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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	church_n	member_n	visible_a	2,963	5	9.4470	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64145	The worthy communicant, or, A discourse of the nature, effects, and blessings consequent to the worthy receiving of the Lords Supper and of all the duties required in order to a worthy preparation : together with the cases of conscience occurring in the duty of him that ministers, and of him that communicates : to which are added, devotions fitted to every part of the ministration / by Jeremy Taylor ...	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1667 (1667)	Wing T418; ESTC R11473	253,603	430

receiving of the holy Sacrament is of that nature of good things which can be supplied by internal actions alone or sometimes by other external actions in conjunction and it hath a suppletory of its own viz. Spiritual Communion of which I am to give account in its proper place And when we consider that some men are of strict consciences and some Churches are of strict Communions and will not admit Communicants but upon such terms which some men cannot admit it will follow that as S. Austins expression is Men should live in the peace of Christ and do according to their Faith but in these things no man should judge his Brother In this no man can directly be said to do amiss but he that loathes Manna and despises the food of Angels or neglects the Supper of the Lamb or will not quit his sin or contend towards perfection or hath not the spirit of devotion or does any way by implication say That the Table of the Lord is contemptible 4. These rules and measures now given are such as relate to those who by themselves or others are discernably in or discernably out of the state of grace But there are some which are in the confines of both states and neither themselves nor their guides can tell to what dominion they do belong Concerning such they are by all means to be thrust or invited forward and told of the danger of a real or seeming neutrality in the service of God of the hatefulnesse of tepidity of the uncomfortablenesse of such an indifference and for the Communions of any such person I can give no other advice but that he take his measures of frequency by the Laws of his Church and add what he please to his numbers by the advice of a spiritual guide who may consider whether his Penitent by his conjugation of preparatory actions and heaps of holy duties at that time usually conjoyn'd do or is likely to receive any spiritual progresse For this will be his best indication of life and declare his uncertain state if he thrive upon his spiritual nourishment If it prove otherwise all that can be said of such persons is that they are members of the visible Church they are in that net where there are fishes good and bad they stand amongst the wheat and the tares they are part of the lump but whether leavened or unleavened God only knows and therefore they are such to whom the Church denies not the bread of Children but whether it does them good or hurt the day only will declare for to such persons as these the Church hath made Laws for the set time of their Communion Christmas Easter and Whitsontide were appointed for all Christians that were not scandalous and openly criminal by P. Fabianus and this Constitution is imitated by the best constituted Church in the world our dear Mo●her the Church of England and they who do not at these times or so frequently communicate are censured by the Council of Agathon as unfit to be reckoned among Christians or Members of the Catholick Church Now by these Laws of the Church it is intended indeed that all men should be called upon to discusse and shake off the yoke of their sins and enter into the salutary state of repentance and next to the perpetual Sermons of the Church she had no better means to ingage them into returns of piety hoping that by the grace of God and the blessings of the Sacrament the repentance which at these times solemnly begins may at one time or other fix and abide these little institutions and disciplines being like the sudden heats in the body which sometimes fix into a burning though most commonly they go away without any further change But the Church in this case does the best she can but does not presume that things are well and indeed as yet they are not and therefore such persons must passe further or else their hopes may become illusions and make the men asham'd 5. I find that amongst the holy Primitives they who contended for the best things and lov'd God greatly were curious even of little things and if they were surpriz'd with any sudden undecency or a storm of passion they did not dare that day to communicate When I am angry or when I think any evil thought or am abus'd with any illusion or foul phansie of the night intrare non audeo I dare not enter said St. Jerome I am so full of horrour and dread both in my body and my mind This was also the case of St. Chrysostom who when Eusebius had unreasonably troubled him with an unseasonable demand of justice against Antonine just as