why don't you hope to go to Heaven with Blasphemy in your mouths with bloud and Rapine in your hands or why can't you dispense with hypocrisie intemperance unchastity disloyalty or even with impenitency it self so far as you think your selves to be concerned in Gods Laws to the contrary as well as when you wilfully live in the breach of the express command of God in the case of the Communion Shall not an offence in this one in St. James his sence James 2. 10. make you guilty of all That is put you into the same state of danger as if you were guilty of all Or can you be so vain as to believe that any obedience can be sincere and acceptable to God but that which is intire and universal No it is certain that no Soul can be said to be truly acted by a right principle of the Love and fear of God to do his duty but as the Psalmist devoutly speaks it will make him to have an eye or a respect to all the Commandments The sum of this Argument is that to receive the Lord's Supper is the matter of an Evangelical precept of a special Law of Jesus and therefore necessary and indispensable Secondly The receiving this Holy Sacrament is necessary necessitate medii that is as a means without which we cannot reasonably expect Gods blessing upon our other Christian performances and endeavours For whatever means God hath appointed for a Blessing be they what he pleaseth it is necessary where Providence hath not put a Bar that they should be used for it otherwise the blessing is in vain expected from God though yet we think to substitute other means in their room Indeed to hope for it in an extraordinary way without the use of that means which is ordinarily appointed is an affront put upon the Wisdom and Authority of God And to expect it by substituting one means of that blessing for another is as unreasonable as if one should think to reap the benefits of prayer which he neglects by reading or hearing All the means of Grace tend to one and the same end of making us truly good and improving the Graces of God in us but they operate several ways towards it each according to its own nature and therefore that good effect which is proper to one we must not expect from another while we neglect that We aim at life and health both by Food and Physick but we do not take Medicines for ordinary nourishment nor rely upon our daily bread for recovery from a dangerous sickness I suppose we all grant that the Holy Communion hath its peculiar operation and contributes something in a way proper to it self towards the life of God in us The Cup in the Holy Supper is the Cup of Blessing not only because it is Blessed by the Prayers of the Church but because we are afterwards to be blessed in the use of it The Bread which we break is the Communion of the Body of Christ not only with one another but with God at whose Table we feast upon the Sacrifice that was once offered to him for us And can we imagine that these expressions do not imply that there is some Blessing and Grace conferred upon the Worthy Receiver that is peculiarly an effect of the Holy Sacrament The spiritual benefits of Receiving were indeed obtained for us at Gods hand by that one alsufficient Sacrifice of our Lords Body and Bloud upon the Cross But as they are Sacramentally represented and tendered so are they really Received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper It is farther to be considered that the means of our Spiritual life and growth do not contribute towards the end but by a supernatural Operation upon our minds But he that neglecteth one of the means of Grace especially if it be the greatest has no reason to expect the concurrence of Gods blessing with his use of the rest Where God has commanded us to use means more than one there the use of all but one is not a sufficient discharge of our duty and therefore no sufficient qualification for that Grace which is promised to a sincere use of all We are agreed with those that occasioned the Sacraments once general neglect and of the too frequent dis-use of it now that the Grace and Blessing of Spiritual knowledge is communicated by means appointed And the people are taught strongly to believe it or they would not be so nice in their choice of its Administrators nor would they so zealously post up and down after it nor sometimes so dearly pay for it But then it is strange that though a greater blessing is to be communicated to them in the Holy Sacrament yet that nevertheless they should not without any Conscience of their duty to God or value of the blessing to themselves take a journey of a few steps to the place where Gods Minister stands ready in Gods Name to tender the means of that blessing to them But then the wonder is still encreased when it is considered that though their beloved Guides have by their peculiar mode of Preaching perpetually accustom'd them to the Notions of getting Christ laying hold on Him applying Him and getting an interest in Him that is as is supposed of enjoying a Communion with Him for the saving of their Souls that yet they should not apply those expressions to the enjoying of him in the Sacrament and should not as customarily be pressing them to that Sacred Ordinance concerning which those their expressions may be much more properly used that is where they may undoubtedly have the readiest access to him and the nearest Communion with him or as our Church assures us where they may