wine but substantially flesh and blood besides innumerable monstrous and most absurd Consequences and Contradictions which follow that Opinion which all do infinitely perplex and torture the minds of Christians If the Opinion were granted and all these absurdities swallowed by a wide and enormous Faith yet were there no advantage of Efficacy or Comfort gained to the Receiver by a gross and Carnal Eating and Drinking the body and blood of Christ. III. If those which Crucified him had done so or they who then believed in him when he was slain yet would they not any way have furthered their souls good and life which can no more be fed with carnal and sensible Objects than the body with light and truth which are of a Spiritual nature nor doth this first violent act of faith which they require of a Receiver in believing the essential change of the Bread and Wine into the body and Blood of Christ make a worthy Receiver except his Soul by a further act of Faith apply the virtue and merits of Christ's Death and Passion which is done effectually without the thought of Transubstantiation by that Faith which we say is necessary for a worthy Receiver which doth as clearly perceive and as really receive its proper Objects the Truth and Merits of Christ's Death and Sufferings to which no distance of place or time can be any impediment as the Sence doth its sensible Objects which requires a fit time and distance for perception IV. As for the Sacramental words given in the name of the Body and Blood of Christ to the consecrated Bread and Wine I believe them to be most true in the sense and meaning of our Saviour which sense I do not only guess at or implicitely believe but easily and plainly gather and understand by the like expressions both of our Saviour himself and the stile and phrase of the whole Scripture which never make such substantial predications of one thing to be another by way of transmutation of one into the other but by allusion relation similitude proportion designation of use and Sacramental Union or application no more than the Paschal Lamb which was a Type and Sacrament of Christ and his Sufferings was the very substance of Christ or that Rock on which St. Paul affirms it was Christ or that Christ is to be thought a natural door way vine light c. all which he affirms to be himself by a like manner of speech or more nearer the Cup to be the New Testament c. So that Reason Religion and the Rule of Faith the Holy Scriptures teach Christians to give commodam interpretationem a fit and agreeable interpretation V. Nor can we have a truer interpreter of Christ's meaning than himself who tells us that the Flesh profiteth nothing that is in that carnal and gross acceptation but his words are spiritual and must have a spiritual sense which is suitable to the Nature and Capacity of the Soul the dignity of Chiristan Religion and the sacred Mystery the Propriety of the object of Faith and the stile and tenour of God's Word which never enjoyns us any carnal thing horrible or inhumane For though the Letter may sound so yet the Figure in the words doth relieve our Faith and accommodate a fit and true meaning to such words and expressions nothing being more usual than for the Spirit of God to set forth Spiritual things and duties by corporal notions VI. So that as the Bread and Wine by their natural qualities and vertues are fit to represent the spiritual efficacy of the Body and Blood of Christ yet by a natural power are no whit able to impart to a Communicant the Body and Blood of Christ with the benefits of them to the Soul so that our blessed Saviour hath made choice of them for the First and hath given to them a Sacramental Virtue and a supernatural efficacy for the Second which they truly do as Remembrancers as Signs and Seals really conveying to the believing and prepared Soul by the concurrent Spirit and Power of the Institutor Jesus Christ that which in their nature they do fitly represent VII Which is all that I conceive I need beleive of or expect from this Sacrament which is appointed only to strengthen and confirm that Faith in us by which we believe in Christ crucified for Life and Salvation which Faith grounded on the Word and wrought by the Spirit is first confirmed and sealed by Baptism and may be true and sufficient to save a Christian who never lives to come to the Supper of the Lord nor hath any thought or use of Transubstantiation in this no more than of the substantial change of the Water in Baptism into the Blood of Christ which was never yet dreamed of yet our Saviour tells us Joh. the 6th Except a man eat his Flesh and drink his Blood he cannot have Eternal Life which many have who never eat of the most holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper yet dye believers and by Faith have eaten and drank the Body and Blood of Christ spiritually yet really without which they could not be saved VIII Neither to secure children of Salvation in case they dye before years of discretion need we resume the antient but erroneous practice of the Church now long since abolished by all sides viz. to put the Eucharistical Bread and Wine into the mouths of Infants which Error sprang from the gross and corporeal interpretation of our Saviour's words not considering that every Believer either in the internal