he was going to consecrate the blessed Sacrament departed out of the Church and desired one of the Bishops who by chance was present to do the office for him for he would not offer the Sacrifice at that time having some trouble in his Spirit 2. To this are to be reduc'd all such great actions which in their whole constitution are great and lawful but because so many things are involved in their transaction whereof some unavoidably will be amiss or may reasonably be suppos'd so may have something in the whole and at the last to be deplor'd In such cases as these some great examples have been of advices to abstain from the Communion till by a general but a profound repentance for what hath been amiss God is deprecated and the causes of Christian hope and confidence do return In the Ecclesiastical History we read that when Theodosius had fought prosperously against Eug●nius the Usurper of the Empire when his cause was just and approved by God not only giving testimony by the prediction and warranty of a religious Hermit but also by prodigious events by winds and tempests fighting for him and by which he restored peace to the Church and tranquility to the Empire yet he by the advice of S. Ambrose abstain'd a while from the holy Sacrament and would not carry blood upon his hands though justly shed unto the Altar not only following the president of David who because he was a man of blood might not build a Temple but for fear lest some unfit appendage should stick to the management of a just imployment 3. Of the same consideration it is if a person whose life should be very exemplar is guilty of such a single folly which it may be would not dishonour a meaner man but is a great vanity and reproach to him a little abstention and a penitential separation when it is quit from scandal was sometimes practis'd in the Ancient Church and is adviseable also now in fitting circumstances Thus when Gerontius the Deacon had vainly talked that the Devil appear'd to him one night and that he had bound him with a chain St. Ambrose commanded him to abide in his house and not to come to the Church till by penances and sorrow he had expiated such an indiscretion which

lamp he must stand readily prepared by a state of repentance and against the solemn time he must make that state more actual and his graces operative Now in order to this it is to be considered that preparation to death hath great latitude and not only he is fit to die who hath attained to the fulness of the stature of Christ to a perfect man in Christ Jesus but every one who hath renounced his sin with heartinesse and sincerity and hath begun to mortifie it But in these cases of beginning or of Infancy in Christ though it be certain that every one who is a new Creature though but newly become so is born of God and hath life abiding in him and therefore shall not passe into condemnation yet concerning such persons the Rulers of Souls and Ministers of Sacraments have nothing but a judgment of charity and the sentences of hope relating to the persons the state is so little and so allayed and so near to the late state of death from which they are recovering that God only knows how things are with them yet because we know that there is a beginning in which new converts are truly reconciled there is a first period of life and as we cannot say in many cases that this is it so in many we cannot say this is not therefore the Church hopes well of persons that die in their early progressions of piety and consequently refuses not to give to them these divine Mysteries Whoever are reconciled to God may be reconciled to the Church whose office it is only to declare the Divine Sentence and to administer it and to help towards the verification of it But because the Church cannot be surer of any person that his sins are pardoned that he is reconciled to God that he is in the state of Grace that if he then dies he shall be saved than a man himself can be of himself and in his own case which certainly he knows better than any man else and that our degrees of hope and confidence of being saved when it is not presumption but is prudent and reasonable does increase in proportion to our having well used and improved Gods grace and inlarges it self by our proportions of mortification and spiritual life and every man that is wise and prudent abides in fears and uncertain thoughts till he hath gotten a certain victory over all his sins and though he dies in hope yet not without trembling till he finds that he is more than conquerour therefore in proportion to this address to death must also be our address to the holy Sacrament For no man is fit to die but he that can be united unto Christ and ●he only that can be so must be admitted to a participation of his body and his bloud It is the same case in both we dwell with Christ and the two states differ but in degrees it is but a passing from altar to altar from that where the Minister of the Church officiates to that where the head of the Church does intercede There is this only difference there may be some proportions of haste to the Sacrament more than unto death upon this account