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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

Christs death an act of obedience a ceremony of memorial but of no spiritual effect and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver Against this besides the preceding discourse convincing their fancy of weakness and derogation the consideration of the proper excellencies of this mystery in its own seperate nature will be very useful For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into his oeconomy and dispensation For the understanding of which are to consider that Christ besides his Spiritual body and blood did also give us his natural and we receive that by the means of this For this he gave us but once then when upon the Crosse he was broken for our sins this body could die but once and it could be but at one place at once and Heaven was the place appointed for it and at once all was sufficiently effected by it which was design'd in the Counsel of God ●or by the vertue of that death Christ is become the Author of life unto us and of salvation he is our Lord and our Lawgiver but it he received all power in heaven and earth and by it he reconciled his Father to the world and in vertue of that he intercedes for us in heaven and sends his spirit upon earth and feeds our souls by his word he instructs us to wisdom and admits us to repentance and gives us pardon and by means of his own appointment nourishes us up by holinesse to life eternal This body being carried from us into heaven cannot be touch'd or tasted by us on earth but yet Christ left to us symbols and Sacraments of this natural body not to be or to convey that natural body to us but to do more and better for us to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body and the effusion of the blood which blessings being spiritual are therefore called his body spiritually because procured by that body which died for us and are therefore called our food because by them we live a new life in the spirit and Christ is our bread and our life because by him after this manner we are nourished up to life eternal That is plainly thus Therefore we eat Christs spiritual body because he hath given us his natural body to be broken and his natural blood to be shed for the remission of our sins and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance For by this gift and by this death he hath obtained this favour from God that by faith in him and repentance from dead works by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we may be saved To this sense of the Mystery are those excellent words of the Apostle He bare our sins upon his own body on the Tree that he might deliver us from the present evil world and sanctifie and purge us from all pollution of flesh and spirit that he might destroy the works of the devil that he might redeem us from all iniquity that he might purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and that we being dead unto sin might live unto righteousnesse Totum Christiani nominis pondus fructus mors Christi All that we are or do or have is produced and effected by the death of Christ. Now because our life depends upon his death the ministry of this life must relate ●o the ministry of this death and we have nothing to glory in but the Crosse of Christ the Word preached is nothing but Jesus Christ crucified and the Sacraments are the most eminent way of declaring this word for by Baptism we are buried into his death and by the Lords Supper we are partakers of his death we communicate with the Lord Jesus as he is crucified but now since all belong to this that Word and that Mystery that is highest and neerest in this relation is the principal and chief of all the rest and that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is so is evident beyond all necessity of inquiry it being instituted in the vespers of the Passion it being the Sacrament of the passion a sensible representation of the breaking Christs body of the effusion of Christs blood it being by Christ himself intituled to the passion and the symbols invested with the names of his broken body and his blood poured forth and the whole ministry being a great declaration of this death of Christ and commanded to be continued until his second coming Certainly by all these it appears that this Sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation here is the publication of the great word of salvation here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ the food of our souls much more clearly than in Baptism much more effectually than in simple enunciation or preaching and declaration by words for this preaching is to strangers and infants in Christ to produce faith but this Sacramental enunciation is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ a glorying in it giving praise for it a declaring it to be done and own'd and accepted and prevailing The consequent of these things is this That if any Mystery Rite or Sacrament be effective of any spiritual blessings then this is much more as having the prerogative and illustrious principality above every thing else in its own kind or of any other-kind in exteriour or interiour Religion I name them both because as in Baptism the water alone does nothing but the inward cooperation with the outward oblation does save us yet to Baptism the Scriptures attribute the effect so it is in this sacred solemnity the external act is indeed nothing but obedience and of it self only declares Christs death in rite and ceremony yet the worthy communicating of it does indeed make us feed upon Christ and unites him to the soul and makes us to become one spirit according to the words of S. Ambrose Ideo in similitudinem quidem accipis sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequeris thou rec●iv●st the Sacrament as the similitude of Christs body but thou shalt receive the grace and the virtue of the true nature I shall not enter into so useless a discourse as to inquire whether the Sacraments confer grace by their own excellency and power with which they are endued from above because they who affirm they do require so much duty on our parts as they also do who attribute the effect to our moral disposition but neither one nor the other say true for neither the external act nor the internal grace and morality does effect our pardon and salvation but the spirit of God who blesses the symbols and assists the duty makes them holy and this acceptable Only they that attribute the efficacy to the Ministration of the Sacrament chose to magnifie the immediate work of man rather than the immediate work of God and prefer the external at least in glorious

