that a general decay of piety came in afterwards and luxury eat out the vitals of Religion and these holy duties which had been the great comfort and desire of their souls in the day of their afflictions became to be neglected and the pleasures and vanities of the World had dull'd their appetite that they no longer relished this heavenly food this bread of Angels and if they came to the Sacrament it was onely at the solemn times of the year as at Christmas and Easter out of respect to the Law of the Church and the custome of the place where they lived that they might not be guilty of a scandalous omission of a duty so necessary rather than out of a thirsty desire and longing after it But if we can have the patience to compare the forwardness and zeal of the first Christians with the dulness and stupidity of this age how ready and desirous they were to embrace all opportunities of commemorating the death of Christ according to his own institution and appointment and how willing most of us are to decline them and that upon very slight and oftentimes unreasonable pretences if we dare compare their mortifications and severities in order to a due preparation with our slight and perfunctory performances how we are forced to doe that twice or thrice in a year which they earnestly long'd for almost every day it will make us tremble to consider how much we are degenerated and are faln short of those glorious examples which those ancient worthies set us and how little of the power of Christianity is to be found at this time among Christians notwithstanding all that great noise and profession which is made of it Our Scholastical disputes and quarrels about the Sacrament have destroyed and swallowed up our devotion and our charity and that which was designed by Christ for an instrument of uniting mens minds together in Christian Communion and love is now become an occasion of difference and irreconciliation They were not troubled with those hot debates which have since so miserably distracted the Peace of Christendom they contented themselves with a simple belief of the mystery without busying their thoughts about nice and curious speculations whole Churches were not then excommunicated for not assenting to a monstrous opinion contrary to common sense and reason and the universal experience of Mankind they did not under a pretence of exalting the mystery destroy the nature of a Sacrament as now is done in the Roman Church It must now no longer be a representative but a real propitiatory sacrifice for the living and for the dead and Christ's natural body must be brought down from heaven upon a thousand Altars at once and there really broken and offered up again to God the Father and his Bloud actually spilt a thousand times every day and mixing it self with ours Nor did they on the other side degrade it into a bare empty sign and entertain slight notions of it or approach it without a due and becoming reverence or abstain from it upon frivolous excuses as the manner of some is For had we that high value for the blessed Sacrament as we ought did we believe it necessary to receive it often not onely necessitate proecepti but medii too did we believe seriously and consider of what great use and benefit it would be to our Souls we would be more diligent and conscientious in the use of it and think our selves under an indispensable obligation of frequent Communion which arises also from a consideration of the blessed effects and consequences of it which is my second particular And of these I shall name onely three 1. By it we gain a close and intimate communion and conjunction with Christ hereby we are one with Christ and Christ with us that is upon our humble and penitent and devout receiving of the Sacrament he descends into our hearts by the sweet influences of his Grace he is really present with us by his Spirit and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us and still gives himself to us in these holy mysteries For we must not fansie an immediate and personal union he indeed was pleased by assuming the humane nature to unite the word to it whereby he became God and Man which wonderfull union is therefore called Hypostatical because he had the two natures fully with all their natural and essential qualities concurring in his own proper single person But the union of Christ with the devout soul is purely spiritual not an union of his personal excellencies and endowments but a communication of his Grace and Spirit whereby the soul is exalted above its natural capacity and is transformed from glory to glory and is made partaker of the divine nature that is filled with love and purity and such God-like qualities By this we are joyned and united to him as members of his body of his flesh and of his bones that is of his mystical body the Church as the Apostle explains himself Col. 1.18 and not of his natural body on account of a concorporation or assimulation or conversion of the Sacrament into our bodily substance Thus as the Apostle St. John speaks we have communion with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. By virtue of Christ's pretious bloud shed upon the cross we are reconciled to God he has entred into a new Covenant with us which Christ has solemnly ratified by his death and is willing to receive us to mercy and favour upon the conditions of hearty sorrow for our sins wherewith we have offended the eyes of his glory and of a holy life and through faith in his Son we can put up our prayers to him with some assurance that he will hear us and communicate his favours and blessings to us so far as he in his infinite wisdom sees fit and give us of his Spirit and the same communion we have with Christ the soul is ravished with the contemplation of his infinite love and goodness to lost man and to it self in particular and is filled with astonishing reflexions of the merits of his death as much as if he were personally present upon Earth again This indeed is better understood than exprest words being too scanty and the imagination not able to reach and comprehend what the pious soul knows by experience And if this be the blessed effect of our devotion and meditation if when we are upon our knees and are employed in holy thoughts we then seem to be out of our bodies and rapt into heaven and there lie prostrate before the throne and the Lamb how much more when we are kneeling before the Altar and are admitted to the participation of the body and bloud of our Saviour and are performing the most solemn part of the Christian worship exerting with all possible vigour and intention of mind for so we ought to be affected acts of
