to his Subjects at the marriage of his Son So that looke what is in a feast either for quantitie fulnesse of dishes variety of choise dainties or for qualitie as rarenesse pretiousnesse exquisite dressing musique company safetie of things eaten without feare either that they make surfeit the guest or breed ill bloud All that is to be applied to the feast of the Lord Iesus our nourishment which God the Father makes to his Church at the Sacrament of the Supper And yet that is not all for whereas that may be easily thought to come frow the magnificence of the master of it but as for poore wretches and hunger sterven soules how should they come neere it The answer is That onely for such it is prepared even for beggers and such as are found among the hedges and by the high-way sides for lost and forlorne ones It is the office of Gods hand-maides and Ministers to invite to bring in yea by all arguments of perswasion to force even such not the fat lusty and fed ones to this feast of the King Now if
all his feast and lay it unto thee And this also shall serve for this fifth and last grace of desire and the tryall of it and so in generall concerning the whole doctrine of Sacramentall preparation Which the Lord so blesse that all his servants to whose hands this poore treatise may come may meete with some morsells which may cause them not to repent them of their Travaile CHAP. IX Of the due behaviour of a communicant in the act of receiving NOw according to our order prefined we proceede to adde somewhat concerning the worke it selfe of receiving Of the carriage at the Sacrament The communicant then having taken due paines for the making himselfe fit for the Supper is not there to rest but to goe to the Sacrament to eate of that bread and drinke of that cup as Paul speaketh Now to give the Reader a taste beforehand of the subject matter of this Chapter let him know it is twofold The one concerneth the comming unto the other the due receiving of the Sacrament For the former I will by this occasion speake a little of the necessity of comming to the Sacrament both in generall as it concernes all that are worshippers and in speciall those that are prepared for it For the latter I shall handle it eyther in that due carriage of the receiver towards the whole ordinance or towards some passages thereof For the whole ordinance it selfe the receiver owes a double carriage Entry and division eyther of commemoration or of perpetuation The former being a thankefull raysing of heart to God the father 1. Point Necessity of comming in praise for the Lord Iesus The latter being a preservation of the integrity of this ordinance by the incorrupt use thereof from all corruption of humane devises The carriage of the receiver concerning some occasionall passages in the Sacrament is a spirituall accommodation of the soule attending so to the outward Sacramentall acts there performed that hee finde himselfe much quickned in the grace he brought with him and edified in respect of that fruit which he lookes to carry away For the first of these The words of the Apostle are plaine So let him come and eate of this bread and drinke of this cup. Proofes 1 Cor. 11.28 Which words are not permissive let him if he will but imperative let him See Treatise 1. Cap. 1. I command him upon paine of my wrath and displeasure But many reasons there are to proove it also First who can deny but the Church and ordinances under the Gospel are more excellent than those under the Law Reade these Texts Heb. 9.11.23 Heb. 5.1.2 c. Heb. 3.5.6 with many more Now in the old Testament we see how sollemne a penalty is threatned against him that in coole blood having no plea by sicknesse or jorney and businesse to alledge should forbeare to keepe the passeover Numbers 9. Verse 13. even such a one saith the Lord shall be cut off from his people Nay it seemes that although legall pollutions might hinder ordinary services and sacrifices yet the necessi y of the Passeover Verse 7. tooke away the barre of such pollutions so that the touching a dead man or being in a jorney and about common businesse might not infringe it The Lord by this meane providing for the honor and necessity of the Sacrament How much more necessary then are the Sacraments of the Gospel to frequent And how severe a censure of excommunication lyes upon the violaters of them Reason 1 If now the Lord so severely plagues a receiver for want of worthy receiving 1 Cor. 11.29 how much more will he plague a non-receiving dispiser If a Prince send for some of his Subjects to appeare before him whereof some appeare but bow not the knee to doe homage others refuze to waite upon him at all whether of these two thinke we incurre greatest dispeasure