delicious because we dote upon mushromes and colliquintida But as Manna was given in the desart and it became pleasant when they had nothing else to eat So it is in ●he sweetnesses of Religion we cannot live by faith and rejoyce in the banquets of our Saviour unlesse our souls dwell in the wilderness that is where the pleasures and appetites of ●he world may not prepossesse our palates and debauch our reasonings And this was mysterio●sly spoken by the Psalmist The broad places of the wilderness shall wax fat and the hills shall be en●ircled with joy that is whatsoever ●s barren and desolate not full of the things and affections of the world shall be inebriated with the pleasures of Religion and rejoyce in Sacraments in faith and holy expectations But the love of mony and the love of pleasures are the intrigues and fetters to the understanding but he only is a faithful man who restrains his passions and despises the world and rectifies his love that he may believe a right and put that value upon Religion as that it become the satisfaction of our spirit and the great object of all our passionate desires pride and prejudice are the Parents of misbelief but humility and contempt of the world first bear faith upon their knees and then upon their hands SECT V. Of the proper and Specifick work of Faith in the reception of the holy Communion HEre I am to enquire into two practical questions 1. What stresse is to be put upon faith in this Mystery that is how much is every one bound to believe in the article of this Sacrament before he can be accounted competently prepared in his understanding and by his faith 2. What is the use of faith in the reception of the Blessed Sacrament and in what sense and to what purposes and with what truth it is said that in the holy Sacrament we receive Christ by faith How much every man is bound to believe of this mystery If I should follow the usual opinions I should say that to this preparatory faith it is necessary to believe all the niceties and mysteriousnesse of the blessed Sacrament Men have introduced new opinions and turned the key in this lock so often till it cannot be either opened or shut and they have unravel'd the clue so long till they have intangled it and not only reason is made blind by staring at what she never can perceive but the whole article of the Sacrament is made an objection and temptation even to faith it self and such things are taught by some Churches and some Schooles of learning which no Philosophy did ever teach no Religion ever did reveal no prophet ever preach and which no faith ever can receive I mean it in the prodigious article of Transubstantiation which I am not here to confute but to reprove upon practical considerations and to consider those things that may make us better and not strive to prevail in disputation That therefore we may know the proper offices of faith in the believing what relates to the holy Sacrament I shall describe it in several propositions 1. It cannot be the duty of faith to believe any thing against our sense what we see and taste to be bread what we see and taste and smell to be wine no faith can engage us to believe the contrary For by our senses Christianity it self and some of the greatest Articles of our belief were known by them who from that evidence conveyed them to us by their testimony and if the perception of sense were not finally to be relied upon Miracles could never be a demonstration nor any strange event prove an unknown proposition for the Miracle can never prove the Article unless our eyes or hands approve the miracle and the Divinity of Christs person and his mission and his power could never have been proved by the Resurrection but that the resurrection was certain and evident to the eyes and hands of so many witnesses Thus Christ to his Apostles proved himself to be no spirit by exposing his flesh and bones to be felt and he wrought faith in St. Thomas by his fingers ends the wounds that he saw and felt were the demonstrations of his faith and in the Primitive Church the Valentinians and Marcionites who said Christs body was phantastical were confused by no other argument but of sense For sense is the evidence of the simple and the confirmation of the wise it can confute all pretences and reprove all deceitful subtilties it turns opinion into knowledge and doubts into certainty it is the first endearment of love and the supply of all understanding from what we see without we know what to believe within and no demonstration in the world can be greater than the evidence of sense Our senses are the great arguments of vertue and vice and if it be not safe to rely upon that evidence we cannot tell what pleasure and pain is and a man that is born blind may as well have the true idea of colours as we could have of pain if our senses could not tell us certainly and all those arguments from heaven by which God prevails upon all the world as Oracles and Vrim and Thummim and still voices and loud thunders and the daughter of a voice and messages from above and Prophets on earth and lights and Angels all were nothing for faith could not come by hearing if our hearing might be illusion That therefore which all the world relies upon for their whole Religion that which to all the world is the great means and instrument of the glorification of God even our seeing of the works of God and eating his provisions and beholding his light that which is the great ministery of life and the conduit of good and evil to us we may rely upon for this article of the Sacrament what our faith relies upon in the whole she may not contradict in this Tertullian said that It is not only unreasonable but unlawful to contradict the testimony of our sense lest the same question be made of Christ himself lest it be suspected that he also might be deceived when he heard his Fathers voice from heaven That therefore which we see upon our Altars and Tables that which the Priest handles that which the Communicant does taste is bread and wine our senses tell us that it is so and therefore faith cannot be enjoined to believe it not to be so Faith gives a new light to the soul but it does not put our eyes out and what God hath given us in our nature could never be intended as a snare to Religion or to engage us to believe a lie Faith sees more in the Sacrament than the eye does and tastes more than the tongue does but nothing against it and as God hath not two wills contradictory to each other so neither hath he given us two notices and perceptions of objects whereof the one is affirmative and the other