dwell in Christ and Christ in them they may be one with Christ and Christ with them And if they had so sent them to Christ when they were constantly calling upon them to get him it would have solv'd the Preachers sincerity when he ply'd them with those uncertain expressions of their Duty And the people might have understood how they should have reasonably answered such exhortations And further this would have helped us to know how to manage our dying people who by being accustom'd to that mode of Preaching instead of desiring the sacred Office of the Church that is of making Confessions of their Faith of requiring the Churches wise Expedient to cure their wounded Consciences and of making restitution to whomsoever they have injured are according as they had been taught and their good meaning had been abused crying out for Christ or are using such kind of words to express their desires of having and enjoying his Person Could we have made them sensible that what they complain'd for they might have attain'd in the Holy Sacrament answerable to the very terms of their complaint which hath been always adjudged the proper Viaticum provision for a Christians journey into another world We might have understood our duty and chearfully perform'd it to the dying persons
of its blessings with such lofty expressions of its worth or shall we plead for or trust to a Religion or chuse to feed on bread made of the Tares which the devil few in our inclosure since Forty one and refuse the common and substantial wheat the True Christian Catholick Doctrine and Practice that was sown by Christ and his Apostles and which have ever since grown in the Churches field for Sixteen hundred years before But say some This Argument smells rank of Popery How Is that worn and baffled refuge of the non-plus'd and the malicious reviv'd again upon us have not the True Professors of this Reformed Church done suffered wrote sworn pray'd and said enough to confute that false and unworthy scandal and contrivement design'd only to expose us to the peoples hatred that when it 's convenient we should once more be devoured by their fury But I will answer those kind men and tell them that they are mistaken and that the contrary is true And that to urge Primitive and Universal practice is a mighty Argument against Popery it self And that it 's known to the Learned that they never durst stand to that Tryal for the differences between us as the incomparable Arch-Bishop and Martyr challenged them in his Conference with Fisher. But we are now further to consider that this Argument is not only to satisfie your Consciences that by the receiving of this Blessed Sacrament at all you comply with the Primitive and Universal Church but for a further direction that is you are to take notice that they received it not only as being necessary sometimes but frequently and as may be believed as often as they could And is not its frequency peremptorily presum'd in St. Pauls advice when he said As oft as ye eat and drink it c. 1 Cor. 11. 26. Is not the Holy Sacrament by all acknowledged to be the food of our souls and do not the very Sacramental Elements the daily instances of common nourishment intimate a belief that as those bodily nourishments require oft repetitions to preserve our bodies so that which is represented the spiritual food may also require an answerable repetition to preserve our souls Might not our Saviour in the choise of those Elements purposely denote the reasons not only of the necessity of the Sacrament but of the frequently repeated celebration of it I think the instruction is very natural Why are we so desirous to feed our understandings with the word of Christ and yet have little or no appetite after the souls more considerable food the Body and Bloud of Christ If the frequency of Preaching be thought so good and necessary a means for the promoting of the power of godliness let us not forget that in ancient times the frequency of receiving the Lords Supper was as much valued for that very reason But if you should enquire for the measures of that frequency and how often every Christian man is bound to receive it my answer is that it is a case of Conscience that can never be resolved but by every mans doing it as oft as he can that is as oft as the Wisdom of the Church shall think it fit to be Administred fearing lest for want of such a frequent receiving as holds proportion to the nature and reason of the command and the practice of the Ancient and the Universal Church of Christ we should not have so sufficiently discharg'd our duty to God nor acted so securely for our own eternal safety as we ought This the Fourth Fifth Argument to oblige your Consciences to a frequent and constant receiving the Sacrament is because you are bound in Christian justice and charity to recover as much as in you lies the loss of those Graces and the most considerable practices of the Christian Religion which were very much kept up and did considerably accompany the general and constant usage of it and which are in a very great measure either wholly lost or languishing by its long discontinuance and by the slight and sparing performance of it And those Graces and necessary practices are these that follow First the constant use and repetition of the Holy Sacrament kept men up religiously to the rules of justice and was a sence to common honesty in mens dealings one with another