disposition which is secretly wrought by the Spirits sanctifying Power in Baptism according to the capacity of the Subject or in the real exercise and actuating of his Faith which comes by Hearing in his riper years must necessarily and doth effectually and really Eat and Drink the Body and Blood of Christ to Salvation though they never come to receive in the Holy Supper so that it is but one Christ his Body and Blood the same Crucified Saviour which is received in both Sacraments and but one Faith for the kind that layes hold and feeds on Christ in them all only it receives degrees and addition of strength in this of the Supper the Word beginning the Life of Faith and by it the Believer into Christ the other maintaining and encreasing it to a further strength and assurance IX We deny not a true and real presence and perception of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament which reality even they of the other gross Opinion do not imagine is to Sence but to Faith which perceives its Objects as really according to the manner of Faiths perception as the senses do theirs after their manner I believe therefore that in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper there are both objects presented to and received by a Worthy Receiver first the Bread and Wine in their own nature and substances distinct do remain as well as their accidents which are the true objects of our sence and fit signs to represent
and my death happy be merciful to me thy frail and sinful Creature who have daily been so far from abstaining from the least appearance of it that I have daily ran with greediness into it and hourly studied vain Excuses for it V. Grant dear Lord for thy mercy sake that these my daily diminutions of Sin may now daily increase in me the Augmentations of sorrow that so I may truly and heartily bewail mine offences thou may st graciously forgive them and by thy grace assisting I may perfectly abhor them grant this dear Father for thy mercy sake in ham who dyed for Sin and had no Sin in him Amen Meditations for Fryday Morning on the Holy Sacrament HIs Guards are strong his Fence is sure whose Salvation is Christ which Salvation is Communicated to us in the promises of grace exhibited in the Ministry of the word and more plentifully conveyed yea more effectually confirmed in the Ministration of the Sacraments Now to spoil us of the treasure to rob us of the comfort of this Salvation is Satan's grand design in his temptations unto sin and his suggestions of distrust for by these he labours to withdraw us from our God and deprive us of Communion with Christ who is our love and our life II. But when the bird is mounted on the wing it is safe from the Fowlers net and the soul raised in Communion with Christ is preserv'd from Satan's snare and if through infirmity the soul flag and fall to the Earth and so become intangled in carnal and worldly affections yet keeping the eye fixt upon Christ looking to him in his ordinances to receive the quickning power of his grace though corrupt affections may intangle yet shall they not inthral the soul which becomes restored by the Power of Christs Spirit a Spirit of life and liberty a Spirit of grace and holiness delivering from the Power of Satan and from the Dominion of sin III. Who art thou then O thou afflicted soul who in thy spiritual desertions walkest in darkness clouded with sorrows oh in the greatest dejections lift up thine eyes unto the Lord that when the rising Sun appears thou mayest see his refreshing light and how ever now by reason of thy present anguish thou canst not serve God in alacrity of performance yet do it in sincerity of obedience and this this will be a cranny to convey some beams of light even in the lowest dungeon of thy spiritual distress IV. Psal 27. 14. Wait upon the Lord having the eye of faith still towards him and so shall comforts be redoubled in a life recovered and thy difficulties of obtaining shall the more sweeten thy delights of injoying even of injoying God and Christ in the refreshing comforts of the Spirit conveyed and Confirmed in his Blessed Sacrament in which Blessed Sacrament especially let thine eyes be still towards the Lord in his merits in his grace in his benefits in his love let him have thy fixed heart and thine intent eye yea let him have thy whole man for to this end it is that he here gives thee his whole self A Prayer for Fryday Morning of consession of sins to God before the Holy Sacrament O Most holy Lord God I thy unworthy servant do here prostrate my self before thee in all humility acknowledging and confessing my manifold sins and wickedness my whole life has abounded with actual transgressions against every one of thy Commandments I have O Lord lived in contempt of thy providence committing Idolatry with thy Creatures taking thy glorious name in vain prophaning thy most holy Sabbath I have not regarded my superiors as I ought to do I have envied my brethren defiled my soul with unchast desires laboured to be rich by unlawful means I have slandered my Neighbour and have coveted after his wealth I have heard thy word O Lord but have not believed it I have known thy word but have not practised it I have come into thy house without reverence and approached to thy holy Table without repentance I have practised many sins