such as these no blessing can be compared with a clear revelation without distinct and certain knowledge of our duty because we then are free from anxious fears and doubts about the nature of Religion We aim at a steddy end without the mazes and uncertain wandrings of Imagination We run within the lines the ground is set out and the Goal is before our eyes Our whole intention may be taken up in accomplishing our minds with the love of God and Man the rode to happiness is plain and easie This is the Law and the Prophets And O! that we could be perswaded to lay aside all false opinions of Religion and believe our Saviour and accept him upon his own conditions that we would pursue the favour of God and everlasting happiness in the way of universal Charity For believe it no Faith no Creed no Church-Communion no outward Sanctimony no external Piety without the Love of God and Man will avail us any thing in the Day of Judgment No though we should be honoured with the power of working Miracles and should cast out Devils in the Name of Christ yet unless we cloath the Naked visit the Sick assist whom we may and pity all we shall surely be shut out with Depart from me I know ye not Matt. 7. ult Let us therefore be perswaded since so much depends upon it to set our selves industriously upon the practice of these Duties that we may procure to our selves universal love and peace the good will of God and Man in this present life and everlasting Glory in the World to come To which God of his mercy bring us all for Jesus Christ his sake the Righteous to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour Glory Praise and Love now and for evermore Amen Rom. xii 21. Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good TO gratifie the present passion or desire by fraud by force or by any means whatsoever without respect to right or wrong to good or evil is the essential difference of irrational brutal Nature But to look before us to act for the sake of ends to do or to forbear as the event and consequence of the thing shall appear to be good or evil to us is the distinction the property indeed the definition of reasonable creatures But because the reasonable faculty in man who is the most imperfect in the kind is obscur'd and prejudic'd by the unaccountable union of the Soul and Body in our present state therefore God who is Wisdom it self has at several times but at last and especially by his Son in that most perfect institution of Reason as well as of Religion contain'd in his holy Gospel assisted our weakness clear'd our notions drawn out and set on work those eternal principles of Truth and Goodness which may be undiscern'd but can never be separated from our own minds And amongst all the excellent rules of Wisdom and Practice therein contained there is none of so high so exalted a nature as the love of Enemies for this alone is proposed under the style and character of Divine Perfection Be ye therefore perfect as your father which is in heaven is perfect S. Matth. 5. ult A Precept which through the prejudice of our passion and the depth of its reason is not easily understood hardly received more hardly practised yet in truth it is every way our interest as well as an indispensable duty and therefore if thine enemy hunger V. 20 feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good The Judaizing Christians Eus l. 2. c. 12. Meg. Eccles His Cent. 1. l. 2. c. 5. and the Gnosticks had extremely perverted the Christian Religion by asserting the obligation of the Ceremonial Law the lawfulness of a dissembled Apostasie and a liberty of indulging any Lust or Vice we shall be addicted to Now to hinder the spreading of these pernicious Doctrines and to assert the Truth and Purity of the Christian Religion against those false and spurious accounts which they had given of it S. Paul insinuates is his chief design in this his Epistle to the Romans Ch. 1.16 And First he shews that the Ceremonial Law was but a type or shadow of a more perfect institution of Religion which in after time should be established Ch. 2. That that time is now accomplish'd and the Ceremonial Law abolished and that therefore we are now obliged to those more perfect and substantial duties which were signified and represented under the Types and Figures of the Law Ch. 8. Finally That Christianity consists in the reformation of our lives in rectifying the evil dispositions of our Souls in conforming our affections desires and actions to the most pure and perfect Laws thereof And therefore as the use of the whole Discourse I beseech you Brethren by the mercies of God Ch. 12.1 That ye present your bodies all your bodily corrupt affections and desires a Living Sacrifice a whole burnt-offering to God That ye intirely resign your selves and suffer your Religion to have its last design and end upon you V. 2. And be not conformed to this World for so the Apostle proceeds to particulars But be ye transform'd by the renewing of your minds with fervent Piety and Devotion towards God V. 11. with sincere and universal Charity towards Men extending even to the love of Enemies in the words of my Text For if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink c. Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good These words are a Precept of universal obligation which concerns our behaviour under injuries received Be not overcome of evil and our deportment to wards those who injure us but overcome evil with good And first we are instructed how to behave our selves under injuries received Be not overcome of evil We are not obliged to a Stoical insensibility To destroy our Passions is no perfection but a debility and sickness of the mind but to command them to keep them within their bounds to exercise them upon proper Objects and to a just degree is the honour of a Man and the duty of a Christian The Command it self Be not overcome of evil supposes and allows a sense of the injury but obliges us to govern our resentments by the rules of reason to mold our spirits into a temper of meekness kindness and condescension that we may be then most pleasant to our selves when we stand in the greatest need of counsel and advice that no provocation may be able to discompose our minds or transport us into frequish indecent words or actions much less into meditations of Revenge But that we receive the injury with Patience consider it sedately construe it fairly excuse it ingenuously or if the malice be too plain to be hid then to refer the Judgment of your cause to God Be not overcome of
World He that hates his brother says S. John 1 Ep. 2.11 walks in darkness but he that loves his brother abideth in the light The Metaphor of light and darkness signifies the knowledge or ignorance of our interest the selfish man is as wretched as those who are blind or travel in the dark exposed to grievous evils dangerous precipices sharp and rugged ways But he that loveth his brother abideth in the light acts wisely proceeds with confidence and good success lives safely and securely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no danger of his stumbling of his offending others or being himself offended The Second motive to universal Love and Charity couch'd and implyed in these words thy Neighbour is the propriety in and the relation that we have to one another He is thy Neighbour All Mankind are of the same extraction and original sons of the same God Vno patre conditi unâ matre tanquam fratres uterini editi as the Father speaks S. Ambrose stamped with the same Divine Image equally inspirited with the breath of God The meanest man in the world agrees with him that is the greatest in that that is truly Great and Noble in him his Reason and Understanding Wherefore then since we are all children of the same Family and which is more professors of the same most holy Faith Citizens with the Saints of the houshold of Faith Eph. 2.19 Nay farther since our union is more intimate and we are members one of another Eph. 4.25 we ought to love as brethren to sympathize as parts of the same body to be easily touch'd with a sense of each others evils forasmuch as the case of our Neighbour is in a moral sense our own and we are stupid if we neglect it There is something of our selves in every man the same Divine Principle inlivens us the same blood runs in all our veins We have therefore a propriety a real interest in one another So that to love thy Neighbour is indeed to love thy self That is the second Thirdly From the necessity of a publick spirit in order to our Happiness and from the Relation that we stand in to our Neighbour arises another motive to universal Charity namely the beauty the harmony and the pleasure of the thing Whatsoever actions necessarily tend to the good of man and are agreeable to the Laws and impressions of humane Nature must of necessity be full of ease and pleasure The Soul exults and enjoys her self in the practice of them as her proper acts and operations As on the other hand an irrational course of proceeding is unnatural and therefore a violence to our frame and constitution as poyson or the sharpest pains are to the body But to love our Neighbour as our selves is not so properly a rational act a thing that is fit to be done as Reason it self our essential difference our very form To pursue the satisfaction of naturai desires by strength by craft or by any means is the property of Beings meerly sensitive But there is no other notion of humane Nature than that of making a distinction of actions nor of Rational Ends but Good nor of Good but publick Interest And therefore universal Love or a regard to others as well as to our selves is the perfection of our Being For let our distinctions otherwise be never so many or so great yet if our Will by nature be unbounded there is no Essential difference between us and Brutes Hence Love according to St. John is the very definition of God himself who is the standard of Rational perfection 1 Joh. 4.8 Beloved Let us love one another for God is Love How easie then would all Men be in this their most Divine and perfect state What a confidence would Love create what delight what trust what assurance what a free and chearful intercourse No Man would be diffident of his Neighbour as averse to his interest or cross him as an enemy but we should enjoy the unvaluable blessings of society with ease and peace But a Man of a shrivell'd narrow spirit that is wholly resolved into