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A59850
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A practical discourse of religious assemblies by Will. Sherlock.
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S3322; ESTC R27485
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148,095
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402
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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
the natural Passions of our Minds If we consider God as the first Cause of all Things so God has a natural right to the Praise and Glory of all his Works and therefore all the Works of God are said to praise him The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work What-ever Wisdom Power or Goodness is seen in the frame of this vast and beautiful World what-ever Perfections are bestowed on any Creatures must be ascribed to the great Maker of all Things It is impossible to see any curious piece of Painting without admiring and praising the skill of the Painter and that Man is very unjust as well as very sensless who can look upon this World so wonderful for its unknown Extent exquisite Contrivance Beauty Uniformity infinite Numbers variety and perfections of its Inhabitants and not adore and worship that God who made all this The Order Beauty and Glory of Material Beings are visible Demostrations of the Infinite Perfections of their Invisible Cause and the most proper and natural Work of reasonable Creatures is to discover the Perfections of God and of his Works and to worship him with the humblest and devoutest Adorations and if it be unjust to defraud Men of the Glory of their wise and great and good Actions it is much greater injustice to God who is the sole and independent Cause of all Things and yet not to worship God is to defraud him of his Glory And if we consider more particularly that we our selves are God's Creatures who owe our Being to him that in him we live move and have our being this makes it a natural Debt to praise and adore the God who made us as the Psalmist speaks To worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker Know ye that the Lord he is God it is he that hath made us and not we our selves we are his People and the Sheep of his Pasture Enter into his Gates with thanksgiving and into his Courts with praise be thankful unto him and bless his Name For since God made us he has a natural Right and Interest in us and may challenge our Homage and Obedience as a just Debt entailed upon our Natures Thus God argues A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master If then I be a Father where is my Honour and if I be a Master where is my Fear That is there is at least as much natural Justice in paying all Homage and Worship to God our Heavenly Father and Soveraign Lord as it is accounted among Men for Children to honour their Parents and Servants their Masters and therefore let any Man who will but allow God the same right in his Creatures which he himself challenges in his Children and Servants judg how unseemly and unnatural it is to refuse to love and honour and worship the great Author of our Being Who planteth a Vineyard and eateth not of the Fruit thereof Can any thing be more reasonable than that God should be worshiped and adored by those Creatures whom his own Hands have made and fashioned So that upon all Accounts God has a natural Right to our Homage and Worship and nothing can excuse us from paying this Debt unless it appear that we are under some natural Incapacity to do it But indeed this is a Debt which we are all able to pay for God has made us reasonable Creatures endowed us with Wisdom and Knowledg to discover the Perfections of his Nature and Works and to understand our Obligations to him and with such a Principle of Will and Choice as can act freely and with such inward passions of Love and Joy Fear and Reverence Hope and Affiance as may easily be wrought up to the highest strain of Devotion He has given us Eyes to contemplate this beautiful Frame of Things and Tongues to speak his Praises and publish all his mighty Works so that Man-kind seems to be made on purpose for the Worship of God to be a curious and diligent Observer of God's Works and to speak of his Glory which lays a new Obligation on us and gives God a natural Title to our Worship This was the Reason why he made us this was the Design of our Natures and the End of our Creation We live now in such a busy World where we find so many things to do to provide Food and Raiment and all things necessary to this Mortal State or it may be to serve the Ends of Ambition and Lust that we can find very little time to worship God and therefore are apt to think that this is the least thing we have to do But we should consider that this is not the Original Work and Imployment of Man-kind but the punishment of our Sin and Apostacy from God For let us suppose that Man-kind had preserved their Innocence and continued in Paradise where they had no need of Cloaths and fed on the Fruit of the Garden which grew of it self without plowing or sowing and was fit for Food without any Arts of Cookery when there was no other bodily Employment but to look to the Garden which neither required much labour nor took up much time but was like those innocent Diversions we now use to recreate and unbend our Minds with now I say in such a state as this which was the Original State of Mankind how could Men spend their time but in the Contemplation of God's Works and in the study of Divine Wisdom and Philosophy and in adoring the great Maker of all Things unless we can imagine that God gave Man such an active and busy Mind to dissolve in sloth which is so uneasy a state that Paradise it self could be no happiness upon these terms or that God designed him for an Atheistical Philosopher to admire the Works of Nature without adoring the Wise Creator Indeed it is not conceivable that so vast and comprehensive a Mind such active and boundless Passions as God hath endowed Man-kind withal should be wholly designed for no higher Employment than to qualify a Man to be a Plow-man or a Mechanick or to speak the greatest thing at once to be a Prince or a Minister of State such a Mind as comes so near Infinity as that of Man was certainly designed for nothing less than the Knowledg Love and Admiration of an Infinite Being And if we must learn the End for which Creatures are made by the End which they are capable to serve it is evident Man was made for the Worship of God because he is fitted with such Endowments and Perfections of Mind as qualify him to be a Worshipper And if God be the greatest and most perfect Being then the Knowledg and Worship of God is the noblest Employment of Humane Nature and consequently the last and highest End for which Man was made Nay we may consider further that Man is not only capable of worshipping God but no other Creature in this visible World is he and he only