people in the Templ vers 20. And in the last verse we find their obedience such that daily in the Templ and in every house if the Translation speak truth they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ But the Greek speaketh as before In conformity to the Angels command they preached to the people in the Templ that they might Convert the yet Unconverted and they did the same and more in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to confirm those that were already Discipled Thus far we have found fair Probabilities Now I add a Demonstration not heeded by the above-named Learned Authors Hitherto we have found it in the singular number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but upon cogent reason we shall find it in the plural Acts 20.20 St. Paul having convened the Disciples of Asia thus justifies himself to them I have kept back nothing from you but have preached publikly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may now be more tolerably thogh not exactly translated from house to house Now I demand any colour of reason for this change of number other than This plain one Asia was a large Province There were Therein divers Churches in divers Cities and it was proper that every City should have it's proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently the Apostle must there preach as from City to City so from Hous to Hous But Hierusalem was no more than One thogh perhaps greater than two or three Cities and required no more but One so it were a great Meeting-house and There breaking of Bread might well be celebrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one Domo As certainly therefor as the Plural number signifieth more than the Singular and a Large Provnice needeth more Meeting-houses than a City and the Apostl changeth numbers in conformity to the need so certain it is that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie such a House as is appropriate to such a Meeting and such an Exercise V. 4. THE TIME when this was do'n is severally stated one way for Hierusalem and another for remoter Churches 1. At Hierusalem the Apostles and Brethren continued Daily in breaking of bread as well as in supplication and prayers but it was not could not be so in other places Hierusalem was the Metropolis There the Apostolik College kept their constant residence they deserted their Secular calings devoting themselves entirely to the propagation of the Gospel preaching in that Mother-city and thence issuing their Emissaries and Orders to other Churches There all that believed were together and had all things common sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need Acts 2.45 and 4.35 This was no more than necessary that those who had nothing but their hands might not be compelled to imploy them with their time for their bodily maintenance and in consequence hereof when all the Believers were impoverished in Particular and their common stock spent then must they be maintained by Contribution from Other Churches whom their Emissaries had converted to the same Faith receiving Carn I things in exchange for Spiritual things 2. To These Churches therefor another life was necessary Being to minister not only to their Own necessities but to those of the now poor Saints at Hierusalem they were caled to Work as well as to Believ To his Corinthians our Apostle prescribeth that in what ever caling any man is caled he therein abide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Gods name and to the Thessalonians That if any one would not Work neither should he Eat Yet as the poor Saints must have a Portion of their Goods so must God have of their Time The Law had directed to the Seventh day Upon that day they Might and they Did join with the Jews in their Sabbath Devotions in their Synagogs as the Apostls did at Hierusalem in the Templ But for This holy Supper That Day was for the same reason no less unfit than That Templ What therefor we said of the necessity of another Place is no less true concerning another Day necessary to be consecrated to this Anti-Jewish office And what Day more proper than the Next not only nearest in Time but superior in Work On the Seventh day God rested from his work of Creation and fested Himself in the complacency he receved from the vieu of its perfection But upon the First day our Savior triumphed in the accomplishment of the to Him harder and to Us happier work of our Redemtion And as this Office was to take it's time after Reading Preaching and Prayer as we shall see more anon so was it congruos that it should succeed the Sabbath consecrate by the Law to those Offices The next day therefor as every way fittest is set apart for this Greater Mystery in memory of our Saviors Passion and Benefits This we find expresly declared Act. 20.7 Upon the First day of the week the Disciples came together to break bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for breaking breads sake And for this reason was it stiled the Lords day as appropriate to the honor of His Person Rev. 1.10 And in aftertimes the day of Bread Chrysost Hom. 5. De Resurrect And since we cannot better manifest our Love to him than by charity to his members and this Supper was both an Emblem and a Means of mutual Love therefore must it be attended with Liberality to the Poor recommended specially at this time by our Apostl to the Corinthians as before to his Galatians exhorting that Upon the First day of the week every one should lay by in store as God had prospered him 1 Corin. 16.1 2. And for this constantly attending Offertories sake no less than for the influence they had in promoting mutual love among the Communicants were these stiled Fests of charity under which character St. Jude mentions them as the ordinary exercise of all visible Members of the Church which els had not be'n so obnoxious to the Spots he complains of Yet so incorrigibl was the General sensuality that by Tertullians time they were relapsed into the same profaneness with that reproved in the Corinthians the Fests forgot their relation to the Lords Supper and a while after were banished out of his Church For som Ages did the now dead Sabbath ly in state not as still in force by vertu of the Law which it self was dead but in charity to the Jews in order to whose more probable conversion Christians complyed with them as far as lawfully and conveniently they Might and they Might so in All offices of Natural religion as in their Templ so on their Sabbath thogh the Sanctity of Both were equally abolished But with This difference that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were without any Positive Command honored by the Jews as so many Chappels of ease even while the Mother-templ stood and therefor were not by the Apostl's first consecrate to this office But the Lords day was never sanctified by the Jews nor upon any other account by the Apostls
but adaequately for this Duties sake which gave it both Holiness and Name nor as Successor but Superior to the Sabbath And this is worthy our consideration not only for the Sacrament's sake but the Day 's too VI. FOR to derive the LORDS DAY from the fourth Commandment as it is Inconvenient upon other accounts so is it Mischievous upon This that it looseneth its relation to This office for who 's sake alone it was dignified as with the assemblies of the Saints so with it's title of the Lord's day Nor is such an opinion consistent with the practice of the Primitive Church which for several ages celebrated Both the One for the Jews sake the Other for the Sacraments which therefor we ought to celebrate as constantly at least as we do That day which cannot be duly bicause it needs not all be sanctified without it Were this as carefully heeded as in Scripture it is plainly declared in Reason duly accounted for and in the Primitive times publikly practised both the Lords Day and His Supper would have escaped Those Losses which Both of them suffer by their separation the One rob'd of it's greatest Honor the Other of its very Being For as it is higher Honor to the Day to be acknowledged an Evangelical Substance than a Legal Shadow and to be celebrated with this office than without it so is it not only Less Honorable but More Destructive to this Holy office to be spoiled both of the acknowledgement due to it from the Day so preferred by it's interest and of Safety from that Neglect which could never have befallen it while the Day it self is sanctified if that Sanctification were acknowledged to relate to this Performance Those therefor who ar zelos for the honor of the Day are for it's sake obliged to consider whether any Sport or any Lrbor can be so pernicious a desecration of it as the Omission of this Sacrament who 's celebration was the sole reason of the sacredness both of the Day it self and of its Eve which of the two hath the greater interest in the Fourth Commandment as being the same Seventh day which Gods peopl celebrated as thereby consecrated yet had not retained any difference under the Gospel from common days but in order to the better preparation for the Sacrament to be receved the Lords day following and upon That account differenced not by Festing but by Fasting And since necessity may drive to Mean condescensions I beg now not only for the Lord's sake but for the Lord's day's sake for That day's sake in who 's behalf so many complaints ar made not only To our Governors but Against them I beg that those who ar so zelous to have the Day restored to its due honor would do their part to restore this Sacrament to its due celebration whereby the Lord's Day with his Person would be better righted than by Sabbatizing with Rigot more than Jewish but with Worship less than Christian Let us now spell all together The Exercises accompanying this constant breaking of Bread Were they not Holy The Phrase expressing This exercise Is it not proper The Place Was it not consecrated before The Time Was it not consecrated purposely What then can be answered to the Apostls demand The bread which they brake was it not the Communion of the body of Christ Or to Our inference that they were as constant in the Holy Communion as in Common Prayer CHAP. VI. The Practice of Antiquity I. The constant Practice of Christ's Church in it's best ages proved by one evidence of each kind viz. 1. Canon the 9th Apostolik II. 2. One Father Justin Martyr 3. One Historian Socrates The Church of Rome under pretence of Tradition innovated against the Church Universal III. 4. Enemies of each kind 1. Protestants IV. 2. Papists V. 3. Junior Fathers particularly St. Augustin whose words are recited wherein we must distinguish between Father and Doctor As Father he stateth the question The question and the practice of the Church both in Doctrine and Discipline very different beeween St. Augustin's time and Ours VI. As a Doctor he determins the question 1. His stile very different bicause his Opinion is opposit to all other Fathers 2. His determination reacheth not Our question Yet have later ages caght at his wonds and strained them beyond his intentions with unhappy success His Syncretism rectified FROM Scripture I am now to descend to Humane Writers to examin whether by Them we find the Practice of the Primitive Churches agreeable to That of the Apostls I. AND now I feel somthing like a Tentation to imploy my Servitor to collect what the Fathers the Eldest especially have writen on This subject and then stifling my Reader with a multitude of Quotations purchase my self at Both their costs the name of Well read in the Fathers and Councils c. But corage Reader I have no more such a Design than my Subject such Need Where none contradicts One competent witness of Each kind may very well claim the belief of any indifferent person and with More I will not troubl you I shall therefor produce but One ancient Canon One Father One Historian and One Enemy of each party 1. Of CANONS I account Those most Ancient which have usurped the title of Apostolical thogh many of them bewray themselves unworthy of it We have reasons more than enough to decline their Authority but None to except against Their Testimony concerning Mater of Fact such as is the Publik practice of the Visibl Church at the Time of their Date which is Therefor certainly Ancient bicause not certainly known since having no Councel to father them they must needs be elder than Any Of Those Canons the 9th thus briefly and plainly delivereth the opinion we ar pleading for All the faithful which enter the Church and hear the Scriptures but do not stay out the Prayers nor receve the Holy Communion ought to be excommunicate as disturbers of the Church To This so clear evidence I know nothing capabl of being opposed unless perhaps the word faithful be supposed to exclude All but such as deserv the highest sens of That title But it is sufficiently know'n that That comprehensive word conteineth All but Catechumens and Penitens All others as visibl Members of Christs Body being in Those days honored with That stile And that it signifies no otherwise Here the words themselvs sufficiently evince For This title is allowed to Those very Persons who at the same time ar censured as worthy of Excommunication Nor can the Last clause be taken so copulatively as if Those passed uncensured who stayed out Prayers thogh they receved not the Holy Communion For This was lookt upon as the greater crime of the Two The Councils of Antioch and Bracara required that such should be driven out of the Church and St. Chrysostom bitterly chides them saying If thou stand by and dost not Communicate thou art wicked thou art shameless thou art impudent And we shall presently
Proposition ver 26. is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup. The Praedicate is utterly useles and wors toward such a design VI. 2. Positively The Proposition pointeth at som Determinate Bread and Cup. The Argument reduced to a Syllogism CHAP. II. Concerning the Clause AS OFTEN AS Pag. 70. I. The unhappiness of this Clause II. The true sons of the words mesured by parallel precepts III. Serviceable remarks 1. With what care the Apostl recordeth this Claus IV. 2. With partiality he treateth the Cup. V. The justice he doth the Bread joining it with the Cup in his deductions VI. The Conclusion with an Objection answered CHAP. III. Concerning the Vulgar interpretation of as often as pag. 85. I. The Distinction between Suppositive and Absolute stated because made the mesure of obligation II. The words of the Author set forth and III. Examined IV. The merely suppositive sens enervates our Lords Command And V. The Apostl's own Argument VI. The two senses ballanced in order to Conscience CHAP. IV. Objections answered pag. 100. I. The First Objection That the Tradition may be novel answered 1. By mater of Fact II. By passing judgment upon it 2. No necessity of difference in point of frequency between the breaking of bread before meat and Grace-cup after it 2. If the Jews Antiquities be against us we may reject their authority III. 3. Seeing a party of them are on our side we may well prefer that party above the opposite So great an agreement as is between them could not be 1. From Chance IV. 2. Nor the Jews conforming their custom to Christs Institution bicause it is incredible they should have such 1. care 2. or wit V. Another Objection That we must have Fests or no Sacrament adjourned VI. A third Objection That the Jews used their Grace-cup in their Houses not their Synagogs Answered by six steps VII The last Objection The universal silence of all Ages Answered 1. By shewing reason why both Primitive and Later ages should be silent and 2. by shewing that the best critiks have observed it CHAP. V. Mater of Fact recorded in Scripture pag. 117. I. A transition to Mater of Fact Not so easily understood as might have be'n expected Two things considerable 1. The Backwardness of the Apostl's in Understanding our Lords mind 2. The means which our Lord used to recommend it unprosperos The night of Institution by its terrors II. Our Lord's conversation with the two Disciples in the way and at Emaus so ordered as to discover the meaning of his Institution as well as the truth of his Resurrection ineffectual upon a contrary reason Their ignorance 'till the coming of the Holy Ghost III. The second observable Their diligence in obeying our Lord's will when discovered That by their breaking of Bread must be meant the Lord's Supper appears by 1. The exercises accompanying it 2. The Phrase expressing it IV. 3. The Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie the Meeting house where the first Christians held their Conventicles for fear of the Jews V. 4. The time The Apostl's a d Brethren at Hire daily The Remote Churches on the Lo d's day VI. The first day of the week consecrated to this office and for that reason stiled the Lords day dishonored by derivation from the Fourth Commandment cannot be worse profaned than by neglect of this office to which it oweth its sacredness CHAP. VI. The Practice of Antiquity pag. 131. I. The constant Practice of Christ's Church in it's best ages proved by one evidence of each kind viz. 1. Canon the 9th Apostolik II. 2. One Father Justin Martyr 3. One Historian Socrates The Church of Rome under pretence of tradition innovated against the Church Universal III. 4. Enemies of each kind 1. Protestants IV. 2. Papists V. 3. Junior Fathers particularly St. Augustin whose words are recited wherein we must distinguish between Father and Doctor As Father he stateth the question The question and the practice of the Church both in Doctrine and Discipline very different between St. Augustin's time and Ours VI. As a Doctor he determins the question 1. His stile very diffident bicause his Opinion is opposit to all other Fathers 2. His determination reacheth not Our question Yet have later ages caght at his words and strained them beyond his intentions with unhappy success His Syncretism rectified PART III. Concerning the word DO CHAP. I. We must answer such a Command no otherwise but by Performance Pag. 149. I. The cause of our disobedience to this Command too much Fear II. We may not commute Doing for any other service III. The reason why som think best not to do this often and their appeal to the Church of England IV. The Church vindicated V. The two opposite opinions personated The Vniversity Statutes the best comment upon the Churches Rubrike The Greek Church in great Churches celebrateth the Holy Communion every Sunday and Holy day VI. Those who omit the Communion it self greater Non-conformists than those who neglect the Communion Service CHAP. II. We may not omit This duty without warrant pag. 164. I. Necessity may be complied with A doubl question II. Difference between Laws Moral and Positive The Apostl's vouching our Lords revelation a proof of the valu of the Sacrament Fear of cheapness no reason why we should make it scarce III. Omission compared with unworthiness IV. Our Warrant must be either Countermand or Dispensation V. Defect of preparation no Dispensation VI. All other Duties in the same danger CHAP. III. The Obligation ceased not upon the change of the Manner of the Festing in the Church but must be accommodated thereto pag. 174. I. The Apostle hath prevented such a consequence by saying our Lord appointed us to do this 'till he com II. The adequate mesure of our doing this is not Eating but Meeting in the Church As change of the Ceremony hindereth not Perjury from being a sin Nor doth change of the season hinder us from stiling it a Supper III. The Church careful to preserve the memory and titl of Festing VI. The Apostl's argument holdeth by vers 20. more for the Thing than for the Manner wherein we cannot now be guilty as the Corinthians were V. The Equitable and Moral sens of the Argument accommodate to the present manner of Church-meetings VI. Distinguish between yielding and justifying PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian pag. 183. I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proportion This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. This wors in