The fresh remembrance of the last Sacrament and the thoughts of another ere long returning gave them not respite enough to hatch base contrivements and made the strongest temptations to villanous attempts the weaker and more imprevalent for want of time to ferment in And if any temptation had surprized them they made haste to restitution before the next Sacrament which as they durst not omit so neither durst they receive it with injustice upon their Souls For they understood that if they were not sit to receive the Sacrament neither were they sit to dye and which might next approach they could not tell but they durst not adventure it And thus was Justice and Faithfulness preserved and the present falseness and scandalous neglect of doing Right that is every where complain'd of may in a very considerable proportion be imputed to the small regard the generality of the people have had of this Sacred Institution Secondly the constant use of the Blessed Sacrament did considerably keep up the practice of Christian charity Anciently the Holy Table was the poors and Gods Exchequer the Treasures of Providence were there deposited for the relief of the indigent and good men struck Tallies there for their Heavenly rewards And it 's observable that since that method of doing good hath been dis-used the Law hath extorted what might have been there voluntarily offered and God hath severely punished this nation for the want of keeping up that pious opportunity and occasion of shewing a charitable mind with a greater increase of mens needs and with a prodigious multiplication of the poor in all places that it is now become a burthen and a tax which might have then been a free-will-offering and for that reason more acceptable to and most certainly rewardable by a gracious God And though that pious and ancient custom be almost out-dated yet it is out of question that the frequent and Religious participation of the Blessed Sacrament doth dispose mens minds to the divine temper of love and goodness and engageth them to charitable acts and distributions as gifts reasonably return'd back to God for those eminent mercies which they are just then ready to receive by that excellent expedient of the divine charity to their Souls Neither can we hope that the minds of the people will be ever restored to that heavenly temper till they have recovered the ancient and conscientious regard to the Holy Table which is as it were God's Mercy-seat where we learn mercy Thirdly the frequent use of the Sacrament did very advantageously keep up the Divine Grace of humility in the Souls of men For there the poor Lazar and the meanest of the
A SERMON Preached on the FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT IN THE Cathedral Church OF NORWICH WHEREIN Is Represented the Great Sin and Danger of Neglecting the HOLY COMMUNION By W. SMYTH D. D. Prebend of Norwich LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1680. TO THE Right Reverend FATHER in GOD ANTHONY Lord BISHOP of NORWICH My LORD THE Motive that induced me at this my Lemen-Course in the Cathedral to Discourse upon the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Bloud and particularly with respect only to its absolute necessity was that with which every man must be very much affected that hath any concernment for the welfare of Souls or any regard to the Honour of Gods Worship or the peace of his Church For whosoever truly understands the present state of too many of our Parochial Congregations cannot but be sensible that there is not that regard had to nor Conscience made of that most considerable Office of the Christian Profession that ought to be or that hath been accustomed in better times And then what shame as well as sorrow must it needs be to the Faithful Curates of Souls who as soon as that Office begins must behold their Charges to flee from it in throngs as if they were frighted with some approaching danger or to turn their backs upon it as if they combined to offer an affront to the Priestly Function and that Sacred Ordinance And which is the worst of all that they should so often in the year repeat so many dreadful Acts of Excommunication against themselves which they must be really presumed to do when they customarily exclude themselves from the greatest Blessing upon their Souls which they can expect and hope for at God's hand on this side Heaven But the comfort is that malice it self cannot charge the Church of England with that disorder For it 's certain that no Church could ever have made better provisions to Instruct Encourage and Oblige men to that Sacred and Necessary duty We have not blessed be God deprived the people of one half of this Sacrament in contradiction to the pattern of Christ in the Institution nor do we perform the Service in a Language that may perplex their understandings when it s Administred which the Romanists are known to do and which the people might presume to be sufficient reasons to justifie their absence and omission Neither on the other side have we set up a new frightful Tribunal in every Parish which should examine and Arbitrarily determine the fitness of every Communicant by the measures of their Adherency to a Party and by their dexterities in giving account of some Religious phrases and opinions peculiar to their Sect. As some of them that have made a defection from the Established Church have been observed to do and