says that a discontented person challeng'd the Oracle of Delphos that it never gave a comfortable answer That 's your fault says the Oracle for none of you come to me till your case is past help Venimus huc lapsis quaesitum oracula rebus says the Poet that ever keeps decorum in his Verses Therefore awake right early seek the Lord in the first season that the course of misery may not wax too strong and remediless Otherwise the Prophet will say The days of visitation are come the days of recompence are come Israel shall know it Hos 9.7 and then whither will ye flie for help to be delivered But prevent such dismal tribulations while it is called To day For nothing is more Consolatory than seasonable Supplication CHAP. V. How the Sacraments minister to a Christian's Comfort A general Survey of Sacraments Five Reasons why God ordained Two Sacraments under the Gospel What Comforts flow from the Grace of Baptism What Comforts flow from the Lord's Supper THough by that which hitherto hath been set forth I trust I may assume that every one that sets his heart to make use of it hath drunk well yet as the Ruler of the Feast said at the Marriage in Cana of Galilee I have kept the good that is the best Wine until now Jo. 2.10 The water of life in Baptism the wine that delighteth the Spiritual thirst in the Lord's Supper Other things in the Word report unto us what a good land the Lord hath promised to his Israel but these two Sacraments are Caleb and Josuah spies that have seen and searcht the land and bring us sensible and sure tidings that it is a noble land flowing with Milk and Hony by the Grapes which they have brought with them and by their ocular and diligent survey they yield evident testimony that God hath provided a gracious Country for us in the Kingdom of Heaven To put all my work of Consolation into one prospect together Prayer the best comfortable Grace is married to Hope the Holy Ghost gives it in marriage Faith is the Priest that joyns them together and the two Sacraments are the outward signs by which they have declared their consent as it were by giving and receiving a Ring and by joyning of hands First I will treat of Sacraments in general then of each in particular by it self A Sacrament being a visible sign of inward grace as a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us thereof or more at large which comprizeth the end of all such outward signs a token to confirm mens Faith in the promises of God observe first That God hath condescended above all expression to our weakness that He would have us to take notice of his mercies in gross and sensible things A way that is framed to our level and dull apprehension For God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth Jo. 4.24 that 's purely a Heavenly way But some alterations have been admitted to bring us forward in our own pace that is after humane and bodily fancies Deus quandoque insantilia loquitur For our sakes the Lord speaks in the Scriptures in a plain and vulgar Emphasis strangely beneath his Infinite wisdom as a nurse useth to babble to her Infant So He is pleased to give himself to our hands to our eyes to our taste in common and obvious matter but out of his surpassing wisdom to make us more spiritual by cloathing Religion in a bodily attire The Church began in innocency and yet it began with a Sacrament the Tree of life instituted to keep mankind on Earth immortal by tasting it if Adam had not ambitiously eaten of the Tree of knowledge When the old world was drowned and repaired again God told Noah Gen. 9. I do set my Bow in the cloud and it shall be for a tokken of a Covenant between me and the Earth that the waters shall no more become a floud to destroy all the Earth This is the World's Covenant and not the Churche's a Covenant to save all the Earth from a total deluge And God is to be perceived and to be thought of in that sign Ezek. 1.28 The glory of the Throne of God was as the appearance of the Bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord and so the same glory is figur'd in the Rainbow Revel 4.3 After this it being not discovered who did openly and entirely profess the worship of the true God Abraham was called out of Chaldea and he and his family were imbodied into a Church and received the sign of Circumcision as a mark stampt upon them to be known to be those whom God had called out for his own and did admonish them to circumcise the fore-skin of their heart Deut. 10.16 Chiefly to imprint into them that the promised seed should come from that stock in whom all Nations should be blessed When Abraham's seed became a National Church before they could get out of Egypt the bloud of a Lamb was sprinkled upon their doors with a statute given upon it that from thenceforth every family at that time of the year should give account for a Lamb slain and be eaten within their houses till John Baptist's Lamb was slain to take away the sin of the world Under the like discipline they were trained up for a while in the wilderness when Moses set up the figure of a Serpent upon a Pole that they might look upon