the spices and gums upon the Altar of Incense SECT II. What it is which we receive in the holy SACRAMENT IT is strange that Christians should pertinaciously insist upon carnal significations and natural effects in Sacraments and Mysteries when our blessed Lord hath given us a sufficient light to conduct and secure us from such mis-apprehensions The flesh profiteth nothing the words which I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life that is the flesh is corruption and its senses are Ministers of death and this one word alone was perpetually sufficient for Christ's Disciples For when upon occasion of the grosse understanding of their Masters words by the men of Capernaum they had been once clearly taught that the meaning of all these words was wholly spiritual they rested there and inquired no further insomuch that when Christ at the institution of the Supper affirmed of the bread and wine that they were his body and his blood they were not at all offended as being sufficiently before instructed in the nature of that Mystery And besides this they saw enough to tell them that what they eat was not the natural body of their Lord This was the body which himself did or might eat with his body one body did eat and the other was eaten both of them were his body but after a diverse manner For the case is briefly this We have two lives a natural and a spiritual and both must have bread for their support and maintenance in proportion to their needs and to their capacities and as it would be an intollerable charity to give nothing but spiritual nutriment to a hungry body and pour diagrams and wise propositions into an empty stomach so it would be as useless and impertinent to feed the Soul with wheat or flesh unless that were the conveyance of a spiritual delicacy In the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the body of Christ according to the proper signification of a humane body is not at all but in a sense differing from the proper and natural body that is in a sense more agreeing to Sacraments so St. Hierom expresly Of this sacrifice which is wonderfully done in the commemoration of Christ we may eat but of that sacrifice which Christ offered on the altar of the Crosse by it self or in its own nature no man may eat For it is his flesh which is under the form of bread and his blood which is in the form and tast of wine for the flesh is the Sacrament of flesh and blood is the Sacrament of blood for by flesh and blood that is invisible spiritual intelligible the visible and tangible body of our Lord Jesus Christ is consigned full of the grace of all vertues and of Divine Majesty So St Augustine For therefore ye are not to eat that body which ye see nor to drink that blood which my crucifiers shall pour out it is the same and not the same the same invisibly but not the same visibly For until the world be finished the Lord is above but the truth of the Lord is with us The body in which he rose again must be in one place but the truth of it is every where diffused For there is one truth of the body in the Mystery and another truth simply and without Mystery It is truly Christs body both in the Sacrament and out of it but in the Sacrament it is not the natural truth but the spiritual and the mystical And therefore it was that our Blessed Saviour to them who apprehended him to promise his natural body and blood for our meat and drink spake of his ascension into heaven that we might learn to look from heaven to receive the food of our souls heavenly and spiritual nourishment said St. Athanasius For this is the letter which in the New Testament kills him who understands not spiritually what is spoken to him under the signification of meat and flesh and blood and drink So Origen For this bread does not go into the body for to how many might his body suffice for meat but the bread of eternal life supports the substance of our spirit and therefore it is not touch'd by the body nor seen with the eyes but by faith it is seen and touched So St. Ambrose And all this whole mystery hath in it neither carnal sense nor carnal consequence saith St. Chrysostom But to believe in Christ is to eat the bread and therefore why do you prepare your teeth and stomach believe him and you have eaten him they are the words of S. Austin For faith is that intellectual mouth as S. Brasil calls it which is within the man by which he takes in nourishment But what need we to draw this water from the lesser cisterns we see this truth reflected from the spring it self the fountains of our blessed Saviour I am the bread of life he that cometh unto me shall not hunger and he that believeth on me shall not thirst and again He that eats my flesh hath life abiding in him and I will raise him up at the last day The plain consequent of which words is this that therefore this eating and drinking of Christs flesh and blood can only be done by the Ministeries of life and of the spirit which is opposed to nature and flesh and death And when we consider that he who is not a spiritual and a holy person does not feed upon Christ who brings life eternal to them that feed on him it is apparent that our manducation must be spiritual and therefore so must the food and consequently it cannot be natural flesh however altered in circumstance and visibilities and impossible or incredible changes For it is not in this spiritual food as it was in Manna of which our Fathers did eat and died but whosoever eats this divine nutriment shall never die The Sacraments indeed and symbols the exterior part and ministeries may be taken unto condemnation but the food it self never For an unworthy person cannot feed on this food because here to eat Christs flesh is to do our duty and to be established in our title to the possession of the eternal promises For so Christ disposed the way of salvation not by flesh but by the spirit saith Tertullian that is according to his own exposition Christ is to be desired for life and to be devoured by hearing to be chewed by the understanding and to be digested by faith and all this is the method and oeconomy of heaven which whosoever uses and abides in it hath life abiding in him He that in this world does any other way look for Christ shall never find him and therefore if men say Loe here is Christ or loe there he is in the desart or he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Cupboards or Pantries where bread or flesh is laid believe it not Christs body is in heaven and it is not upon earth the heavens must contain
