us and baffle our purposes and resolutions This drives us upon our knees again and we pray God not to leave us to our selves and by degrees we gain greater measures of strength and in some sort get the mastery over the inclinations of corrupted nature This holds much more in the Sacrament when we go to it with fresh desires and more vigorous resolutions of living a holy and truly Christian life and when we reflect upon our failings and miscarriages since our last receiving with deep humiliation and sorrow Thou O Lord God art full of compassion and mercy long suffering plenteous in goodness and truth O turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me give thy strength unto thy servant and help the son of thy hand-maid We need no invitations to satisfie the natural desires of the body which is nourished and cherished and oftentimes pampered by us Nature has laid upon us a necessity of daily food for the preservation of life to repair those decays which we daily suffer without this we consume and dye Now if we believe the blessed Sacrament to be the food of the Soul that we grow and are strengthened in grace by this bread of life the true spiritual manna that comes down from heaven that is designed by God for this purpose and conveys his blessing and sanctifying graces to all worthy receivers that by virtue of this nourishment we either retain or recover our vigour and healthfulness of mind and that without it we languish and decay in the inward man there would be no keeping us from this heavenly banquet at the Lord's table where there can be no fear of a furfeit where we eat and drink health and salvation and where Christ himself is the entertainer and the entertainment 100. For thou O Christ as the Greek Priest prays in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostome just before the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they carry the gifts from the Prothesis to the Altar where he consecrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou offerest and yet art offered up thou receivedst the Elements into thy holy hands and yet at the same time thy body and bloud are distributed thou O Christ makest this bread in the Sacrament to be thy flesh mystically which thou still givest for the life of the World Can we eat too much or too often of this bread of life whereby we are nourished to immortality the holy Elements being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so St. Clement in his former Epistle to the Corinthians must be understood that is not of the doctrine of our blessed Saviour for that is mentioned in the following clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much less of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things pertaining to our bodily sustinance and things of this life as Junius thought fit to explain but of the divine viaticum of the Sacrament that we may not faint in the journey which we are taking to the other world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which there can be no other relative but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which express testimony of this Apostolical writer for the Divinity of our blessed Saviour I could not but observe by the bye to help to confound the arrogance and blasphemy of that profest Arian Sandius so that these words seem clearly to relate to the Sacrament where the sufferings of Christ are so livelily represented to our sight 3. By frequent receiving of the Sacrament we are more and more made partakers of the benefits and blessings and merits of Christ's holy passion and death It is the great artifice of the Roman Church to keep up the credit of their private Masses to which antiquity is a mere stranger to make the people believe that the Priest hath a power of applying the efficacy and merit of Christ's sacrifice to their particular benefit for whom he intends it so they contribute somewhat in the way of charity or gift and are but present in the time of the celebration But 't is certain that before superstition and corruption of Doctrine had overspread that Church and before they had perverted this most solemn part of the Christian worship into a mere piece of pageantry and theatrical shew all that was anciently designed by the mentioning the names of the living to say nothing at present of the commemoration of the dead at that time as is clear from the Canon of the Mass still in use was onely by way of intercession that God would be pleased for the merits of his Son's death which they were then commemorating to have mercy on them to forgive them their sins and to pour down of his grace abundantly upon them and not onely upon them but upon the whole number of Christian people throughout the world But this cannot yield such peace and quiet and satisfaction to my conscience as my own particular application of the merits of Christ's sufferings to my self what another does for me cannot be my act when I am obliged to do it in my own person and not by my representative I am to eat his flesh in the Sacrament and drink his bloud if I would live in him and by him Now Christ by his death hath satisfied the divine Justice and reconciled us to the Father who no longer imputes our sins to our charge and condemnation the bloud that he spilt upon the cross is the seal of an everlasting covenant for this cause he is the mediatour of a new covenant that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant they which were called might receive the promise of an everlasting inheritance Heb. 9.15 So that now heaven and salvation are made over by God by virtue of this expiatory Sacrifice to all that truly believe in his Son's name This Sacrifice was made once for all upon the Altar of the Cross but the merit reaches backward to the first being and original of things and looks forward to the end of the world and to eternal ages It is as to the fruit and efficacy of it as present to God as if Christ were born every day into the world again and really every day offered up or as if it were but yesterdy or but just now offered it being all-sufficient and of infinite value and fully accepted by God as a just price and ransome Now that he suffered this bitter and cursed death upon the cross for me and that I may apply all the saving benefits of his passion to my self he assures me by giving me his body and bloud Every time we receive the Sacrament worthily there is a new confirmation of our pardon the spirit of God beareth witness with our spirit that we are his children and reinstated in his grace and favour 'T is an infallible pledge of our immortality and that he will raise us up at the last day as much as if his natural flesh and