it and live that were stung by Serpents Numb 21. verse 9. The Author of the Book of Wisdom writes Divinely upon it That they might be admonisht for a small season it was a sign of Salvation And he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing he saw but by thee that art the Saviour of the world Wisd Chap. 16. Verses 6 7. Neither are we such perfect men under the New Testament to be taught only by the words of holiness and truth but we are received into the Covenant of Grace and preserved in it by Mysteries signifying wonderful things to our outward senses that we may suck and be satisfied with the Churches two breasts of Consolation Isa 66.11 And be filled with the two golden pipes that empty the golden oil out of themselves Zach. 4.12 I stand upon the number of Two because they are put together 1 Cor. 10.3 The Israelites were all baptized in the cloud did all eat the same spiritual meat and all drank of the same spiritual drink As good account for it is 1 Cor. 12.13 By one spirit we are all baptized into one body and have been all made to drink into one Spirit Or learn it from St. John 1 Epist 5.6 Christ came not by water alone but by water and bloud And there are three that bear witness the Spirit that is the ministry of the Gospel the water that is Baptism and the bloud
Faith is drawn through these narrow and abject means that like himself have no comeliness in specie and when we see them there is no comeliness that we should desire them Isa 53.2 Nevertheless it is fit we should be well taught in the Contemplation of the hidden vertue inclosed in Baptism or else we could never think it worth our labour and obedience Our Common-Prayer-Book a store-house of rare Divinity tells us what is to be expected at that Laver for them that come to be Baptized 1. That God hath promised to be the Father of the faithful and of their seed and will most surely perform and keep his promise with them and by this introduction we are incorporated into the holy Congregation Behold they whom we love above all others by nature our Children are naturalized to be the Citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom and enter into it through this door of Grace 2. Secondly As God did save Noah and his Family from perishing by water and safely led the Children of Israel through the Red Sea while their enemies were drowned so the millions of the Nations whom God hath not given to Christ for his inheritance are drowned in their own lusts and corruptions But O what a priviledge it is to be among those few that are received into the Ark of Christs Church to be exempted from the common deluge and to be the faithful seed of Abraham led through the Chanel of the Sea and Baptized in the Cloud that went along with them when the Armies of the mighty are mightily consumed 3. Thirdly We may gather out of our Church-office for Baptism that the everlasting benediction of Heavenly washing affords two Comforts it signifies the bloud of Christ to cleanse us Per modum pretii as the price that was paid to ransom us from death and the sanctifying of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us per modum habitûs by his In-being and Celestial infusion and both are put together in one Collect That all that are Baptized may receive remission of sins by spiritual regeneration There is no remission of sin without bloud says the Apostle Heb. 9.22 meaning the invaluable bloud of the Lamb of God Verse 14. And the Heavenly thing is represented by the visible Element of Water for there must be some aptitude between the Sign and the Thing signified else it were not a Sacrament that as Water washeth away the filth of the body so the Bloud of Christ delivereth our Souls from the guilt and damnableness of sin The Bloud of Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Epist Jo. 1.7 The metaphor of cleansing must have respect to Baptismal-water Again Who loved us and washed us from our sins in his Bloud Revel 1.5 Where the Scripture speaks of washing from sin it must be taken from the water of Baptism figuring the vertue of Christs Bloud that in the sight of his Father makes us white as Snow The Scriptures indeed strike most upon the other string and more directly as Ephes 5.25 Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word Titus 3.6 He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost And in many other places Therefore our Liturgy falls most upon the purifying operation of the Spirit to be shadowed in the outward washing of water As when it prays Send thy Holy Spirit to these Infants and grant that they may be Baptiz'd with Water and with the Holy Ghost And Grant that all that are Baptized may receive the fulness of thy Grace Spiritual Regeneration is that which the Gospel hath set forth to be the principal correlative of Baptism O happy it is for us to be born again by Water and the Holy Ghost For better it were never to be born than not to be born twice God put a good mind into us and reform one great fault in us which is that our Baptism being past over a great while ago we cast it out of our memory and