because the reception of the Sacrament in worthy dispositions does increase those excellencies in which death ought to find us and therefore we may desire to communicate because we perceive a want of g●ace and yet for the same reason we may at the same time be afraid to die because after that we can receive no more but as that finds us we shall abide for ever But he that fears justly may yet in many cases die safely and he shall find that his fears when he was alive were useful to the caution and zeal and hastiness of repentance but were no certain indication that God was not reconciled unto him The best and severest persons do in the greatest parts of their spiritual life complain of their imperfect state and feel the load of their sins and apprehend with trembling the sad consequents of their sins and every day contend against them and forget all that is past of good actions done and press forwards still to more grace and are as hungry as if they had none at all and those men if they die go to Christ and shall reign with him for ever and yet many of them go with a trembling heart and though considering the infinite obliquity of them they cannot over-value their sins yet considering the infinite goodness of God and his readiness to accept it they undervalue their repentance and are safe in their humility and in Gods goodness when in many other regards they think themselves very unsafe Now such men as these must not be as much afraid to communicate as they are afraid to die but these and all men else must not communicate till they be in that condition that if they did die it would go well with them and the reason is plain because every friend of God dying so is certainly saved and he that is no friend of God is unworthy to partake of the Table of the Lord. But for the reducing the Answer of this Question to practice and to particular considerations I am to advise these things 1. Because no man of an ordinary life and a newly begun repentance ought hastily to pronounce himself acquitted and in the state of grace and in the state of salvation in this rule of proportion we are only to take the judgment of charity not of certainty and what is usually by wise and good men sup●osed to be the certain though the least measure of hopeful expectations in order to death that we must suppose also to be our least measure of repentance preparatory to the blessed Sacrament 2. This measure must not be taken in the daies of health and carelesness but when we are either actually in apprehension or at least in deep meditation of death when it is dressed with all such terrors and material considerations that it looks like the King of terrors and at least makes our spirits full of fear and of sobriety 3. This measure must be carefully taken without the allay of foolish principles or a careless spirit or extravagant confidences of personal predestination or of being in any sect but with the common measures which Christians take when they weigh sadly their sins and their fears of the Divine displeasure let them take such proportions which considering men relie upon when they indeed come to die for few sober men die upon such wild accounts as they rely upon in talk and interest when they are alive He that prepares himself to death considers how deeply God hath been displeased and what hath been done towards a reconciliation and he that can probably hope by the usual measures of the Gospel that he is in probability of pardon hath by that learnt by what measures he must prepare himself to the holy Sacrament 4. Some persons are of a timorous conscience and apt to irregular and

yet still this is done by parts and methods of natural progression after the manner of nature though by the aids of God and therefore it is fit that we expect the changes and make our judgment by material events and discerned mutations before we communicate in these mysteries in which whoever unworthily does communicate enters into death 4. He that hath resolved against all sin and yet falls into it regula●ly at the next temptation is yet in a state of evil and unworthiness to communicate because he is under the dominion of sin he obeys it though unwillingly that is he grumbles at his fetters but still he is in slavery and bondage But if having resolved against all sin he delights in none deliberately chooses none is not so often surprized grows stronger in grace and is mistaken but seldom and repents when he is and arms himself better and watches more carefully against all and increases still in knowledge whatever imperfection is still adherent to the man unwillingly does indeed allay his condition and is fit to humble and cast him down but it does not make him unworthy to communicate because he is in the state of grace he is in the Christian warfare and is on Gods side and the holy Sacrament if it have any effect at all is certainly an instrument or a sign in the hands of God to help his servants to inlarge his grace to give more strengths and to promote them to perfection 5. But the sum of all is this He that is not freed from the dominion of sin he that is not really a subject of the Kingdom