yet the time of Morning and Evening Sacrifices were the usual hours of prayer observed by pious and devout men who sent up their prayers together with the Sacrifice Thus Ezra tells us at the Evening Sacrifice I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God and to this the Psalmist alludes Let my Prayer be set before thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice For since the fall of man we cannot expect that God should hear our prayers for our own sakes we can make no atonement and expiation for our own sins nor offer him any just compensation for them and therefore under the Law God appointed Expiatory Sacrifices to be offered by the Priests who were Gods Ministers and now under the Gospel God has sent his own Son into the World to be both our Priest and our Sacrifice the acceptation of our prayers depends upon the power of his Intercession and the power of his Intercession upon the merit of his blood for with his own blood he entred once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us We must now go to God in his Name and plead the Merits of his blood if we expect a gracious answer to our Prayers Now for this end was the Lords Supper instituted to be a Remembrance of Christ or of the Sacrifice of the Cross to shew forth the Lords death till he come which as it respects God is to put him in remembrance of Christ's death and to plead the Vertue and Merit of it for our pardon and acceptance It is a visible prayer to God to remember the sufferings of his Son and to be propitious to his Church his body and every member of it which he has purchased with his own blood And therefore the ancient Church constantly at this holy Supper offered up their prayers to God in vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ there represented for the whole Church and all ranks and conditions of men For this reason the Lords Supper was called a Commemorative Sacrifice because we therein offer up to God the Remembrance of Christ's Sacrifice and therefore in the ancient Church the Altar or the place where they consecrated the Elements was the place also where they offered up their prayers to signifie that they offered their prayers only in vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ and that the very remembrance of this Sacrifice in the Lords Supper by vertue of its Institution did render their prayers prevalent and acceptable to God and therefore in the very first account we have of the exercise of Christian Worship we find breaking bread and prayers joyned together The efficacy of our prayers depends on the merit of Christ's Sacrifice and the way Christ hath appointed to give our prayers an interest in his Sacrifice is to offer them in the holy Supper with the Sacramental remembrance of his Death and Passion 2. If we consider the Lords Supper as it respects Christ himself and is a Remembrance of him so it contains all that peculiar Worship which the Christian Church payes him as a thankful acknowledgement of his great love in dying for them as will appear if we consider what it is to do this in Remembrance of him For 1. This signifies to keep this Feast as a publick and solemn Commemoration of our Lord we ought to remember our Saviour and think of him as often as we can but this holy Feast is a publick celebration of his fame and memory we must not only think of our Saviour as we do of an absent Friend who is very dear to us but we must remember him as some Nations do their publick Patrons and Benefactors with solemn and festival joyes The Lords Supper is a Feast instituted in honour of our Saviour wherein the whole Church must call to mind his noble acts and shew forth his praises and perpetuate the memory of them from one generation to another We must call to mind his great and astonishing love and recount all his victories and triumphs over Sin and Death and Hell and him who had the power of death that is the Devil We must sing praises to the Lamb of God who was slain and is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing This is the proper work of a Religious Feast to call to mind the works of God and ascribe unto him the glory due unto his Name This is the true reason of all Religious Festivals The Seventh Day Sabbath was originally instituted in honour of the great Maker of all things who finished the Creation of the World in six dayes and rested on the seventh and was changed to the first day of the Week in remembrance of the work of our Redemption and the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead The Feast of the Passeover was for a memorial of that deliverance the children of Israel had from the destroying Angel who smote all the first-born of the Egyptians but spared their houses which was but an obscure type of our greater deliverance by Christ of which the Lords Supper is instituted as a perpetual memorial All these holy Feasts were for a remembrance that is to call to mind the wonderful works of God to praise his great name and by a contemplation of his wisdom goodness and power in making and governing the world to inflame our souls with love and joy and wonder till our thoughts and passions grow too big and vehement to be suppressed in our own breasts but break forth into publick songs of praise and thanksgiving And thus we must remember our Saviour in this holy Feast by making publick thankful and joyful acknowledgements of his great and mysterious love and all the mighty things he hath done for the redemption of mankind When our Saviour says Do this in remembrance of me he requires