this the Jews in their Passover used our Important This in such a Form as did no less plainly prefigure this Institution than the Sacrificed Lamb did the death of the Author then must it seem reasonable that he chose that Form with the same affection that he did that Season and if so then must we mesure our Lords This by that of the Jews makeing the resemblance an evidence that the One was the issue of the Other Let us therefore to the Jewish rituals The Law of Moses requireth Unleavened Bread and for That reason to This day they honor Bread with many ceremonios solennities Before In and After Supper Particularly they break a Cake into two unequal parts The greater part the Master of the Fest hideth under a cushion there to be kept safe till the end of Supper Then doth he solenly bring it forth distributing it among the guests and saying This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate in Egypt whoever is hungry let him come and eat of the Paschal Lamb. And have we not now found our so much sought for Singular bread exactly answering what This bread is more than any Other bread Do not All features exactly concur The Season the Mater the Form of words All Circumstances the same This is so plausible that to this very Day thogh not for this Reason many look upon the Passover as the Predecessor of the Lords Supper and consequently the Standard of our Performance Many think that women have no right to the Lords Supper because they had none to the Passover and which is more proper to our present purpose that we are not obliged to receve it but at Easter only because That was celebrated only at the same season And that the Corinthians were of this Later opinion the more we consider it the more probable will it appear but most manifest that the Apostle hath utterly confuted it For he first reproveth them as profaning the Lords Supper not in their Paschal only but their Ordinary meetings and then convinceth them that it is concerned in them All whereby the Former error is also destroyed unless its Patrons will exclude all women not only from the Lords Table but his House too The Paschal bread therefore ' though it exactly answer our Lords Institution yet can it by no means agree with the Apostles gloss and we must not rest till we meet an answer for All Phaenomena as well in the One as the Other YET have we not lost our labor For as the Chemist ' thogh he miss his great Secret often findeth his cost and labor well paid by some profitable Experiment so we ' thogh we meet not full Satisfaction in our main enquiry meet somthing worthy Observation 1. That since our Lord in the same Circumstances used the same Word we ought to understand him in the same Sens. And therefor This bread must be our Lords body just so and no otherwise but so as the Pascal cake celebrated to this day by the Jews is the very bread which their Fathers ate in Egypt 2. That since This in the Jewish Passover pointeth at a Singular remarkable piece of bread distinguished from All others of the Kind by its Proper circumstances wherein it is to be eaten therefore This in our Lords Institution must likewise point at some Special bread known by the Circumstance of eating it from All ordinary bread 3. Thogh we have not hereby found what are the proper Marks whereby we may know This from Common bread yet we have the Way wherein we are to seek it For since there is no other defect in the Paschal but This that it answereth not the Apostles dissertation which reproveth their Ordinary Fests it must needs concern us to enquire into the forms of their Common Fests if possibly we may therein find not only such a Special bread but such a Special cup too as may answer both our Lords design and his word This in his Institution and the Apostles explication too whereby he proveth them concerned not only in the Passover but generally in Church Fests III. 3. LET us therefore again to the Jewish Ritual Behold at the very first Step we receve such light as leaves Nothing unsatisfied but our Wonder that the Jewish Rabbins should be better Commentators upon our Lords and his Apostles words and discover more to us of the Original Nature and Design of our great Sacrament than All the Christian Doctors who so long and so much have labored to honor it with their explications Because they are short and full take the words of Leo Modena a modern Rabbin and to remove all doubt of his veracity you shall find the same said by Buxtorf in his Syn. Judaica so that you cannot doubt of matter of fact equally testified by two such witnesses as you are secure agreed not to deceve you After they are sat down they say for the most part the 23d Psalm and afterward the Master of the house taketh a loaf of bread and saith a benediction over it which having do'n he breaketh it and giveth to each person about the bigness of a great olive and afterward every one eateth as he pleaseth and so the first time that every one drinketh he saith a benediction When they have do'n eating they wash their hands and take their knives from off the table because say they the Table representeth an Altar upon which no iron tool was to come And if they be three or more that eat together then doth one of them command a glass to be washed and filling it with wine he taketh it up from off the table saying with a loud voice Sirs let us bless His name with whose good things we have be'n filled After this the master of the house blesseth it and prayeth for peace and having so do'n he giveth to each of them a little of That wine which he hath in his glass and he himself also drinketh of it and so they rise from the table The Necessity considered which lieth so hard upon us to find some Special Bread and Cup which may equally answer both our Saviors and Apostles THIS we may justly upon That single account require any Dissenter to admit of This or shew us a Better But the Resemblance considered we may challenge him not only to shew a better Tally to our Lords Institution but any Pictur better answering the life Yea upon supposition that we were allowed to Forge what we pleased we might challenge him to Invent any Hypothesis that may more exactly answer all the Phaenomena both in our Lords Institution and the Apostles Dissertation to the least tittle Mark I pray you After they are sat down the master of the house taketh a laaf of bread saith the Rabby Our Lord distributed The bread when he had given thanks saith St. Paul as they sat at meat saith St. Luke Then for the Cup. The first time any one drinketh he saith a benediction saith the Rabbi The Lord took the
this last Opinion seemeth fairly intimated in the Berachoth it self if well interpreted For in the eighth Chapter reckoning up the differences between the houses of Shammai and Hillel they thus express the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which words may be thus translated There cometh to them Wine for the Poscaenium and there is there no other but That very Cup The house of Shammai say he blesseth first for the Wine and afterward he blesseth for the Meat But the house of Hillel say he blesseth for the Meat and afterward he blesseth for the Wine In which words is plain that all agree that there is Wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we observed them to stile that After Supper 2. That there is but one cup for the whole company and 3. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blesseth for them All. But Zohar in Exod. p. 280. speaketh full to our purpose and nameth the Cup by his proper name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cup of Blessing was not used unless when there were Three because of the mystery of the Three fathers which blessed and so there is no need of the Cup unless there be Three The Reason is most Rabbinical i. e. most ridiculous but the Authority is reputed great because most ancient and the words are most pertinent and conclusive to our purpose plainly expressing how much they stood upon the Cup of Blessing and what number it required II. UPON This account of mater of Fact it will not be hard to pass judgement which I shall come to by steps 1. WHETHER in our Saviors days they put such difference between Bread and Cup is not necessary for us to determin for the Apostl's Argument will go as strongly thogh perhaps not altogether as gracefully without it since his partiality to the Cup may otherwise be fairly accounted for 1. Because we have seen from other pens that the Greeks understood the use of the Grace-cup but we meet no such foot-steps of their Breaking of bread and it was reason the Apostl should rather bild his inferences upon a custom which they knew than upon One which they knew not 2. Because Bread was never distributed After any Other Supper but only the Paschal and was Then attended with a form of words sounding much like that which our Lord used in his Institution Since hence appeared som danger lest the Corinthians should mistake our Lords meaning it was fit the Apostl should clear it which he doth almost as plainly as if he had said You know the custom of closeing a Fest with a Cup of blessing and you may know the custom of the Jews distributing a Cake after the Passover and probably you may think our Lord intended that his Supper should be mesured not by the Cup which was used after All Fests but by the Bread which was so used only after the Passover But I tell you I have receved from the Lord himself that you must celebrate his Supper as often as you drink the Grace cup. Here is ground enogh for his Argument and all its turnings and we may safely spare the trouble either of enquiring or contending for the equal or unequal frequency of the ordinary Bread 2. WERE the Jewish Misna or Talmūd directly against us in som material particulars it were more reasonable to reject their Authority than so Necessary and so Exact a Key That we may see the reasonableness of This assertion it will be fit to ballance them 1. If the Jewish Doctrines in maters of their dearest Law be apparently changed from what they were in our Saviors days we oght to suspect their care not to have be'n greater towards a Tradition Let us then compare what our Lord said with what their Talmud now saith The Gospel informeth us Luke 14.5 that our Lord spake to the Pharisees and Lawyers saying Which of you shall have an Ox or an Ass falen into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day And they could not answer him to these things Which yet they might have do'n if their then Doctrines had be'n agreeable to those of the Talmud which forbiddeth to pull him out but alloweth to carry meat to feed him and if need be straw to support him in the place And accordingly Munster furnisheth us with a pertinent story out of the Saxon Annals A Jew saith he fallen into a Jakes on the Sabbath would not be draw'n out but have meat brought him thither which the Bishop hearing of required that the same honor should be paid to the Christian Sabbath so the poor Jew suffered two days penance for the Talmud's swerving from ancient practice I pretend not to equal any evidence with the Gospel It is sufficient that I hence infer that we may not argu from their Present customs to their Ancient so as to reject any probable light especially when so confirmed as we are by som of their own Rabbies III. 3. SEEING so great a party of them so state their Tradition as most exactly jointeth with the Apostl's discours we have great reason to believe Them to be in the right This not as an arbitrator between the dissenting Rabbins but in defence of my Hypothesis from my worthy Friends Objection I thus confirm from the exact agreement which I found between the Apostl's Argument and That Custom so stated This Argument must proceed from Chance from the Jews accommodating their Custom to our Lords Institution or from our Lords accommodating his Institution to the Jewish Custom It was not from either of the Former Therefor it was from the Last That the Division is adaequate needeth no proof For Ether it must be by Chance or it must Not since there can be no midl between the two ends of a Contradiction If it were Not by chance then ether That Custom must conform to This Institution or This to That For they cannot meet unless Mahomet go to the Mountain or the Mountain com to Mahomet The Assumtion I thus prove by parts 1. It cannot proceed from Chance Such a concurs of so many and so crooked particls can be no more imputed to undiscerning chance than can the meeting of the letters in the discurs it self Chance may do one thing well as a blind man may shoot a Hare but he cannot shoot multitudes without missing one When a FINE is levied in Court the Chirographer writeth two Copies at a competent distance in the same Parchment In the space between them he writes two or three letters then he cutteth the Parchment in the middle indenturewise so as to divide those Letters leaving either indenture som part that upon any occasion the conterparts compared together may by so many agreements vouch either for the other There happened a question between three parties concerning the conditions of a Fine levied time out of mind Two of the contenders produce for proof of their pretences common Parchments attested only by their Fathers The third produceth an Indenture of Fine transmitted to
Remote Churches on the Lords day VI. The first Day of the Week consecrated to This office and for That reason stiled the Lords day dishonored by derivation from the 4th Commandment cannot be worse profaned than by neglect of This office to which it oweth it's sacreduess HITHERTO I have labored to serve the Learned and the Inquisitive the Able and the Willing to search both the ground of our Lords Institution and the Apostl's discourse concerning it which reciprocate such light to one another that I hope every such Reader is fully satisfied both in Conscience and Curiosity But there ar many other who ether understand not such work or will not suffer the fatigue whom I shall now endeavor to fit with less troublsom Discourses It is much easier both to Understand and to Attend the the process of an History than that of an Argument and the sens of Mater of Fact as it is more Obvious so is it generally more Potent than That of Mater of Right What therefor I have hitherto be'n proving to have be'n our Lord's and Apostl's mind concerning our obligation to constancy I shall now authorise by the suitable Practice of All the Apostl's and Primitive Churches In This Chapter I shall search the Scripture for the Former and in the following I shall look into humane Writers for the Later In This Chapter let us vieu the Scripture and see the strange unhappiness of This Subject We might well hope to ' scape all disputes concerning Mater of Fact when the witness is infallibl what can we need more but to hear him Yes we need understand him too and as in the Apostl's argument we have found difficulty bicause those expressions which were familiar to His age are worn out in Ours So the same difficulty still pursueth us in the very History We must not only vieu what is written but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search and Examin and that carefully too what is meant when report is made even of Mater of Fact But we have This comfort that as the troubl will be now less so will our discoveries be more various and at every step we shall meet somthing worth the no great labor of the inquiry Two things will be worth our observation 1. How careful our Lord was to recommend his Institution and how backward the Apostls were in Apprehending his meaning 2. How diligent the Apostl's were in Obeying his will when well informed concerning it 1. It is worth observing be it but for our own justification that notwithstanding our Lords care to instruct them the Apostl's themselves were as hardly broght to understand his mind in his Institution as we ar now And it is more particularly observable that Those endeavors which he used to recommend it to their affections met the same success as we have seen follow those very words of the Apostl whereby he endeavored to prove the necessity of constancy Our Lord's care to recommend it appeareth especially by two Actions 1. His timeing the Institution Secondly His care to mind them of it while fresh in memory 1. He chose the fittest Time for the Institution The Apostl observed it and we shall anon find another occasion more fully to consider how observable it is that it was the Last night and That wherein he was betrayed and the Evangelist is careful to commemorate with what affection he embraced That Passover for This very reason bicause it