himself proceeds against universal Law and Right Rows against the stream with difficulty and fear with perplexity and danger he cannot live alone and yet he can never be sure of the good will of those with whom he must converse he is always practising hypocrisie and must accomplish himself with arts of disguise and tricks of deceit that undiscern'd which is impossible he may deceive the World He is under a perpetual constraint in the management of his conversation for fear he should be betrayed into that shame confusion and hazard which attend the detection of base designs and which they deserve who depart from this Royal Law of Love thy Neighbour as thy self a Law which in the practice of it would put a new face upon the World would banish gnawing cares and angry fears and give sincerity and chearfulness to every countenance There could be no misery amongst Men. We should all be happy in one another and anticipate that concord harmony and love which are supposed to constitute the joys of Heaven And thus I have explain'd the duty of universal Love and considered the beauty and necessity thereof from the words Thy Neighbour Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self It now remains that I should represent the likeness of this Command to the former that of Love to God and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self First In the nature of the duty they both oblige us to the same office of Love Secondly In extent and amplitude they are both comprehensive duties the former containing all the severals of the first the latter of the second Table Thirdly In that they suppose and are predicated of each other He that loveth God will love his Brother also 1 Joh. 4.20 As Philo truly says of moral vertues in the general they follow and are linked together As also Lastly I should have considered both the construction and the reason of this expression On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They consent and agree with these St. Paul interprets the word by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.9 If there be any other Commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying namely Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self This is the end the scope and the design of the Law and the Prophets All the Precepts of the Jewish and the Christian Religion have their ground and existence in these two and into these they are finally resolved out of these universals flow all the particulars of both Religions And therefore for a Conclusion of the whole I shall only pray to God Vse that he would affect our minds with a sense of his goodness to us who has given us a Religion so easie to be learn'd and understood If we heartily believe the Being of a God we cannot but desire his favour and to
that this is done for the sake of the Bread the Wine or the Company as an ordinary friendly Compotation but it is an act of Religion which we are obliged to celebrate in Obedience to our Saviour Jesus Christ who has made and ordained this breaking of Bread and drinking of Wine together S Mat. 26. S. Luk. â—2 the most solemn Ordinance of the Christian Worship Par. To eat and to drink together the most solemn Ordinance of the Christian Worship how should that be surely there must be something farther in it that does not appear to the eye there must be a reason of this Religious action that I at present do not apprehend but am very desirous to be instructed in Min. Most certainly there is for you know it is commonly called the Sacrament and the principal reason of that Catech. as our Church hath taught us is this because the outward sign that is to say the whole action that is done before our eyes by the express command of God preserves in memory represents and signifies some other thing that is invisible some Historical passage of former times some duty thereupon to be performed together with the several advantages we shall certainly receive thereby which are assured unto us and conferr'd upon us by the will and appointment of God in the due Celebration and use thereof and thus a Sacrament is distinguished from a bare religious Ceremony of remembrance or instruction Par. I beseech you Sir be more particular Min. I am very glad of your attention Briefly then our blessed Saviour as you may read in the 22. of St. Luke at the 19th Verse as He was eating the Passover with his Disciples immediately before He was betrayed set forth and represented to them His ensuing death upon the Cross by breaking of Bread and distributing the same unto them saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you and by taking the Cup full of Wine and giving that also to them saying This Cup is the New Testament in my blood or as Saint Matthew recites it Matt. 26. This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins and at the same time commanded them by the same most proper and natural signs of blessing and breaking of Bread pouring out of Wine and eating and drinking the same together to continue a fresh remembrance of Him and more particularly of His death to the end of the World Do this in remembrance of me v. 19. Par. Thus far I hope I understand you the Death and Passion of our Blessed Saviour is that in