us to keep this Feast with the publick expressions of that love and honour which we bare to his memory as a testimony of our thankfulness to him for all that he hath done and suffered for us as a profession of our faith and hope and trust and affiance in a Crucified Jesus that we own him for our Lord and Saviour and are not ashamed of his Cross nor afraid of any sufferings for his sake 2. The Lords Supper is the peculiar worship of Christ considered as a God incarnate the word was made flesh and dwelt among us the eternal son of God the uncreated wisdom of the Father came down from Heaven and cloathed himself with flesh and blood and became man as we are that he might be capable to dwell among us without that terrour and astonishment which his unvailed glory carries with it which is too bright and dazling for mortal eyes to gaze on and that when he had lived here a poor despised afflicted life in the condition of a Minister and a Servant he might die as a Sacrifice
eat and especially the Paschal Lamb which was a Type of Christ and that eating did in a Legal sense unite the Sacrificer and the Sacrifice and convey its vertue and efficacy to him I say hence Christ instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood i. e. Bread and Wine to be eat and drank as the symbols and signs of his Body and Blood and a Sacramental conveyance of all the merit and purchase of his death to his sincere Disciples who feed on him and therefore the Bread and Wine are called his Body and Blood because feeding on the Bread and Wine is ordained by him instead of his Body and Blood and that eating Bread and drinking Wine in obedience to his Institution and in remembrance of his Death and Passion does to all intents and purposes as much entitle us to the Merits Atonement Reconciliation and all the blessings of the New Covenant purchased by his death as eating the Flesh of the Sacrifice did the Iews to the vertue of that Sacrifice whereof they eat And since Faith in Christ is made necessary by the terms of the Gospel to an interest in his Sacrifice the symbols of Bread and Wine serve as well or better for this holy Feast than his natural flesh and blood would do for here is room for the exercise of faith we do not see the body of Christ broken and his blood shed nothing appears to our bodily senses but Bread and Wine but by an eye of faith we see him hang upon the Cross and bleeding for our sins and thus we feed on his Sacrifice eat his flesh and drink his blood Bodily eating cannot make us partakers of Christ but as the Institution of our Saviour has united the vertues of his Sacrifice with the elements of Bread and Wine in this holy Supper which makes it as much his body to all the real purposes of a feast upon a Sacrifice as if it were his natural body and blood in as proper a sense as ever the Iews did eat the Paschal Lamb which is all the Church of England means by the real presence So then we by faith eat the body of Christ and drink his blood when together with our bodily feeding on the Sacramental Bread and Wine by faith we feed on the merits of his Sacrifice And this must needs convince us how necessary it is to communicate at the Lords Table as well as to believe in Christ if we would partake of the merits of his Sacrifice for this sacramental Bread and Wine is his body and blood that is has the merits of his Sacrifice annexed to it by his own Institution and as under the Law it was not enough to offer a Peace-offering unless they eat of it so neither will the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross be of any value to us unless we feed on it in this holy Supper not only by Faith but also by a bodily eating of those Sacramental elements to which he himself has annexed the merits of his Sacrifice To feed on the Sacramental elements without faith is no more than to eat so much ordinary Bread and to drink common Wine and to believe on Christ without feasting on his Sacrifice cannot without uncovenanted Grace apply his merits to us for it is evident that Truth in its own nature cannot give us an interest in the merits of Christ for how does my believing that Christ died for sinners convey the merit of his death to me nay though I believe that Christ in particular died for me this does not actually make his merits mine but only in the performance of such conditions and in the use of such means as he hath appointed for the application of his merits to particular persons and I see no reason why men may not as well hope to be saved without holiness by Christ as without eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Sacrament for holiness will not save us without the merits of Christ and I know not how we should come by the merits of Christ but only in such ways of dispensing conveying and applying them as he himself has appointed and he has appointed no other ordinary way but this mysterious Supper Hence the Apostle tells the Corinthians The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ what does he mean by the communion of the blood and of the body of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning is very plain that hereby we partake in the body and blood of Christ that is in the efficacy of his death and passion and if we could do this any other way or without it it would be a useless Sacrament as most Christians seem now to think it is and therefore I doubt not but our Saviour in that mysterious discourse in Iohn 6. had respect to this holy Feast though not then instituted when he tells them Verily verily I say unto