was the most proper for This Institution But That dismal night however seasonable to endear it to Future times was least so for it's publication to the Present It was natural that the dreadful Tragedy then impending should so confound both their Apprehensions and Memories as utterly to rob them of all other consideration but of their Lord's and their Own dangers leaving them no power to regard the at-such-a-time-scarce-considerable action To cure This inconvenience he applyeth a contrary remedy and that speedily II. HIS Resurrection was matter of as great Joy as his Passion was of Grief or Fear and he makes That an opportunity to remedy the Other After his Death they met together not to Fest but Fast bicause the Bridegroom was taken from them the news of his Resurrection must give them the garments of gladness for the spirit of heaviness and invite them both to turn their Fasting to Festing and to close their Fests with his Supper as he had both very Carefully and very Lately commanded He therefor contriveth a way whereby he may at once assure them of the truth of his Resurrection and the meaning of his Institution The story we meet in Luke 24.13 which bicause we as litle heed now as the Apostl's did then will require som Animadversion Finding Two Disciples traveling together to complete the necessary number himself makes a Third He joins himself to them discourses with them gives them sufficient opportunity and occasion to observ his countenance his voice his meen and whatever els he might be know'n by But these it seems were Disciples in extraordinary not such as ordinarily conversed with him and they knew him not so perfectly as to discover him in such circumstances He suppeth with them and having by his discourses manifested himself a Rabbin takes the office of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breaker and performs it not in the Accustomed but his Own New form points not so much to the Bread as to his own Body and thereby so manifested his Person that immediatly they knew him This gives us an Hypothesis suitable to all the Phaenomena of the story otherwise unaccountable and if our eyes be withholden that we no more know his Meaning now than the Disciples did his Person by the way let us look how we shall answer these questions How came their eyes to be opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by the breaking of the Bread more than by all his other appearances You say he might discover himself When and How he pleased True but the question concerneth not his Power but his Will which governs that Power and is it self governed by his Wisdom We therefor further demand Why he that Could do it in what circumstances he pleased should Chuse to do it in These rather than any Other This say you is a saucy question we are not to call our Lord to account for his actions But may we not be bolder with his servants his Disciples and Evangelist Let us then inquire concerning them Why were the Disciples so careful to report This very Circumstance Why the Evangelist so punctual to record that they reported not only the Thing but the Manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How or in what manner he was knowen to them by the breaking of the Bread Here meet an unaccountabl Will of our Lord choosing This very Manner of discovering himself the no less unaccountabl Care of the Disciples reporting This Manner and of the Evangelist recording both the One and the Other Must All this be imputed to a fortuit concurs without
be a Communion what do we more plainly than condemn the Private ones as carrying a Contradiction in the very Terms and the Publik ones as carrying One or More in their Performance For they plainly contradict both the word Communion when there are no Communicants and our Lords Command while in One Element they Dispense and in the Other Prohibit what He commanded Yet still they do well in the Thing thogh ill in the Manner in this very particular deserving to be owned a true thogh corrupt Church V. 3. AND what if we now reckon the Junior Fathers among our Adversaries yea Those very Fathers by name whom we but now found vouched as telling us That the custom of daily Communions continued in some Churches until their days What such Fathers or other credible Writers say of the Doctrines or Customs of the Churches of Christ in their own days we think our selves obliged to believe upon their credit And upon that account we doubt not but This custom of daily Communicating who 's foot-steps remained in Those times wherein they wrote was derived as Catholik from the preceding and if themselves Depart or Detract from what they have so witnessed to be Catholik what can we do better than distinguish the Doctor from the Father and judge his Opinion by his Testimony Whether St. Augustin have so do'n and consequently how far his authority is to sway us in the present Question we cannot take a better way to find than by transcribing his own words the consequences whereof were he alive to see he would doubtless lament His Discours is in his 118th Epistle in these words among others Som will say that the Eucharist is not to be receved every day If you ask why he tells you bicause som days ar to be chosen in which a man may live more purely and continently that so he may com to so great a Sacrament more worthily bicause he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself On the other side another says If thou hast received so great a wound and contracted so violent a disease that such remedies ar to be deferr'd every such man ought by the Authority of the Bishop to be removed from the Altar and put to penance and by the same authority be reconciled For this is to receve unworthily Then to receve when a man should be doing penance and not according to his own pleasure offer himself to or withdraw himself from the Communion But if his sins be not so great as to deserve Excommunication he ought not to separate himself from the daily Medicine of the Lords Body Between those possibly a man may determine the question better if he admonishes that men should abide in the peace of Christ But let every one do what according to his Faith he piosly believes ought to be do'n For neither of them dishonors the Body and Blood of the Lord if they in their several ways contend who shall most honor the most holy Sacrament For Zacheus and the Centurion did not prefer themselves before one another when one receved Christ into his house and the other said he was not worthy to receve him under his roof That by this Discourse we may undarstand what was St. Augustin's Opinion and how far we are to be determined by it it will be requisite that we consider 1. The State of the Question And 2ly His Determination of it 1. In Stating the Question we ar to observ 1. The Question it self And secondly The Practice of the Church at That time 1. The Question it self is extremely different from Ours So different that we may very well subscribe to the Fathers determination It is Whether the Eucharist be to be receved EVERY DAY or some days to be chosen wherein a man may live more purely c. Now we pretend not to EVERY DAY But believ that the Lords day was purposely consecrate and afterward other holy days were added and that every such day hath its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set aside to the purpose expressed by St. Augustine That a man may therein live more purely and continently that so he may come more worthily to so great a Sacrament If therefor This great Fathers Arbitration which was bounded to Every day be stretched to the modern Question which exceedeth All bounds nothing will be so questionable as This Whether the injury we do the Fathers Discurs or That we do our Lord's Institution be the greater of the two 2. The Practice of the Church for which the Question was calculated was extremely different from Ours and That in two respects 1. In point of Worship For at Thar time the Holy Communion was daily administred by the Priests at least in great Cities and daily received by the devouter part of the peopl Som saith St. Augustine himself Daily communicate in the body and blood of the Lord some receve upon certain days in some places it is offered every day without intermission in som only upon the Sabbath and the Lords day in some upon the Lord's day only 2. In the point of Discipline which in Those days excluded the most scandalous both from the Communion and publik Prayers but This by the sentence of the Bishop This as it is plainly intimated in St. Augustin's above-recited words so is it more plainly expressed by St. Chrysostom in These words Art thou not worthy of the Sacrament nor Communion thou art not then worthy of Prayer Thou hearest the officer standing and proclaiming Whoever of you are in Penance be go'n If thou be one of those that are in Penance thou must not communicate For he that doth not communicate is in Penance Why then doth he say Be go'n you that cannot pray and thou impudently standest by and art not such but one of them that can communicate In which words of St. Chrysostom two things appear very considerable 1. That those who were excluded from the Holy Communion were no less so from publik Prayer which by the above-recited account of Justin Martyr began at the Communion Service 2. That it was not left to every mans private Caprice or Conscience to Com or Forbear But every one must com if he were not under Penance by the Bishops sentence VI. HITHERTO we have heard St. Augustin as a Father discursing in the Early stile a uestion suitable to his own time We ar now to hear him as a Doctor determining the Question by his own Reason And we are to observ 1. The stile he speaketh in And 2. The Determination he giveth 1. His stile is not definitive Doth not give his Sentence but his Opinion yea not his setled Opinion but his staggering unfledged Sentiments Doth not Impose upon our Belief but Propose to our Examination Between these saith he possibly a man determine i. e. No man hath yet so determined nor can I say that any man may but I offer it to consideration In This he speaketh most like a Father that he confesseth himself Not
hardness of the peopl's hearts In so corrupt an age we may not stand upon our Lords In the beginning it was not so but yield to his Suffer it to be so now I therefor urge no more but this That it is the duty of every Minister to labor with his people to com constantly and to offer the Holy Communion as often as he can prevail with them to receve it Against this so complaisant Assertion bicause St. Augustin's out-running followers have not only opposed his Let every one do what he thinks best but preferred the Centurions aw before Zacheus's reception therefor must this doubl Error be encounter'd with a doubl Question 1. Whether our Lords Do this take not away our liberty to forbear it 2. Supposing we had liberty to do what we believe best whether it were not better to do it frequently than seldom 1. Our first Question must be Whether our Lords Do this leave us any liberty to forbear when we think it better In this Enquiry we must distinguish between Laws Moral and Positive II MOral Laws ar written in the fleshly tables of the heart whose yielding nature may take impression from the various occurrences of life Those Laws as they ar Dictated by Reason so must they be Interpreted by it and bend to the several requires of the subject matter For the Philosopher cannot so fix the bounds of Vertu but that in many cases the Determination of a Prudent man is necessaty to distinguish it from Vice But God wrote his Positive Laws in Tables of Stone whose rigor was uncapabl of yielding Of such Laws the Will of the Law-giver was the Only Reason and must be the Only Mesure We must do Just so no less nor no more nor no otherwise Reason hath here nothing to do but to deny it self to have the least power to Dispens or Derogate or Commute or any way Decline from the express voice of the Law Uzzah could not then plead the appearance of necessity or the evidence of his good meaning when the danger of the Law was greater one way than that of the Ark was the other way To this surpose ler us reflect upon what we have already observed that our Apostl vouched our Lord's authority that so he might assert both the Truth and Importance of what he delivered For we cannot now deny the Truth without affronting the Apostl's veracity nor the Importance without disparaging our Lord's wisdom for the One must be said to take great care for a subject of no valu or the Other report a falshood We have seen som danger that our Lord's mind might be mistaken as if he either intended to consecrate none but the Paschal Supper or valued the whole office at no higher rate than he used to do outward performances We need no other evidence that the Corinthians might probably believ This than the commonness of This belief now notwithstanding the Apostl's indeavor to confute it in both its members by This declaration which plainly discovereth how much our Lord valued this office how often we must perform it and how litl power we have to abate any thing of it For these reasons he doth not plead here as before in another case of outward decency Doth not appeal to Their Judgments nor offer his Own saith not as cap. 10. I speak as to wise men judge you what I say nor as chap. 7. I give my judgment This say I not the Lord but quite contrary This say not I but the Lord and the consequence is Neither I nor an Angel from heaven must be believed against the Revelation Neither I nor an Angel from heaven much less a mans own humor can any way relax the Obligation Grant therefore now that the Observation be as Tru as the Subject is Unhappy suppose Frequence bring danger of Cheapness must we therefor presume to make it Scarce No doubtless If we will needs hear Reason it will tell us that our Lord knew this as well as We It was so Before and In and Ever Since His days as it is in Ours How then dare any one judge That a sufficient reason to hinder him from Doing this which our Lord judged not so to hinder him from Commanding it Doth not such an one declare himself both Superior and Wiser If thou judg the Law saith S. James thou art not a Doer of the law but a Judge I may add Thou art not only a Judge but an Unjust one if thy sentence rob the law of it's due so much more so by how much greater care our Lord took to have it duly paid III. HE therefor that breaketh This which is not the Least of our Lords Commandments and teacheth men so must be weighed in others scales than those of St. Augustine Not compared with the modest Centurion or forward Zacheus but with the most Disobedient Rebel and the most Unworthy Communicant and even so will be found more inexcusable than the worst For he that Doth This however unworthily payeth Somthing of obedience owneth our Lords Authority is easily Convinced of his Crime But he that saith he needs not do it doth not only deny the Law to have power over himself but assumeth to himself power over the Law and renounceth all Need and therefor all Benefit of Repentance He that Disobeyeth the Kings Law may be a Felon but he that setteth up an Opposit Authority is a Rebel and declaring himself as all Rebels do a most Faithful Subject is thereby the more Unpardonabl He that doth this unworthily is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord he dishonoreth his Person and that in his Humanity but he that Renounceth any Obligation to do it is guilty of his Crown and Dignity Deposeth him from his Throne and affronteth the Majesty of his Divinity and his pretence of Reason for disobedience whether it be Reverence or his Teachers Authority or what ever els it be it is a Rival to obedience and it 's plausibl Pretences make it so much the more properly Rebellious This perhaps may seem too Severe I grant it nor do I believ our Lord judgeth according to such Rigid mesures but Rigid as they ar they ar Just and may be urged against the Doctrines thogh not against the Persons For if the Preformance be bound upon us by a Positive Law of Christ and Forbearance only by my Own or my Teachers Reason If I prefer This abve That and Justifie my doing so what is this but to say I will not have That but This to reign over me We may not therefor without manifest Deposing our Lord pretend any thing Equal to his Authority but if we will decline our obedience to This Command we must fetch our Warrant from That alone as dispensing with us in such cases as we oppose to our obligation IV. AND this Warrant must be as Express as his Command and it must be either a Countermand or a Dispensation 1. A Countermand may be either Express or Implicit If