meditate but little upon the benefits and comforts of it We are got into the Church and do in a sort forget how we got in Whereas the whole life of a Christian man and woman should be a continual reflection how in Baptism we entred into Covenant with Christ to believe in him to serve him to forsake the Devil the vanities of the world and the sinful desires of the flesh Water is a pellucid Element to look through it to the bottom So look often through the sanctified Water to see what Christ hath done for you and what you have engaged to do for Christ And there is no heart so full of blackness and melancholy but will recover upon it and be as fresh in sound health as if it were filled with marrow and fatness Well did St. Paul put Baptism among the principles and foundations of Christian doctrine Heb. 6.2 For all the weight of Faith Sanctification and Mercy doth lie upon it Recount this by particulars 1. The first thought that my Soul hath upon it is That I am no longer a stranger and foreigner but a fellow-Citizen with the Saints and of the houshold of God Ephes 2.19 I am no more a-far off but made nigh by the Bloud of Christ partaker of the priviledges of the Church and called by the new Name which the mouth of the Lord shall name a Christian Isa Chap. 62. Verse 2. 2. Secondly I find that I have gained to have the highest point of Faith unfolded to me which was but darkly discerned in the Old Testament to confess the Holy Trinity in which Faith I was Baptized For because that mystery was revealed at Christs Baptism it goes ever along with this Sacrament All Nations being Baptized in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost 3. Thirdly I observe that my Christian engagement allows me not the liberty of sinning after the custom of the world but obligeth me to the strict discipline of my Lord to live holily justly and soberly to walk in newness of life as planted into the likeness of Christs death so to die unto sin for he that is dead is freed from sin Rom. 6.7 In every thing and at all times I must remember what the Sureties at the Font called Godfathers and Godmothers did promise for me in my Name which the Liturgy of Geneva retains in these words Do you promise to warn this Child to live according to God's Word and make the Law of God the square of his life to live by 'T is a binding Ceremony and we are brought up from our tender years in the knowledge of it that we continually may feel the work of the Ordinance to have our hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience and our bodies washt with clean Water Heb. 10.21 22. And as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3.27 To put on Christ is to follow Christ in the Law of a
committing Treason against God that is repossession of mercy endanger'd to be forfeited But were it a new Covenant we should have some new visible Sign for it which never was Therefore this is the very Soul of mine and every ones Baptismal Consolation that being once done it Seals pardon for all our sins through Christs bloud unto our lifes end BUT as if many Spouts should open into one Cistern so all Comforts conspire to meet in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Nothing else but the actual enjoying of Heaven is above it The Church which dispenseth all the mysteries of salvation can bring forth no better Children that are come to Age can ask no more than the whole portion of their Father's goods that come unto them and what is that but the Bloud of Christ and this is the New Testament in that Bloud Christ is mine his Body is mine his Bloud is mine all is mine O be glad and rejoyce and give honour to the Lord God Omnipotent for the marriage of the Lamb is come Revel 19.7 And the Spirit saith write Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb Verse 9. It is much to be received into a Covenant with God by the former Sacrament is it not more to be kept in Covenant by the other It is much in Baptism to be brought from death to life but what is life without nourishment to preserve it This keeps us in the Lease of the old Covenant that the Years of it shall never run out and expire This is food to keep us in health and strength that we never decay and faint By it we lay hold of the promise Isa 54.10 My kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee Then why should I not embolden my heart with holy security against all fears for the Lord hath put himself into my hand and into my mouth and into my Spirit of what then should I be afraid This is that courage which our Liturgy sounds forth as with a shrill Trumpet to all that come to this Banquet well prepared It begins that it is a comfortable thing to all them that receive it worthily it bids us come with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet Conscience it proclaims aloud Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly come unto him So God loved the world c. Come unto me all ye c. This is a true saying c. It hath gathered the Sallies of spiritual joy as it were into a bundle of Myrrhe It adds Christ hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and