you except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him The only objection I know against expounding this of eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood in the Lords Supper is because the Feast was not then instituted and therefore neither the Iews nor his own Disciples could possibly understand what he meant now there are several very plain and easie answers to this as 1. our Saviour said a great many things to the Iews in his Sermons which neither they nor his own Disciples could understand when they were spoke though his Disciples understood them after he was risen when the Holy Ghost brought those things again to their remembrance and the event had expounded them such we may reckon whatever concerned his death and resurrection and spiritual kingdom 2. They might as well understand this discourse of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood as they could what he immediately before told them I am the living bread which came down from heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever and the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world For they understood as little what it was to give his flesh for the life of the world and how this made his flesh to be that living bread as what it was to eat his flesh and to drink his blood for they both signifie the same thing and these words last quoted do plainly prove that he respects the Eucharistical Feast when he speaks of his eating his flesh and drinking his blod for we must eat his flesh only as considered as the
But I would desire such Men to consider First That this Notion of a purer Church and purer Ordinances varies with every Man's fancy as having no Foundation in Scripture Reason or Antiquity when you distinguish a purer Church from a pure Church I would desire to know what greater degree of purity they find in a Presbyterian or Independent Conventicle than in our Parochial Churches If this Purity consists in Doctrine Government or Worship that Doctrine and Government which is most Ancient and most Apostolical is purer than some novel and upstart Opinions Church Forms and Models and that Worship which retains all the Institutions of Christ and administers them with the greatest order and decency and most to Christian Edification is as pure a Worship as that which is slovenly and unbecoming the gravity and solemnity of Divine Worship That Church wherein Christians may enjoy all the means and conveyances of Grace without any corrupt Mixtures to spoil their Vertue and Efficacy is a pure Church such a Church wherein a Christian may communicate without doing any injury to his Soul is a pure Church and has all the degrees of purity which is necessary to External Communion If by a purer Communion they mean only the Communion of better Men and of greater Saints they ought to consider that it is impossible to exclude Hypocrites out of any Church unless they pretend to a Gift of discerning Spirits nor is it fit they should be excluded while they are not openly scandalous for to shut such Men out of the Church deprives them of the Means of Grace and all hopes of proving better Men. And I hope Christian Communion is not confined to any single Congregation but every good Christian who lives in the Communion of the Church enjoys the Communion of Saints in all the World is a Member of the same Body which consists of all the true Disciples of Christ. Nay I would desire them to consider that the Glory of the Christian Communion is this That our Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ with the glorious and triumphant Church in Heaven as well as with the Church Militant on Earth But ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First Born which are written in Heaven and to God the Iudg of all and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things than the Blood of Abel This is the Church-Fellowship which those enjoy who live in Communion with the Universal Church and which Schismaticks have no right to and those who think to meet with better Company at a Conventicle let them take it But must not the Christian Church consist of all ranks and degrees of Christians as our natural Body does of several sorts of Members of different honour and worth and is it fitting for strong and well-grown Christians to separate from the weak and imperfect as if the eye should separate from the Body as despising the Communion of the Foot and yet if St. Paul says true that Schism is a work of the Flesh and the sign of carnal Men we have no reason to look for the best Christians in Schismatical Churches But secondly it was never till of late days thought lawful to separate from a lawful Communion tho as the state of the Church in this World is it were subject to some defects and therefore the Brownists who separated from the Church of England pretended that her Worship and Government was Unlawful Idolatrous and Antichristian and the old Nonconformists who though they could not conform as Ministers yet very religiously conformed as Lay-men both in Prayers and Sacraments condemned this Schism and proved that Communion with the Church of England was lawful and therefore Separation was sinful and I dare challenge any Man to shew me from the first beginnings of Christianity that ever it was thought lawful to separate from a Church where we might communicate without sin And thirdly let these Men consider that this Notion of separating from a lawful Communion for a purer Communion lays the foundation of eternal Schisms for there being no certain rule