but what love shall prescribe and the Performance drest up in such frightful manner as is more apt to produce Dread than Love what other fruit can reasonably be hoped for than what we see that the generality should rather exercise their Aw by Shunning than their Lov by Frequenting it This was to som degree prevented by the Rubrikes of our Church 'till they wer deposed from their Authority by a sort of men who making distance from Rome their mesure of truth must by That rule have restored the Constancy which to banish was the proper act of Popery But Antipodes while they stand in greatest Opposition dwell in the same Latitude and so do these men with the Church of Rome in som of her worst Doctrines For as they also call it the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom to advance the Ecclesiastical Power above the Temporal so do they endeavor to make this Sacrament an instrument to subject the People to the Minister When they hoped to ' stablish their Discipline how briskly did they summon the People to the Communion How insolently did they depose them All even such as were every way better than themselvs to the state of Catechumens not admitting them to the Lords Table 'till they had undergo'n Their examination But when they found that they could not prevail ether with the People voluntarily to submit themselvs or with the Governors to compel them to it How quickly did they take pet How sullenly did they cast away the Sacrament as Useless to Any good purpose since it was So to their Own My banishment from the University cast me into a corner where the Dispute was publikly managed by word and writing from the Pulpit and from the Press whether the Lord's Supper wer to be celebrated in an unpresbyterated Church and the Negative so generally prevailed throghout the Land that during their whole reign in som places the very Table it self and in most others the Use of it was quite cast out of the Church When the Church of England was about to be restored and their Representatives wer desired to make their Proposals that they might ether hide or justify so great a neglect they moved to be freed from That Rubrike which obligeth the peopl to communicate at least three times in every year And to This day they make it a distinct cause of separation so that som who join with us in other offices dare not do it in This And their greatest Champion thogh he have his proper Congregation bosteth that he hath not ' ministered it these eighteen years with no less Non-conformity to his own pretences than to the stablished government 1. One pretence is that nothing must be do'n in the Publik worship of God without express warrant in his word Then certainly much less must any thing be omitted which his Command hath made necessary For the general Precept for Decency may virtually contein such Particulars as our Governors shall judge Decent but nothing less than a Particular and Express warrant can free us from a Particular Institution not only Expresly enjoyned but several ways Inculcated 2. Another pretence is that our Church is not rightly constituted according to the mind of Christ And we have discovered by the Nature of the thing by the language of the Apostls and by the unanimos consent of all the Christian world that the Sacraments ar indispensibl marks of a Christian Church which since his Congregation wants by his own principless he must abandon it 3. A Third great pretence is that We have too much Popery in our Worship And we have found that robbing the Publik worship of This Sacrament is the very Soul and Body of Popery but with This difference that the Popish Doctors intended to make it bleed away somthing of Constancy and Non-conformists bleed it to death WE see whence our neglect of the Sacrament took it's first Birth and whence it's Nourishment Popery gave it the one and Schism the other Yet how many among our selvs cherish it that renounce both Parent and Nurse Glad of the liberty which right or wrong they enjoyed during our confusions and loth to return to the troubl they suffered from such a curb to their dear lusts and ease They find that divines require no less for a worthy Communion than for a saving Repentance Repentance they press as absolutely Necessary but the Communion they think not so Who then can be so sottish as to delay his Repentance without giving the Sacrament as long a day Every mans Reason must needs concurr with his Sloth to persuade him that if it be a damnable Sin to com Unworthy but None to Forbear then must it needs be his wisest cours to avoid a task dubly prejudical first to his Ease and then to his Salvation When our Lord commanded us to pluck out our eys and cut off our hands he enforced it with a Reason as cogent as the Command could be rigid For it is better to enter into life with One ey foot or hand than to be cast into Hell-fire with two But so to state this duty as to say If you will do This you must quit your beloved lusts but if you will not do it you miss som benefits but incurr no danger how few such a declaration will persuade rather to renounce their lusts and ease than This Duty shall I call it no but Burthen Reason might have taght our ancestors to Conjectur and Experience compelleth us to bewail Experience which many call the fools mistress bicause those who apprehend not other evidence cannot avoid This Experience which is many times the Severest and alway the Best instructor doth so plainly and sadly reprove us that however excusable Other ages may have be'n who thoght themselvs secure from the ill consequences our Own and Future times cannot be so if we be not convinced by them We somtimes see men encumber their lands when they intend to grace them with Fair but Fruitless bildings and then sell houses land and all to pay the so contracted debt But we never see any so fond of such bildings as to sell the Land for their preservation if by pulling them down they can pay the debt with the materials Let us be as wise in our generation our ' forefathers thoght as such bilders usually do that the Sacrament could well bear and be improved by the cost they put it to that it would be more advanced both in honor and power than prejudiced by abatement of constancy but never thoght of staking its very Being against any hopes whatever That they thoght secured by the Laws of the Church and the unfailing practice of it's very worst members who for shame of their neighbors or fear of their governors durst not neglect it at any of the appointed seasons But now that the late Schism hath out-mischiefed all their fears it is not to be doubted but those very writers who heretofore discoraged the performance by their rigors wer they now
THE Constant Communicant A DIATRIBE Proving that Constancy in Receiving THE Lords Supper Is the Indispensible Duty of Every Christian By AR. BURY D. D. Rector of Exon. Coll. in Oxford Canon Apostol IX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whoever of the Faithful enter and hear the Scriptures but stay not out prayers and Communion ought to be Excommunicated as disturbers of the Church Socrates Hist Lib. V. Ca. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whereas All Churches through the world on the Sabbath day in every revolution of the week celebrate the mysteries they of Alexandria and they of Rome upon a certain ancient Tradition have refused so to do OXFORD Printed by LEON LICHFIELD Printer to the University for STEPHEN BOLTON 1631. TO The Most Reverend Father in God WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan And one of His Majesties most Honorable PRIVY COUNCIL c. May it please your Grace MANY great miracles do the Romanists pretend to be frequently wrought By the Holy Sacrament of the Altar but none so admirable as what their ancestors wrought Upon it For what more wonderful than This that a particular Church by colour of a Tradition should prevail with All other Churches throughout the whole Christian world to reneg That Constancy which was universally practised as indispensible for more than 400 years That from Dispensing they should proceed to Discouraging and therein so prevail that those who have freed themselvs from their many other gross abuses cannot from This but still believ our Lord more honored by Forbearing his Table than by Frequenting it In opposition to this Vulgar error I have in my narrow Sphaere used all other endeavors but with so litle fruit that I must either sit down in despair or fly to the last remedy Writeing which beside the advantage of fastening conviction better upon those few that ly under My inspection may extend it to as many others as shall bring my papers under Theirs But here also I meet great discoragements I see that many worthy persons have of late be'n as careful to exhort to the Performance of the Duty as to Worthiness in it but with no better success than those first messengers who 's kind Invitations brought nothing to the Lord of the Fest but variety of excuses If therefor I would conform either to the Parable or to Reason I must proceed to rougher means compell by force of irrefragable arguments the unwilling and resisting world and by all cogent proofs assert a Truth which by Many ages was never Doubted by More generally Denyed by Ours somtimes Affirmed but never that I know clearly proved viz. that it is every Christians duty to be a Constant Communicant And this I have do'n with Such evidence that I fear not any mans confutation yet with litl hope to see the Table furnished with guests For alas what can a poor Enchiridion do toward subduing such an error double armed with Prejudice in the Vnderstanding and Partiality in the Affections fortified with long Possession defended by the Priests and beloved by the Peopl I must therefor be unfaithful both to the service I have undertaken and to Your Grace's right should I either expose it naked and unsheltered to a Cold Advers world or seek any other Patron than your Grace For as this Sacrament hath a double aspect so hath your Grace a double right to it's protection As it is the greatest exercise of Love and duty to our Lord by your Eminence in Piety As it is the Principal office of Church-worship by your eminence in Power Ecclesiastical By the former every good christian may claim common with your Grace in most of the following pages but by the Later your Grace hath a peculiar jurisdiction over some particularly a PART III. Chap. 1. Sect. 4. those wherein I have justified the Constitutions of our Church as doing what in such unhappy circumstances is possible for retriving Primitive Constancy Could I say as much for the Practice But be it never so defective it cannot hinder us from justifying our Church as well as St. Paul himself For his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no less generally mistaken for a derogation from That very obligation to constancy which he employed it to prove indispensible than is the three times in every year which our Church defines as the Least that she can tolerate in the Peopl for the most that she expecteth from the Priests who therefor think themselvs exactly conformable if they minister it just so often and no more though without any care either Before-hand to exhort the people to Receve it or Afterward to reprove them if they Neglect it which yet they cannot avoid seeing them generally do being so taught and accustomed during our confusions and still biased by their sloth or worse What may be allowed for the untractableness of the people under our present Distractions is not for Me to determin But that those very Distractions which now toss us between two such parties whereof the One first robbed the Sacrament of Constancy and the Other strippeth it stark naked of All Performance ly on us as a just punishment for our compliance with them is plainly enough to be discovered without any rude intrusion into God's secrets For Constancy in This Office is apparently the most effectual means to unite us as being both by it's own nature most serviceable thereto and by its singular interest in our Lord's Person singularly intitled to his Blessing I therefor conceve it no impertinent disturbance of those great cares wherewith your Grace is too much molested if as a kind of Church-warden-general I make humble presentment of that defect in Parochial Churches especially which your residence in Cathedrals hath hindered you from discovering bicause those Officers who ought to be eyes to your Grace and our other Fathers in God are themselves blinded with the vulgar error Whereof we saw a pernicious experiment in the days of your Grace's immediate predecessor when a General enquiry made upon these Questions 1. How many inhabitants in your Parish 2. How many refuse to join in Communion with the Church proved abortive bicause those who refused to communicate in This Principal office were not noted as refusing to join in Communion with the Church which had they ben the necessity of compulsory means would have appeared so evident that we had not now be'n in danger to have our nineteenth Article urged against us to disprove our being a True Church I know my self chargeable with a double great boldness first in fronting these Papers with your Grace's name and then in the account I make for it But when I first engaged in the work I resolved not to do it by halvs and I think I might better have omitted the better half than This way of advantageing the whole And since your Grace is so well known eminent for zeal in redressing whatever you shall find to need it I have
more evident when we consider that he is no less careful to speak of the Bread in the same Jewish stile caling that also by its traditional â—lame For the Jews throughout their Misna and Talmud call this part of their Tradition by the same Name as doth the Apostle in this place and whereby it is still knowen in the New Testament They call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phrase cannot be more exactly translated than by The breaking of the Bread Yea this is so expressive with them that it is diverbial to stile the head of the family from this office and the whole performance by one word This you may plainly discover by what the lerned and laborios Doctor Castel in his Heptaglot Lexicon saith upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabb Fractor Sic dicitur Pater familias q. in convivio primus frangit panem s cibum illumque benedicit distribuit convivis sec illud 1 Sam. 19.13 Hinc Phrasis illa in N. T. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 III. LEt us now observ how the Apostle treateth these parts of the Lords Supper under these their Proper names and we shall find still more proof of his respecting This tradition He caleth That the cup of Blessing but he doth not call This the bread of Blessing and why not Two Evangelists more expresly note that our Lord blessed it and the third agreeth with our Apostle that he gave thanks before he brake it On the other side he caleth This the bread which we break but doth not stile That the cup which we distribute yet doth our Lord speak it more plainly of the Cup than of the Bread Take This and divide it among your selves Other reason for this duble difference of stiles we cannot Find and Better we cannot Desire than This that as our Lord borrowed both Parts of his Institution from the Jewish tradition so did the Apostle both their Names Again the Apostle keepeth to the Jewish stile in the Cup saying You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils but in the other part he quitteth the name of Bread changing it for Table and saying You cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the Table of devils And for this he had sufficient reason if the Greeks did not what we find no reason to believ they did consecrate Bread as they did Wine in All yea or Any of their Fests but if we quit This reason we shall hardly find another Yet again The Bread had the First Place both in the Jewish Tradition and the Lords Institution yet ver 16. he giveth the Cup precedence Why doth he thus cross his hands as old Jacob did preferring the Cadet before the First born What 's the reason were his eyes dim or his choice irrespective By no means For we shall again find him in the same partiality and upon the same reason because the Cup was more serviceable to his Argument than the Bread In This place it better demonstrates the inconsistency between the Church of Christ which blessed it and an Idols Temple which did not and in That it better distinguisheth a Fest which requireth the Lords Supper from a common Supper which doth not Yet must not the Bread be so deposed from its primogeniture as to be left without its blessing Thogh the Greeks custom had no rival for it yet our Lords Supper hath need of it and must not be maimed of the one half equally necessary to His Table thogh not to the Apostles argument Thogh therefor he cannot now as in the Cup oppose Name to Name yet he doth Thing to Thing Table to Table and under that stile payeth the Bread the same Justice thogh not the same Deference as he doth the Cup. Look we now which way we will we meet clear evidence Direct in the so careful caling each Element by its proper Name and Collateral in the no less careful Transplaceing them suitably to the aspect they had upon his Design yet doing right to the Institution and Tradition by mentioning the Bread as necessary to These thogh not to That IV. WHat more can be Expected yea What more can be Desired must we prove not only that here are the same Names but the same Person too This is do'n 8.15 16. I speak as to the wise men judge ye what I say The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ Can now any thing be plaine could any Lawyer or Grammarian more clearly and properly have expressed that the same bread and cup whose names he had thus translated from Hebrew to Greek were by our Lord translated from the Jewish Tradition to his Own Institution Are not Those the same with These I cannot pretend any stronger Proof but I shall endeavor to Illustrate it by a Custom of our own in our accademical Fests hitherto unaccounted V. OUr predecessors have no less exactly translated the name of the Jewish cup into English than hath the Apostle into Greek What They caled Blessing the Table We call Saying Grace and This answereth That in Both senses Praying or Praising Imploring a Blessing upon the Meat before we eat or returning Thanks for it after we have eaten Our Grace-cup therefore deriveth its Proper Name from St. Pauls Cup of Blessing by exact translation of the word And this same Cup hath a Sirname derived from the Same original by another Apostle In Acts 20. we find the Primitive Churches met every first day of the week to break bread And 1 Cor. 16.1 Upon this day they made their contributions to the poor so joining their Charity to the Lords Mystical Body with their Honor to his Natural which St. Jude so highly approveth as to denominat those meetings Fests of charity J whence our Ancestors have given this Grace-cup its Surname the Cup of Charity as used in those Fests of Charity I wish they had be'n as careful to preserve the significance as the ceremony and the duble name But if from These we may learn That we find Characters legible enogh to inform us The Cup of Blessing and our Grace-cup have Both the same Name the same Mater the same Circumstances after Grace after Washing in such order that not one of the Guests can be past by It 's the Last action before rising requireth the same Number three at least We find that however the remoter Churches met the First day of the week to break bread yet the Apostles at Jerusalem did it daily and Religios Fraternities think themselves obliged rather to take their paterns from the Apostolic College than the Graecian Churches as our Church requireth more constancy in Collegiate and Cathedral Fraternities than Parochial When the Governors of the Church upon urgent nenessity changed the Season for the people who were not to be trusted after Supper