and so requiring us to understand 4. And now to this spiritual food must be sitted a spiritual manner of reception and this is the work of faith that spiritual blessings may invest the spirit and be conveyed by proportioned instruments lest the Sacrament be like a treasure in a dead hand or musick in the grave But this I chuse rather to represent in the words of the Fathers of the Church than mine own We see saith St. Epiphanius what our Saviour took into his hands as the Gospel says he arose at supper and took this anâ— when he had given thanks he said This is my body and we see it is not equal nor like to it neither to the invisible Deity nor to the flesh for this is of a round form without sense but by grace he would say This is mine and every one hath faith in this saying For he that doth not believe this to be true as he hath said he is fallen from grace and salvation But that which we have heard that we believe that it is his And again The bread indeed is our food but the virtue which is in it is that which gives us life by faith and efficacy by hope and the perfection of the Mysteries and by the title of sanctification it should be made to us the perfection of salvation For these words are spirit and life and the flesh pierces not into the understanding of this depth unlesse faith come But then The bread is food the blood is life the flesh is substance the body is the Church For the body is indeed shewn it is slain and given for the nourishment of the world that it may be spiritually distributed to every one and be made to every one the conservatory of them to the resurrection of eternal life saith St. Athanasius Therefore because Christ said This is my body let us not at all doubt but believe and receive it with the eye of the soul for nothing sensible is delivered us but by sensible things he gives us insensible or spiritual so St. Chrysostom For Christ would not that they who partake of the divine Mysteries should attend to the nature of the things which are seen but let them by faith believe the change that is made by grace For according to the substance of the creatures it remains after consecration the same it did before But it is changed inwardly by the powerful vertue of the holy Spirit and faith sees it it feeds the soul and ministers the substance of eternal life for now faith sees it all whatsoever it is From these excellent words we are confirmed in these two things 1. That the divine Mysteries are of very great efficacy and benefit to our souls 2. That Faith is the great instrument in conveying these blessings to us For as St. Cyprian affirms the Sacraments of themselves cannot be without their own vertue and the divine Majesty does at no hand absent it self from the Mysteries But then unless by faith we believe all this that Christ said there is nothing remaining but the outward Symbols and the sense of flesh and blood which profits nothing But to believe in Christ is to eat the flesh of Christ. I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall not hunger that is he shall be filled with Christ and he that believeth in me shall not thirst coming to Christ and believing in him is the same thing that is he that believes Christs Words and obeys his Commandments he that owns Christ for his Law-giver and his Master for his Lord and his Redeemer he who lays down his sins in the grave of Jesus and lays down himself at the foot of the Crosse and his cares at the door of the Temple and his sorrows at the Throne of Grace he who comes to Christ to be instructed to be commanded to be relieved and to be comforted to this person Christ gives his body and blood that is food from heaven And then the bread of life and the body of Christ and eating his flesh and drinking his blood are nothing else but mysterious and Sacramental expressions of this great excellency that whoever does this shall partake of all the benefits of the Crosse of Christ where his body was broken and his blood was poured forth for the remission of our sins and the salvation of the world But still that I may use the expression of St. Ambrose Christ is handled by faith he is seen by faith he is not touched by the body he is not comprehended by the eyes 5. But all the inquiry is not yet past For thus we rightly understand the mysterious Propositions but thus we do not fully understand the mysterious Sacrament For since coming to Christ in all the addresses of Christian Religion that is in all the ministeries of faith is eating of the body and drinking the blood of Christ what does faith in the reception of the blessed Sacrament that it does not do without it Of this I have already given an account But here I am to add That in the holy Communion all the graces of a Christian all the mysteries of the Religion are summ'd up as in a divine compendium and whatsoever moral or mysterious is done without is by a worthy Communicant done more excellently in this divine Sacrament for here we continue the confession of our faith which we made in Baptism here we perform in our own persons what then was undertaken for us by another here that is made explicit which was but implicit before what then was in the root is now come to a full year what was at first done in mystery alone is now done in mystery and moral actions and vertuous excellencies together here we do not only here the words of Christ but we obey them we believe with the heart and here we confesse with the mouth and we act with the hand and incline the head and bow the knee and give our heart in sacrifice here we come to Christ and Christ comes to us here we represent the death of Christ as he would have us represent it and remember him as he commanded us to remember him here we give him thanks and here we give him our selves here we defie all the works of darknesse and hither we come to be invested with a robe of light by being joined to the Son of Righteousnesse to live in his eyes and to walk by his brightnesse and to be refreshed with his warmth and directed by his spirit and united to his glories So that if we can receive Christs body and drink his blood out of the Sacrament much more can we do it in the Sacrament For this is the chief of all the Christian Mysteries and the union of all Christian Blessings and the investiture of all Christian Rights and the exhibition of the Charter of all Christian Promises and the exercise of all Christian Duties Here is the exercise