Reason 2 Secondly to what issue comes all wee have sayd hitherto concerning Supper preparation Can wee conclude such a thing to be needelesse as requires such a costly entrance It might then bee sayd Why is this great waste No surely So necessary a preparation cannot argue a slight duty If all the land had summons by a day to waite upon the King in their colours for a warlike expedition were any so fond as to deeme that enterprise idle which cost such a tedious addressements Reason 3 Thirdly the substance it selfe of the Sacrament is a thing of necessity and that absolute If a man were in a ship like to bee cast away he would say it s not necessary I keepe my corne or provision but its necessary I keepe my life So heere It s not necessary that we thrive or live long or live at all for we may be happy without any such but it is necessary wee have the life of grace in our soules Now the Sacrament is Christ our life and nourishment Except yee eate the flesh of the Sonne of man and drinke his blood yee have no life in you Ioh. 6.53 What case are such miscreants in then for sole life as abhorre Sacraments Reason 4 Fourthly the industry and paines taken by those famous worthies and restorers of the collapsed Passeover 2 Cron. 30.3.21 both in their commissions sent about their munificence in providing lambes for such as wanted their charge given personally to the people to keepe the same to the Lord 2 Cron. 35.7.18 doe sufficiently argue that these holy Princes were fooles if the thing they undertooke were a needelesse trifle How much lesse then is the use of the Passeover of the Gospel a needelesse thing Fiftly if the Lord presse oftennesse of comming to the Supper as a necessary duty how much more is a coming and tendring of our persons to God needefull If scanty comming be a sinne what a fearefull premunire then runne they into that refuze at all to come Reason 5 Lastly if the scope of the Supper be peculiar honour and thankes to God for Christ and a solemne holding out his death till he come Luk. 22.21 what a sinne is that which cuts off both the generall end of the worship and the peculiar scope of this But I dwell no longer upon a point so cleare To brutish swine reason is lost And to the good it is needelesse Vses Before I leave the point I must adde a few uses 1 Terrour First terrour to all profane Esau's who being out of love with the Sacrament through loathing of examination of their woefull profane lives which indeede are so intricate and overwhelmed in sinne that they admit none make it their constant practise to abandon all Sacraments And when they are cut off by mens censures for this their contempt they are content so to live and are no whit troubled a man knowes not whether the disease or the remedy doe worse with them I might compare them to Caine save that I should wrong him by so unjust a comparison
death I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord. We see the Saints of old could make Songs of the Lambe and his deliverance Moses and Miriam gave not greater prayses for deliverance from Pharao Exod. 15.3 than they could make Songs for Christ But how should we doe so Surely if we would take the like course with our base hearts at the Sacrament which they could do without it we should do as they did They filled their soules to the brimme with the meditation of his benefits So should we doe at the Sacrament The Lord gives us a feast of him in all his dishes wee may chuse which our appetite most longeth after all summed up in the seales of his body and blood Meditate of that love which made him forget glory and become shame a worme of the earth continue with long-suffering and basenesse 30 yeeres upon earth that hee might be called and annointed to suffer and dye Consider his misery reproaches and indignities from the vassalls of Satan his being tempted by the Devill spending dayes and nights in fasting and Prayer willingnesse to be taken by his enemies and to endure his Fathers wrath to the uttermost and crying out My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee Cull out what parcell thou canst from the cratch to the crosse such as affords the deepest the divinest grounds of meditation able to conquer and ravish the soule and to blow up that sparkle of love and thankes which is kindled in thee Thou canst turne thee no way but matter will offer it selfe to thee to raise affections to the Sacrament 2. Heart raysed thereby Matter being thus raysed set thine heart on worke therewith Let admiration at this love of Christ so set upon thee a traytor a rebell when thou wert not the most unprofitable or unworthy but most trecherous of a thousand others let it cause thee to cry out Iohn 14 22. To Admiration