Country accordingly His General design we cannot mistake Nothing can be plainer than This that it is to convince the Corinthians of their guilt in profaning the Lords Supper but the Medium whereby he prosecutes this charge is both Generally and Grosly mistaken and since this is the Mother error whence all our Neglects on One hand and all our Earnestness on the Other and all our Disputes on All hands proceed it cannot be too plainly exposed and thogh it be troublesom yet must we crave the Reader to undergo a labor so necessary that without it he cannot understand what the Apostle meaneth throughout his discourse We too hastily believe that he endeavoreth to prove no more but this that our Lords Person was concerned in all the abuses of his Supper taking it for granted that they knew how his Supper was concerned in Those Meetings which he reproved Whereas the more we consider it the plainer we shall find that his Direct and Immediate endeavor is to prove the Later supposing the Former as self-evident upon the first notice of our Lords Institution So the case of the Corinthians toward the Lords Supper was much like the Apostles Own toward the High Priest Acts 23.4 5. They that stood by said Revilest thou Gods high priest Then said Paul I wist not brethren that he was the high priest For it is written Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people He reproveth the Corinthians as the By-standers reproved Him Profane you the Lords Holy Supper And supposing them likewise to excuse themselves in the same manner by saying We wist not that it was the Lords Holy Supper for we cannot but know That must be celebrated with reverence he argueth in such manner as to convince them of what they seemed either not to Understand or not to Own II. THE understanding of This will give us great light towards discovery of every step and that this is true we may the better perceve if we proceed by these Enquiries 1. Whether this might not be the Corinthians case 2. What might become the Apostle to do in such a case 3. How doth the Apostles procedure suit with such a Supposal 1. This might very well be the Corinthians case For 1. Possibly they might suppose that our Lord pointed at the Bread as Paschal not as Festival and consequently preferred not Every Fest but only the Passover to this honor and for This there are appearances of reason not contemtibl 1. He chose the Passover for the Season of his Institution and embraced it with such expressions of Affection as seemed Proper to That Particular solennity saying With a desire have I desired to eat not this Supper but this Passover 2. This above All other Fests best Prefigured his death while Future and was therefor most fit to Commemorate it when Past 3. The Jews said of the Lamb This is the BODY of the Passover and our Lord seemeth to allude to it saying This is my BODY 4. The Jews distributing the Paschal Cake said THIS IS the Bread of affliction c. and our Lord distributing the Bread said THIS IS my Body c. And at That time having newly filled their minds with phrases proper to the Season it is very probable that they might receve our Lords words in such a sens 2. And probably such an error might proceed from want of a proper form of Words to accompany the celebration One of the best Doctors our Church can bost of authoriseth me to say That such a Form of words however Useful is not indispensibly Necessary Our Lord enjoined none and we find not that his Apostles either Practised or Taught their Disciples any and it was prone for the Corinthians to slide into an error concerning That cup which carried no Inscription to declare its contents Certainly from hence came that which Tertullian complains of in his days That Fests of Charity were celebrated in the Church without the Lords Supper and from hence came our loss of the meaning which is the Soul of our Grace-cup And on the contrary the Jews with the Mater retene also the meaning of their Tradition because both the Bread and Cup are accompanied with such a Form of words as will not suffer it to be lost 3. And possibly they might look upon the Whole as a mere outward Performance For knowing how litle fondness our Lord had toward Such exercises they might thence infer that he left it in Their choice to Perform or Omit it as Themselves should judge convenient and their Partiality to their beloved riot might incline them both to Entertene such an opinion and Improve it Our Lords Supper must strike some Aw into their unwilling minds Commanding not only Sobriety but Devotion And how unwelcom such a check must be to the Corinthian humor and consequently how willing they must be to free themselfs from it if we know not already we shall anon Thus far we have considered Probabilities we come now to Certainty 4. Whatever they Really believed it is Certain they might Pretend that they believed our Lords Supper unconcerned in Those Fests which the Apostle thus reproved and the very Possibility of such a Pretence no less required a confutation than a Real profession of such a Belief which requireth us to consider as our next step III. VVHat might become the Apostle to do in such a case If it were but Possibl for them to believ so Himself hath taught us that he ought to suppose they Did For Charity thinketh no evil but hopeth All things believeth All things Since therefor This was much better than Knowingly and Willingly to affront our Lord in his Representative This must in Charity be supposed And Prudence agreed with Charity rather to seek out Excuses for them than to expose them to the Vttermost He was to deal as Sweetly and Obligingly as possibl so to endear Himself and the Gospel to them Praise them as much as possibly he might Reprove them no more than Needs he must and Excuse them when he could not Justifie them And this as it sweetened the Reproof in appearance so did it more bitterly aggravate the Crime if their own consciences upbraided them as uncapabl of such an excuse Since the Guilt must needs be Great which to the Reprover appeared Incredibl Nor could any Inconvenience on the Other side dissuade such a procedure This way he might meet with them at All turns If they wer Really mistaken he might Rectifie their Judgments if they wer not he might Baffl their Pretences and Both waies Reprove their Misdemeanors rescuing our Lords Supper from Profanation if they intended to celebrate it and his Commands from Neglect if they intended it not and Himself from any appearance either of Severity towards Them or Coldness towards our Lords Supper IV. 3. HOW doth his Procedure suit with such Supposals If we carefully observe we find that the former part agreeth very well with them and the later part will agree with
any design in ether of the Three to honor the by Them Unregarded and to Us Insignificant Circumstance Once more We must never fly to a Miracle where we find Nature nor must we suppose our Lord to have exercised his miraculous Power without his Wisdom We have a fair smooth account one way his action suitable to his Own last Institution in circumstances exact his form of words This is my Body in the most proper manner signifying both Who he was and Why he did this must needs by natural significance open their eyes those of their Bodies to discover his Person and those of their Understandings to discover his Institution On the other side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a needless fruitless Miracle which we cannot believ without Neglecting our Lords wisdom and Renouncing our Own Yet are the Apostl's eyes holden This Season upon a contrary disorder blinding their apprehensions as the Passion-night had do'n For thogh He appeared to them whiles This very action was in relating discoursed with them shewed them his hands and his feet yet at first they believed not for Joy and Wondering Which Passions thogh they blew from a contrary point broght violence enogh to ruffle their minds into such confusion that they could not discover his very Person much less his Mind No less than forty days did their eyes continu thus holden nor were they opened 'till the miraculous illumination of the Spirit of Truth broght all our Lords sayings with their explications to mind The same St. Luke which records these appearances closeth the Gospel with this short account of their Devotions They were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God And with the same character doth he describe it in the beginning of their Acts 1.14 They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren Not a syllabl of the breaking of the Bread here or any where els during the whole forty days But immediatly upon the coming of That Spirit of Truth which according to our Lords promise led them into all Truth and brought all things to their remembrance that ever he had said unto them and not only to their Remembrance but to their Understanding Then did they both Remember and Understand All that our Lord said did and meant concerning his Supper III. AND now we are com'n to the second Observable viz How diligent they were in performing this duty when they knew it For immediatly we find This added to their other Devotions Acts 2.42 They continued in the Apostl's doctrine and communion and in breaking of bread and in prayer and in vers 46. They continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house did participate the food 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with gladness and freedom of heart And here bicause it may possibly be questioned whether our Lords Supper be meant we ought to observ 1. The Exercises accompanying it 2. The Phrase expressing it 3. The Place of celebration 4. The Time 1. The EXERGISES ACCOMPANYING it were All Holy Blessing God Supplication Prayer All Acts of Devotion What maketh Breaking of bread in such company What fellowship hath God with Epicurus 2. The PHRASE is Diverbial every one in That age understood it Eating of Bread was their idiom for a Fest and Breaking of Bread for the consecration of it by this Ceremony so that This was not only the most Proper but the Only Phrase that could have be'n used to express both That Custom and This Sacrament Why St. Luke should here give the Bread the honor to denominate when we found St. Paul so partial to the Cup we need seek for no other reason but This viz. The Jews used so to speak yet is there another Those cavilers who had so strained to impeach the Apostles as drunk with new wine would not have failed to slander their Meetings as drunken compotations if themselvs should have professed they met to drink the Cup. In This stile therefor is wisely consulted the honor of the Exercise which is hereby so far removed from any suspicion of drunkenness that is not so bad as ordinary Eating so far from Riotous that it could not be suspected to be merely Civil IV. 3. THe PLACE where this Exercise was performed seemeth to oppose it's Sacredness and therefor requireth more than superficial heed The word in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our received Translation Englisheth it from house to house some Margins at home Ether of them importing a Common Place would denote Common Bread but let us consider The Apostl's opposing the Religion legally established were necessitated to hold Conventicles for fear of the Rulers when they met to celebrate This office which by Them was abominated and would certainly be persecuted The Templ was a publik place for Jews and Gentiles It was a house of Prayer for all nations bicause Natural Universal Religion taught all Nations to pray and praise God Thus far might the Apostls communicate as well with their Enemies as Disciples and that they might so do they continued daily with one accord in the Temple But should they have presumed There to celebrate This Christian office and thereby to Upbraid their Rulers for having destroyed the Lord of life they must infallibly have drawen upon themselves not only certain Disturbance but certain Destruction It was therefor absolutely necessary to cary This office to som Other place wherein they might escape both eyes and hands of enemies And if there were Any to be found that emulated the Templ as the Tradition did the Sacrifice That above All other might best pretend to the honor Our industrious Mede and Gregory have abundantly proved that the Jews and their Proselytes in their greater houses were careful to provide a large upper room for Religious Exercises Such was That wherein our Lord instituted This Sacrament Such if not the same was That wherein the eleven continued with Mary c. in prayer and supplication to the number of 120. Such That wherein Paul preached when Eutyches fell down from the third loft c. These large Rooms were caled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bicause of their situation on the top of the house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the same reason or for the Largeness of the windows and perhaps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because their amplitude by the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the fairest pile in a City is caled the Domo It was but Rational that the Apostl's with their Disciples finding it so far from Safe that it was not Possibl to perform This office in the Temple should provide for their Quiet and Safety and but Pious that they should chuse such a Place as might com as near the Templ as possibl both in Greatness and Holiness This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we again find joined with the Templ Act. 15. The Angel of the Lord commanded the Apostl's to preach to the
see that none could stay out the Prayers but they must be at least by-standers at the Communion Or if any thoght to avoid them Both they were not thereby excused as appears in the case of the Alexandrians for when many of them after reading of the Gospel went away John surnamed the Alms-giver then Patriarch followed them out of the Church sharply reproving them telling them He came to administer the Eucharist to them and never giving over his importunity till he brought them back to the Holy Table Even those who were go'n out of the Church as resolved not to Communicate and therefor certainly both Unprepared and Unworthy did he promiscuously even compel And This zele of so Eminent a Prelate might I vouch as my second Topik since he cannot be denied the title of a Father of the Church But I urge not This however Venerable Authority further than as Expositor of the true meaning of the now mentioned Canon since by the shifts the People made to avoid the Letter by not staying out Prayers and the importunity the good Prelate used to recal them both to Prayers and Communion we may best Avoid any Evasions that our Modern Teachers may use who in Reverence to the Sacrament fright the vulgar from it and Justify my self in my professed endeavor to compel them to it And from the first Testimony thus cleared I com to II. 2. ANcient FATHERS among whom Justin Martyr shineth with great lustre He florished in the midl of the Second Century and is so Clear and so Particular that his words may serv as well to Describe as to Prove the Practice of Those days consonant to the Apostls This excellent Father having before described the other Sacrament and to its Description added what the Church constantly did to its Celebration That of the Lords Supper proceeding afterward to giv a Several account of This he thus reporteth its Constant Revolution And That day which is caled Sunday there is a meeting of all that dwell in Town and Country and the Reader having do'n his office the President makes an Oration wherein he exhorteth the people to imitate such goodly things Then we all rise and pray and as I have said at the end of prayers Bread Wine and Water are brought forth and the Prefect again poureth out with all his might Prayers and Praises and the people answereth aloud Amen And there is a distribution and communication made of those things over which thanks have be'n given to every one that is present but to the absent it is sent by the Deacons But those that are wealthy and willing contribute what they see good c. These words do so exactly suit the Practice of the Church to her above-recited Censure that I know not what Light can be Added or what Evasion Pretended if we consider how expresly they declare 1. That this was Every Sundays exercise And that it was not confined to the Sunday appeareth by what he had said before in the description of the Other Sacrament whereof he made This a certain attendant without declaring that it was do'n only upon Sundays 2. Every Christian was thoght obliged to Communicate every Sunday at least bicause the Church-officers were appointed to cary the Holy Supper even to the Absent 3. They mingled Water with the Wine This we may very reasonably believ to have be'n do'n in Conformity to the Jewish Tradition which forbiddeth the Cup of blessing to be otherwise celebrated For so the Misna in Berachoth endeth the 7th Chap. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They bless not for the Wine until Water be put to it This Action they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mingling of the Cup as they do the other the Breaking of the Bread 3. The third sort of testimony promised was an HISTORIAN I might plead performance of That promise by the now recited words of Justin reporting Mater of Fact But that you may see this was no short lived practice I shall further offer you the testimony of a profess'd Historian that wrote about the midl of the fifth Century Socrates in lib. 5. cap. 21. describing the differences between several Churches in their Rites thus speaketh concerning the Subject now in question Althogh All Churches All the world over in every week on the Sabbath day celebrate the Communion yet the Alexandrians and Romans upon an ancient Tradition refuse so to do But the Egyptians which dwell near Alexandria and in Thebais celebrate also the Communion on the Sabbath but receve it not after the manner of other Christians for after they have Fested and filled themselves with sundry meats in the Evening making the Offering they Communicate in the Mysteries Behold here a Testimony as full and as clear as can be expected from an Historian yea from a Witness for he nether speaketh by hear-say nor transcribeth other mens Writings of former ages but reporteth what himself certainly knew of the Universal practice of the whole Christian World at the time of his Writing And for our better satisfaction let us consider 1. That He should say the Sabbath was the day of Celebration whereas Justin Martyr puts it upon the Sunday can make no objection The analogy between them having given the One the name of the Other in our own days 2. Whereas the Egyptians Fested first and Communicated in the Evening after they had Fested themselves this may well be taken for a continuation of the Primitive practice in their Fests of Charity banished at That time out of other Churches bicause of rhe abuses they suffered from the Intemperance of the Peopl 3. Concerning the singularity of the Roman Church 1. It is not hard to reconcile Socrates with St. Hierom who saith That in His days there remained plain foot-steps of daily Communions in That Church which also continueth true in Our days without any contradiction to our Historian She hath still evident Foot-steps of more than Daily Communions yet no Face of so much as Weekly It seems that even in Socrates's days they had put it in Maskerade 2. We see what right That Church hath to ingross the title of Catholik It is one contradiction to confine so large a Word to any One part of the World and it is a Greater to confine it to That part which was singular as differing from All besides the Alexandrian Church 3. We find what pretence that Church hath to equal her Traditions with the Scripture since Universality is essential to a Tradition and here she pretendeth One unknown to the whole Christian World But most pertinently to our present purpose 4. We see whence we are to derive the neglect of Weekly Communions When the Roman Church got the Power to impose her own Singularities upon All other the Ambition to usurp the title of Catholik as if she were not only the Head but the Whole and the Confidence to set up her Inventions as authentik Traditions then must the Universal Practice of All the Christian World be