for the degrees of this Purity every Man according to his own fancy may refine for ever Fourthly If they do indeed think the Communion of the Church of England to be unlawful and sinful I would desire them to enquire how they came at first to think so for this is a very material Enquiry if Men desire to know their honesty and sincerity in this Matter for if Men are at first by their own fault ensnared in an Error and drawn into Schism how firmly soever afterwards they believe their Separation to be lawful and necessary it will not excuse them It is impossible to know all the several ways whereby Men come at first to be engaged in Schism but I shall take notice of some few which seem to be most common Such are these 1. Education 2. Lightness and giddiness of Mind 3. Some distast at Publick Affairs 4. Some quarrel with the Ministers of Religion 5. Interest or the Perswasion of Friends 1. Education when Men have been nursed up in Schism from their infancy and have been taught to despise the Common Prayer before they could read and to call the Church Antichrist and the Ministers of it Baal's Priests as soon as they could speak Now it must be acknowledged that this is the most pitiable case and the fairest Excuse and Apology that can be made for any Man for we all know what the power of Education is and how hard it is to deliver our minds from the first Impressions of Childhood and Youth but yet this will not excuse a Man when he has attained to Years of discretion and has opportunities of being better informed for if it would Pagans Mahometans and Papists who labour under the same prejudices of Education have the same excuse We must offer up to God a reasonable Service and that requires the exercise of our Reason in the choice of our Religion as well as in the discharge of Religious Duties Nay Papists Mahometans and Pagans have a better excuse upon this account than our Dissenters because their Prejudices may reasonably be thought more invincible as will appear if we briefly consider three or four things First That theirs is the Religion of their Country which they have been in quiet possession of for many Ages and thus that reverence they pay to the wisdom and memory of their Ancestors adds to the prejudices of their Education whereas every one knows that this present Schism and the pretences whereon it is founded are but late Innovations a Novelty which is not yet grey-headed And tho Antiquity in it self considered is no Argument for an ancient Error nor Novelty any
parts of the work of our redemption without using those visible signs I would fain know to what purpose they were instituted by our Saviour if Christian worship be compleat and perfect without it it is and ever was as needless an addition as most Christians now think it to be which I think derogates very much from the wisdom of our Saviour in its Institution We ought not to look upon the Supper of our Lord only as a particular act of worship but as an external and sensible rite of worship which is fitted to all parts of Christian worship and by the institution of our Saviour necessary to give vertue and efficacy to them as the oblation of Sacrifices under the Law did to those Prayers which were offered with them Now suppose that any men should have argued thus under the Law that if men prayed devoutly to God though they offered no Sacrifice they should be accepted by him I doubt this would have been called despising Moses's law and such men must have died without mercy though they had prayed never so devoutly and yet the Apostle tells us that we ought to have greater regard to the Laws and Institutions of Christ than the Jews had to the Law of Moses The great danger then of neglecting the Lords Supper is that such a neglect may render all our Worship unacceptable to God a right to Christ's Sacrifice upon the Cross is by the Institution of our Saviour conveyed in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and therefore though we pray in Christ's Name if we neglect his Institution whereby the vertue of his Sacrifice is conveyed to our prayers we must pray without any interest in his Sacrifice and we may easily guess of what worth such prayers are just as much as our own good works without an Expiatory Sacrifice to recommend them to God The serious consideration of this thoroughly convinces me how highly useful not to say necessary it is to restore the Apostolical and Primitive practice to celebrate the Lords Supper as often as we meet for publick Worship if we would have our Worship true Christian Worship according to our Saviours own institution as understood and practised by the Apostles themselves 3. Another obligation to a frequent receiving the Lords Supper is that this is the principal act of Communion with Christ. There is nothing more frequently talked of than our Union to Christ and our Communion with him which is the great mysterie of our Religion and the great foundation of our hope Now Union to and Communion with Christ may either be considered as a constant state and relation and so it signifies being members of the body of Christ by being incorporated into his Church by a visible profession of our faith in him ratified and confirmed by Baptism and by the communication of his Grace and Spirit which dwells in the sincere Disciples of Christ as the bond of a spiritual Union and an abiding principle of sanctification and holiness or it may be considered as an Act and so it is most properly applyed to the Lords Supper which is the most visible external symbol of our Communion with Christ and instituted as a Sacrament of Union for the conveyance of all divine and spiritual blessings to us And for the explication of this I shall observe two things In this holy Feast 1. That it is our eating at the Table of our Lord and 2. That it is our feeding on the body of Christ. 