without remorse and when I read thy sacred Scriptures it is not sweet to me as the Honey Combe but my delight is more in ungodliness prophaneness and atheism II. I have by gluttony and drunkenness pampered my body I am guilty of pride in my apparel I am negligent in my calling by mispending my time I have used vain discourses at my Table and have sinned out of measure against all those means of grace which thou hast been pleased to afford me from time to time I have wandering eyes wanton lusts and ambitious mind and covetous desires which have no bounds nor limits I have lascivious ears unsavory speeches and censorious reproaches Here name thy particular sins I am still adding sin unto sin and transgression unto transgression * and am altogether unfaithful in my life and forgetful of my death and of the day of Judgment III. My abusing of thy mercies and despising of thy judgments is testified against me yet O Lord I am not ashamed nor confess my self guilty but still run on in a course of sinning against the motions of thy holy Spirit and the checks of my own conscience and have refused thy calls and my own purposes and vows of amendment O what shall I say or how shall I open my mouth O thou that art the preserver of all men I know that the wages of sin is death but thy gift O God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord O enter not into judgment with thy servant O Lord for in thy sight is no flesh righteous Be merciful O Lord be merciful unto my sins for they are great out of thy abundant mercy forgive me all that is past and be gracious unto me in preventing sins to come IV. Correct me O Lord but with mercy not in thy Judgment for then shall I be consumed and brought to nothing destroy in me O Lord the cursed works of the Devil increase in me dayly the gifts of thy Spirit fit me for that calling in which thou hast or wilt place me and make me to refer the strength of my body the gifts of my mind and whatsoever grace thou hast already or wilt hereafter bestow upon me to the glory of thy holy name and the eternal salvation of my own Soul and Lord grant that the remainder of the time which I shall live in this present evil World that my conversation may be in Heaven and that whether I eat or drink or whatsoever I do else I may hear always this voice sounding in my ears arise you dead and come to judgment many other things O Lord I have to beg that my ignorance knoweth not how to ask or my forgetfulness does not remember but accept O Lord this my humble confession unto thee at this time and whatever else thou knowest needful for me supply it with the merits of thy dear Son my only Lord and Saviour Amen Our Father c. A Prayer after
secret and unknown Errors of my sinful life past and graciously prevent the failings of that to Come IV. Make me truly and sincerely holy and to imbrace it neither for fear of punishment nor hope of reward but purely for thy sake who art holiness it self O let me never think my self holy enough but press still forward in thy holy Race until at last I have attained unto that full measure of holiness which by thy gracious Acceptation of it in Christ will End in Endless happiness Bless these my holy desires with happy performances for his sake whose perfect Righteousness thou both graciously acceptest for me and willingly imputest to me Amen Meditations for Saturday Morning on the Holy Sacrament NOw to keep the Soul in an even temper we must observe these following directions first for the best ordering our lives as to the safety and peace of our Souls be the more servent the more importunate in your Prayers when your lusts are most eager and vehement in their desires for this we have St. Pauls example for our imitation when he proportions the vehemency of his devotion to the violence of his temptation and by how much the messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12. 9. Doth the more furiously reiterate his buffetings the more zealously doth he renew his Prayers and at length he receives this comfortable answer to his sorrowful complaint my grace is sufficient for thee sufficient to cure thy wound and to pardon thy guilt sufficient to strengthen thy weakness and to perfect thy deliverance II. Secondly entertain we no parley no treaty with our lusts have no commerce or company with them silence their suggestions or if they will needs be suggesting give them not the ear lest they make that the passage to the heart we betray our selves to sin whensoever we treat with our lusts conference with them is the way to be ensnared by them we must flie sin as a Serpent not let in the head lest it draw in its body not yield to the first motion lest we be engaged in its full Commission III. Thirdly set we up the law of spirit and life in our hearts Rom. 8. 