him till the time of restitution of all things and so long as we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord. In the mean time we can taste and see that the Lord is gracious that he is sweet but Christ is so to be tasted as he is to be seen and no otherwise but here we walk by faith and not by sight and here also we live by faith and not by meer or only bread but by that Word which proceedeth out from God that as meat is to the body so is Christ to the soul the food of the soul by which the souls of the just do live He is the bread which came down from heaven the bread which was born at Bethlâ—hem the house of bread was given to us to be the food of our souls for ever The meaning of which mysterious and Sacramental expressions when they are reduced to easie intelligible significations is plainly this By Christ we live and move and have our spiritual being in the life of grace and in the hopes of glory He took our life that we might partake of his he gave his life for us that he might give life to us He is the Author and finisher of our faith the beginning and perfection of our spiritual life Every good thought we think we have it from him every good word we speak we speak it by his spirit for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost and all our prayers are by the aids and communications of the spirit of Christ who helpeth our infirmities and by unutterable groans and unexpressible representment of most passionate desires maketh intercession for us In fine all the principles and parts all the actions and progressions of our spiritual life are derivations from the Son of God by whom we are born and nourished up to life Eternal 2. Christ being the food of our souls he is pleased to signifie this food to us by such symbols and similitudes as his present state could furnish us withal He had nothing about him but flesh and blood which are like to meat and drink and therefore what he calls himself saying I am the bread of life he afterwards calls his flesh and his blood saying My flesh is meat indeed my blood is drink indeed that is that you may perceive me to be indeed the food of your souls see here is meat and drink for you my flesh and my blood so to represent himself in a way that was neerest to our capacity and in a more intelligible manner not further from a Mystery but neerer to our manner of understanding and yet so involved in figure that it is never to be drawn neerer than a Mystery till it comes to experience and spiritual relish and perception But because we are not in darknesse but within the fringes and circles of a bright cloud let us search as far into it as we are guided by the light of God and where we are forbidden by the thicker part of the cloud step back and worship 3. For we have yet one further degree of charity and manifestation of this Mystery The flesh of Christ is his word the blood of Christ is his spirit and by believing in his word and being assisted and conducted by his spirit we are nourished up to life and so Christ is our food so he becomes life unto our souls Thus St. Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian affirm the Church in their days to have understood this Mystery saying The word of God is called flesh and blood For so the eternal wisdom of the Father calls to every simple soul that wanteth understanding come eat of the bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled and that we may know what is this bread and wine he adds forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding Our life is wisdom our food is understanding The Rabbins have an observation that when ever mention is made in the Book of the Proverbs of eating and drinking there is meant nothing but wisdom and the Law and when the Doctors using the words of Scripture say Come and eat flesh in which there is much fatness they would be understood to say Come and hear wisdom and learn the fear of God in which there is great nourishment and advantage to your souls Thus Wisdom is called Water and Vnderstanding Bread by the son of Sirach with the bread of understanding shall she feed him and give him the water of wisdom to drink It is by the Prophet Isaiah called water and wine and the desires of righteousness are called hunger and thirst by our blessed Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount And in pursuance of this mysterious truth we find that God in his anger threatens a famine of hearing the words of the Lord when we want Gods word we die with hunger we want that bread on which our souls do feed It was an excellent Commentary which the Jewish Doctors make upon those words of the Prophet with joy shall ye draw waters from the wells of salvation that is from the choicest or wisest of the just men saith Rabbi Jonathan from the chief Ministers of Religion the Heads of the people and the Rulers of the Congregation because they preach the Word of God they open the wells of salvation from the fountains of our Saviour giving drink and refreshment to all the people Thus the Prophet Jeremy expresses his spiritual joy and the sense of this Mystery Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart for I am called by thy Name O Lord God of Hosts the same with that of our Blessed Saviour My words are spirit and they are life they give life and comfort they refresh our souls and feed them up to immortality As the body or flesh of Christ is his Word so the blood of Christ is his Spirit in real effect and signification For as the body without blood is a dead and liveless trunck so is the Word of God without the Spirit a dead and ineffective Letter and this Mystery we are taught in that incomparable Epistle to the Hebrews For by the blood of Christ we are sanctified and yet that which sanctifies us is the spirit of grace and both these are one For so saith the Apostle the blood of Christ was offered up for us for the purification of our consciences from dead works but this offering was made through the eternal spirit and therefore he is equally guilty and does the same impiety he who does dâ—spâ—te to the spirit of Grace and he who accounts the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing for by this spirit and by this blood we are sanctified by this spirit and by the blood of the everlasting Covâ—nant Jesus Christ does perfect us in every good work so that these are the