of God and Christ Phil. 2 4.5 Why shouldst thou thus reveale thy selfe to me and passe by so many What should move thee to empty thy selfe to the bottome of all thy excellent contents that thou shouldest obey even to the death of the crosse and that for such a wretch as I. Oh! how my soule is linked to thee How doe I love thee What parts wealth esteeme hopes welfare yea life it selfe should not bee dung to me in respect of thee Whom have I in heaven but thee Psal 73.24.25 or whom in earth to be compared to thee Yea this abundance of thankes to Christ should carry thy heart through him to God the Father Col. 3 17. as Paul Col. 3 27. speakes O Father how couldst thou spye out such a sinner as I out of a thousand to chuse and call me home how couldst thou forgoe thine onely Sonne and suffer him to bee made the of-scouring of the earth Michael 7 â—nd rather than I should perish Oh! who is a God like unto our God forgetting and pardoning the transgressions of the remnâ—nt of thine heritage Oh! my soule magnifieth the Lord and my flesh rejoyceth in God my Saviour Of the Holy Ghost From both the Father and the Sonne let thy thankes proceede to the holy Ghost Oh blessed Spirit who blowest where thou listest what mooved thee to make this Sacrament such a sweete seale of pardon and heaven to such a staggering distrustfull creature as I am Why hast thou assured my soule by these sweete pledges of security that I shall not perish nor for ever be separated from thee My soule shall never forget such a blessed Spirit as hath conveyed his best assurance into my soule so barren and empty thereof before I say thine heart should fasten upon God the Father Sonne and Spirit with all admiration and thankes and from this thankes should issue into thy soule all peace joy complacence and delight in the Lord. All thy thoughts desires affections 2. To complacence delight and joy purposes endevours and abilities should pitch themselves in his founteyne wholly resigne up themselves to be at his command mourning that the fruit should be come to the birth Luke 1 47. Esay 37.5 and no strength to bring forth Yea besides this joy thy soule being thus warmed and inflamed with the bounty of the Lord should shake off deadnesse wearinesse inconstancy and renue her covenant with God for time to come saying thus oh Lord thus hast thou magnified mercy above justice towards me a sinner But what can thy servant do to thee 3. To thankefull expressions Psal 116 9 10. What shall I recompence thee with for all thy love Oh! I will take up the cup of Salvation and prayse thee I will not approach to thee with flockes of Lambes or with rivers of oyle but with an humble meeke and righteous walking with my God! Oh! that there were such an heart in mee of faith love and uprightnesse as to walke in and out with thee in all thy Commandements that it might goe well with me for ever Oh that there were not rather Deut. 5.29 Psal 19. ult such a base heart of sloth ease selfe world and sensuality to withdraw me Oh! Let the thoughts of mine heart 4. Indignation at out basenesse and the covenants of my soule and tongue be ever accepted and ratifyed with thee O Lord my God! Then should I goe 40 dayes to Horeb even from Sacrament to Sacrament in the strength of this thy feast 1 King 19 8. Yea this congregation wherein I stand which is partaker with me of the like mercy should be a witnesse of my faithfulnesse and in the midst of thy courts and Temple should I performe the vowes which I have made yea and that grace which I have found at thy Sacrament should goe with me Psal 116. ult and follow me through my life to season and sanctifie all my course my prayers my worship my marriage my company my blessings my crosses my whole conversation This may serve for a breefe view of Sacramentall Thankesgiving or remembring the death of the Lord Iesus The second duty is perpetuation 2. Duty Perpetuation Luke 22 20.21 Intimated in that clause of our Saviour For so doing ye shew forth the Lords death till he come I will touch it but breefely First know it is not with the Sacrament of the Supper as it was with that dayly Sacrifice which the Iewes offered to God morning and evening That was destroyed when the Temple of Ierusalem was ruined by Titus Vespasian But the Supper of the Lord Iesus typified in part thereby Esay 66.23 The Sacrament eternall in the Church is to last till the worlds end in one part of the Church or other Popery by their cursed Masse and other heretickes by their devices for many hundred yeeres together through Satans enmity interrupted shrewdly the Purity of Christ Sacramentall They brought in a Sacrifice for a Sacrament and defiled this ordinance so farre that they quite defaced it