any cause but after a long growth of a temperate and well regulated love it is to be suspected for passion and forwardness rather then the verticall point of love 2. That zeal only is good which in a fervent love hath temperate expressions For let the affection boyl as high as it can yet if it boyl over into irregular and strange actions it will have but few but will need many excuses Elijah was zealous for the Lord of Hosts and yet he was so transported with it that he could not receive answer from God till by musick he was recomposed and tamed and Moses broke both the Tables of the Law by being passionately zealous against them that brake the first 3. Zeal must spend its greatest heat principally in those things that concern our selves but with great care and restraint in those that concern others 4. Remember that zeal being an excrescence of Divine love must in no sense contradict any action of love Love to God includes love to our Neighbour and therefore no pretence of zeal for Gods glory must make us uncharitable to our brother Phil. 3 6 for that is just so pleasing to God as hatred is an act of love 5. That Zeal that concerns others can spend it self in nothing but arts and actions and charitable instruments for their good and when it concerns the good of many that one should suffer it must be done by persons of a competent authority and in great necessity in seldom instances according to the Law of God or Man but never by private right or for trifling accidents of in mistaken propositions The Zealots in the Old Law had authority to transfix and stab some certain persons but God gave them warrant it was in the case of Idolatry or such notorious huge crimes the danger of which was insupportable and the cognizance of which was infallible and yet that warrant expired with the Synagogue 6. Zeal in the instances of our own duty and personal deportment is more safe then in matters of counsel and actions besides our just duty and tending towards perfection Though in these instances there is not a direct sin even where the zeal is lesse wary yet there is much trouble and some danger as if it be spent in the too forward vows of Chastity and restraints of natural and innocent liberties 7. Zeal may be let loose in the instances of internal personal and spiritual actions that are matters of direct duty as in prayers and acts of adoration and thanksgiving and frequent addresses provided that no indirect act passe upon them to defile them such as complacency and opinions of sanctity censuring others scruples and opinions of necessity unnecessary fears superstitious numbrings of times and hours but let the zeal be as forward as it will as devout as it will as Seraphicall as it will in the direct addresse and entercourse with God there is no danger Lavora cente 〈◊〉 â—avesti a comparâ— ogni horat adora come 〈◊〉 tu havesii â— moâ—ir alâ—ore no transgression Do all the parts of your duty as earnestly as if the salvation of all the world and the whole glory of God and the confusion of all Devils and all that you hope or desire did depend upon every one action 8. Let zeal be seated in the will and choice and regulated with prudence and a sober understanding not in the fancies affections for these will make it full of noise and empty of profit Rom. 10.2 but that will make it deep and smooth material and devout The summe is this That Zeal is not a direct duty no where commanded for it self and is nothing but a forwardness circumstance of another duty Tit. 2.14 Rev 3.16 and therefore is then only acceptable when it advances the love of God and our Neighbours whose circumstance it is That zeal is only safe only acceptable which increases charity directly and because love to our Neighbour and obedience to God are the two great portions of charity we must never account our zeal to be good but as it advances both these if it be in a matter that relates to both or severally if it relates severally S. Pauls zeal was expressed in preaching without any offerings or stipend in travelling in spending and being spent for his flock in suffering in being willing to be accursed for love of the people of God and his country-men Let our Zeal be as great as his was so it be in affections to others but not at all in angers against them In the first then is no danger in the second there is no safety In brief let your zeal if it must be expressed in anger be alwaies more severe against thy self 2 Cor. 7.11 then against others ¶ The other part of Love to God is Love to our Neighbour for which I have reserved the Paragraph of Alms. Of the external actions of Religion Religion teaches us to present to God our bodies as well as our souls for God is the Lord of both and if the body serves the soul in actions natural and civil and intellectual It must not be eased in the only offices of Religion unlesse the body shall expect no portion of the rewards of Religion such as are resurrection Rom. 12.1 reunion and glorification Our bodys are to God a living sacrifice and to present them to God is holy and acceptable The actions of the body as it serves to Religion and as it is distinguished from Sobriety and Justice either relate to the word of God or to prayer or to repentance and make these kindes of external actions of Religion 1 Reading and hearing the Word of God 2. Fasting and corporal austerities called by S Paul bodily exercise 3. Feasting or keeping daies of publick joy and thanksgiving SECT IV. Of Reading or Hearing the Word of God REading and Hearing the Word of God are but the several circumstances of the same duty instrumental especially to faith but consequently to all other graces of the Spirit It is all one to us whether by the eye or by the ear the Spirit conveys his precepts to us If we hear Saint Paul saying to us that Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge or read it in one of his Epistles in either of them we are equally and sufficiently instructed The Scriptures read are the same thing to us which the same doctrine was when it was preached by the Disciples of our blessed Lord and we are to learn of either with the same dispositions There are many that cannot read the Word and they must take it in by the ear and they that can read finde the same Word of God by the eye It is necessary that all men learn it in some way or other and it is sufficient in order to their practise that they learn it any way The Word of God is all those Commandments and Revelations those promises and threatnings the stories and sermons recorded in the Bible nothing else is the