especial manner which the outward Signs commemorate exhibit and refer to But you said that this Holy Sacrament was more than a Religious Ceremony of Remembrance and therefore I pray inform me in the full intent and farther signification of it Min. It is very well remembred and if you observe the words of institution which I but now recited you will easily perceive that our Blessed Saviour appointed these Sacred Signs not only for a perpetual Remembrance of His Death and Passion but also of the ends and reason of it as His Death was the Seal or ratification of the New Testament or Covenant of Grace which God has entred into with Man consisting principally in this that our sins shall be forgiven and our Souls shall be saved through the satisfaction which our Saviour has made to God for us if we on our part believe His Gospel rely upon His merits and amend our lives For so says our Saviour Take eat This is my Body there He appoints the Commemoration of His death Given for you there is the end and reason of it which is given for you Now once for all in substance and reality and hereafter to the end of the World in the sign and figure as often as you celebrate the Mystery And again This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood the Covenant of Grace between God and us which was sealed and ratified in the Death of our Saviour is revived renewed and confirmed to every particular Person in this his Holy Sacrament that receives it as he ought to do You are therefore to understand the Sacrament as a display of the whole Religion of Christianity God on his part signing and sealing his Covenant of Pardon and Peace to us and we on the other part covenanting with God to perform the Conditions required of us with all possible exactness for the time to come Par. I perceive then that the Holy Sacrament is a Remembrance of the Sufferings of our Blessed Saviour together with the design and intention thereof the Remission of our sins That it is a confirmation of the Covenant of Grace on the part of God that He will be reconciled unto us through the blood of his Son which is therefore called the blood of the Covenant Heb. 10.29 and on our part it is a Profession of our Faith in the Mediation of Christ and a solemn obligation of our selves to perform the Conditions required of us Now I pray Sir give me leave to ask you what those benefits and Graces are which you said were assured unto us and conferred upon us in the due Celebration of this Holy Sacrament Min. You may easily find out that your self if you consider what has been said already concerning the nature of the Sacrament and the end of its Institution Is it understood as the Seal and Confirmation of the Covenant of Grace Why then the benefits we receive thereby are no less than all the blessings and promises of that Covenant which is so solemnly confirmed and assured unto us Namely the pardon of our sins upon Repentance Grace and strength to persevere in a course of new Obedience and Eternal Glory in the life to come This New Testament this Covenant of Grace is sealed and delivered to every particular Person in the Holy Sacrament all such Persons present as believe the Gospel of our Saviour rely upon his Merits and Repent of their sins are at that very instant pardoned if they persevere So sure as they eat that Bread and drink that Wine in Remembrance of our Saviour's death so sure shall they partake of His Body and Blood that is of all the Blessings which were purchased for us by His Death and Passion and this is grounded upon the words of our Saviour Take eat This i. e. this Bread which you are about to eat is my Body which is given for you and This Cup i. e. this Wine in the Cup which you are about to drink is my Blood of the New Testament They shall not only be the signs of your Redemption by my Death but they shall be the thing it self they shall be my Body and Blood that is to say the intention and end of my sufferings pardon of sins and Eternal life are assured unto and actually vested in all those who worthily receive these outward signs For the Cup
of Blessing which we bless says St. Paul 1 Cor. 10.16 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 Not only a Remembrance of his Body broken but a Communion or a participation of the Body by which according to the fairest and most natural construction of the words we can understand no less than this that as we bodily and carnally partake of the Bread and Wine which are the signs and representations of His Body that was broken and His Blood that was shed for us so Morally and Spiritually we shall also partake of the benefits the intention and end of breaking his Body and shedding His Blood the Pardon of our sins and the Salvation of our Souls if we receive the same with such affections and dispositions of mind as we ought to do and this our Church has taught us in her most Excellent and Comprehensive Catechism That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper By these Visible signs as by the Rod in your Copy-hold Courts you have Livery and Seisin given you of all the blessings purchased for you by the Body and Blood of Christ under the Conditions of Fealty to the Lord and the Customs Rents and Services