by which and for their unsolemn manner of its Administration such as had understood the Lovely Order of its Communication according to the Church of England were easily tempted altogether to decline it No my Lord the disorder we complain of and the intolerable scandal which the neglect of the Sacrament hath put upon our assemblies is not the fault but the misfortune and affliction of our Church and was first occasioned by an unhappy abuse that was put upon the peoples minds in the late Confusions by such whose interest it was to break down all the fences of the Churches Unity and thence to dispossess the vulgar of their orderly peaceable and obedient temper that they might be the better prepared to permit and comply with their unwarrantable intendments And where some mens obstinate approbation of those practices hath hindred the compleat repair of those breaches the present calamity is that not only the Separating party are departed from the Sacrament as they do from the established Worship but even the looser and more inconsiderate sorts of men being encouraged by their example do presume to take a reproachful liberty to themselves to escape at that open gap and do resolvedly continue in the same neglects without any regard to what concerns Religion in general or the publick appointed Service in particular So that in those places Faction and Profaneness joyn hand in hand in the same opposition and do give the Government the same incumbrance and Almighty God the same dishonour But the mischief ends not there For 't is visible that too many also that are restored to and that do continue in a fair Communion with the Church in all other respects and parts of the Established Worship do yet retain an unaccountable obstinacy against the Sacred Office and blessing of the Holy Sacrament and are always at work to contrive all possible ways to decline and escape it And if at any time they be closely press'd to it they are ready to clamour against it as a persecution of their Christian Liberty and are resolv'd no way to be made sensible that the intention and prosecution of the Law is no more than an Act of the Churches Charity and an expedient of Gods mercy to their Souls So that the Curates of Souls in such places are brought into a necessity of this unhappy choice that is Either tamely to see their Parishioners continue in that scandalous defection from so considerable a part of their Christian Profession and to connive at the Abominable Perjury of the Officers that are sworn to guard Gods Publick Worship or else to live in perpetual broiles and encounters with them whose peace and welfare should be as tenderly dear to them as their own lives by the necessary Prosecution of the Law in those Judicatories where there is Provision made to reclaim them from their Defailancies in such cases and which are the only remaining expedients then to be made use of when all other attempts to reduce them to their duty are defeated and made unsuccessful Now my Lord to obviate all these evils by the best and most Christian method that I think could be undertaken was the great motive and main inducement why I chose at that time to Preach upon that Subject and why I now have offer'd the Discourse it self to Publick view And thus my Lord having given your Lordship a full account of the Motive that prevailingly induc'd me to what I have done and which may reasonably justifie my attempt in that respect I can with less difficulty acquit my self for my confident throwing it under your Lordships Protection And that is because it 's visible to the world that wheresoever your Lordship hath exercised any Jurisdiction it hath not been your Design only but your Zeal to promote the Interest of the Holy Sacrament and to recover the People under your several Successive Charges from their long discontinuances and neglects of it And for this I could offer some pregnant instances of your Lordships care even in this your present Diocese if I thought your Lordship would permit me So that whether I consider the Usefulness of the Discourse for them that may
need such an information of their duty or the suteableness of it to your Lordships Design and Inclination I hope it will not be a Presumption in me to beg and expect Your acceptance of it as it 's Humbly presented to Your Lordships Patronage by My LORD Your Lordships Obedient Son and Servant W. SMYTH Norwich March 26. 1680. A SERMON PREACHED On the Fourth Sunday in LENT LUKE xxii 19. This do in remembrance of me THough a Veneration to Primitive Devotion the great President of General practice the express Laws of our own Church and the Prayers that we have joyn'd in to beg for Abstinence at this time cannot be admitted as competent Arguments to us to attend the Discipline of the Lent Fast Yet surely the reason of the thing that is how Fasting in it self may in several respects be made advantageous to the Souls of men might make us afraid to decline much more to despise this Office of Religion But I have already discours'd of those things in this place and upon this occasion That which I at first propounded to my self to endeavour at this time was to prepare you for the Holy Sacrament you will shortly be invited to it being one principal reason why the Ancients practised and press'd the Observance of this Solemn Fast that men might the better prepare themselves for this great Ordinance at the great and Solemn