are check'd from violence and misdemeanour 4. In your retirement make frequent Colloquies or short discoursings between GOD and thy own soul. Seven times a day doe I praise thee and in the night season also I thought upon thee when I was waking So did David and every act of complaint or thanksgiving every act of rejoicing or of mourning every petition and every returne of the heart in these entercourses is a going to GOD an appearing in his presence and a representing him present to thy spirit and to thy necessity And this was long since by a spiritual person called a building to GOD a Chappel in our heart It reconciles Martha's imployment with Mary's Devotion Charity and Religion the necessities of our calling and the imployments of devotion For thus in the midst of the works of your Trade you may retire into your Chappel your Heart and converse with GOD by frequent addresses and returnes 5. Represent and offer to GOD acts of love and fear which are the proper effects of this apprehension and the proper exercise of this consideration For as GOD is every where present by his power he calls for reverence and godly fear As he is present to thee in all thy needs and relieves them he deserves thy love and since in every accident of our lives we finde one or other of these apparent and in most things we see both it is a proper and proportionate return that to every such demonstration of GOD we expresse our selves sensible of it by admiring the divine goodness or trembling at his presence ever obeying him because we love him and ever obeying him because we fear to offend him This is that which Enoch did who thus walked with God 6. Let us remember that God is in us and that we are in him we are his workmanship let us not deface it we are in his presence let us not pollute it by unholy and impure actions Isa 26.12 God hath also wrought all our works in us and because he rejoices in his own works if we defile them and make them unpleasant to him we walk perversly with God and he will walk crookedly toward us 7. God is in the bowels of thy brother refresh them when he needs it and then you give your alms in the presence of God and to God and he feels the relief which thou prouidest for thy brother 8. God is in every place suppose it therefore to be a Church and that decency of deportment and piety of carriage which you are taught by religion or by custome or by civility and publick manners to use in Churches the same use in all places with this difference only that in churches let your deportment be religious in external forms and circumstances also but there and every where let it be religious in abstaining from spiritual undecencies and in readiness to doe good actions Jer. 11.15 secund vulg Edit that it may not be said of us as God once complained of his people Why hath my beloved done wickedness in my house 9. God is in every creature be cruel towards none neither abuse any by intemperance Remember that the creatures and every member of thy own body is one of the lesser cabinets and receptacles of God They are such which God hath blessed with his presence hallowed by his touch and separated from unholy use by making them to belong to his dwelling 10. He walks as in the presence of God that converses with him in frequent prayer and frequent communion that runs to him in all his necessities that asks counsel of him in all his doubtings that opens all his wants to him that weeps before him for his sins that asks remedy and support for his weakness that fears him as a Judge reverences him as a Lord obeys him as a Father and loves him as a Patron The Benefits of this exercise The benefit of this consideration and exercise being universal upon all the parts of piety I shall lesse need to specifie any particulars but yet most properly this exercise of considering the divine presence is 1. an excellent help to prayer producing in us reverence and awfulness to the divine Majesty of God and actual devotion in our offices 2. It produces a confidence in God and fearlesness of our enemies patience in trouble and hope of remedy since God is so nigh in all our sad accidents he is a disposer of the hearts of men and the events of things he proportions out our trials and supplies us with remedy and where his rod strikes us his staf supports us To which we may adde this that God who is alwaies with us is especially by promise with us in tribulation to turn the misery into a mercy and that our greatest trouble may become our advantage by intitling us to a new manner of the Divine presence 3. It is apt to produce joy and rejoicing in God we being more apt to delight in the partners and witnesses of our conversation every degree of mutuall abiding and conversing being a relation and an endearment we are of the same houshold with God he is with us in our natural actions to preserve us in our recreations to restrain us in our publick actions to applaud or reprove us in our private to observe us in our sleeps to watch by us in our watchings to refresh us and if we walk with God in all