swallowed up and our Lord's Institution be lost in a private Tradition and an unintelligibl Mass but in the Beginning it was not so 5. The result of all is That the Doctrine of liberty from obligation to constancy in the Lords Supper is Popery most properly so caled both in the Mater and the Derivation in the Mater as differing from the Church Universal in the Derivation as proceeding from no pretence of Scripture at first thogh it be otherwise now but from Tradition of their own making contrary to Tradition worthily so caled and Scripture carefully examined Whoever therefor desireth a Thorogh Reformation from Popery and Popish Superstitions let him not spend his zele about litl Ceremonies and Circumstances but imploy it in service of the most Sacred and most properly Christian office which needs be rescued from utter abolition by the Practices of Rome never more grosly superstitious than in This Subject III. 4. THE Fourth sort of Testimony is That of ENEMIES Those that appear such to the Constancy we assert may be reduced to one of these three Glasses viz. 1. Protestants 2. Papists 3. Junior Fathers Among PROTESTANTS and Abov all others I therefor apply my self to the excellent person above praised bicause I know no other that hath asserted any thing so distinctly as to be capabl of an answer This admirable Person finding the Evidence of the best Antiquity That of the Apostl's and Primitive Fathers undeniable endeavoreth ro Evade what he findeth necessary to Confess 1. Concerning the Former we have heard him say True it is the Apostls did indefinitely admit all the faithful to the Holy Communion but they were persons wholely enflamed with those Holy Fire which Jesus Christ sent from Heaven to make them burning and shining Lights c. And then he spends a whole Page in such a Character as one might think intended for the Apostls themselves did not the question necessarily cast it upon the Faithful and then too one might think that word must be taken in its most rigid sens for the Elect. But was there a Judas among the twelve chosen by our Lord himself and not One unworthy among the thousands of Disciples whom the Apostls indefinitely admitted St. Jude describeth not Such Saints sure where among other black characters he brandeth them with This that they are spots in their fests of charity and as litl doth he blame the officers of the Church for admitting them St. Paul too I take it doth not describe Saintly conversation in those Church meetings for whose debaucheries he reproveth not the Pastors for Admitting such Persons but the Peopl for Committing such Leudness yea and So reproveth them as not to Excommunicate them for their domestik riots but to require them however unworthy in their persons to come but in a manner more worthy Had the Scriptures be'n silent we must have be'n very tame if without any evidence we had believed that All Christians in that better then Golden age deserved so great an Eulogy but after such contrary Evidence we have nothing better to do than to pity such an excellent Person so enslaved and hardly used by an Opinion that putteth him to seek but alloweth him no shifts from such insupportabl Evidence Another Confession with it s annexed Evasion concerns the Ancient Fathers in these words St. Hierom and St. Augustin tells us That even until their days the custom of receving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain And all the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion But just as Physitians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and faint but the strong men and the healthy All the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion This is more than can well stand with his own positions which discorage the generality from it yet falls as much short of truth as Frequent doth of Constant for we shall presently meet som of them exhorting not only to Frequent but Daily Communions Yea so certainly did the Primitive Christians make This not only their Constant but their Principal exercise in All their meetings that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which primarily signifieth no more than a Meeting became the diverbial word for the Lords Supper in exact conformity to St. Luke's stile who saith They meet to break bread and the footsteps of the phrase remain as plain yet as much corrupted as do those of the Office among the Romanists who express their Church-meetings by Going to Mass As certainly therefor as the Papists make the Mass the Principal exercise of their Publik worship so certainly did the Primitive Christians make the Lords Supper the principal of Theirs the very phrase confirming their express testimony of this truth They exhort men he confesseth but evades the consequence by adding they do it Just as Physicians c. whereas it is undeniable that They exhorted as the Apostls admitted All Indefinitely and until we are shewen that they excepted any besides Catechumens and Excommunicates we must not clip their indefinite Exhortations with unwarrantable Limitations derived from no other reason but their serviceableness to our Hypothesis IV. ANOTHER Class of Adversaries ar the Papists who yet no less manifestly Preserv than Contradict the Primitive Practice For That very Church which obligeth not the Peopl to receve but at Easter only That very Church in whose magnified Synod at Trent a Caveat was entered not to derive even That anniversary obligation from our Lords but the Churches command That very Church to This very day so Prescribeth as to Out-do the constancy of the Primitive Som may think it too much that I have from the Acts of the holy Apostles taken the Lords Supper for the reason of the Disciples meetings the first day of the week But none sure can doubt that with the Papist to go to Church signifieth the same as to go to Mass but to go to Hear Mass is such an errand as the first ages never went upon While they admit the people only to hear or see Their Hoc est corpus meum is an egregiosly and Both words of St. Paul may be applyed to such a Mass To the people belongs This is not to eat the Lords Supper To the Priest As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you shew forth the Lords death And both the One and the Other forsake their Duty and their Patern while they pretend to stick to them Thus the ruins of a beautiful Structure may at once evidence its amplitude and confess their own rubbidge no way answerable to the beauty it formerly served We need not therefor be ashamed of this kind of proof as if we too much honored the Church of Rome in owning her Practice for an evidence of the Primitive We take it not as the Testimony of the Honorable but as a Confession of the Guilty when we make use of their Own words as an evidence against the Speakers practice When we say every Mass ought to
who com not So often At least must be punishee as Non-conformists those who com not much Oftner thogh they fall not under her Discipline do under her Reproofs as we com now from hearing We can no more infer Three times a Year sufficient for the Communion bicause the Church doth not punish those who come so often than Once in a month to be sufficient for Divine Service because the Law punisheth not those who com so often Rules of Government have mesures different from Rules of Devotion Our Church seemeth to have taken her mesures from the Council of Agatho and Eliberis which declare That those who do not communicate on the Fests of Nativity Easter and Pentecost are not to be accounted Catholik She manifestly declareth her judgment to agree with what we have all this while be'n proving Not every Sunday but almost for every other Holy day she hath appointed a preparative Vigil that we may examin our selvs with Fasting and Prayer and every Festival hath its proper Communion Service to be read at the Time and Place of the Lords Supper Just in the same circumstances as Justin Martyr hath described the practice of the Church in His days when the Reader and Preacher have do'n their offices when the Catechumens are dismissed with the Benediction of The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ c. Then doth the Priest go to the Holy Table accompanied in Collegiat Churches and Chappels with one or two assistants There to read the Communion Service every Holy day throughout the year V. LET us now suppose a Priest of ether party about to read the Communion Service at the Holy Table declaring what he believeth to be the Churches meaning in that office and it will not be hard to judge which of the two will best deserv her thanks He that will make her satisfied with his three times in a year must speak to this purpose Behold hither am I com'n in conformity to the Customs of the Primitive Church and the Constitutions of our own The first Churches celebrated the Lords Supper every Holy dry and Ours ordaineth the Communion Service to be read every such day in the same circumstances After the Benediction with an Offertory at the Holy Table Here am I and my brethren ready to assist me to communicate to you and with you If any Isaac demand Here is the fire and the wood but where is the Lamb Here are all other requisites but where is the Bread and Wine Know that our Church doth as litl intend a Communion as Isaac did to be Sacrificed She doth not indeed affront your sences by Consecrating the Elements without Communicating them as doth the Church of Rome but she is no less willing to withold them from you She is content you should communicate thrice every Year that the memory of the Institution be not quite lost but would have you mannerly and modest not constant and importure guests com by such intervals as may becom the awe due to so venerable a Mystery not with such constancy as may signifie familiarity with it For however our Lord intended and the Apostls and best ages of the Church conformed themselvs to his Intentions that his Supper should be the constant office in every Church meeting yet experience hath proved such Constancy prejudicial to its Honor and therefor our Church hath taken this midl away constantly to do somwhat in obedience to the Lords Institution yet to forbear the complete office in reverence to his body and blood that as plenty hath made it cheap so scarcity may advance its value To this purpose must such an one speak that will father such an opinion upon the Church But he that pleads for constancy may borrow a better speach from St. Chrysostom who complains Here we wait and none com or from St. Augustin who expostulates What cause is there O hearers that ye see the Table and com not to the Banquet Yea or from her Own Exhortation now mentioned which assisted with her Rubrik prescribing to the Priests once every week at the least will complain not only of deserting the Table when furnished but of Discoraging the Ministers from furnishing it as constantly with the Holy Fest as they do with the Office which supposes it For thus may such an one speak Here we attend in conformity to our Lords Institution the Practice of the Primitive Church and the Injunctions of our Own to communicate with you the Lords Supper We do not indeed bring forth the Bread and Wine bicause it is too manifest that in so doing we must either expose them to contemt by not using them at all or use them our selves alone The choice is hard and the Church of Rome hath chosen the Later but without escaping the Former For how can That be caled a Communion as by the Apostl it is where One takes all to himself or how is the holy Supper rescued from contemt when all but one are idle spectators not vouchsafing to be guests at the divine Supper Our Church hath taken the best cours that in so great a streight she could to avoid Both sides of the inconvenience That our Lords body blood may not be so exposed she forbids us to celebrate the Communion unless there be a competent number to communicate and to avoid loss of any opportunity she directs those who intend to communicate that they signifie their readiness by sending their names in convenient season to the Curate By the One she provides that the Fest be not dishonored for want of Guests and by the Other that the Desirous be not hindered for want of the Fest And lest this omission of bringing Bread and Wine should be mistaken for an intimation that it is not our duty to receve them she hath provided that upon Every Holy day we be put in mind of our Obligation Yesterday Eve was consecrate to Fasting and Prayer for This very purpose that we might thereby prepare our selvs to receve the Holy Supper this day And now that the Common Prayer is ended and the rest of the people who are not capable to communicate ar dismissed with their blessing according to the practice of Christ's Church in the best ages we com up to the holy Table in this its proper place and season to read the Communion-service that you may understand there oght to be a Communion joined with This Service if you would not be wanting to your duty in receiving it You know we dare not adventure to expose the holy Viands without giving you a weeks warning nor dare we give you such warnings as Frequently as we desire much less as Gonstantly as we ought bicause we sind you too backward to entertene even Those too rare Invitations which we give you But that you may see with what regret we submit to That necessity you thus put upon us Our Church is careful clearly to intimate how much more she Wisheth than she Dareth to Command What reason
of their Meeting but in That of their Festing yet his in thrice repeated charge he doth not lay his accusation against These but against Those especially vers 20. When ye com together in one place it is not to eat the Lords Supper From which words especially if helped with the now mentioned clause of ver 26. it plainly appeareth that it Then was and Ever must be the duty of All Christian Churches to celebrate the Lords Supper when ever they meet in his House Otherwise the Corinthians must be unjustly arraigned as Criminal having broken no Obligation God forbad Perjury in This stile Thou shalt not take in the Hebrew it is Thou shalt not lift up the name of the Lord thy God in vain The Phrase is bilt upon their then Custom of lifting up the hand in the name of God Our form of Swearing is not by lifting up the hand above the head but perhaps by bowing down the head to the hand yet no man pretends the power of the Law abolished with the Ceremony it seemeth bilt upon since the Obligation dependeth not upon the variable Circumstance of Swearing but the indispensibl Connexion between our Oath and Truth Just so it is here This Institution relates to Festing as That Law did to lifting up the hand This requireth that our Lords Supper should accompany All our Church-meetings as That doth that Truth should accompany All our Oaths and the Church may be as Innocent and the Obligation as Firm after the One alteration in the manner as after the Other And 't is worth our observation with what temper she hath ever proceeded that in the Great Changes she found Necessary to make the Sacrament might not lose its right It seems not an Accidental but Substantial circumstance That This should be Instituted In and After Supper and consequently that it should be Celebrated in the same Season necessary both to answer its Title the Supper of the Lord and the Tradition whence it was taken Yet to celebrate it before day appeareth by the unquestionable testimony of Pliny to have be'n the practice in Trajan's time But That Persecution which Necessitated did thereby Justifie so Great a variation They wer denyed the use of their Public Churches if they had Any their malicios enemies watched all opportunities to mingle their blood with their Sacrifices Either therefor they must do this before day or not at all This was a great Change but no Robbery for the Sacrament lost not so much as its Name by it but still continued to be caled the Lords Supper That change the Emperors Persecution made necessary and a worse Persecution made a Greater one no less so The unbridled luxury of the people turned it from the Supper of the Lord to a Fest of Bacchus and it seemed impossibl to rescu it from that wors Metamorphosis but by turning it from a Desert after Supper to a Break-fast in the Morning III. AND thogh this seemed a Greater change than the Former as taking away not only the Season of the Supper but the very Nature of a Fest yet was the Church careful to save