1. In the Lords Supper we eat at the Table of our Lord for this is a Feast of Christ's own appointment instituted by him on purpose to commemorate his death and sacrifice upon the Cross and so answers to the institution of God under the Law to feast upon Sacrifices which was constantly observed in Peace-offerings of which part was burnt upon Gods Altar part belonged to the Priest and part was eaten by the Sacrificers or those Persons who offered the Sacrifice of Peace-offerings who are therefore said to partake of the Altar behold Israel after the Flesh are not they which eat of the Sacrifices partakers of the Altar To partake of the Altar signifies to partake with God whose Altar it is that is to have part with him for part of the Sacrifice was burnt upon the Altar or given to the Priests and that was Gods part or share and the other part was eaten by themselves Thus it was among the Heathens also who used to feast on the Sacrifices which they offered to their Gods and sometimes invited their Christian neighbours to these Feasts who not sufficiently understanding the nature of such Religious Feasts many times went as to common friendly entertainments and therefore are corrected by the Apostle for it as utterly inconsistent with their Christian profession for to eat of a Feast upon a Sacrifice is to have communion with that Being whatever he is to whom the Sacrifice is offered Now the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils and therefore to eat of such Sacrifices is to partake with Devils to be in confederacy and communion with them But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God and I would not that ye should have fellowship with Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you should be Communicants with them Ye cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of Devils ye cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and the Table of Devils that is it is as irreconcileable to eat at the Table of Christ and of the Gentile Sacrifice as it is impossible to unite Christ and false Heathen Gods From whence we learn that to eat of the Lords Table that is of the Christian Feast of the Lords Supper is to partake with Christ or to have Communion with him as to eat of the Sacrifices under the Law was to partake of the Altar or to eat of Pagan Sacrifices was to partake with Devils Now in general there were two things signified by these Religious Feasts 1. A Covenant relation that such persons who feasted at Gods Table were in Covenant with him for all solemn Covenants even between men in the Eastern Countrey were made and ratified by Sacrifice thus it was in the Covenant between Iacob and Laban and Iacob said unto his brethren gather stones and they took stones and made an heap and they did eat there upon the heap And what this eating was we may conclude from the nature of the action which was confirming a Covenant and therefore this eating is eating a Sacrifice as we are more expresly told then Iacob offered Sacrifice upon the Mount and called his Brethren to eat bread and they did eat bread and tarried all night upon the Mount And thus it is especially between God and men thus we know the Mosaical Covenant was confirmed by the blood of the Sacrifice as the first Testament is said to be dedicated by blood and the book and all the people the Tabernacle
and all the Vessels of the Ministery were sprinkled with blood nay not only this general Covenant was confirmed by Sacrifice but all good men when they offer Sacrifices to God are understood to make renew or confirm their Covenant with him whence is that expression in the Psalms Gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice Thus the death of Christ did ratifie and confirm the Gospel Covenant between God and men and therefore the blood is called the blood of the Covenant and to feast on the memorials of his death and passion is a signification that we are in Covenant with God and God with us that we still own our Covenant and are resolved still to do so it is to put God in mind of his Covenant with us and us of our Covenant with him and if we have been guilty of any breach of Covenant with God by venturing upon the commission of any sin when we have with tears bewailed our sin and renewed our repentance here we must renew our Covenant and by approaching the Table of our Lord declare that though we are sinners yet we are not Apostates that we still own our Covenant and by the Grace of God which we now implore and hope to receive resolve to continue stedfast in it while we live And is not this an inestimable priviledge to be in Covenant with God and to have this Covenant as it were signed and sealed to us as often as we please by a foederal Rite of God's own appointment especially is it not a mighty favour for such frail sinners who are so exposed to temptations and so often conquered by them to have liberty granted upon their sincere repentance to return to Gods Table and to renew their Covenant and to be received again into Covenant by God Is it not a mighty affront to God when he invites us to his Table as those who are in Covenant with him to live in so great a neglect of it Is it not a kind of renouncing our Covenant when we refuse to own it by such