of grace he in whose mortal body sin does reign and the Spirit of God does not reign must at no hand present himself before the holy Table of the Lord because whatever dispositions and alterations he may begin to have in order to pardon and holiness he as yet hath neither but is Gods enemy and therefore cannot receive his holy Son 6. But because the change is made by parts and effected by the measures of other intellectual and spiritual changes that is after the manner of men from imperfection to perfection by all the intermedial steps of moral degrees and good and evil in some periods have but a little distance though they should have a great deal and it is at first very hard to know whether it be life or death and after that it is still very difficult to know whether it be health or sickness and dead men cannot eat and sick men scarce can eat with benefit at least are to have the weakest and the lowest diet and after all this it is of a consequence infinitely evil if men eat this Supper indisposed and unfit It is all the reason of the world that returning sinners should be busie in their repentances and do their work in the field as it is in the parable of the Gospel and in their due time come home and gird themselves and wait upon their Lord and when they are bidden and warranted then to sit down in the Supper of their Lord. But in this case it is good to be as sure as we can as sure as the analogy of these divine Mysteries require and as our needs permit 7. He that hath committed a single act of sin a little before the Communion ought for the reverence of the holy Sacrament to abstain till he hath made proportionable amends and not only so but if the sin was inconsistent with the state of grace and destroyed or interrupted the divine favour as in cases of fornication murder perjury any malicious or deliberate known great crime he must comport himself as a person returning from a habit or state of sin and the reason is because he that hath lost the divine favour cannot tell how long he shall be before he recovers it and therefore would do well not to snatch at the portion and food of Sons whilest he hath reason to fear that he hath the state and calamity of Dogs who are caressed well if they feed on fragments and crums that are thrown away Now this Doctrine and these cautions besides that they are consonant to Scripture and the analogy of this divine Sacrament are nothing else but what was directly the sentiment of all the best most severe religious and devoutest ages of the Primitive Church For true it is the Apostles did indefinitely admit the faithful to the holy Communion but they were persons wholly enflamed with those holy fires which Jesus Christ sent from heaven to make them burning and shining lights such which our dearest Lord with his blood still warm and fresh filled with his holy love such whose spirits were so separate from the affections of the world that they laid their estates at the Apostles feet and took with joy the spoiling of their goods such who by improving the graces they had received did come to receive more abundantly and therefore these were fit to receive the bread of the strong But this is no invitation for them to come who feel such a lukewarmnesse and indifference of spirit and devotion that they have more reason to suspect it to be an effect of evil life rather than of infirmity for them who feel no heats of love but of themselves for them who are wholly immerg'd in secular affections and interests for them who are full of passions and void of grace these from the example of the others may derive caution but no confidence So long as they persever'd in the Doctrine of the Apostles so long they also did continue in the breaking of bread and solemn conventions for prayer for to persevere in the Doctrine of the Apostles signified a life most exactly Christian for that was the Doctrine Apostolical according to the words of our Lord teaching to observe all things which I have commanded you And by this method the Apostolical Churches and their descendants did administer these holy Mysteries a full and an excellent testimony whereof we have in that excellent Book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy commonly attributed to St. Dionys. The Church drives from the Sacrifice of the Temple meaning the divine Sacrament such persons for whom it is too sublime and elevated First those who are not yet instructed and taught concerning the participation of the Mysteries Next those who are fallen from the holy and Christian state meaning Apostates and such as have renounced their Baptism or fallen from the grace of it by a state of deadly sin or foulest crimes Thirdly they who are possessed with evil spirits And lastly those who indeed have begun to retire from sin to a good life but they are not yet purified from the phantasms and images of their past inordinations by a divine habitude and love with purity and without mixture And to conclude they who are not yet perfectly united to God alone and to speak according to the style of Scripture they who are not intirely inculpable and without reproach And when St.