holy love and zeal and uniting our souls to Christ by faith There is no need of fansying the bread to be substantially changed into the natural body of Christ that so by this mean we may be really united to it which is one of the colourable pretences made use of by Petrus de Marca and others for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and Christ naturally be and remain in us It is enough that Christ took our nature upon him and united it inseparably to his divinity that he was made up of flesh and bloud and a humane soul and that he doth communicate himself that is his body and bloud in the Sacrament for so the Elements really and truly are after consecration but without departing from their natural state and without loosing their bodily substance For this is all I humbly conceive that our Church means by the doctrine of the real Presence which it acknowledgeth and maintaineth that is by the power of God and the institution of our Saviour and the descent and supervening grace of the Spirit the elements of bread and wine after consecration by a Priest rightly ordained and constituted become the body and bloud of Christ Mystically and Sacramentally and so the Sacrament is more than a bare figure and representation more than a mere Symbol or external rite as were the types and shadows of the law because it does exhibite and communicate Christ really and truly to us Thus Saint Paul hath expresly determined the bread which we break is it not the communication of the body of Christ the cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communication of the bloud of Christ 2 Cor. 10.16 Now were this seriously laid to heart that in the Sacrament we meet with Christ and receive him how should we long for these blessed opportunities As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God my soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come to appear before God Can we be weary of his blessed presence or complain of too frequent entertainments and communications It will be the unspeakable glory and happiness of the other world to be in the presence of God and with Christ for ever Here on earth he vouchsafes to be with us in the Sacrament especially here we may find him whom our soul loveth here we may embrace him Why then are we so unprepared Why are we so backward Why doe we this so seldom 2. By a frequent participation of the body and bloud of our Saviour we are more and more confirmed in our purposes of holy living and strengthened in grace and goodness We are daily exposed to a thousand temptations by reason of the frailty of our nature temperament of body which has too too often a sad and fatal influence upon the mind allurements of sense and evil example and the like There is a continual strife between the dictates of right reason which incite us to doe our duty by arguments drawn from the obligations we owe to God and the agreeableness of it to our nature and the insinuations of appetite which suggests a present pleasure if we strain a little and cease to be so scrupulous till at last the directive and commanding faculties are impaired and captivated and reason dethroned and lust domineers in the soul and the miserable person who has lost his power over himself is at the command of every extravagant passion Which evil effects and consequences are prevented by a frequent and conscientious receiving of the blessed Sacrament This being the true Physick of the soul which not onely cleanses it from the defilements of sin but fortifies it against all infection for the future As often as we find any ill humour growing upon us we endeavour carefully to prevent it When we are sick the tediousness and uneasiness which our distemper brings upon us and the fear of death force us to seek out medicines to restore our health and prolong our lives The soul has its distempers for the prevention or removal of which there cannot be a more sovereign remedy than the frequent devout receiving of the Sacrament For there is such a divine efficacy in the holy Sacrament and the blessing of God does so accompany this holy institution of our Religion that as a moral instrument it conveys grace into the heart of the Communicant if his approach be with due preparation and reverence and if he does not wilfully and obstinately resist and hinder the kindly influences of it If there went such a virtue out of Christ's natural body when he was upon Earth that great cures were wrought thereby If I may but touch his garment said the woman who had a bloudy issue Math. 9.21 I shall be whole What a great blessing must the receiving of it in the Sacrament bring along with it to the devout soul that addresses to him with a lively faith that he is able and willing to heal us But we sin after we have received the Sacrament and we do not find these blessed effects of it within our selves To which several things are to be replied 1. That the Sacrament does not work physically and necessarily but in the way of moral efficacy to which we our selves must concur and contribute somewhat 2. That these blessed effects are producible and visible in others and have been in all ages so that the fault is wholly our own and no defect can be imputed to this mean and instrument of grace why it is not equally effectual to us And therefore 3. That we did not either receive it with due preparation that is our hearts were not purified by repentance and faith and inflamed with love and charity but we might break in upon the Altar without awe and reverence merely out of formality in complyance with the custome of the place and onely for fear that our absence should be censured or else we are not carefull after we have received it to perform those vows and obligations which we laid upon our selves when we were partakers of the Lords table which is the general fault we are seemingly strict before as if this were enough and could satisfie the Conscience to receive Christ without any farther care of walking in him 4. That this is as far from being an objection against frequent communion as it is against our daily Prayer for do we not every morning privately on our knees beg of God the assistence of his grace that we may not be led into temptation but may be powerfully defended from it and preserved in it and do we not as often at least we should publickly and in the congregation beseech him that he would vouchsafe to keep us the remaining part of the day without sin and defend us by his mighty power that we may not fall into it But God knows our weakness and we cannot but acknowledge it with shame and sorrow of heart that the corruptions of our nature are oftentimes too strong for