2. and by how much the law of sin will be stirring in our thoughts by so much the more let this royal law of Christs Spirit and life bear sway in our souls and to that end especially now in the solemnity of the Blessed Eucharist renew we our purposes our vows our Covenants renew we our self denyal our total resignation thereby to obtain a further quickning in grace a further strengthning of the inward Man and all by a nearer Communion of Christ in his fulness thus this Holy Sacrament shall seal unto our hearts the comfort of this assurance that he will never leave us nor forsake us IV. Let us offer up to God the Sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit which sorrow of contrition must be like that of one Mourning for the dead a funeral sorrow the deepest of Mournings like that of one Mourning for her only Son the saddest of Funerals and for our sins deep humiliation is 〈◊〉 necessary whereby we confess the guâ—lt of our sins bewail the bitterness of distress deprecating Gods wrath and imploring his mercy for a full and free pardon of our sins A Prayer for Saturday Morning on the Holy Sacrament O Thou blessed Fountain of Eternal sweetness who art infinitely sweeter to my weary soul than all earthly enjoyments in whose presence is the fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore forgive the follies and infirmities of me thy sinful servant who have foolishly preferred these transitory drops of insufficient joys which have been wearisome and burthensome unto me to those thy rivers of Eternal pleasures in which thy Blessed Saints do sweetly bathe their happy Souls where everlasting jâ—y is on their heads and thine Eternal comforts in their hearts II. Lord open mine eyes now at last that I may clearly see the vanity of the Creature and the fulness sweetness and all sufficiency of Christ withdraw mine affections from the World and fix them wholly upon thee and thy Kingdom Lord sanctifie my heart to believe that there is no true sweetness but in goodness and that there can be no true goodness in that pleasure which is not subordinate to this sweetness which alone is in thee my Lord and Saviour the comfort of all Earthly Comforts and Heavenly Consolations III. Almighty God when I look upon thee out of Christ as thou art in thy self I can there see nothing else but destruction to my body and amazement to my soul in thine essence light inaccessible unto which no mortal eye can approach in thine attributes terrour unutterable from which no Creature can escape thy wisdom trying my corrupt heart and searching my sinful veins thy Justice most severe fearful in the pronunciation dreadful in the Execution thy truth admitting no alteration no judgment pronounced by thee but most precisely fulfilled yet such O Lord hath the folly of my false heart been that I have sinfully depended on thy mercy in Christ without either faith to receive thee hope to enjoy thee or love to delight in thee IV. Lord whither wilt thou suffer me to stray from thee How long Lord wilt thou leave me in this sleep of sin Lord seek me thy stray sheep or I am lost for ever open my sinful eyes that I sleep not in death make me wisely to remember that then only there is mercy with thee when thou art truly feared grant therefore dear Father for thy mercy sake that I may no longer dally with my precious soul by this my security in sin but sorely upon thy mercy as to have a filial fear of thy justice and from security in sin good Lord deliver me Amen Meditations for Saturday Evening on the most Holy Sacrament O Thou great Creator of Heaven and Earth I am ashamed of my self to see in what a posture I am in at this present I am cast down when I look into my self and make enquiry into my own unworthiness I cannot but behold my own vileness and baseness but thou O Lord dost receive sinners else how dare I approach to thy Holy Table thou art he that sayest come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and that the whole have no need of a Physician but they that are sick O Lord I am weary and heavy laden and come unto thee for ease and refreshment I am sick of sin be thou my Physician and my Medicine I am wounded hungry and weak be thou my soveraign balsome nourishment and strength I am sorrowful poor and foolish be thou my comfort enrich me and enlighten me I am fall of dross unclean and dead do thou refine me purifie me and quicken me with thy Heavenly grace unto salvation II. O that I were now with an humble heart at the Holy Table of my Lord there are all mercies conveyed and sealed all graces are
by them the inward Grace X. Also there are the spiritual invisible and credible yet most true and really present objects of Faith the Body and Blood of Christ that is Christ Jesus himself whom by Faith I consider as suffering for my sins and cast my Soul by the Mercy offered me by the merits of his Death these two materials of the Sacrament are so united that it may truly be said not in a Gross and Physical but Divine and Sacramental sence the Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood of Christ and Christ's Body and Blood are Bread and Wine Joh. 6. Meat indeed and Drink indeed not by transmutation of Nature but by a similitude of vertues and proportionableness of effects by a Sacramental Union and Relation depending upon the Truth Authority and Divine Power of the Institutor Jesus Christ XI Whose appointment of these Elements to such an use or end and uniting them in this near Relation to his Body and Blood by the solemn Consecration of them makes up the firm and true Being of a Sacrament Which requires a Truth and Reality both of the signs and symbols and that which is by them represented and signified also a Truth and Certainty of relation and connexion one with another so that I receive not only Panem Domini the Bread of the Lord but also Panem Dominum