his waies as he walks with us in all ours we shall find perpetual reasons to enable us to keep that rule of God Rejoice in the Lord alwaies and again I say rejoyce And this puts me in minde of a saying of an old religious person In vitam S. Antho. There is one way of overcoming our ghostly enemies spiritual mirth and a perpetual bearing of GOD in our mindes This effectively resists the Devil and suffers us ro receive no hurt from him 4. This exercise is apt also to enkindle holy desires of the enjoyment of God because it produces joy when we doe enjoy him The same desires that a weak man hath for a Defender the sick man for a Physician the poor for a Patron the childe for his Father the espoused Lover for her betrothed 5 From the same fountain are apt to issue humility of spirit apprehensions of our great distance and our great needs our daily wants and houâ—ly supplies admiration of Gods unspeakable mercies It is the cause of great modesty and decency in our actions it helps to recollection of minde and restrains the scatterings and loosness of wandring thoughts it establishes the heart in good purposes and leadeth on to perseverance it gains purity perfection according to the saying of God to Abraham Walk before me and be perfect holy fear and holy love and indeed every thing that pertains to holy living when we see our selves placed in the Eye of God who sets us on work and will reward us plentiously to serve him with an Eye service iâ—â—ery pleasing for he also sees
is a freedom from cares an opportunity to spend more time in spiritual imployments it is not allayed with businesses and attendances upon lower affairs and if it be a chosen condition to these ends it containeth in it a victory over lusts and greater desires of Religion and self-denial and therefore is more excellent then the married life in that degree in which it hath greater religion and a greater mortification a lesse satisfaction of naturall desires and a greater fulnesse of the spiritual and just so is to expect that little coronet or special reward which God hath prepared extraordinary and besides the great Crown of all faithful souls for those who have not defiled themselves with women Apoc. 144. Isa. 56.45 but follow the Virgin Lamb for ever But some married persons even in their marriage doe better please God then some Virgins in their state of virginity They by giving great example of conjugal affection by preserving their faith unbroken by educating children in the fear Of God by patience and contentedness and holy thoughts and the exercise of virtues proper to that state doe not only please God but doe in a higher degree then those Virgins whose piety is not answerable to their great opportunities and advantages However married persons and Widows and Virgins are all servants of God and coheirs in the inheritance of Jesus if they live within the restraints and laws of their particular estate chastely temperately justly and religiously The evil consequents of Uncleanness The blessings and proper effects of chastity we shall best understand by reckoning the evils of uncleanness and carnality 1. Uncleanness of all vices is the most shameful prov 6.23 The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight saying No eye shall see me and disguiseth his face Iob 24.15 In tha dark they dig through houses which they have marked for themselves in the day time they know not the light for the morning is to them as the shadow of death he is swift as the waters their portion is cursed in the earth he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shame is the eldest daughter of Uncleanness 2. The appetites of uncleanness are full of cares and trouble and its fruition is sorrow and repentance 2 Hos 6. The way of the adulterer is hedged with thorns full of fears and jealousies Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est fatieras vt ò poenitentia S. Hieron burning desires and impatient waitings tediousness of delay and sufferance of affronts and amazements of discovery 3. Most of its kinds are of that conditon that they involve the ruine of two souls and he that is a fornicatour or adulterous steals the soul as well as dishonours the body of his Neighbour and so it becomes like the sin of falling Lucifer who brought a part of the stars with his tail from Heaven 4. Of all carnal sins it is that alone which the Devil takes delight to imitate and counterfeit communicating with Witches and impure persons in the corporal act but in this only 5. Uncleanness with all its kinds is a vice which hath a professed enmity against the body 1 Cor. 6 1◠Every sin which a man doth is without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his owne body 6 Uncleanness is hugely contrary to the spirit of Government by embasing the spirit of a man making it effeminate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sneaking soft and foolish without courage without confidence David felt this after his folly with Bathsheba he fell to unkingly arts and stratagems to hide the crime and he did nothing but increase it and remained timorous and poor-spirited till he prayed to GOD once more to establish him with a free and a Princely spirit Spiritu principali me confirma Ps. 51. And no superiour dare strictly observe discipline upon his charge if he hath let himselfe loose to the shame of incontinence 7. The Gospel hath added two arguments against uncleanness which were never before used nor indeed could be since GOD hath given the holy Spirit to them that are baptized and rightly confirmed and entred into covenant with him our bodies are made temples of the holy Ghost in which he dwels and therefore uncleanness is Sacrilege defiles a Temple 1 Cor 6.19 It is S. Pauls argument Know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy Ghost He that defiles a Temple 1 Cor. 3.17 ◠him will God destroy Therefore gloryfie God in your bodies that is flee Fornication To which for the likeness of the argument adde that our bodies are members of Christ and therefore God forbid that we should take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot So that uncleanness dishonours Christ and dishonours the holy Spirit it is a sin against God and in this sense a sin against the Holy Ghost 8. The next special argument which the Gospel ministers especially against adultery Ephes. 