holy love and zeal and uniting our souls to Christ by faith There is no need of fansying the bread to be substantially changed into the natural body of Christ that so by this mean we may be really united to it which is one of the colourable pretences made use of by Petrus de Marca and others for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and Christ naturally be and remain in us It is enough that Christ took our nature upon him and united it inseparably to his divinity that he was made up of flesh and bloud and a humane soul and that he doth communicate himself that is his body and bloud in the Sacrament for so the Elements really and truly are after consecration but without departing from their natural state and without loosing their bodily substance For this is all I humbly conceive that our Church means by the doctrine of the real Presence which it acknowledgeth and maintaineth that is by the power of God and the institution of our Saviour and the descent and supervening grace of the Spirit the elements of bread and wine after consecration by a Priest rightly ordained and constituted become the body and bloud of Christ Mystically and Sacramentally and so the Sacrament is more than a bare figure and representation more than a mere Symbol or external rite as were the types and shadows of the law because it does exhibite and communicate Christ really and truly to us Thus Saint Paul hath expresly determined the bread which we break is it not the communication of the body of Christ the cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communication of the bloud of Christ 2 Cor. 10.16 Now were this seriously laid to heart that in the Sacrament we meet with Christ and receive him how should we long for these blessed opportunities As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God my soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come to appear before God Can we be weary of his blessed presence or complain of too frequent entertainments and communications It will be the unspeakable glory and happiness of the other world to be in the presence of God and with Christ for ever Here on earth he vouchsafes to be with us in the Sacrament especially here we may find him whom our soul loveth here we may embrace him Why then are we so unprepared Why are we so backward Why doe we this so seldom 2. By a frequent participation of the body and bloud of our Saviour we are more and more confirmed in our purposes of holy living and strengthened in grace and goodness We are daily exposed to a thousand temptations by reason of the frailty of our nature temperament of body which has too too often a sad and fatal influence upon the mind allurements of sense and evil example and the like There is a continual strife between the dictates of right reason which incite us to doe our duty by arguments drawn from the obligations we owe to God and the agreeableness of it to our nature and the insinuations of appetite which suggests a present pleasure if we strain a little and cease to be so scrupulous till at last the directive and commanding faculties are impaired and captivated and reason dethroned and lust domineers in the soul and the miserable person who has lost his power over himself is at the command of every extravagant passion Which evil effects and consequences are prevented by a frequent and conscientious receiving of the blessed Sacrament This being the true Physick of the soul which not onely cleanses it from the defilements of sin but fortifies it against all infection for the future As often as we find any ill humour growing upon us we endeavour carefully to prevent it When we are sick the tediousness and uneasiness which our distemper brings upon us and the fear of death force us to seek out medicines to restore our health and prolong our lives The soul has its distempers for the prevention or removal of which there cannot be a more sovereign remedy than the frequent devout receiving of the Sacrament For there is such a divine efficacy in the holy Sacrament and the blessing of God does so accompany this holy institution of our Religion that as a moral instrument it conveys grace into the heart of the Communicant if his approach be with due preparation and reverence and if he does not wilfully and obstinately resist and hinder the kindly influences of it If there went such a virtue out of Christ's natural body when he was upon Earth that great cures were wrought thereby If I may but touch his garment said the woman who had a bloudy issue Math. 9.21 I shall be whole What a great blessing must the receiving of it in the Sacrament bring along with it to the devout soul that addresses to him with a lively faith that he is able and willing to heal us But we sin after we have received the Sacrament and we do not find these blessed effects of it within our selves To which several things are to be replied 1. That the Sacrament does not work physically and necessarily but in the way of moral efficacy to which we our selves must concur and contribute somewhat 2. That these blessed effects are producible and visible in others and have been in all ages so that the fault is wholly our own and no defect can be imputed to this mean and instrument of grace why it is not equally effectual to us And therefore 3. That we did not either receive it with due preparation that is our hearts were not purified by repentance and faith and inflamed with love and charity but we might break in upon the Altar without awe and reverence merely out of formality in complyance with the custome of the place and onely for fear that our absence should be censured or else we are not carefull after we have received it to perform those vows and obligations which we laid upon our selves when we were partakers of the Lords table which is the general fault we are seemingly strict before as if this were enough and could satisfie the Conscience to receive Christ without any farther care of walking in him 4. That this is as far from being an objection against frequent communion as it is against our daily Prayer for do we not every morning privately on our knees beg of God the assistence of his grace that we may not be led into temptation but may be powerfully defended from it and preserved in it and do we not as often at least we should publickly and in the congregation beseech him that he would vouchsafe to keep us the remaining part of the day without sin and defend us by his mighty power that we may not fall into it But God knows our weakness and we cannot but acknowledge it with shame and sorrow of heart that the corruptions of our nature are oftentimes too strong for