a capacity of doing this action For it is not Lent nor the Epiphany which makes us worthy to approach to the Son of God But the sincerity and purity of the soul with this come at any time but without this never In fine it is the general doctrine of the holy Fathers and the publick practice of the Primitive Church that no impenitent person should come to these divine Mysteries and they that are truly penitent should practice deep humility and undergo many humiliatiōns and live in a state of repentance till by little and little they have recover'd the holinesse they had lost and must for a long time live upon the word of God before they approach to the holy Table to be nourished by his body For so should every prodigal child cry unto his Lord Drive me not O Lord out of thy doors lest the enemy espying a wanderer and a vagabond take me for a slave I do not yet desire to approach to thy holy Table thy mystical and terrible Table for I have not confidence with my impure eyes to behold the holy of holies Only suffer me to enter into thy Church amongst the Catechumens that by beholding what is there celebrated I may by little and little enter again into the participation of them to the end that the Divine Waters of thy Word running upon me may purifie my ears from the impressions which have been made upon them by ungodly songs and from the filthinesse they have left behind and seeing how the righteous people partake by a holy violence of thy precious jewels I may conceive a burning desire to have hands worthy to receive the same excellencies I end this collection of the ancient Doctrine of the Church with recitation of the words of Gennadius I perswade and exhort Christians to receive the Communion every Lords day but so that if their mind be free from all affection of sinning For he who still hath will or desires of sin he is burdened and not purified by receiving the Eucharist And therefore although he be bitten or griev'd with sin let him for the future renounce all will to sin and before he communicate let him satisfie with prayers and tears and being confident of the mercy of our Lord who uses to pardon sins upon a pious confession let him come to the Eucharist without doubting But this I say of him who is not pressed with capital and deadly sins for such a person if he will not receive the Eucharist to judgment and condemnation let him make amends by publick penance and being reconcil'd by the Bishop or Priest let him communicate I doubt not also but such grievous sins may be extinguish'd by private satisfactions but this must be done by changing the course of his life by a professed study of Religion by a daily and perpetual mourning or contrition that through the mercy of God he may do things contrary to these whereof he does repent and then humbly and suppliant let him every Lords day communicate to the end of his life This advice of Gennadius declares the sentiment of the Church that none must communicate till they have worthily repented and in the way of piety and contrition made amends for their faults as well as they may and have put themselves into a state of vertue contrary to their state of sin that is have made progression in the reformation of their lives that they are really changed and become new men not in purpose only but actually and in the commencement of holy habits And therefore it is remarkable that he advises that these persons who do not stand in the place of publick penitents should upon the commission of grievous faults enter into Religion he means into solitude and retirement and renunciation of the world that by attending wholy to the severities and purities of a religious life they may by such strictnesses and constant piety be fitted for the communion Now whatever ends besides this the Divine Providence might have yet it is not to be neglected that when the ancient discipline of the Church of penances and satisfactions was gone into desuetude the Spirit of Religion entred more fully into the world and many religious orders and houses were instituted that at least there the world might practise that severity in private which the change of affairs in the face of the Church had taken from the publick ministeries Penance went from the Churches into desarts and into Monasteries but when these were corrupted and the manners of men were worse corrupted it is hard to say whither it is gone now It may be yet done in private and under the hand of a spiritual guide or by the spirit of penance in the heart of a good man and by the conduct of a wise counsellor but besides that the manners of men are corrupted the doctrines also are made so easie and the Communion given to sects and opinions or indifferently to all that it is very rare to see them who have sinn'd grievously repent worthily who therefore can never be worthy communicants for no impenitents can partake of Christ who as S. Hierom cals him is the prince of penance and the head of them who by repentance come unto salvation But this was his advice to them that commit grievous sins such which lay the conscience wast and whose every single action destroyes our being in the state of grace But as for them whose sins are but those of dayly incursion and of infirmity or imperfection such which a great diligence and a perpetual watchfulness might have prevented but an ordinary care would not these must be protested against they must not joyn with our consent our will must be against them and they must be confess'd and deplor'd and prayed against before we may communicate This is the sense of the Church of God Having established this great general measure of preparation it will not be very difficult to answer that great question often disputed amongst spiritual persons viz. Question I. Whether is it better to communicate seldom or frequently To this I answer That it is without peradventure very much better to receive it every day than every week and better every week then every month Christiani omni die carnes agni comedunt said Origen Christians every day eat of the flesh of the sacrificed lamb And St. Basil expresly affirms that to communicate every day and to partake of the body and blood of Christ is excellent and very profitable Christ himself having manif●stly said it he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood hath life eternal For if the Sacrament does no benefit to souls and produces no blessings then a man can institute a Sacrament for he may appoint any thing that shall be good for nothing But if it be an instrument in the hand of God to procure blessings to us and spiritual emolument if it be a means of union with Christ who would not willingly