Feast of Easter And for that reason it was commonly called the Paschal or Easter Fast. But while I was limiting my thoughts to that subject I was discouraged with fears that in a great measure I should lose my labour considering that this Sacrament it self is almost as generally neglected as is the Fast which should prepare for it And thereupon I thought it was more adviseable First to endeavour to fetch men off from their disregard to the end and to possess them with a right understanding and due esteem of it before I engaged them in the means preparatory to it For which purpose I have made choice of this Text which I shall not manage as usually it hath been either by making Observations upon the Occasion which our Saviour took for its Institution from the Jews Posteoelium or by wearying you with an accumulated collection of the advanced expressions of the Fathers concerning its worth and excellency or by multiplying cases of Conscience in which I am afraid some men have been too busie as to its preparation And much less by engaging your Attentions to the controversal points about it But my present design shall be to prove that every Christian stands obliged in Conscience to close with all opportunities that are offered him for the receiving of the Lords Supper This I find no proof of in the Ancient writings because the necessity of it was always so presum'd to be understood by every man that bore the name of Christian that they might have been suspected to have thrown away their Bibles or to have renounced the whole Christian Faith as soon as to plead for an habitual neglect or refusal of it Not to receive the Sacrament was all one as not to be a Christian at all in their esteem and would have made a Christian as great a prodigy as he was who at Athens deny'd a Deity 'T is our only Age and Nation that can complain of so many who to the scandal of our Profession have either humorously scrupled it or impudently refused it or that are so unwillingly hald to it This therefore is my Design at present so far as my present Office and the short time for it will allow me to bring mens minds into a better temper to fetch home the scatter'd parties that do run away from Christ's fold and that will not submit to the Communion of the Flock It is to make men truly Christians in the highest instance of the Profession of their Religion and to perswade them to that whereby they are especially distinguishable from Jews and Pagans And all this I shall attempt to do by my mention'd method Not by a kind and passionate Exhortation the Church hath saved me that labour nor shall I do it by suggesting to your notice the just menaces of the Law for both those expedients have been found not sufficiently successful and are daily controul'd by obstinacy and pretence But I say it shall be my endeavour to set before you such sufficient reasons as may uncontrouleably bind the Consciences of men and convincingly prove that every Christian is absolutely and indispensably bound upon the hazzard of his Souls eternal loss customarily to receive the Sacrament of our Lords Body and Bloud And my reasons are form'd into these sive Arguments First the Receiving the Holy Sacrament is absolutely necessary to Salvation necessitate praecepti that is it is an express command of Christ Hespake imperatively in the Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do this 'T is my will my Injunction 'T is not left at your liberty as indifferent to be performed or omitted at your pleasure Neither did our Saviours Injunction relate only to the then present Apostles but St. Paul repeats the very Institution it self and applies the obligation of it to the Corinthians and upon the same account to all Christians in all succeeding ages to the Churches period That thus they should shew the Lords death till his coming again And therefore it ought to lye as close upon your Consciences as any other Commandment of the Gospel whatsoever and perhaps more closely as being with the other Sacramental Precept enacted by Christs purely Soveraign and absolute Authority And therefore the observance of it is a greater tryal of your submission to his peculiar Dominion and manifests a greater regard to his Person than can be expressed in other preceptive cases where our duty was prescribed before by Natural Religion and the reason of the thing And now I advise you to consider what you will answer to those expressions of the holy Jesus when he so solemnly made the keeping of his Commandments Joh. 14. 15. the great Test of our love to him If you love me saith he keep my Commandments And again when he makes the keeping of them to be the most assured evidence of his love to us If saith he ye keep my Commandments Joh. 15. 10. ye shall abide in my love even as I abide in my Fathers love I say what can you answer to Christ in that case if among those Commandments this is especially to be accounted one and that which is more peculiarly his as 't is of his proper Institution and by his own Soveraign appointment What can you think that some one or more of other Christian duties can expiate for the neglect of this that is equally as necessary or shall much hearing and praying believing and applying compensate for such an omission Heavenly Justice admits no such arts of Commutation Why do you make Conscience of any other Commandment or think your selves oblig'd to any other service of God