the Institution harmless The Day first consecrate to This office still enjoyeth the title of The Lords day and of a Fest Four Councils declared it heretical to Fast and many Canons forbad to Kneel upon That day it is honored with a Preparatory Vigil and a Communion-Service and every Other Holy day if they be not expresly consecrate to Festing enjoy the same honor and title of Festivals And why I pray' now why all this care Why so great a Soloecism to Fast upon our Lords day Was he indeed as the Scribes and Pharisees charactered him a riotos person and a Wine-bibber If He were yet certainly St. Michael and all Angels ar not nor wer All the Saints so John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking St. Paul was in fastings often and many other Saints are honored for their very Abstinence How can it be congruos that the Angels should delight in That whereof they are by Nature Uncapable or the Saints in that which by Grace they Shunned But granting this Why then must their Eves be Fasting-days What strange meetings of Contradictions are these That they who in their lives loved and practiced Fasting should after their deaths delight in Festing and yet their very Festing-days be honored by a Fasting Usher Suppose This be only a Preparative To what purpose such a bedel Must we Therefor Fast upon the Eve that we may have the better stomach to the following Fest There must questionless be som Better reason and what Better can there be than what we ar now observing viz. the constant Practice of All mankind and particularly of Christians celebrating the worship of God with Festing not abrogated but thus improved that the Supper of our Lord might be it self a Spiritual Fest attended with a Corporal one and ushered with a Vigil the One proper for its genuine Celebration the Other for our Preparation to it Nor hath the Apostls argument suffered more by this change than our Lords Supper the only difference is this That before it concluded by Enthymem and now by Syllogism While the custom continued of Eating this bread and drinking this cup in Every Meeting the conclusion without more ado followed Ergo He that eateth this bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty But now it requireth the assistance of an Assumtion which Then was the Apostl supposed would Ever be self-evident viz. that as often as they met together they ate this bread and drank this cup. And thogh the 27th verse seemeth to have lost its force bicause we do not eat that bread and drink that cup as the Corinthians then did yet the 20th still retaineth its strength and we ar guilty of the same charge of so coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper thogh we are not to be convicted by the same medium IV. AND if any Claus in the Apostls whole Dissertation teach us That charge must needs do it None of the rest can teach us point blank but only compass and by Analogy with those sensual Debaucheries against which they were leveled It can not now be said one is hungry and another is drunken nor can any other of those Characters fit us by which the Apostl describeth the profaneness he impeacheth But we think our selfs obliged by Analogy to infer that as their Sensual unworthiness made them guilty where they abused a Sensual Fest so any Spiritual unworthiness will make Us so if by it we profane a Spiritual one and for this Analogical reason we must examin our selfs c Now if this seem obliging in point of Worthiness much more must it be so in the Performance it self For he disputeth for That not only by Analogy but Point blank We find no Reproof because no Mention of any but Sensual or Schismatical unworthiness in the Corinthians but Express and thrice Repeted inculcation of their Meetings as
greater Mysteries If saith he I tell you Earthly things and ye believe not how will ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things Meaning by Earthly and Heavenly as St. Paul afterward did Phil. 2.10 and in several other places by the Former the Jewish by the Later the Christian Mysteries whereof he giveth a Specimen in his coming from Heaven his returning Thither and his being There and his crucifixion for the salvation of the world That which we mention This for is to shew that our Lord manifestly adopted the Jewish Tradition of Baptism into the Gospel making it then a necessary badge of a Disciple as he also afterward did when he returned to Heaven requiring his Apostles to go and Disciple all nations Baptising them for this reason bicause whoever believeth and is Baptised i. e. publikely professeth his Discipleship shall be saved By all which it is apparent that our Lord appointed this as a Livree whereby his servants must profess to own Him for their Master if they should by him be own'd and saved III. YET is not this the Adaequate nay nor the Principal badge of a Christian For we receve This but Once and that without our own consent As were we when this Seal was put upon us so was its Impression when we came to age we wer at liberty to Own or Reneg it and whether we do This or That appears by no other visibl mark but only our Receving or Neglecting This more Critical Sacrament in due season appointed by our Lord as a more Lasting and Alway Visible cognisance I say our Lord appointed this Other Sacrament in Due season For had he do'n it sooner his Disciples would have forgotten his Command before they understood it yet could he not forbear to Prophecy of it saying He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life But since his Death must needs be understood when he had suffered it even by Those who before knew not what it meant he therefor took the time when it was in a manner Present as fittest for the Institution which was both to Commemorate it and Distinguish his Disciples by such constant Repetitions whereof Baptism was incapable Those who are honored with the Noble Order of the Garter as they are solenly Installed so ar they Obliged ever after to wear the George and the Star as permanent badges of the Honor and Vow they have receved and if Any person however solenly Installed shall afterward lay his Habit aside he doth not only Offend against the Law of the Order but Disclaim his Interest in it as refusing to be esteemed a Brother of that Royal Fraternity This Sacrament is our George and our Star This if we constantly wear not we tacitly renounce our Christianity Those very Persons who perhaps will not Admit certainly do not sufficiently Press this for a Necessary Duty abundantly urge it to other purposes When they are required to assign the marks of a true Church they name Administration of the Sacraments for One and it will troubl any reasonabl man to deny that if the Administration be the mark of a True Church the Reception must be so of a True Member of the Church And som Ultramarine Churches have found it necessary to declare as the Council of Agatha did of old that those who receve not the Sacraments oght not to be reputed as Christians For which censure thogh we have already seen Reason sufficient yet perhaps we may see more IV. 2. THOSE Rites whereby One Religion is Crititically distinguished from Another however slight the Mater may seem ar highly to be esteemed for That office Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing said the Apostl yet was the One mortal in the Old Testament and the Other in the New and Both upon the same Reason He that was circumcised was a debtor unto the whole Law To eat an Apple or any other Fruit of a Tree is a small matter but when the forbearance was made a Sacrament i. e. a Specimen of the new made Creatures owning the dominion of the Creator Then Eating was condemned not only as an act of Misdemeanor but Rebellion and the Smith which thoght it too much that God should be so severe for an Apple might be answered that it was not for the Apple but for the experiment he thereby gave of his disowning Gods authority over him And for This reason did God make Those offences Capital which had otherwise be'n Venial He that was uncircumcised He that kept not the Passover He that brake the Sabbath c. That soul must be cut off from his people bicause God had said of every one of those otherwise slight performances This shall be a sign between Me and You. This dubl care of God as well in Negative as Positive Ceremonies taught his peopl to infer That if a Jew must forbear the Rites of Gentilism then must the Gentile as for the same Reason so upon the same Penalty forbear those of Judaism Since the One no less than the Other was necessary to the Discriminarive which was the Adaequate vertu of the Law As God therefor made it mortal to the Jew to Neglect such Rites so did the Jews make it to a Gentile to Usurp them as thereby robbing them of their proper vertu since by being common to Both they wer disabled to distinguish the One from the Other The Gentile saith the Gemera Babylonica which observed the Law of Moses was guilty of death How so bicause it is said Moses commanded us a Law for an Inheritance It is an Inheritancs to Us not to the Gentile Yea their most Learned Maimonides saith that if a Gentile celebrated a Sabbath thogh he mistook the day yet if he did it with intention to keep the Sabbath he was guilty of death They did not indeed inflict death on such offenders but stripes only yet not without admonition that he was guilty of death thogh not punished with it Since therefor our Lord left us This Law as Moses did His Ceremonial for an Inheritance the Reason being the Same in the Law the Crime must be the Same in the Disobedience V. THE Same in its Reason but incomparably Greater in Haynosness For by how much the Covenant is Better the Law-giver Greater the Redemtion more costly c. by so much more criminal must it be to omit This than any Mosaical Rite And how much That is if we enquire we must do it in the stile of the Author to the Hebrews not to seek satisfaction but to express amazement He that despised Moses 's Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath do'n despight to the Spirit of Grace I grant that This dreadful Thunder is not leveled against the neglect of This Institution as
This Sacrament When the Word hath prepared the Heart by the Ear when the Understanding is Informed and the Affections somewhat Moved with the recital of What our Lord suffered And Why Then doth the Sacrament complete the service by shewing to our very Eyes the Wounds not of his Garments but his Flesh and Those not as long since made but as now in making Represents his Sacred bloud not as dried up by time but as Now even Now streaming from his Heart It so Commemorates his passion as to Repete it and in the most inflaming manner presents to our Souls all those incentives against sin which our Lords death our Lords Present death can furnish He that considers how the little sens of Religion yet left in the world is derived from the Frequency of Preaching will find too great reason to bewail the invaluabl loss it suffers by want of so helpful an Attendant For if That maimed as it is do in Som however Littl mesure prevail by it's Singl and Deserted strength how much more might we hope from their united Forces if Jonathan secunded his Armor bearer To say that we might Then sing of them as the daghters of Israel did of their victorios Princes Preaching hath saved it's Thousands and the Sacrament it 's Ten thousands would be but a cold Eulogy We have no reason to doubt that as there is more than Ten to One difference in their Powers so would there be in their Successes Unless we will needs doubt of our Lords ordinary blessing upon his so beloved ordinance which we have far more reason to believe he would assist with the Spirit not only of a David but a Samson as being a Nazarite appropriat to himself Therfor THIRDLY I shall say but this litle to such a scruple That as it would look almost like a Miracle if an Honest Constant Communicant should miss a blessing so we may be sure that if there needed a Miraculos Power to bless such an one it would not be wanting For it is incredibl that he who promised that when ever two or three ar gathered together in his name there he will be in the mids of them should not be most Especially and most Graciosly present with those who meet not in his Name only but at his Table upon his Own kind invitation to fest not With him only but Upon him Of this I say no more bicaus Those whom I dispute with ar so far from denying our Lords especial Presence that they make it the Reason for Their Absence who most need it but how much they thereby honor our Lord and his Supper let what I have above said declare for I hasten to my third position VII 3. MY THIRD Position is that the Converting Power of the Sacrament is better Exercised and it's Honor more Advanced by Frequent than by Seldom Celebrations The question is concerning the Greater or Less probability of the Conversion of a Sinner whom we must suppose arrived to neither of the Opposit perfections neither Worthy on the One side nor Atheistical on the Other but in a Midl state sensibl of his duty both to our Lord and his Church Willing or rather Submitting to do what he shall be convinced to be required of him but Wavering between his Obedience to our Lords Command which seemeth to require Frequency at least and the Apostls indulgence backed with appearance of Reason which recommendeth Aw and Distance as necessary to preserv that Reverence which it is supposed will best advance both the Honor of the Sacrament and Benefit of the Recever For such an one may plead that if I ow any person Twenty shillings and pay him One Guinny I do better than if I paid him Twenty silver shillings So if One Solen Address be more worth then Twenty of the Constant it will be better to com One time for Twenty With such Solennity then Twenty times for One Without it And consequently our Lord will accept of That as more perfect obedience than This. At present we dispute not that in This Institution the Number of pieces is the very Essence of the Obligation but admit the supposed liberty of paying One Golden performance in lieu of Many Less valuabl and upon This Supposition require that the Pretence may be made good viz. That the One for Twenty may be Such as shall recompence by the greater Valu the defect in Number This One Solen address must have not only a plainer Stamp as every new Coin may have but purer Metal not only more Outward Solennity but more Inward Devotion For if a man bow the knee never so Solenly and give the title of King never so Formally yet if in So doing he put no better then a Dry Hollow Light Reeden Scepter into our Lords hand he acteth more like a persecuting Jew than a Loyal Disciple And in the present inquiry Those who ar to make the Address ar supposed to ly in a state of Enmity and Need of Conversion for concerning the Godly there is no doubt but the oftener the better What ever Outward deference such enemies bring if it have nothing of the power of Godliness it doth not honor our Lord with his Own Sceptre For the Sceptre of his Kingdom is a right Sceptre a love of Righteosness and hatred of iniquity What ever wanteth This wanteth That Divine life without which the most Solen worship is no better than a gay Pageant who 's Forced motions pass for Solen merely bicaus Unwieldy the Absence of inward life giving the Ly to them all That we may the better Compare them it will be requisite we bring to vieu both the Rivals And first let us bring forth that Shew wherewith our Lord is to be better Served and Pleased than with literal Obedience WHEN the Unwelcom season is now at hand which Indispensibly exacteth the painful task the Unwilling votary if he can deserv That name finding No way to escape it forceth himself to look Sadly upon his still Beloved sins Confineth himself for som tedios days to the Lothed conversation of that Troublsom stranger his Conscience wherewith he Communeth in such Awkward manner as plainly betrayeth his Unacquaintedness with it's language not to be supplied by the vainly courted assistance of those good Books which at such times only he taketh the Penance to read and after the appointed days languished away in this heartless Exercise which he calleth Preparation he receveth I say not the Lords Supper but the holy Symbols with great Solennity we grant but with as little Benefit or Relish as Appetite and goeth home with This only comfort that the Tedios work is do'n and the Stately Lifeless machin may be laid aside till the Revolution of another Solennity call it forth to stalk abroad again with the same Troubl to the same Little purpose Let our adversaries now deal freely can they suppose such Pageantry acceptabl to God can such Counters as have somthing of the due Image and Superscription but