publick solemnities as he himself has appointed for that purpose 2. These Religious Feasts signifie a state of Peace and Friendship with God and therefore those Sacrifices of which the Sacrificers were allowed to eat are called Peace-offerings in the Law of Moses Under the Law it was not permitted to them to eat of the Sin-offering that Sacrifice which was offered for the expiation of sin but when they had offered a Sacrifice for sin they might then offer a Peace-offering and feast before the Lord on the Sacrifice as a token of peace and reconciliation with God And thus it is under the Gospel Christ offered himself once for all a Sacrifice or Offering for sin and has obtained eternal redemption for us and therefore there is no more expiatory Sacrifice to be offered for sins but when through the frailty of humane nature and the powerful temptations of flesh and sense of the World and the Devil we have defiled and polluted our consciences with sin and guilt instead of those particular Sacrifices for sin which the Iews were directed to offer we must offer up the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart to God that is we must truly repent of our sins and turn from them and arm our selves with powerful resolutions against them for the future and then we may approach the Table of God and receive the pledges of his love and the fresh assurances of our pardon and acceptance through our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not use to receive and entertain any at our Tables but those who are our Friends or at least are not our enemies others are intruders and if they be not turned out again yet must make themselves welcome and indeed a Covenant made by Sacrifice alwayes signifies a Covenant of Peace and such to be sure the Gospel Covenant is of which the Lords Supper is the Seal and Sacrament a Covenant of peace and reconciliation between God and men None ought to come to this Table but the Friends of God as all holy men and all true humble penitents are and such men shall be sure to receive a joyful welcome and all the peculiar marks of Gods favour for such this holy Supper it self is to all worthy receivers 2. In the Supper of our Lord we do not only eat at his Table but we feed on his body not as if in a carnal sense we eat his natural flesh and drink his blood as the Church of Rome teaches contrary to the common sense and experience of mankind and without any colourable pretence from Scripture or Primitive Antiquity but we eat his flesh and drink his blood in such a spiritual manner as they are exhibited to us in the Sacrament of his own Institution As to explain this in as few words as may be The Lords Supper I told you before in General did answer to a Feast upon a Sacrifice in the Jewish Law And now I add that it is a Feast upon the Sacrifice of Christ who dyed upon the Cross and bore our sins in his own body upon the Tree and therefore it is called eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. For under the Law the Iews did in a literal sense eat the flesh of the Sacrifice for part of it was burnt upon the Altar and part they eat and this eating of the Sacrifice did give them a right and interest in the vertue of the Sacrifice and all the blessings purchased by it Now though Christ dyed upon the Cross for us yet he could not in a literal sense give us his natural flesh to eat for he was to rise again from the dead with a glorious and incorruptible body and ascend up in the same body to Heaven and there to continue united to this humane but glorified body till he return again to judge the World This Sacrament of his body and blood was to be celebrated in all parts of the World where a Christian Church should be planted and though he himself who is over all God blessed for ever more is present also in all places and especially in all the Assemblies of his Disciples who meet to worship him yet his body though glorious and perfect as a body can be yet is but matter still and therefore confined to one place and cannot at the same time be at Rome and Constantinople nor in ten thousand places at once more remote than they and this Sacrament is to be celebrated his flesh eat and his blood drank as long as the Church and the World lasts and it is contrary to the nature of a body to be so often eat and yet continue the same body and at best were the thing possible it would be no better than an inhumane and barbarous Rite to eat the flesh of a man and of our Friend And therefore since by the Institution of God a Sacrifice for a Peace offering was to be
sober Christian can withstand their conviction I shall now briefly consider the second thing proposed What are the most common occasions of or excuses for such a neglect and though it were easie to think of a great many I shall but mention two very briefly as being I think the most universal and the foundation of all the rest 1. The first is of that nature that it is great pity it should have so ill an effect and that is a mighty reverence and esteem for this holy Feast Either they can never think themselves worthy to approach the Table of our Lord or that they can never be sufficiently prepared for it As for the first it looks like pride and folly to think that we must be worthy of the divine favors they must all be acknowledged to be above our deserts How came mankind to be worthy that the Son of God should dye for them and had God advised with such modest sinners they might have complemented away the death of Christ as now they do the benefits and advantages of it