for a continual remembrance of his death to our great and endless comfort And if all this put together will not blandish our Conscience and stablish our joy we would be dull and spirit-broken though an Angel from Heaven should come and say unto us as he did unto Gideon The Lord is with thee thou mighty man of valour Jud. 6.12 For an Angel of the Lord cannot plead so much to the solace of the heart as the great Angel of the Covenant hath done in these great demonstrations of love as followeth 1. First As Baptism was the former so this is the second visible publication of God's apparent mercy It is not a bare message but a lively apprehension of them by palpable means not in a vision or a dream but in a real Object Call to mind that the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appeared unto him twice 1 Kings 11.39 Once the Lord hath appeared unto us in the token of his love by Water and once again he appears unto us in the Elements of his Holy Table Twice he hath appeared to bless thee Therefore eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart Eccles 9.7 For if you turn away from Comfort when the Lord hath appeared twice unto you to give it you he will be angry and leave you to a thick darkness of sorrow such as fell upon the land of Aegypt 2. Secondly The Lord can appear Comfortably unto us though with a Sword in his hand and in the midst of a Camp as he did to Josuah Jos 5.13 Or in a flame of fire as he did to Manoah Jud. 13.20 Or in a tempest upon the Sea as he did to the Apostles Matth. 14.27 Or at the Graves mouth as he did to Mary Magdalen Jo. 20.14 But here he appears unto us in a Feast which is a time of innocent delight The glory of God which we look for is set out unto us in that which our senses apprehend for sweetness and pleasure as Luke 22.29 I appoint unto you a Kingdom that ye may Eat and Drink at my Table in my Kingdom which is translated from bodily pleasure to spiritual that in the Heaven of blessedness the Soul shall feed continually as at a Banquet of which we have now a taste in the Kingly provision of Christs Supper It is a Kingly Feast although imparted in a little pittance of Bread and Wine yet it is more costly and precious to that which it signifies than Solomon and all his Court had for their diet day by day 1 Kings 4.22 We are brought to Eat at the King's Table as Mephibosheth was like one of the Kings Sons 2 Sam. 9.11 To Eat together is a Communion of more than ordinary acquaintance do you note the endearing favour of God in that And what are we that are not thrust as our kind might look for it to gather up Crums under the Board but to Eat our portion before the Lord with the Lord out of the hands of the Lord For he that brake Bread and gave it to the Apostles gives it to Us as our High Priest though he be in Heaven I exhort you therefore to enter into the Guest-chamber with a quiet and unshaken heart for the Lord hath not invited us as Absalom did Amnon to kill us nor as Esther did Haman to accuse us but as Melchisedech brought forth Bread and Wine to Abraham to bless us He gives us Asher's portion Bread that shall be fat and Royal dainties Gen. 49.20 Only the case is alter'd if Christ shall say the hand of him that betrays me the hand of him that loves me not the hand of him that believes not in me the hand of him that will not keep my sayings is on the Table That wretch shall be thrown out and be fed with Bread of sorrow and Water of affliction nay where there shall not be a drop of Water to cool his Tongue Thirdly That which astonisheth the Communicant and ravisheth his heart is that this Feast affords no worse meat than the Body and Bloud of our Saviour Those he gave for the life of the world these are the repast of this Supper and these we truly partake For
there is not only the visible reception of the outward Signs but an invisible reception of the thing signified There is far more than a shadow than a type than a figure Christ did not only propose a Sign at that hour but also he gave us a Gift and that Gift really and effectually is Himself which is all one as you would say Spiritually himself for Spiritual Vnion is the most true and real union that can be That which is promised and Faith takes it and hath it is not fiction fansie opinion falsity but substance and verity Being strengthened with power by the Spirit in the inward mind Christ dwelleth in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 As by a Ring or a meaner instrument of conveyance a man may be setled in Land or put into an Office and by such conveyances the Ratification of such Grants are held to be real How much more real is the gift and receipt of Christ's Body and Bloud when conveyed unto us by the confirmation of the Eternal Spirit For observe it is the same Spirit that is in Christ and that is in Us and we are quickned by one and the same Spirit Rom. 8.11 Therefore it cannot chuse but that a real Union must follow between Christ and Us as there is a Union between all the parts of a Body by the animation of one Soul But Faith is the mouth wherewith we