same Ministry of salvation and but one and the same Oeconomy of God Thus St. Peter affirms That by the precious blood of Christ we are redeemed from our vain conversation and it is every where affirmed that we are purified and cleansed by the blood of Christ and yet these are the express effects of his Spirit for by the spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body and we are justified and sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus by the spirit of our God By which expressions we are taught to distinguish the natural blood of Christ from the spiritual the blood that he gave for us from the blood which he gives to us that was indeed by the spirit but was not the same thing but this is the spirit of grace and the spirit of wisdom And therefore as our Fathers were made to drink into one spirit when they drank of the water of the rock so we also partake of the spirit when we drink of Christs blood which came from the spiritual rock when it was smitten for thus according to the Doctrine of St. John the water aâ—d the blood and the spirit are one and the same glorious purposes As it was with our Fathers in the beginning so it is now with us and so it ever shall be world without end for they fed upon Christ that is they believed in Christ they expected his day they lived upon his promises they lived by faith in him and the same meat and drink is set upon our Tables and more than all this as Christ is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world so he shall be the food of souls in heaven where they who are accounted worthy shall sit down and be feasted in the eternal Supper of the Lamb concerning which blessedness our B. Saviour saith Blessed is he that eateth bread in the Kingdom of God for he hath appointed to his chosen ones to eat and drink at his table in his Kingdom plainly teaching us that by eating and drinking Christ is meant in this world to live the life of the spirit and in the other world it is to live the life of glory here we feed upon duty and there we feed upon reward our wine is here mingled with water and with myrrhe there it is mere and unmixt but still it is called meat and drink and still is meant grace and glory the fruits of the spirit and the joy of the spirit that is by Christ we here live a spiritual life and hereafter shall live a life eternal Thus are sensible things the Sacrament and representation of the spiritual and eternal and spiritual things are the fulfillings of the sensible But the consequent of these things is this that since Christ always was is and shall be the food of the faithful and is that bread which came down from heaven since we eat him here and shall eat him there our eating both here and there is spiritual only the word of teaching shall be changed into the word of glorification and our faith into Charity and all the way our souls live a new life by Christ of which eating and drinking is the Symbol and the Sacrament And this is not done to make this mystery obscure but intelligible and easie For so the pains of hell are expressed by fire which to our flesh is most painful and the joyes of God by that which brings us greatest pleasure by meat and drink and the growth in grace by the natural instruments of nutrition and the work of the Soul by the ministeries of the body and the graces of God by the blessings of nature for these we know and we know nothing else and but by phantasmes and ideas of what we see and feel we understand nothing at all Now this is so far from being a diminution of the glorious mystery of our Communion that the changing all into spirituality is the greatest increase of blessing in the world And when he gives us his body and his blood he does not fill our stomachs with good things for of whatsoever goes in thither it is affirmed by the Apostle that God will destroy both it and them but our hearts are to be replenished and by receiving his spirit we receive the best thing that God gives not his liveless body but his flesh with life in it that is his doctrine and his spirit to imprint it so to beget a living faith and a lively hope that we may live and live for ever 4. St. John having thus explicated this mystery in general of our eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ added nothing in particular concerning any Sacraments these being in particular instances of the general mystery and communion with Christ. But what is the advantage we receive by the Sacraments besides that which we get by the other and distinct ministeries of faith I thus account in general The word and the spirit are the flesh and the blood of Christ that is the ground of all Now because there are two great Sermons of the Gospel which are the summe total and abbreviature of the whole word of God the great messages of the word incarnate Christ was pleased to invest these two words with two Sacraments and assist those two Sacraments as he did the whole word of God with the presence of his Spirit that in them we might do more signally and solemnly what was in the ordinary ministrations done plainly and without extraordinary regards Believe and repent is the word in Baptisme and and there solemnly consigned and here it is that by faith we feed on Christ for faith as it is opposed to works that is the new Covenant of faith as it is opposed to the old Covenant of works is the covenant of repentance repentance is expressly included in the new covenant but was not in the old but by faith in Christ we are admitted to pardon of our sins if we repent and forsake them utterly Now this is the word of faith and this is that which is called the flesh or body of Christ for this is that which the soul feeds on this is that by which the just do live and when by the operation of the holy spirit the waters are reformed to a Divine Nature or efficacy the baptized are made clean theâ— are sanctified and presented pure and spotless unto God This mystery St. Austin rightly understood when he affirmed that we are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ when we are in baptisme incorporated into his body we are baptized in the passion of our Lord so Tertullian to the same sense with that of St. Paul we are buried with him in baptisme into his death that is by baptisme are conveyed to us all the effects of Christ's death the flesh and blood of Christ crucified are in baptisme reached to us by the hand of God by his holy spirit and received by the hand of man the Ministery of