nothing of the due Metal not only pass for Current in the Kingdom of God but bear a greater Valu than such pieces as com out of his own Royal Mint can God be pleased with such performances as please not the Votary himself can he be so much Better pleased with them that One of them shall be reputed payment for Multiplied omissions of Duty Or which is more pertinent to our present enquiry can such an exercise destroy the kingdom of the Devil in the unwilling Soul c. I grant Somthing hath be'n do'n toward it The man hath be'n put in mind of his need of Christs bloud and the Love that first Spilt it and now Offered it and This hath somwhat awakened the sens of the Obligation he hath to Lov and Serv him which cannot but make som impression upon his mind which for som time and in som mesure may check his lusts and quicken his care All this I hope and for This very reason complain that the good sparks should dy away which by Repetition of the same exercise might be blowen up to such a vigoros Flame as might wholly Destroy those lusts which ar now a littl Disordered but not Subdued For the Litl that this hath do'n is a sufficient evidence how much More might be do'n if so hopeful an exercise were duly Prosecuted with such Constancy as we have found required by our Lord and comes now to be considered by Reason in counterballance to its rival Solennity and this we do by steps 1. Multiplied repetitions one time or other will probably hit the mark He who is missed by Many a Sermon and Many a Communion may happily be struck to the heart by the Next There was a time when One Sermon converted Thousands but miracles ar ceased and now Many perhaps Thousands of Sermons ar necessary to convert One Yet can we not charge God as wanting to Necessary means since the Miraculos efficacy is supplied by the Moral power of multiplied Repetition Too many of those who Separate These ordinances in their Practice do them the right to Join them in their Discourses pleading the same color of reason against frequency in Preachings and Communions and those who do Not but will have These rare for reverence sake and Those frequent for their effects sake need no other evidence of the Weakness of their Objection against Frequence in the Communion than it s too great Strength whereby it will cast down what they would keep up so that they ar reduced to This choice either that Preaching must be Less frequent for fear of the Objection or the Objection renegued lest Preaching should be rob'd of Frequency for preservation of Reverence And as the Objection is equally Deficient so is Frequency equally Useful to Both. Who knoweth but That Sermon or That Communion which he is forsaking may be the critical One which is to convert him When an Affliction hath bruised or a Blessing melted the heart When the man hath Lost a friend or Escaped a danger when a Neighbors unexpected death hath warned him of his Own frailty or a good Angel hath unaccountably stirred the pool and he is by som secret disposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set in due order and almost perswaded to be a Christian then the Sermon or Communion coming upon him in his soreness prevaileth by nicking the critical Opportunity We know not the secret walks of Gods providence nor the advantages of Som seasons above Others by influences imperceptibl that therefor we may not miss the Proper but Vnknowen one it will concern Every man to say of Every one This is the day of the Lord This is That singular hour wherein I am to receve That flesh and bloud of Christ which must save me He that truly considers the valu of Salvation and his own need of it will not think much to ly in the way that Jesus of Nazareth Passeth by or rather wherein he Cometh on purpose to heal and save 2. Repetition both Preserveth the otherwise decaying Power of former acts and addeth new of its own The sturdiest oak is felled by Many of those stroaks whereof every particular one was inconsiderabl but if they com at such distance that the scratch rather than wound which the first made be healed up before it be secunded the tree may be a litl moved but not at all weakened If a man be but Litl yet if he be At all affected if he do but consider What he Doth or Oght to do if he think on the Death of Christ and it's Reason if he indevor to commemorate it in due manner or but consider that he oght so to do These Acts of Consideration and Reflection however weakly performed contribute their litl proportion toward the great work as every stroke of the oar doth to a long voyage but will soon be caried away by the contrary stream if it be not quickly renewed For as in Bodies so in Souls there is continual Deperdition and there needeth continual Reparation The Symbols do as truly represent Our Need as their Principals Vertu This Flesh is meat indeed and This bloud is drink indeed as in their Cherishing and Strengthening Vertu so in the Constancy wherewith they ar to be receved and Those who ar so easily satisfied with far Distant Communions seems to Betray the Weakness of their spiritual Life by That of their Appetite 3. Repetition will improve the power of Every Singl Act by making the Agent more expert No Tutor like Exercise It teaches us to do those things both Easily and Perfectly which to the inexpert appear not only Difficult but Impossibl And upon this account is Frequency so far from a hinderance that it is of all moral means most Proper to bring us to Worthiness That Self-examination which all Christians confess necessary before we com to the Lords table is by the best Philosophers prescribed before we go to sleep and Seneca incorageth his Lucilius to the practice upon This consideration that Exercise will make it as Easy yea as Pleasant as Profitabl For the same reason it is adviseable that we stablish several Periods the end of every Week for the past Week of every Moneth for the past Moneth of every Year for the past Year and every eve of the Communion for the Interval from the Last which Intervals were they left to our discretion we oght to shorten as much as possibl even for This very Reason that by Frequence we may learn to examin our selvs still Better so that if we have no other Obligation nor no other Design but to com as Worthily we must com as Frequently as Possibl So in the Result Worthiness must not be Opposed to Frequency as it's Rival but Proposed as it 's Encoragement For whether we ey the Honor of the Sacrament in the Abstract or the Vertu of it in Reference to the Salvation of mankind They ar Both promoted more by the Constancy of our Approaches than by the Awfulness of our
first to the Holy Table and thence to Religion in general For it must add Shame to Grief when they see the best Arguments for Religion that present Happiness can offer retorted against it No greater joy saith Plut. than that of Religios fests wherein the Epicurean hath no part No greater nor more numeros troubles saith our experience than those which torment the Communicant wherein those who forbear have no part For the most worthy Communicant may be perplexed with fears that he is one of the unworthy against whom St. Paul's threatnings ar leveled but he that absenteth himself keepeth the same distance both from That danger and the troubl of preparation as from the Table For as is the Danger so is the Fear of it Great but Condicional Bicaus Great it falls heavy upon the Obedient bicause Condicional it cannot reach Others who 's neglect keeps them out of its sphaere of activity True upon the whole complex the Religios mans conscience is incomparably kinder even in its fears than that of the Irreligios even in his jollities but we now consider them not in relation to our Lords Throne but his Table And in This Precise respect we think it plain that as This duty is stated it must needs cause Great troubl to the One and None to the Other For the Irreligios will therefor be free from any Troubl from it if he Forbear bicause he believeth himself so from any Obligation to Com But the Religios whether he Com or Forbear will hardly escape Disquiets so much the more Grievos by how much the Duty is more Important Whether it wer not better to Level This in equal dignity with other holy offices of Gods worship which is the utmost the Apostl pleaded for than thus to Advance it above them All and for its maintenance in That height put it to exercise such unjust Tyranny over its most loving and faithful subjects no less contrary to its Own Nature than Their Happiness If it be not already plain enogh it will appear more so when we find This unhappy way of honoring it no less mischievos to the Publik peace of the Church than to the Private of the best of its members CHAP. VIII Pernicios to Charity I. Festing a bond of kindness among guests Salt an embleme of Love II. This a Fest of Charity seasoned with a kiss of Charity The highest Communion Drinking and Pledging Drinking healths The Bride-cake The Apostl's way of Arguing our Union from this Communion III. The kiss of charity translated kissing the Pax Panis benedictus a mockery The Sacrament not only disabled from advancing Love but turned to a makebate 1. by taking away the necessity of the Supper we take away its power to make us One body Our Saviors precept of being reconciled before we offer our gift miserably perverted IV. 2. By our too great aw we not only disable the Sacrament from healing the least breach but make it an instrument of the greatest 1. This multiplieth questions 2. Invenometh them 3. Maketh them incurable V. Taketh away the very subject of the question better the Sacrament had never be'n instituted than so abused THE Third good end to which the Holy Sacrament is directed is the cementing of All Christians together in Mutual Charity A Festival board is a Corporation the Communion holdeth not only between Head and Members but between Member and Member too And it is Such that our Lord reckoneth it among the Pretences that shall be made to his favor at the great day Many shall say at That day Lord Lord have we not eaten and drunk IN THY PRESENCE We see he reckoneth Eating and drinking in his Presence ' thogh not at his Own table for he made few fests but accepted of many worthy to be ranked with Prophecying and doing many wonderful works in his Name as an equal token of favor receved or deserved Salt was by Gods Law required in Every Sacrifice and is so by Universal Tradition in Every Fest We startl at the spilling of it as an unhappy omen The reason given by som is that it is the embleme of Love and it is authorised by our Lord saying Have Salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among your selvs and have Peace one with another II. THIS uniting vertu is more conspicuous in our Lords Supper than in Any Other and the Apostls seasoned it accordingly Greet one another with an holy kiss saith St. Paul with a kiss of Charity saith St. Peter And the later seemeth to fit the Salt to the Viands in Name as well as in Nature St. Jude caleth the Supper a fest of Charity The kiss therefor wherewith it must be seasoned might very properly be stiled a kiss of charity That was the strongest Engagement and This the properest Seal That the Table This the Salt The first time we find the Holy Supper celebrated we find it deserv the name which it afterward obteined Well might it be caled a Communion for it was the most perfect that ever the world admired Act. 2.44 All that believed wer together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and parâ—â—d them to all men as every man had need and continuing daily in the Templ and breaking bread in the common hous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partook the norishment with gladness and singlness of heart praising God and having favor with all the peopl And that we may not imagin those two Communions of Goods and of the Lords Supper to be fortuitosly met the Apostl expresly telleth us that the One was the caus of the Other We being Many ar One Bread and One Body For we ar all partakers of That One Bread It might upon too frequent occasions appear considerable that he putteth an emphasis upon the Universality both in the Reason and the Consequence All ar One Body bicause All ar Partakers of That One Bread I might further observ from J. Martyr's testimony how upon This account the Primitive Christians communicated even with the Absent by sending them portions of the holy Supper as symbols of their interest both in the Fest and their Love And I might hence not improbably derive our own custom of drinking to the Present and the Absent as a symbol of Love to Both A notion so much the more plausibl bicause after the Greekish mode we have made the Cup aequivalent to a whole Fest And among Us to drink to any person is so acknowledged a pledg of kindness that it passeth in Law for a Releas if pleaded to an action of Scandal or personal injury and he that drinks the so offered cup is said to PLEDGE him that began it i. e. he accepteth and reciprocateth or continueth on that Pledge of love In the Greek Church the Solemnities of Marriage ar closed with this ceremony The Priest blesseth a cup of wine and Bridegroom and Bride both drink of it And as in the Primitive Church the holy symbols were caried to the Absent so do we
legacy so serviceabl both to his own honor and his Churches happiness yet so unkind as to clog it with such condicions as must render it Inaccessibl to the Most Tormentive to the Best Dangeros to every Single person Mischievous to the Church in general and Necessary to None whereas by a plain determination of his will inforced by his Command he might have prevented all Inconveniences and promoted all Good effects Had it not be'n better that the Christian World had never heard of it than suffered so many mischievs by it What Fires hath it kindled What blood hath it drawn What wounds hath it made in the authors Mystical body more grievos to him than those it commemorateth of his Natural What member which it hath not tormented What Church what Person hath escaped its mischievous influence And on the other side Where ar its good fruits Where is that Church Where is that Person that can in these last Ages boast of any so great benefits obteined by it as may in any proportion pretend to recompence so many and great mischievs The Conclusion reflecting upon the whole I. All reduced to three questions Qu. 1. By what Authority do we depart from Constancy By that of the Church of Rome II. No Doctrine hath so much Popery as This. III. Qu. 2. With what Success 1. By loss of Constancy we have lost tolerabl Frequency IV. 2. By too much advanceing Reverence we have made it mischievos 1. To the honor of our Lord 2. to the peace of his church V. Qu. 3. Upon what Need No such danger as is feared of loss of reverence or if there were any it is much outweighed both by prudential and conscientious considerations VI. The Reverence which is due to the Sacrament is not such as belongs to Gods Decrees which require our Forbearance but such as belongs to his Laws which require our Performance MAY not so many and great abuses make This holy Sacrament ashamed as the Prophet is described in Zachary of it's Commission May it not say of the wounds in its hands These ar the wounds wherewith I have be'n wounded in the house of my friends They ar indeed but in the Hands not in the Heart destroy not its Being but leave it such an one as Epicurus allowed God incomprehensibl in Majesty Glory and Idleness exalted as much above our Concerns as our Understandings but wounded in the Hands maimed and pained unserviceabl and troublsom to the Church in General and every member in Particular And This in the house of friends Reverence for it's mysteries Zele for it's honor Care for it's service by being wise overmuch and righteous overmuch Wise overmuch even wiser than our Lord himself and Righteos overmuch even more than can well stand ether with the nature of a fest or the frailty of mankind By spinning our Lords institution to such fineness as robbeth it of it's strength and straining the Apostl's discours to such rigor as maketh the duty impracticabl By practising upon the body of Christ as Empiriks do upon those of their patients against all Rules and often without any Need. Yes 't is even so The Sacrament they say was grow'n Plethorik it must therefor bleed away somthing of Constancy for preservation of Reverence and these ar the wounds it receved from the hands of Chyrurgeons exerciseing Phlebotomy But 1. By who 's Prescription 2. With what success 3. Vpon what need ar questions so important that it may be worth our labor to sum up all that we have said or can be said into those three enquiries 1. By who 's Prescription What Doctor durst presume thus to practise upon the Body and Blood of the Lord contrary to his own Institution Were we to answer by conjecture we should not long deliberate but we have better evidence than bare suspion even as good as can be wished the testimony of an Historian beyond exception who could neither dare to impose upon the world nor could himself be deceved in matter of Fact notoriously known even to the most ignorant We have already heard from Socrates who made an end of his History in the year of our Lord 441. and shall now again more heedfully take his report Whereas saith he All Churches over the whole world on the Sabbath days in every week celebrate the Mysteries they of Alexandria and Rome upon som ancient Tradition refuse so to do But the Egyptians who ar neighbors of the Alexandrians and the inhabitants of Thebais do indeed meet on the Sabbath but partake not the Mysteries after the manner of Christians for after they are filled with all manner of meats about evening they offer and receve the Mysteries And again in Alexandria on the fourth day and that which is caled the preparation-day the Scriptures ar read and the Teachers interpret them and all things belonging to a meeting ar performed except the celebration of the Mysteries As the first clause of these words speaketh the Holy Sacrament constantly celebrated every Sunday so doth the last witness the same for every other Holy-day for by observing it as a singularity in the Church of Alexandria that their weekly Lectures were defective for want of This he plainly supposeth it notorios that it was celebrated every where els in all Church-assemblies And concerning the Sundays-Sacrament we must observ 1. The Church of Alexandria was but Accessary and that of Rome Principal For as the former furnished the later with her Corn so was her self filled with the Wealth and Merchants of Rome for who 's sake she complyed with her customs But the voisinage who had no such tentations liked not the trade but refused to consent to their own Metropolis in so gross an innovation Yea they thence took such jealosie as to stand the more stifly to such other customs of their Ancestors as all the rest of the World thoght fit to be changed Nor indeed could they well justify the One without the Other For if they refused to reneg constancy for This very reason bicause their Ancestors practised it then could they not deny the consequence which was pressed upon them that they must upon the same reason stick to the ancient but now generally disused circumstances which made it the close of a Fest 2. The Evidence whereon This innovation was founded was not derived from Scripture or Reason or any other competent Topik but a pretended Tradition a private Tradition a Tradition whispered to the Church of Rome and her Zany of Alexandria so close in the ear that it could not be heard by any other Church equally Apostolik not more contrary to the practice of the rest of the World than to the very Nature of Tradition which cannot be but Universal 3. The vantage they have since made of This invention hath made it plain that they therefor wer thus industrios to advance this Sacrament obove all other offices of Worship that they might thereby advance both their own Church above other Churches and their Priests