in his holy Supper How great a Saint soever thou art thou canst never merit such favours and priviledges as these for then there had been no need of Christ to merit for thee and how great a sinner soever thou art by complying with the Grace of God thou maist quickly make thy self a worthy Communicant Repent of thy sins and heartily resolve by Gods Grace to reform thy life and come to this holy Table with assurance to receive those supplies of Grace which may enable thee to do it And as for that great preparation which is necessary to fit our selves for so solemn an act of Religion I must say it is in this as in other acts of Religious Worship the greater the better but if we consider what I said before that the Institution of our Saviour plainly proves that he designed it for an ordinary part of Christian Worship we cannot suppose that it requires much greater preparation of mind than other acts of Religion This holy Supper is a sacred mysterious Rite of Prayer and Thanksgiving which gives vertue and efficacy to our prayers and makes them acceptable and prevalent with God Are you then when you come to Church fit to pray to God and to praise him if not you must neglect your prayers as well as the Sacrament if you are then you are fit to approach the Lords Table to give vertue and prevalency to your prayers This holy Supper conveys to us the vertue and efficacy of Christs Sacrifice upon the Cross the pardon of our sins and the assistances of the divine Grace and Spirit Now if you be truly penitent you are qualified to receive the pardon of your sins and therefore to approach this holy Table where it is dispensed if you earnestly desire the divine Grace you are prepared for the reception of it Come but with a sense of your wants and with such desires as a hungry man has of meat and here you shall be filled and satisfied and without such preparations as these we can neither pray to God to forgive our sins nor to bestow his Grace on us Yet I confess I cannot see how any man who is fit to pray to God should be unfit to approach his Table 2. Others think that there is much greater danger in approaching the Table of the Lord unworthily than in an unworthy performance of other parts of Religious Worship but for what reason they think so I could never learn The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord and his sacrifice is no more It is as unpardonable an affront to God to pray for the pardon of our sins in Christs name without true sorrow and contrition and serious resolutions of amendment as it is for an impenitent sinner to receive the Sacrament to praise God without a due sense of his Mercy and Goodness differs not at all from feasting at the Table of our Lord without any sense of his dying love I would not be thought to give encouragement by this discourse to wicked men to approach this holy Table such men ought to be carefully turned away from such sacred Mysteries when they are discovered but the whole design is to shew that those men who have such clear innocent consciences that they dare pray to God need not be afraid of receiving the Sacrament and those who have not I would desire them to consider what a case they are in they defile every holy duty they meddle with and are in perpetual danger of Gods wrath and displeasure they cannot ask his pardon but they provoke him the more for the interpretation of such mens prayers is only to beg a longer liberty and indulgence in sin and therefore this is no more an encouragement to neglect the Lords Supper than it is to continue in a state of sin and damnation But you will say does not the Apostle tell us that a man must examine himself and so eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body Very right but not to dispute the particular meaning of that place is not this true also of him that hears or prayes unworthily Does the Apostle say that there is any greater degree of worthiness required to receive the Lords Supper than there is to pray to God He who is fit to pray to God is fit to eat and drink at the Lords Table and he who is not fit for either I am sure is not fit to dye Our right to immortality is conveyed to us in this heavenly Feast as you have already seen and it is equally strange to me that men should content themselves in such a condition as makes them unfit to receive the pardon of their sins the assistances of Gods Grace or immortal life or if they be not in this deplorable condition that they should neglect that holy Feast which is the only ordinary instituted means of conveying all these blessings to them FINIS Books lately Printed by Richard Chiswel LOrd Bacon's Remains octavo Dr. Puller's Discourse of the Moderation of the Church of England octavo Dr. Edw. Bagshaw's Discourses upon Select Texts against the Papist and Socinian octavo Mr. Rushworth's Historical Collections The Second Volume folio His large and exact Account of the Trial of the Earl of Strafford folio Remarques relating to the state of the Church of the 3 first Centuries wherein are interspersed Animadversions on a Book called A View of Antiquity By I. H. Written by A. S. Speculum Baxterianum or Baxter against Baxter quarto The Countrey-Mans Physician octavo Dr. Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion folio An Apology for a Treatise of Humane Reason Written by Ma. Clifford Esq twelves The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuits c. explained by divers Judgements and Resolutions of the Judges with other Observations thereupon by William Cawley Esq folio Dr. Burnet's