bloud were eaten and drunk by us and converted after the ordinary way of digestion into our bodily substance We have this assurance in his holy word but much more in the holy Sacrament because here is a more lively sensible and particular representation of it that is though I acknowledge and believe this to be one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel that Christ died for our sins that he appeared once in the days of his flesh to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and that at his ascension he entred in his humane nature into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us my faith grows stronger yet when I receive the sacred symbols into my hands and convey them to my mouth For then if I come with a due preparation it is as if I received from Christ himself and as if he still pronounced the same words to me as he did to the Apostles at the institution Now can we have too great too full an assurance of the favour of God of the pardon of our sins of our living for ever in the presence of God in the other world God knows we forfeit our hopes by our gross and scandalous relapses we lose the favour of God by our presumptuous disobedience we miss the sight of heaven by reason of the thick mists of our sins our onely comfort and support is that God upon our hearty repentance and amendment will be reconciled to us Here it is that we may recover our selves that God restores us to the joy of his salvation and upholds us with his free Spirit Here it is that the weary and heavy laden with the burthen of their sins may find rest and peace to their souls Here it is that Christ not onely commands but invites us to come and how can we but accept of such an invitation so that were the thing wholly arbitrary and indifferent yet the benefit and advantage is so great that this should prevail with us to come and to come often To draw to a conclusion with particular reference to this reverend and learned Audience If this obligation lies upon all in general how much more upon us who have the honour to wait at the Altar and administer in holy things and upon You who are designed to the same honour This was the pious intent of our munificent and glorious Founders and Benefactors in erecting and endowing these structures which are the envy and admiration of all foreigners and in providing so liberally for us several ages before we were born that being here trained up in severe exercises of piety and in the studies of sound and usefull learning we may the better be fitted to do God service in the Church defend the truth of our religion against all its subtile and malitious opposers keep up the belief and practice of Christianity in the minds and lives of the people be a credit to the Countrey and Age we live in and approve our selves not unworthy of the bounty and maintenance which we so happily enjoy Both God and man expect it from us that we especially should shew forth an exemplary piety to which nothing can conduce more than a frequent and devout receiving of the Sacrament This would take off our minds from idleness and vanity and confine us more to our selves and our studies and make us reflect on the true end of living in a College and the particular duty of the Priestly sunction This would confound all the scandalous imputations cast upon the Universities of late by Mr. Hobbs and his Atheistical Gallants by the Papists and Fanaticks in their scurrilous libels and Pamphlets who make it their business to bring a discredit and a disreputation upon us We cannot but be sadly sensible of the great contempt that is poured out upon Church-men and we justly esteem it as we have highest reason so to do an infallible mark and proof of the Atheism of the irreligion of the debauchery of the age But are we not too too much wanting to our selves would we retrieve and recover the honour due unto the Priesthood which seems in a manner forfeited at present there cannot be a better or more effectual expedient than this than to make others sensible by our example of this great duty of our Religion and of the necessity first and then of the blessed effects and benefits of frequent communion Such an exemplary strictness would help to re-establish and bring back the true Christian temper and spirit which are almost lost and shut out of the world I will not take upon me to prescribe precisely how often the blessed Sacrament is to be received Every one is best able to resolve himself in this case The Church of England out of the great care which she has of the souls of all such as live within her communion does oblige them to communicate three times at least in the year of which Easter to be one and this I find expresly determined in a Council held at Agatha a City in the south of France under Caesarius Archbishop of Arles in the year of Christ 506 with this farther addition that they who did not comply with this Canon should not be reputed Christians But this limitation respected secular persons onely and he is not generously pious that does but just come up to the bare letter of the Law which forbids that it should be longer neglected but is supposed to encourage the willing to more frequent approaches But we are under higher and more indispensable obligations The Persons concerned in the late disturbances and who by their furious preachments helpt to pull down the Hierarchy of the Church cannot but reflect one would think with shame and horrour enough upon the sad effects of their pretended Reformation how the giddy people whom they had insatuated were broken into many factions and sects and lost their reason and their religion and grew enthusiastical and mad It is but a sorry excuse to say that the hand of the Jesuite was in all this for they by their unreasonable schism and discontent and factious conventicling though coloured over with pretensions of godly zeal against the Papists as at this day wherein they are playing over the same game had created unjust prejudices in their minds had shaken them in their judgments from the established doctrine and service of the Church and had sitted them to be wrought upon by their subtile artifices and insinuations What a sensible decay was there of true Christian piety and devotion the blessed Sacrament being seldom administred Those Intruders who called themselves the University of Oxon. from the bloudy and fatal year of 1648 to the King 's happy restoration did not think fit so much as once to celebrate the communion together in this Church and a publick Sacrament was not seen in several College Chapels during the same space of time This was the holy discipline of those times and indeed men of such divided hearts and