bloud were eaten and drunk by us and converted after the ordinary way of digestion into our bodily substance We have this assurance in his holy word but much more in the holy Sacrament because here is a more lively sensible and particular representation of it that is though I acknowledge and believe this to be one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel that Christ died for our sins that he appeared once in the days of his flesh to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and that at his ascension he entred in his humane nature into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us my faith grows stronger yet when I receive the sacred symbols into my hands and convey them to my mouth For then if I come with a due preparation it is as if I received from Christ himself and as if he still pronounced the same words to me as he did to the Apostles at the institution Now can we have too great too full an assurance of the favour of God of the pardon of our sins of our living for ever in the presence of God in the other world God knows we forfeit our hopes by our gross and scandalous relapses we lose the favour of God by our presumptuous disobedience we miss the sight of heaven by reason of the thick mists of our sins our onely comfort and support is that God upon our hearty repentance and amendment will be reconciled to us Here it is that we may recover our selves that God restores us to the joy of his salvation and upholds us with his free Spirit Here it is that the weary and heavy laden with the burthen of their sins may find rest and peace to their souls Here it is that Christ not onely commands but invites us to come and how can we but accept of such an invitation so that were the thing wholly arbitrary and indifferent yet the benefit and advantage is so great that this should prevail with us to come and to come often To draw to a conclusion with particular reference to this reverend and learned Audience If this obligation lies upon all in general how much more upon us who have the honour to wait at the Altar and administer in holy things and upon You who are designed to the same honour This was the pious intent of our munificent and glorious Founders and Benefactors in erecting and endowing these structures which are the envy and admiration of all foreigners and in providing so liberally for us several ages before we were born that being here trained up in severe exercises of piety and in the studies of sound and usefull learning we may the better be fitted to do God service in the Church defend the truth of our religion against all its subtile and malitious opposers keep up the belief and practice of Christianity in the minds and lives of the people be a credit to the Countrey and Age we live in and approve our selves not unworthy of the bounty and maintenance which we so happily enjoy Both God and man expect it from us that we especially should shew forth an exemplary piety to which nothing can conduce more than a frequent and devout receiving of the Sacrament This would take off our minds from idleness and vanity and confine us more to our selves and our studies and make us reflect on the true end of living in a College and the particular duty of the Priestly sunction This would confound all the scandalous imputations cast upon the Universities of late by Mr. Hobbs and his Atheistical Gallants by the Papists and Fanaticks in their scurrilous libels and Pamphlets who make it their business to bring a discredit and a disreputation upon us We cannot but be sadly sensible of the great contempt that is poured out upon Church-men and we justly esteem it as we have highest reason so to do an infallible mark and proof of the Atheism of the irreligion of the debauchery of the age But are we not too too much wanting to our selves would we retrieve and recover the honour due unto the Priesthood which seems in a manner forfeited at present there cannot be a better or more effectual expedient than this than to make others sensible by our example of this great duty of our Religion and of the necessity first and then of the blessed effects and benefits of frequent communion Such an exemplary strictness would help to re-establish and bring back the true Christian temper and spirit which are almost lost and shut out of the world I will not take upon me to prescribe precisely how often the blessed Sacrament is to be received Every one is best able to resolve himself in this case The Church of England out of the great care which she has of the souls of all such as live within her communion does oblige them to communicate three times at least in the year of which Easter to be one and this I find expresly determined in a Council held at Agatha a City in the south of France under Caesarius Archbishop of Arles in the year of Christ 506 with this farther addition that they who did not comply with this Canon should not be reputed Christians But this limitation respected secular persons onely and he is not generously pious that does but just come up to the bare letter of the Law which forbids that it should be longer neglected but is supposed to encourage the willing to more frequent approaches But we are under higher and more indispensable obligations The Persons concerned in the late disturbances and who by their furious preachments helpt to pull down the Hierarchy of the Church cannot but reflect one would think with shame and horrour enough upon the sad effects of their pretended Reformation how the giddy people whom they had insatuated were broken into many factions and sects and lost their reason and their religion and grew enthusiastical and mad It is but a sorry excuse to say that the hand of the Jesuite was in all this for they by their unreasonable schism and discontent and factious conventicling though coloured over with pretensions of godly zeal against the Papists as at this day wherein they are playing over the same game had created unjust prejudices in their minds had shaken them in their judgments from the established doctrine and service of the Church and had sitted them to be wrought upon by their subtile artifices and insinuations What a sensible decay was there of true Christian piety and devotion the blessed Sacrament being seldom administred Those Intruders who called themselves the University of Oxon. from the bloudy and fatal year of 1648 to the King 's happy restoration did not think fit so much as once to celebrate the communion together in this Church and a publick Sacrament was not seen in several College Chapels during the same space of time This was the holy discipline of those times and indeed men of such divided hearts and