Eat his Body and Drink his Bloud not the mouth of a man but of a Faithful man for we hunger after him not with a Corporal appetite but a Spiritual therefore our Eating must be Spiritual and not Corporal Yet this is a real a substantial partaking of Christ crucified broken his flesh bleeding his wounds gaping so he is exhibited so we are sure we receive him which doth not only touch our outward senses in the Elements but pass through into the depth of the Soul For in true Divinity real and spiritual are aequipollent although with the Papists nothing is real unless it be corporal which is a gross way to defraud us of the Sublime and Soul-ravishing vertue of the mystery A mystery neither to be set out in words nor to be comprehended sufficiently in the mind but to be adored with Faith says Calvin lib. Instit c. 17. Sect. 5. But herein we pledge Christ in the Cup of love herein we renew the Covenant of forgiveness strongly assured by the sprinkling of Bloud the life is in the Bloud and without shedding of Bloud is no remission of sins Because death is the wages of sin Sin is the greatest dishonour that can be done to God and death in Christ's person is the greatest satisfaction that can be made He died and gave himself for me he died and gave himself to me as he was dead in his gored and pierced body that his sacrifice might be in me and in all those that are redeemed by it We read of some Mothers that in a great famine have eaten their own Children 2 Kings 6. but what Mother in the time of famine did ever give her own flesh to save the life of her Child But Christ hath given himself for us that we might not perish O Lord I owe all my life to thee because thou hast laid down thy life for me O let me bleed out my sins that thy Bloud may fill all the veins of my Spirit O let my Body be transfigur'd to be Heavenly by cleanness and chastity by being used only for thy worship and service that the Body of my Saviour may come under the roof of it Then when the King shall let forth his Table and give himself to me in his wonderful Feast my Spicknard shall send forth a sweet smell Cant. 1.12 My Soul shall magnifie the Lord and my Spirit shall rejoyce in Christ my Saviour We have found the Messias says Philip to Nathaniel And where have we found him at a Feast a Feast of his own Body and Bloud but set out with no more cost and shew than a piece of Bread and a sip of Wine In this manner it is brought to pass by the Omnipotency of God's pleasure to institute it with the efficacy of a strong Faith concurring to receive it The Church had done very ill if of its own head it had made so mean a representation of Christ but the Lord must be obeyed and ought to be admired in the humility of his Ordinance who hath not given us rich Viands and full Cups but made the Feast out of the fragments of the meanest Creatures Let them understand this that will make themselves fit to be his guests bring a preparation of humility suitable to the exility of those oblations The meek shall Eat and be satisfied they shall praise the Lord and seek him Psalm 22.26 And at that season let the riotous remember his fulness of Bread and excess of Wine God is honour'd in a little and his liberality is abused in the excess of his creatures And it is worth the noting that the Elements which we are invited to take are of fruits that grow out of the Earth to shew that the Earth which was cursed for Adam's sake is blessed for Christ's sake As it brings forth Thorns and Thistles to call to mind our rebellion so it brings forth Bread and Wine to call to mind our redemption Neither doth God supply us with Bread only out of the furrows of the Earth but sometime it hath fallen out of the clouds of Heaven Behold says God I will rain Bread from Heaven for you Exod. 16.4 This was Manna called the Corn of Heaven Psalm 78.24 This was the Spiritual meat or Angels food in which the old believers in the Wilderness did Eat Christ with an implicit Faith Our outward Sign is the Bread of the Earth true Bread that grows in the Fields yet the Bread signified is that which the Father hath given us from Heaven Jo. 6.31 Bread is a great part of mans nourishment so Christ crucified is the sole refection of Faith Bread is champed in the mouth to make it fit for the stomach so the Body of Christ was ordained to be slain before it could profit us If the Corn of Wheat fall not into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth sorth much fruit Jo. 12.24 By his life we learn to live and by his death we are made alive Bread when it is grounded between our teeth and eaten is turn'd by concoction into the substance of our Body which explains our mystical union with Christ that we are made one Spirit with him by Faith as this sensible food is converted into our flesh and bone Beside in the several parts of the outward Signs it is God's meaning we should conceive how he loves the gathering together of many into one which is thus to be qualified At a common Supper or any Meal all that are at the Board feed of the same Meats yet every one feeds to himself and to none beside So