a holy faith So that it can without difficulty be understood that as in receiving the word and the spirit illuminating us in our first conversion we do truely feed on the flesh and drink the blood of Christ who is the bread that came down from heaven so we do it also and do it much more in baptisme because in this besides all that was before there was superadded a rite of Gods appointment The difference is only this That out of the Sacrament the spirit operates with the word in the ministery of man in Baptisme the spirit operates with the word in the ministery of God For here God is the preacher the Sacrament is Gods sign and by it he ministers life to us by the flesh and blood of his Son that is by the death of Christ into which we are baptized And in the same Divine method the word and the spirit are ministred to us in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For as in Baptisme so here also there is a word proper to the ministery So often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye declare the Lords death till he come This indeed is a word of comfort Christ died for our sins that is our repentance which was consigned in baptisme shall be to purpose we shall be washed white and clean in the blood of the sacrificed Lamb. This is verbum visibile the same word read to the eye and to the ear Hear the word of God is made our food in a manner so near to our understanding that our tongues and palats feel the Metaphor and the Sacramental signification here faith is in triumph and exaltation but as in all the other ministeries Evangelical we eat Christ by faith here we have faith also by eating Christ Thus eating and drinking is faith it is faith in mystery and faith in ceremony it is faith in act and faith in habit it is exercised and it is advanced and therefore it is certain that here we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ with much eminency and advantage The sum is this Christs body his flesh and his blood are therefore called our meat and our drink because by his incarnation and manifestation in the flesh he became life unto us So that it is mysterious indeed in the expression but very proper and intelligible in the event to say that we eat his flesh and drink his blood since by these it is that we have and preserve life But because what Christ begun in his incarnation he finished in his body on the crosse and all the whole progression of mysteries in his body was still an operatory of life and spiritual being to us the Sacrament of the Lords Supper being a commemoration and exhibition of this death which was the consummation of our redemption by his body and blood does contain in it a visible word the word in symbol and visibility and special manifestation Consonant to which Docrtine the Fathers by an elegant expression call the blessed Sacrament the extension of the Incarnation So that here are two things highly to be remarked 1. That by whatsoever way Christ is taken out of the Sacrament by the same he is taken in the Sacrament and by some wayes here more than there 2. That the eating and drinking the consecrated symbols is but the body and lesser part of the Sacrament the life and the spirit is believing greatly and doing all the actions of that believing direct and consequent So that there are in this two manducations and Sacramental and the Spiritual That does but declare and exercise this and of the sacramental manducation as it is alone as it is a ceremony as it does only consigne or expresse the internal it is true to affirm that it is only an act of obedience but all the blessings and conjugations of joy which come to a worthy Communicant proceed from that spiritual eating of Christ which as it is done out of the Sacrament very well so in it and with it much better For here being as in baptisme a double significatory of the spirit a word and a sign of his own appointment it is certain he will joyn in this Ministration Here we have bread and drink flesh and blood the word and the spirit Christ in all his effects and most gracious communications This is the general account of the nature and purpose of this great mystery Christians are spiritual men faith is their mouth and wisdom is their food and believing is manducation and Christ is their life and truth is the Air they breath and their bread is the word of God and Gods spirit is their drink and righteousness is their robe and Gods laws are their light and the Apostles are their salt and Christ is to them all in all for we must put on Christ and we must eat Christ and we must drink Christ we must have him within us and we must be in him he is our vine and we are his branches he is a door and by him we must enter he is our shepherd and we his sheep Deus meus omnia he is our God and he is all things to us that is plainly he is our Redeemer and he is our Lord He is our Saviour and our Teacher by his Word and by his Spirit he brings us to God and to felicities eternal and that is the sum of all For greater things than these we can neither receive nor expect But these things are not consequent to the reception of the natural body of Christ which is now in heaven but of his Word and of his Spirit which are therefore indeed his body and his blood because by these we feed on him to life eternal Now these are indeed conveyed to us by the several ministries of the Gospel but especially in the Sacraments where the Word is preached and consigned and the Spirit is the teacher and the feeder and makes the Table full and the Cup to overflow with blessing SECT III. That in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper there are represented and exhibited many great blessings upon the special account of that sacred ministery proved in General IN explicating the Nature of this Divine mystery in general as I have manifested the nature and operations and the whole ministery to be spiritual and that not the natural body and blood of Christ is received by the mouth but the word and the spirit of Christ by faith and a spiritual hand and upon this account have discovered their mistake who think the secret lies in the outside and suppose that we tear the natural flesh of Christ with our mouthes So I have by consequent explicated the secret which others indefinitely and by conjecture and zeal do speak of and know not what to say but resolve to speak things great enough it remains now that I consider for the satisfaction of those that speak things too contemptible of these holy mysteries who say it is nothing but a commemoration of