negative of the same thing 2. Whatsoever is against right reason that no faith can oblige us to believe For although reason is not the positive and affirmative measures of our faith and God can do more than we can understand and our faith ought to be larger than our reason and take something into her heart that reason can never take into her eye yet in all our Creed there can be nothing against reason If true reason justly contradicts an article it is not of the houshold of faith In this there is no difficulty but that in practice we take care that we do not call that reason which is not so for although a mans reason is a right Judge yet it ought not to passe sentence in an inquiry of faith until all the information be brought in all that is within and all that is without all that is above and all that is below all that concerns it in experience and all that concerns it in act whatsoever is of pertinent observation and whatsoever is revealed for else reason may argue very well and yet conclude falsly it may conclude well in Logick and yet infer a false Proposition in Theology but when our Judge is fully and truly informed in all that where she is to make her judgment we may safely follow it whithersoever she invites us If therefore any society of men calls upon us to believe in our Religion what is false in our experience to affirm that to be done which we know is impossible it ever can be done to wink hard that we may see the better to be unreasonable men that we may off●r to God a reasonable sacrifice they make Religion so to be seated in the will that our understanding will be uselesse and can never minister to it But as he that shuts the ●ye hard and with violence curles the eye lid forces a phantastick fire from the crystalline humor and espies a light that never shines and sees thousands of little fires that never burn So is he that blinds the eye of his reason and pretends to see by an eye of faith he makes little images of notion and some atoms dance before him but he is not guided by the light nor instructed by the proposition but sees like a man in his sleep and grows as much the wiser as the man that dreamt of a Lycanthropy and was for ever after wisely wary not to come neer a River He that speaks against his own reason speaks against his own conscience and therefore it is certain no man serves God with a good conscience that serves him against his reason For though in many cases reason must submit to faith that is natural reason must submit to supernatural and the imperfect informations of art to the perfect revelations of God yet in no case can a true reason and a right faith oppose each other and therefore in the article of the Sacrament the impossible affirmatives concerning Transubstantiation because they are against all the reason of the world can never be any part of the faith of God 3. Whatsoever is m●tter of curiosity that our faith is not obliged to believe or confess For the faith of a Christian is pure as light plain as a Commandment easie as childrens Lessons it is not given to puzzle the understanding but to instruct it it brings clarity to it not darknesse and obscurity Our faith in this Sacrament is not obliged to inquire or to tell how the ho●y bread can feed the soul or the calice purifie our spirits how Christ is united to us and yet we remain imperfect even then when we are all one with him that is perfect there is no want of faith though we do not understand the secret manner how Christ is really present and yet this reality be no other but a reality of event and positive effect though we know not that Sacramental is more than figurative and yet not so much as natural but greater in another kind It is not a duty of our faith to discern how Christs body is broken into ten thousand pieces and yet remains whole at the same time or how a body is present by faith only when it is naturally absent and yet faith ought to believe things to be as they are and not to make them what of themselves they are not We need not to be amazed concerning our faith when our overbusie reason is amazed in the article and our faith is not defective though we confesse we do not understand how Christs body is there incorporeally that is a body after the manner of a Spirit or though we cannot apprehend how the Symbols should make the grace presential and yet that the grace of God in the receiver can make the Symbols operative and energetical The faith that is required of those who come to the holy Communion is of what is revealed plainly and taught usually what sets devotion forward not what ministers to curiosity that which the Good and the plain the easie and the simple man can understand For if thou canst not understand the reciprocations and pulses of thy own arteries the motion of thy blood the feat of thy memory the rule of thy dreams the manner of digestion the disease of thy bowels and the distempers of thy spleen things that thou bearest about thee that cause to thee pain sorrow it is not to be expected that thou shouldest understand the secrets of God the causes of his will the impulses of his grace the manner of his Sacraments and the Oeconomy of his spirit Gods works are secret and his words are deep and his dispensations mysterious and therefore too high for thy understanding St. Gregory Nazianzen sayes of God the more you think you comprehend of him in your understanding the lesse he is comprehended like the sand of the glass which the harder you grasp the less you can retain or like the sand of the sea which you can never number but by going about it you are confounded and by doing something of it you make it impossible to do the rest Curious inquiries are like the contentions of Protogenes and Apelles who should draw the smallest line and after two or three essayes they left this monument of their art that they drew three lines so curiously that they were scarcely to be discerned And therefore since faith is not concerned in intrigues and hard questions it were very well if the Sacrament it self were not disguised and charity disordered by that which is not a help but a temptation to Faith it self In the holy Communion we must retain an undoubted faith but not enquire after what manner the secrets of God are appointed Whether it be or no that is the object of faith to enquire and to accept accordingly What it is he that is to teach others and speak mysteries may modestly dispute but how it is nothing but curiosity will look after The Egyptians used to say that unknown darknesse