my Lord Jesus Christ the true Bread of Life Eternal to my Soul and Body this latter as truly and really as the former together with all the benefits which flow from Christ XII On the other side whoso unpreparedly and irreverently and so un vorthily receives the one contracts a guilt of Damnation for neglect indignity and irreverence offered to the other that is the Body and Blood of Christ which Faith only discerns and receives in this great Mystery and whoso violates and contemns the Seal and authentick Letters of the King becomes guilty of indignity and offence to the Authority and Majesty which is not only restrained to his Person but also in separably anexed to any sign or token by which he is pleased to manifest his Royal Will and pleasure thus rightly informed as I hope in the nature of this Sacrament what it is in it self what it may be to me of how Divine a Mystery and dignity it is in it self to my Soul either of Comsort and Salvation in a worthy receiving or of Guilt and Damnation in an unworthy receiving of it Fifthly How we ought to propare our selves I. Which is by laying my hand upon my heart and feeling how the pulse of my Soul beats whether doth it move as quick now I am thinking of my Maker as it doth when my thoughts are upon the World that which God and my Conscience requires of me is that I consider my self the state and condition of my Soul for what is past of my will and affections for the present of my purpose and intentions for the future to all which it is necessary that I have a regard and by a self-examining see what fitness there is in me answerable to these holy mysteries and the Grace of God by these offered to me and most effectually conveyed except the unpreparedness and indisposition of my heart do frustrate and put an obstacle II. In the contemplation of my self I may not nor can avoid the sight of that which makes me unworthy of God and my self that is my sin and that evil both of my inclinations to which I am conscious I know by long and miserable Experience that in me dwelleth no Good of my self but a Proness to sin at the best oftentimes a violence and power of sin which makes me not only passive as in Temptations but active in the will to do and delight in sin this my Conscience witnesseth with so much truth in so many unhappy instances and with so many just aggravations that nothing appears to me more numerous more unreasonable more to be abhorred than my sins nor more miserable than my self III. I know by an inward and undeniable Dictate that since I have my Being from and dependance upon a higher and better Being than my self it is most just I should be at his Will and disposing whose power is not greater above me than his goodness is abundant towards me and his wisdom perfect in giving laws to me for the ordering my Being according to his Will and Word the perfect rule of holiness and the only and certain way to happiness that nothing can be more injurious injust ingrateful than for a Creature to offend against the will of its Creator who as he is the highest and happiest Good so on the contrary sin in me must needs be the lowest Evil and sink me to the deepest Misery by setting me at an Eternal distance from the Love and Favour of God which is Life it self as an object of his hatred and Eternal displeasure IV. So that when I look upon the deformity of my heart and life comparing them with the Beauty of Reason and Religion wherein the Image of God infinitly appears in Holiness and goodness I have cause to admire that infinite Patience which hath so long witheld the hands of Justice from punishing and damning a Creature doing and deserving so much and to deplore my own depraved and damnable Estate over whom sin so far prevaileth and exerciseth its Tyranny that neither my thoughts words nor actions natural civil nor religious do escape the brand or blemish of it so that it is not only ignorance forgetfulness or suddenness that gives sin advantage against me in many Vanities Passions and Omissions but a Predominancy and high Hand wherewith oftentimes I am led away Captive to sin with such violence that neither the force of Reason nor better Resolutions and Purposes are sufficient to rescue my Soul from the Speculation and Practice of that which should not be thought much less done with the least delight and pleasure since it is displeasing to God V. So that I see not only a habitude and propensity to any sin which is often restrained through want of matter or occasion to make it flame into action but an Empire and rule of some whose power excites by innate disposition and comfirm'd by custom seems to have made an utter conquest of me and does compel me against all my Knowledge Prayers and Vows to exchange my Souls happiness in the Love of God and Christ in Heaven for a moment of earthly content for a sensual imaginary pleasure which when the dream of this Life is past and vanish'd and by that immutable Law of mortality I am compell'd to leave the World and all things in it will betray me to endless and irrecoverable misery In the mean time it estranges my heart from that care intention and delight which I ought to have in holy duties and conversation with God and his Holy Spirit It robs and deprives my Soul of all that joy peace hope and assiance I might have in the service love