5.32 and for the preservation of the purity of marriage is that Marriage is by Christ hallowed into a misterie to signifie the Sacramental and mystical union of Christ and his Church He therefore that breaks this knot which the Church and their mutual faith hath tied and Christ hath knit up into a mysterie dishonours a greate rite of christianity of high spirituall and excellent signification Moral 9. S. Gregory reckons uncleaneness to be the parent of these monsters Blindness of minde inconsideration precipitancy or giddiness in actions self-self-love hatred of God love of the present pleasures a dispite or despaire of the joyes of religion here and of heaven hereafter Whereas a pure mind in a chast body is the mother of wisdome and deliberation sober counsels and ingenuous actions open deportment and sweet carriage sincere principles and unprejudicate understanding love of God and self denial peace and confidence holy prayers and spiritual comfort S Cyprian de bono pudicitiae and a pleasure of Spirit infinitely greater then the sottish and beastely pleasures of unchastity For to overcome pleasure is the greatest pleasure and no victory is greater then that which is gotten over our lusts and filthy inclinations 10. Adde to all these the publick dishonesty and disreputation that all the Nations of the world have cast upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces Abimelech to the men of Gerar made it death to meddle with the wife of Isaac and Judah condemned Thamar to be burnt for her adulterous conception and God besides the Law made to put the adulterous person to death did constitute a setled and constant miracle to discover the adultery of a suspected Woman Num 5.14 that her bowels should burst with drinking the waters of Jealousie The Egyptian Law was to cut off the nose of the adulteresse and the offending part of the adulterer The Locrians put out the adulterers both eyes The Germans as Tacitus reports placed the adulteresse amidst
what does he believe or what does he hope but what he loves The acts of Love to God are 1. Love does all things which may please the beloved person it performs all his commandments and this is one of the greatest instances and arguments of our love that God requires of us This is love that we keep his commandments Love is obedient 2. It does all the intimations and secret significations of his pleasure whom we love and this is an argument of a great degree of it The first instance is it that makes the love accepted but this gives a greatness and singularity to it The first is the least and lesse then it cannot doe our duty but without this second we cannot come to perfection Great love is also plyant and inquisitive in the instances of its expression 3. Love gives away all things that so he may advance the interest of the beloved person it relieves all that he would have relieved and spends it self in such real significations as it is enabled withall He never loved God that will quit any thing of his Religion to save his money Love is alwaies liberal and communicative 4. It suffers all things that are imposed by its beloved or that can happen for his sake or that intervenes in his service cheerfully sweetly willingly expecting that God should turn them into good and instruments of felicity 1 Cor. 13. Charity hopeth all things endureth all things Love is patient and content with any thing so it be together with its beloved 5. Love is also impatient of any thing that may displease the beloved person hating all sin as the enemy of its friend for love contracts all the same relations and marries the same friendships and the same hatreds and all affection to a sin is perfectly inconsistent with the love of God Love is not divided between God and Gods enemy we must love God with all our heart that is give him a whole and undivided affection having love for nothing else but such things which he allows and which he commands or loves himself 6. Love endeavours for ever to be present to converse with to enjoy to be united with its object loves to be talking of him reciting his praises telling his stories repeating his words imitating his gestures transcribing his copie in every thing and every degree of union and every degree of likeness is a degree of love and it can endure any thing but the displeasure and the absence of its beloved For we are not to use God and Religion as men use perfumes with which they are delighted when they have them but can very well be without them True charity is restlesse till it enjoyes God in such instances in which it wants him it is like hunger and thirst it must be fed or it cannot be answered Amoris in mâ—rsunt qui esse suit and nothing can supply the presence or make recompense for the absence of God or of the effects of his favour and the light of his countenance 7. True love in all accidents looks upon the beloved person and observes his countenance and how he approves or disproves it and accordingly looks sad or cheerful He that loves God is not displeased at those accidents which God chooses nor murmures at those changes which he makes in his family nor envies at those gifts he bestows but chooses as he likes and is ruled by his judgment and is perfectly of his perswasion loving to learn