of the body of Christ for we being many are one body and one bread in baptisme we partake of the death of Christ and in the Lords Supper we do the same in that as Babes in this as men in Christ so that what effects are affirmed of one the same are in greater measure true of the other they are but several rounds of Jacobs ladder reaching up to heaven upon which the Angels ascend and descend and the Lord sits upon the top And because the Sacraments Evangelical be of the like kind of mystery with the Sacraments of old from them we can understand that even signs of secret graces do exhibit as well as signifie for besides that there is a natural analogy between the ablution of the body and the purification of the soul between eating the holy bread and drinking the sacred calice and a participation of the body and blood of Christ it is also in the method of the divine oeconomy to dispense the grace which himself signifies in a ceremony of his own institution thus at the Unction of Kings Priests and of Prophets the sacred power was bestowed and as a Canon is invested in his dignity by the tradition of a book and an Abbat by his staffe a Bishop by a ring they are the words of St. Bernard so are divisions of graces imparted to the diverse Sacraments And therefore although it ought not to be denyed that when in Scripture and the writings of the holy Doctors of the Church the collation of grace is attributed to the sâ—gn it is by a metonymy and a Sacramental manner of speaking yet it is also a synecdoche of the part for the whole because both the Sacrament and the grace are joyned in the lawful and holy use of them by Sacramental union or rather by a confederation of the parts of the holy Covenant Our hearts are purified by faith and so our consciences are also made clean in the cestern of water By faith we are saved and yet he hath savâ—d us by the laver of regeneration and they are both joyned together by St. Paul Christ gave himself for his Church that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that is plainly by the Sacrament according to the famous Commentary of St. Austin accedat verbum ad elementum tum fit sacramentum when the word and the element are joyned then it is a perfect Sacrament and then it does effect all its purposes and intentions Thus we find that the grace of God is given by the imposition of hands and yet as Austin rightly affirmes God alone can give his holy spirit and the Apostles did not give the holy Ghost to them upon whom they laid their hands but prayed that God would give it and he did so at the imposition of their hands Thus God sanctified Aaron and yet he said to Moses thou shalt sanctifie Aaron that is not that Moses did it instead of God but Moses did it by his ministery and by visible Sacraments and rites of Gods appointment and though we are born of an immortal seed by the word of the living God yet St. Paul said to the Corinthians I have begotten you through the Gosâ—el and thus it is in the greatest as well as in the least he that drinks Christ's blood and eats his body hath life abiding in him it is true of the â—acrament and true of the spiritual manducation and may be indifferently affirmed of either when the other is not excluded for as the Sacrament operates only by the vertue of the spirit of God so the spirit ordinarily works by the instrumentality of the Sacraments And we may as well say that faith is not by hearing as that grace is not by the Sacraments for as without the spirit the word is but a dead letter so with the spirit the Sacrament is the means of life and grace And the meditation of St. Chrysostom is very pious and reasonable If we were wholly incorporeal God would have given us graces unclothed with signs and Sacraments but because our spirits are in earthen vessels God conveyes his graces to us by sensible ministrations The word of God operates as secretly as the Sacraments and the Sacraments as powerfully as the word nay the word is alwayes joyned in the worthy administration of the Sacrament which therefore operates both as word and sign by the ear and by the eyes and by both in the hand of God and the conduct of the spirit effect all that God intends and that a faithful receiver can require and pray for For justification and sanctification are continued acts they are like the issues of a Fountain into its receptacles God is alwayes giving and we are alwayes receiving and the signal effects of Gods holy spirit sometimes give great indications but most commonly come without observation and therefore in these things we must not discourse as in the conduct of oâ—her causes and operations natural for although in natural effects we can argue from the cause to the event yet in spiritual things we are to reckon only from the sign to the event And the signs of grace we are to place in stead of natural causes because a Sacrament in the hand of God is a proclamation of his graces he then gives us notice that the springs of heaven are opened and then is the time to draw living waters from the fountains of salvation When Jonathan shot his arrows beyond the boy he then by a Sacrament sent salvation unto David he bad him be gone and flie from his Fathers wrath and although Jonathan did do his business for him by a continual care and observation yet that symbol brought it unto David for so are we conducted to the joyes of God by the methods and possibilities of men In conclusion the sum is this The Sacraments and symbols if they be considered in their own nature are just such as they seem water and bread and wine they retain the names proper to their own natures but because they are made to be signs of a secret mystery and water is the symbol of purification of the soul from sin and bread and wine of Christs body and blood therefore the symbols and Sacraments receive the names of what themselves do sign they are the body and they are the blood of Christ they are Metonymically such But because yet further they are instruments of grace in the hand of God and by these his holy spirit changes our hearts and translates us into a Divine nature therefore the whole work is attributed to them by a Synecdoche that is they do in their manner the work for which God ordained them and they are placed there for our sakes and speak Gods language in our accent and they appear in the outside we receive the benefit of their ministery and God receives the glory SECT IV. The blessings and Graces of the Holy Sacrament enumerated and proved