of the Mannor Par. Methinks it is not so difficult to understand the nature of this Holy Sacrament and the reason of its institution as I thought it was I am heartily troubled that I have so long neglected it I am convinced what an enemy I have been to my self and am now resolved that I will never miss an opportunity of Receiving Min. But hold a little You had best consider what you say and what has been said to you For as the most nourishing of meats received into a sick and crazy stomach instead of that wholsome juice that strength and spirit which it contains in it self and would certainly yield and give out to the body does now but feed the diseases of it and fill it fuller of evil humours not for want of vertue in the food but for want of proper dispositions in the Recipient So also the Holy Eucharist though it contains and is ready to confer those benefits and Graces I have informed you of yet you must not think that it operates as a charm by the repetition of certain words or the punctual celebration of the Ceremony as you have already been instructed but in a way that is Natural and Rational that is to say upon this Condition that the mind of the Receiver be duly qualified and prepared There is therefore more imployed in this so solemn a Remembrance of our Saviour's Death and Passion than it may be you are aware of It will not be the Body and Blood of Christ to every one that receives the Elements of Bread and Wine which are the signs thereof but only to such as are duly qualified and prepared to receive them God is ready to perform his part of the Covenant if we have fulfilled or are resolved to fulfil the conditions which are required of us Par. I beseech you let me understand the utmost of my Duty that I may prepare my self as I ought to do Min. I will so and because the just and necessary preparation to any action whatsoever depends upon and is measured by the nature the end and design of the Action it self therefore I shall only trouble you with such preparatory exercises as you your self shall acknowledge to be fairly inferr'd from the nature of the Holy Sacrament as I have explained it to you First then Is the Communion a Sacrament does the outward action represent and signifie the whole transaction of our Redemption Begun in the Birth continued in the Life and Preaching of our Saviour and finished in his Death upon the Cross Then a Religious Commemoration hereof implyes and supposes a sufficient explicit knowledge of that which we so solemnly Commemorate because the Knowledge of the Fact goes before the Remembrance or recollection of it in the nature of the thing It is necessary therefore that you acquaint your self distinctly with the History of our Saviour's Life and Death contained especially in the four Evangelists before you can be qualified to receive Again Do we understand the Holy Sacrament not only as a bare external Ceremony of Remembrance but as a confirmation of the Covenant of Grace as the Seal of that Covenant and all the Blessings of it to every Communicant that is willing to accept the terms Matt. 26.26 This Bread is my body and This Cup is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins or according to S. Luke Luk. 22.19 This Cup is the New Testament in my blood or as S. Paul expresses it 1 Cor. 10.16 a Communion of the body and blood of the Lord then this implyes a competent knowledge at least of the grounds and principles of the Christian Faith And therefore it is absolutely necessary that every Communicant be well informed First In the miserable condition of all mankind as well by reason of the corruption of our nature as because of our many actual and obstinate transgressions which expose us to the Anger and Justice of God and to those grievous punishments annexed to his Laws which we are neither able to undergo nor avoid And Secondly in the nature and conditions of our Saviour's Mediation between God and us Heb. 10.10 who by the will of God has sanctified us who has put us into a capacity of Renovation Pardon Mercy and Eternal Life by the offering up of his Body once for all 2 Cor. 5.21 who knew no sin himself but was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God through him Heb. 9.26 1 Pet. 3.18 Who therefore took our nature upon him that he might be capable of bearing our sins in his own body In a word who by his death and sufferings according to the wonderful Council of God to us unknown has offered such a satisfaction to God as with safety to the honour of his Laws and the Justice of his Government he has been pleased to accept of and has thereupon abundantly assured us of his readiness to be reconciled to us So that if any difference continue still between us the reason thereof shall be wholly on our part Col. 1.21 2 Cor. 5.18 For all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ That he hath now restored us all to a capacity of favour Pardon and eternal Happiness upon condition that we believe and hope in his Mercy through the merits of his Son Repent of all our past transgressions and sincerely endeavour to govern our lives by the Laws of his Gospel for the time to come That instead of a perfect and exact obedience which the best of us are not able to perform