where God is the Teacher and being content to be ignorant or silent where he is not pleased to open himself 8. Love is curious of little things of circumstances and measures and little accidents not allowing to it self any infirmity which it strives not to master aiming at what it cannot yet reach at Plutarchus citans carmen de suo Apolline adjicit ex Herodoto quasi de suo de eo os meuÌ„ continens esto desiring to be of an Angelical purity and of a perfect innocence and a Seraphical fervour and fears every image of offence is as much afflicted at an idle word as some at an act of adultery and will not allow to it self so much anger as will disturbe a childe nor endure the impurity of a dream and this is the curiosity and niceness of divine Love this is the fear of God and is the daughter and production of Love The Measures and Rules of Divine Love But because this passion is pure as the brightest and smoothest mirrour and therefore is apt to be sullyed with every impurer breath we must be careful that our love to God be governed by these measures 1. That our love be sweet even and full of tranquillity having in it no violences or transportations but going on in a course of holy actions and duties which are proportionable to our condition and present state not to satisfie al the desire but all the probabilities and measures of our strength A new beginner in religion hath passionate and violent desires but they must not be the measure of his actions But he must consider his strength his late sickness and state of death the proper temptations of his condition and stand at first upon his defence not go to storm a strong Fort or attaque a potent enimie or doe heroical actions and fitter for gyants in Religion Indiscreet violences and untimely forwardness are the rocks of religion against which tender spirits often suffer shipwrack 2. Let our love be prudent and without illusion that is that it expresse it self in such instances which God hath chosen or which we choose our selves by proportion to his rules and measures Love turns into doting when religion turns into superstition No degree of love can be imprudent but the expressions may we cannot love God too much but we may proclaim it in undecent manners 3. Let our love be firm constant and inseparable not coming and returning like the tide but descending like a never failing river ever running into the Ocean of Divine excellency passing on in the chanels of duty and a constant obedience and never ceasing to be what it is till it comes to be what it desires to be still being a river till it be turned into sea and vastness even the immensity of a blessed Eternity Although the consideration of the Divine excellencies and mercies be infinitely sufficient to produce in us love to God who is invisible and yet not distant from us but we feel him in his blessings he dwells in our hearts by faith wee feed on him in the Sacrament and are made all one with him in the incarnation and glorifications of Jesus yet that we may the better enkindle and encrease our love to God the following advices are not uselesse Helps to increase our love to God by way of exercise 1. Cut off all earthly and sensual loves for they pollute and unhallow the pure and Spiritual love Every degree of inordinate affection to the things of this world and every
of atonement and expiation for all mankinde with speciall purposes and intendment for all the elect all that serve him in holiness so he hath appointed that the same ministery shall be done upon earth too in our manner and according to our proportion and therefore hath constituted and separated an order of men who by shewing forth the Lords death by Sacramentall representation may pray unto God after the same manner that our Lord and high-Priest does that is offer to God and represent in this solemn prayer ad Sacrament Christ as already offered so sending up a gracious instrument whereby our prayers may for his sake and in the same manner of intercession be offered up to God in our behalf and for all them for whom we pray to all these purposes for which Christ dyed 5. As the ministers of the Sacrament do in a Sacramental manner present to God the sacrifice of the cross by being imitators of Christs intercession so the people are sacrificers too in their manner for besides that by saying Amen they joyn in the act of him that ministers and make it also to be their own so when they eat and drink the consecrated and blessed Elements worthily they receive Christ within them and therefore may also offer him to God while in their sacrifice of obedience and thanksgiving they present themselves to God with Christ whom they have spiritually received that is themselves with that which will make them gracious and acceptable The offering their bodies and souls and services to God in him and by him and with him who is his Fathers wel-beloved and in whom he is well pleased cannot but be accepted to all the purposes of blessing grace and glory * Nosti tempora tu Jovis sereni Cùm sulget placidus sâ—èque vultu Quo nil supplicibus soleâ— negare Martial Ep l 5 6. 6. This is the sum of the greatest mystery of our Religion it is the copy of the passion and the ministration of the great mystery of our Redemption and therefore whatsoever intitles â—s to the general priviledges of Christs passion all this is necessary by way of disposition to the celebration of the Sacrament of his passion because this celebration is our manner of applying or using it The particulars of which preparation are represented in the following rules Vasa pura ad rem Divinâ—m Plaut in cap. Act. 4. â—c 1. 