particularly IN the reception of the blessed Sacrament there are many blessings which proceed from our own actions the conjugations of moral duties the offices of preparation and reception the reverence and the devotion of which I shall give account in the following Chapters here I am to enumerate those graces which are intended to descend upon us from the spirit of God in the use of the Sacrament it self precisely But first I consider that it must be infinitely certain that great spiritual blessings are consequent to the worthy receiving this Divine Sacrament because it is not at all received but by a spiritual hand for it is either to be understood in a carnal sense that Christs body is there eaten or in a spiritual sense If in a carnal it profits noâ—hing If in a spiritual he be eaten let the meaning of that be considered and it will convince us that innumerable blessings are in the very reception and Communion Now what the meaning of this spiritual eating is I have already declared in this chapter and shall yet more fully explicate in the sequel In the Sacrament we do not receive Christ carnally but we receive him spiritually and that of it self is a conjugation of blessings and spiritual graces The very understanding what we do tells us also what we receive But I descend to particulars 1. And first I reckon that the Sacrament is intended to increase our faith for although it is with us in this Holy Sacrament as it was with Abraham in the Sacrament of circumcision he had the grace of faith before he was circumcised and received the Sacrament after he had the purpose and the grace and we are to believe before we receive these symbols of Christ death yet as by loving we love more and by the acts of patience we increase in the spirit of mortification so by believing we believe more and by publication of our confession we are made confident and by seeing the signs of what we believe our very senses are incorporated into the article and he that hath shall have more and when we concorporate the sign with the signification we conjoyn the word and the spirit and faith passes on from believing to an imaginary seeing and from thence to a greater earnestness of believing and we shall believe more abundantly this increase of faith not being only a natural and proper production of the exercise of its own acts but a blessing and an effect of the grace of God in that Sacrament it being certain that since the Sacrament being of Divine institution it could not be to no purpose for in spiritualibus Sacramentis ubi praecipit virtus servit effectus where the commandment comes from him that hath all power the action cannot be destitute of an excellent event and therefore that the representing of the death of Christ being an act of faith and commanded by God must needs in the hands of God be more effectual than it is in its own nature that faith shall then increase not only by the way of nature but by Gods blessing his own instruments can never be denied but by them that neither have faith nor experience For this is the proper scene and the very exaltation of faith the Latine Church for a long time into the very words of consecration of the calice hath put words relating to this purpose For this is the cup of my blood of the New and Eternal Testament the mystery of faith which for you and for many shall be shed for the remission of sins And if by faith we eat the flesh of Christ as it is confessed by all the Schools of Christians then it is certain that when so manifestly and solemnly according to the divine appointment we publish this great confession of the death of Christ we do in all senses of spiritual blessing eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ and let that be expounded how we list we are not in this world capable and we do not need a greater blessing and God may sâ—y in the words of Isaac to his son Esau with corn and wine have I sustained thee and what is there left that I can do unto thee my son To eat the flesh and to drink the blood of Christ Sacramentally is an act of faith and every act of faith joyned with the Sacrament does grow by the nature of grace and the measures of a blessing and therefore is eating of Christ spiritually and this reflexion of acts like circles of a glorious and eternal fire passes on in the univocal production of its own parts till it passe from grace to glory 2. Of the same consideration it is that all the graces which we do exercise by the nature of the Sacrament requiring them or by the necessity of the commandment of preparation do here receive increase upon the account of the same reason but I instance only in that of Charity of which this is signally and by an especial remark the Sacrament and therefore these holy conventions are called by St. Jude feasts of charity which were Christian Festivals in which also they had the Sacrament adjoined but whether that do effect this persuasion or no yet the thing it self is dogmatically affirmed in St. Pauls explication of that mystery we are one body because we partake of one bread that is plainly Christ is our head and we the members of his body and are united in this mystical union by the holy Sacrament not only because it symbolically does teach our duty and promotes the grace of charity by a real signature and a sensible Sermon nor yet only because it calls upon Christians by the publick Sermons of the Gospel and the duties of preparation and the usual expectations of conscience and Religion but even by the blessing of God and the operation of the holy Spirit in the Sacrament which as appears plainly by the words of the Apostle is designed to this very end to be a reconciler and an atonement in the hand of God a band of charity and the instrument of Christian Communion that we may be one body because we partake of one bread that is we may be mystically united by the Sacramental participation and therefore it was not without mystery that the Congregation of all Christ servants his Church and this Sacramental bread are both in Scripture called by the same name This bread is the body of Christ and the Church is Christs body too for by the communion of this bread all faithful people are confederated into one body the body of our Lord. Now it is to be observed that although the expression is tropical and figurative that we are made one body because it is meant in a spiritual sense yet that spiritual sense means the most real event in the world we are really joyned to one common Divine principle Jesus Christ our Lord and from him we do communicate in all the blessings of his grace and