Bloud as a perpetual and visible representation of it He still presents himself before us as hanging upon the Cross his Body rent and torn with wounds and his pretious Bloud gushing in a plentifull stream out of his side Thus he is evidently set forth before our eyes crucified among us still Gal. 3.1 as it were in Effigie These memorials he has left us of himself till his second coming to put us continually in mind how much he suffered for us This was the grand Reason of the Institution the better to imprint it on our minds that we might always have before our Eyes a lively Image and Figure of his Sufferings the mysterious Rites used in the celebration being for this very end and purpose and the whole Action solemn and fully significant For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lord's death till he come I shall comprize the full sense of these words in these four following Propositions I. That the holy Elements after Consecration retain their own proper Essence and Nature without any Physical and Substantial Change made of them It is Bread that we eat and Wine that we drink but with a distinction and note of Dignity and Honour it is this Bread and this Cup that is of ordinary and common they become mystical and sacramental they are altered and changed as to their use and effect and condition and not onely a divine Signification but a divine Virtue is imprinted upon them II. That the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Lord doth very fitly and fully represent and set forth his death III. That it is of perpetual Use and Observation and to be continued till the end of the World ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come that is till he come to judge the World at the last day and to put an end to the present state of things IV. That all who profess their Belief in a crucified Saviour and exspect the saving benefits of his Passion are obliged to a frequent celebration of this holy and tremendous Mystery which is here plainly supposed as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup. Which last Proposition I intend to make the Argument of my Discourse at this time Now the Reason and Necessity of the Obligation will appear if we consider these two things I. The End and Design of the Institution of the holy Sacrament II. The blessed Consequences and Effects of frequent Communion 1. The End and Design of the holy Sacrament is that it might be an everlasting Memorial of the Death and Passion of our Lord and Saviour He was pleased after the Consecration of both Elements to add particularly and distinctly not in the way of Advice to be followed if we think fit our selves but in the way of a peremptory and absolute Command v. 24. This doe in remembrance of me and v. 25. This doe ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me It is certain that we ought to remember the Death of our Blessed Saviour at other times as when we are upon our knees at our Prayers He gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Ephes. 5.2 by virtue of which our Prayers wing'd with a lively Faith in his Bloud and with Zeal ascend like a Cloud of Incense into the Holy of Holies and find acceptance with God We cannot employ our Thoughts and Meditations better when we are upon our Beds or when we are in private and especially upon our Days of Fasting and Penitence when God onely is witness to these spiritual Exercises No Argument can make us more and better sensible of the defiling and damning nature of Sin than the consideration of a crucified Saviour that his Bloud was shed on purpose to expiate and attone it This will make us reflect upon our sins with a hearty sorrow and regret which brought the Son of God to so sad and shamefull an end How ought I to abhor and loath my self when I consider that the sins which I have committed though so many hundred years after contributed to his dying and make me an accessory of the guilt of the Jews who were the cruel Instruments of his Murther Nothing can more and better inflame our Zeal and Love to God and to Christ than frequent Meditation on our Saviour's Death that God should contrive this admirable way of our Redemption by the Death of his onely Son whom he sent out of his own bosome on purpose to be a Sacrifice for Sin and whom he set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his bloud for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God Rom. 3.25 and that Christ should willingly undergo all this for our sakes O blessed Saviour how can we recompense this thy infinite Love towards faln Man Jesu God! I cannot doe I cannot suffer enough in the way of a just acknowledgment of thy inexpressible Kindness and Pity to my poor Soul which thou hast redeemed from the nethermost Hell and from the Wrath of God which would have been the more intolerable The reading also of the Narrative and History of our Saviour's Sufferings and Death as they are recorded in the holy Gospels together with a reflexion on the several circumstances of them must needs leave deep impressions upon our memories This tragical story wherewith the Heathen of old used to upbraid the Christians as Votaries and Worshippers of a crucified God was so universally diffused throughout the World that it was impossible that it should be forgotten and the sight of a Cross which assoon as the Roman Empire turned Christian became an Ensign and Trophy of Honour every where to be met with in their Banners and upon their Bucklers and Helmets upon the Diadems of the Emperours upon their Medals upon their Churches and Spires of their Towers and in their solemn Processions would quickly refresh their memories and put them in mind of the great Saviour of the World whose Hands and Feet were nailed to it and his Armes extended upon it to receive and embrace all who fly to him for refuge from the assaults and pursuits of offended Justice But Christ who knew the best and most effectual method to keep alive for ever the Memory of his Passion and Death has ordained this holy Sacrament as the most proper Instrument to make us truly and really sensible and mindfull of it It is not then a matter of mere indifference whether we will receive the Sacrament or no we cannot with any pretence or shew of Reason take a liberty of dispensing with this Law of our Religion as if it were wholly in our power to come and abstain as we please For certainly all Laws were given with an intent that they may be observed and obeyed If they oblige to a Duty and require any thing to be done the Omission is culpable and is more or less aggravated