1. No man must dare to approach to the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper if he be in a state of any one sin that is unless he have entred into the state of repentance that is of sorrow and amendment least it be said concerning him as it was concerning Judas the hand of him that betraid me is with me on the Table and he that receiveth Christ into an impure soul or body first turns his most excellent nourishment into poyson and then feeds upon it 2. Every communicant must first have examined himself that is tried the condition state of his soul searched out the secret ulcers enquired out its weaknesses and indiscretions and all those aptnesses where it is exposed to temptation that by finding out its diseases he may finde a cure and by discovering its aptnesses he may secure his present purposes of future amendment and may be armed against dangers and temptations 3. This examination must be a mans own act and inquisition into his life but then also it should lead a man on to â—un to those whom the Great Physician of our souls Christ Jesus hath appointed to minister phisick to our diseases â—â—at in all dangers and great accidents we may be assisted for comfort and remedy for medicine and caution 4. In this affair let no man deceive himself and against such a time which publick Authority hath appointed for us to receive the Sacrament weep for his sins by way of solemnity and ceremony and still retain the affection but he that comes to this feast must have on the wedding garment that is he must have put on Jesus Christ and he must have put off the old man with his affections and lusts and he must be wholly conformed to Christ in the image of his minde For then we have put on Christ when our souls are clothed with his righteousness when every faculty of our soul is proportioned and vested according to the pattern of Christs life And therefore a man must not leap from his last nights Suâ—fet and Bath and then communicate but when he hath begun the work of God effectually and made some progress in repentance and hath walked some stages periods in the wayes of godlinesse then let him come to him that is to minister it and having made known the state of his soul he is to be admitted but to receive it into an unhallowed soul and body is to receive the dust of the Tabernacle in the waters of jealousie it will make the belly to swell and the thigh to rot it will not convey Christ to us but the Devill will enter and dwell there till with it he returns to his dwelling of torment Remember alwaies that after a great sin or after a habit of sins a man is not soon made clean and no unclean thing must come to this Feast It is not the preparation of two or three dayes that can render a person capable of this banquet For in this feast all Christ and Christs passion and all his graces the blessings and effects of his sufferings are conveyed nothing can fit us for this but what can unite us to Christ and obtain of him to present our needs to his heavenly Father this Sacrament can no otherwise be celebrated but upon the same terms on which we may hope for pardon and Heaven it self 5. When we have this generall and indispensably necessary preparation we are to make our souls more adorn'd and trimm'd up with circumstances of pious actions and speciall devotions setting apart some portion of our time immediately before the day of solemnity according as our great occasions will permit and this time is specially to be spent in actions of repentance confession of our sins renewing our purposes of holy living praying for pardon of our failings and for those graces which may prevent the like sadnesses for the time to come meditation upon the passion upon the infinite love of God expressed in so great mysterious manners of redemption and indefifinitely in all acts of virtue which may build our souls up into a Temple fit for the reception of Christ himself and the inhabitation of the holy Spirit 6. The celebration of the holy Sacrament being the most solemn prayer joyned with the most effectuall instrument of its acceptance must suppose us in the love of God and in charity with all the World and therefore we must before every Communion especially remember what differences or jealousies are between us and any one else and recompose all disunions and cause right understandings between each other offering
of Christ whereof they are members and you in conjunction with Christ whom then you have received are more fit to pray for them in that advantage and in the celebration of that holy sacrifice which then is Sacramentally represented to GOD * Give thanks for the passion of our dearest Lord remember all its parts and all the instruments of your Redemption and beg of GOD that by a holy perseverance in well doing you 〈◊〉 from shadows passe on to substances from eating his body to seeing his face from the Typicall Sacramentall and Transient to the Reall and Eternall Supper of the Lambe 13. After the solemnity is done let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith and love and obedience and conformity to his life and death as you have taken CHRIST into you so put CHRIST on you and conform every faculty of your soul body to his holy image and perfection Remember that now Christ is all one with you and therefore when you are to do an action consider how Christ did or would do the like and do you imitate his example and transcribe his copy and understand all his commandments and choose all that he propounded and desire his promises fear his threatnings and marry his loves and hatreds and contract all friendships for then you do every day communicate especially when Christ thus dwels in you and you in Christ growing up towards a perfect man in Christ Jesus 14. Do not instantly upon your return from Church return also to the world and secular thoughts and imployments but let the remaining parts of that day be like a post-Communion or an after-office entertaining your blessed Lord with all the caresses and sweetness of love and colloquies and entercourses of duty and affection acquainting him with all your needs and revealing to him all your secrets and opening all your infirmities and as the affairs of your person or imployment call you off so retire again with often ejaculations and acts of entertainment to your beloved Guest The effects and benefits of worthy communicating When I said that the sacrifice of the cross which Christ offered for all the sins and all the needs of the world is represented to God by the minister in the Sacrament and offered up in prayer and Sacramental memory after the maner that Christ himself intercedes for us in Heaven so far as his glorious Priesthood is imitable by his Ministers on earth I must of necessity also mean that all the benefits of that sacrifice are then conveyed to all that communicate worthily But if we descend to particulars Then and there the Church is nourished in her faith strengthned in her hope enlarged in her bowels with an increasing charity there all the members of Christ are joyned with each other and all to Christ their head and we again renew the covenant with God in Jesus Christ and God seals his part and we promise for ours and Christ unites both and the holy Ghost signes both in the collation of those graces which we then pray for and exercise and receive all at once there our bodies are nourished with the signes and our souls with the mystery our bodies receive into them the seed of an immortall nature our souls are joyned with him who is the first fruits of the resurrection and never can dye and if we desire any thing else and need it here it is to be prayed for here to be hoped for here to be received Long life and health and recovery from sickness and competent support and maintenance and peace and deliverance from our enemies and content and patience and joy and sanctified riches or a cheerfull poverty liberty and whatsoever else is a blessing was purchased for us by Christ in his death and resurrection and in his intercession in Heaven and this Sacrament being that to our particulars which the great mysteries are in themselves and by designe to all the world if we receive worthily we shall receive any of those blessings according as God shall choose for us and he will not onely choose with more wisdom but also with more affection then we can for our selves After all this it is advised by the Guides of souls wise men and pious that all persons should commuÌ„icate very often even as often as they can without excuses or delayes Every thing that puts us from so holy an imployment when we are moved to it being either a sin or an imperfection an infirmity or indevotion and an unactiveness of Spirit All Christian people must come They indeed that are in the state of sin must not come so but yet they must come First they must quit their state of death and then partake of the bread of life They that are at enmity with their neighbours must come that is no excuse for their not coming onely they must not bring their enmity along with them but leave it and then come They that have variety of secular imployments must come only they must leave their secular thoughts and affections behind them L'Evesque de Geneve introd a la vie dâ—vote and then come and converse with God If any man be well grown in grace he must needs come because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come that so he may gâ—ow in grace The strong must come lest they become weak and the weak that they may become strong The sick must come to be cured the healthfull to be preserved They that have leisure must come because they have no excuse They that have no leisure must come â—ither that by so excellent religion they may sanctifie their business The penitent sinners must come that they may be justified and they that are justified that they may be justified still They that have fears and great reverence to these mysteries and think no preparation to be sufficient must receive that they may learn how to receive thee more worthily and they that have a less degree of reverence must come often to have it heightned that as those Creatures that live amongst the snowes of the Mountains turn white with their food and conversation with such perpetual whitenesses so our souls may be transformed into the similitude and union with Christ by our perpetual feeding on him and conversation not onely in his Courts but in his very heart and most secret affections and incomparable purities Prayers for all sorts of Men and all necessities relating to the severall parts of the vertue of Religion A Prayer for the Graces of Faith Hope Charity O Lord God of infinite mercy of infinite excellency who hast sent thy holy Son into the world to redeem us from an intolerable misery and to teach us a holy religion and to forgive us an infinite debt give me thy holy Spirit that my understanding and all my faculties may be so resigned to the discipline and doctrine of my Lord that I may be prepared
Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast begotten us by thy word renewed us by thy Spirit fed us by thy Sacraments and by the daily ministery of thy word still go on to build us up to life eternall Let thy most holy Spirit be present with me and rest upon me in the reading or hearing thy sacred word that I may do it humbly reverently without prejudice with a minde ready and desirous to learn and to obey that I may be readily furnished and instructed to every good work and may practise all thy holy laws and commandments to the glory of thy holy name O holy and eternall Jesus Amen Ad Act. 5.9.10 A form of confession of sins and repentance to be used upon fasting dayes or dayes of humiliation especially in Lent and before the Holy Sacrament HAve mercy upon me O God after thy great goodness according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences For I will confess my wickedness be sorry for my sin * O my dearest Lord I am not worthy to be accounted amongst the meanest of thy servants not worthy to be sustained by the least fragments of thy mercy but to be shut out of thy presence for ever with dogs and unbelievers But for thy names sake O Lord be mercifull unto my sin for it is great I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men proud and vain-glorious impatient of scorn or of just reproof not enduring to be slighted and yet extremely deserving it I have been cousened by the colours of humility and when I have truly called my self vitious I could not endure any man else should say or think so I have been disobedient to my superiours churlish and ungentle in my behaviour unchristian and unmanly But for thy names sake c. O Just and dear God how can I expect pity or pardon who am so angry peevish with and without cause envious at good rejoycing in the evil of my neighbours negligent of my charge idle and useless timerous and base jealous and impudent ambitious and hard-hearted soft unmortified and effeminate in my life indevout in my prayers without fancie or affection without attendance to them or perseverance in them but passionate and curious in pleasing my appetite of meat and drink and pleasures making matter both for sin and sickness and I have reaped the cursed fruits of such improvidence entertaining undecent and impure thoughts and I have brought them forth in undecent and impure actions and the spirit of uncleanness hath entered in and unhallowed the temple which thou didst consecrate for the habitation of thy Spirit of love and holiness But for thy names sake O Lord be mercifull unto my sin for it is great Thou hast given me a whole life to serve thee in and to advance my hopes of heaven and this precious time I have thrown away upon my sins and vanities being improvident of my time and of my talent and of thy grace and my own advantages resisting thy Spirit and quenching him I have been a great lover of my self and yet used many wayes to destroy my self I have pursued my temporall ends with greediness and indirect means I am revengfull and unthankfull forgetting benefits but not so soon forgetting injuries curious and murmuring a great breaker of promises I have not loved my neighbours good nor advanced it in all things where I could I have been unlike thee in all things I am unmercifull and unjust a sottish admirer of things below and careless of heaven and the wayes that lead thither But for thy names sake O Lord be merciful unto my sin for it is great All my senses have been windows to let sin in and death by sin Mine eyes have been adulterous and covetous mine eares open to slander and detraction my tongue and palat loose and wanton intemperate and of foul language talkative and lying rash and malicious false and flattering irreligious and irreverent detracting and censorious My hands have been injurious and unclean my passions violent and rebellious my desires impatient and unreasonable all my members and all my faculties have been servants of sin and my very best actions have more matter of pity then of confidence being imperfect in my best and intolerable in most But for thy names sake O Lord c. Unto this and a far bigger heap of sin I have added also the faults of others to my own score by neglecting to hinder them to sin in all that I could and ought but I also have encouraged them in sin have taken off their feares and hardened their consciences and tempted them directly and prevailed in it to my own ruine and theirs unless thy glorious and unspeakable mercy hath prevented so intolerable a calamity Lord I have abused thy mercy despised thy judgments turned thy grace into wantonness I have been unthankfull for thy infinite loving kindness I have sinned and repented and then sinned again and resolved against it and presently broke it and then I tyed my self up with vows and then was tempted then I yeelded by little and little till I was willingly lost again and my vows fell off like cords of vanity Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin And yet O Lord I have another heap of sins to be unloaded My secrets sins O Lord are innumerable sins I noted not sins that I willingly neglected sins that I acted upon wilfull ignorance and voluntary mispersuasion sins that I have forgot and sins which a diligent and a watchful spirit might have prevented but I would not Lord I am confounded with the multitude of them and the horrour of their remembrance though I consider them nakedly in their direct appearance without the deformity of their unhandsome and aggravating circumstances but so dressed they are a sight too ugly an instance of amazement infinite in degrees and insufferable in their load And yet thou hast spared me all this while and hast not throwne me into Hell where I have deserved to have been long since and even now to have been shut up to an eternity of torments with insupportable amazement fearing the revelation of thy day Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God Thou that prayest for me shalt be my Judge The Prayer THou hast prepared for me a more healthfull sorrow O deny not thy servant when he begs sorrow of thee Give me a deep contrition for my sins a hearty detestation and loathing of them hating them worse then death with torments Give me grace intirely presently and for ever to forsake them to walk with care and prudence with fear and watchfulness all my dayes to doe all my duty with diligence and charity with zeal and a never fainting spirit to redeem the time to trust upon thy mercies to make use of all the instruments of grace to work out my salvation with fear and trembling that thou mayest have