made one with Christ then it shall be to us in our proportion as it was to him we shall rise again and we shall enter into glory But it is certain we are united to Christ by it we eat his body and drink his blood Sacramentally by our mouths and therefore really and spiritually by our spirits and by spiritual actions cooperating For what good will it do us to partake of his body if we do not also partake of his spirit but certain it is if we do one we do both cum naturalis per sacramentum proprietas perfectae sacramentum sit unitatis as St. Hilaries expression is the natural propriety viz the outward elements by the Sacrament that is by the institution and blessing of God become the Sacrament of a perfect unity which beside all the premisses is distinctly affirmed in the words of the Apostle we which are sanctified and he which sanctifies are all of one and again the bread which we break is it not the communication of the body of Christ and the cup which we drink is it not the communication of the blood of Christ plainly saying that by this holy ministery we are joyned and partake of Christs body and blood and then we become spiritually one body and therefore shall receive in our bodies all the effects of that spiritual union the chief of which in relation to our bodies is resurrection from the grave And this is expresly taught by the Ancient Church So St. Irenaeus teaches us As the bread which grows from the earth receiving the calling of God that is blessed by prayer and the word of God is not now common bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and an heavenly so also our bodies receiving the Eucharist are not now corruptible but have the hope of resurrection And again when the mingled calice and the made bread receives the word of God viz. is consecrated and blessed it is made the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ out of those things by which our body is nourished and our substance does consist and how shall any one deny that the flesh is capable of the gift of God which is eternal life which is nourished by the body and blood of Christ And St. Ignatius calls the blessed Eucharist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the medicine of immortallity for the drink is his blood who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incorruptible love and eternal life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Fathers of the Nicene Councel the symbols of our resurrection the meat nourishing to immortallity and eternal life so Cyril of Alexandria for this is to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakers of the Lords incorruptibility said St. Clement For bread is food and blood is life but we drink the blood of Christ himself commanding us that together with him we may by him be partakers of eternal life So St. Cyprian aut quicunque sit author Sermon de coenâ Domini 6. Because this is a ministry of grace by bodily ceremonies and conveys spiritual blessings by temporal ministrations there is something also of temporal regard directly provided for our bodies by the holy Sacrament It sometimes is a means in the hand of God for the restoring and preserving respectively of our bodily health and secular advantages I will not insist upon that of St. Gorgonia who being oppressed with a violent head-ach threw her self down before the holy Table where the Sacrament was placed and prayed with passion and pertinacy till she obtained relief and ease in that very place Nor that of St. Ambrose who having trod upon a Gentlemans foot afflicted with the gout in the time of ministration gave him the holy smbols and told him it was good for his sicknesse also and that he presently found his cure I my self knew a person of great sanctity who was afflicted to deaths door with a vomiting and preparing her self to death by her viaticum the holy Sacrament to which she always bore a great reverence she was infinitely desirous and yet equally fearful to receive it lest she should reject that by her infirmity which in her spirit she passionately longed for but her desire was the greater passion and prevailed she received it and swallowed it and after great and earnest reluctancy being forced to cast it up in zeal and with a new passion took it in again and then retained it and from that instant speedily recovered against the hope of her Physician and the expectation of all her friends God does miracles every day and he who with spittle and clay cured the blind mans eyes may well be supposed to glorifie himself by the extraordinary contingences and Sacramental contacts of his own body But that which is most famous and remarked is that the Austrian Family do attribute the rise of their House to the present Grandeur to Wâ—lliam Earl of Hasburgh and do acknowledg it to be a reward of his piety in the venerable treatment and usage of these Divine mysteries It were easier to heap together many rare contingences and miraculous effects of the holy Sacrament than to find faith to believe them now-adayes and therefore for this whole affair I relie upon the words of Saint Paul affirming that God sent sicknesses and sundry kinds of death to punish the Corinthian irreverent treatment of the Blessed Sacrament and therefore it is not to be deemed but that life and health will be the consequent of our holy usages of it for if by our fault it is a savour of death it is certain by the blessing and intention of God it is a favour of life But of these things in particular we have no promise and therefore such events as these cannot upon this account of faith and certain expectations be designed by us in our communions If God please to send any of them as sometimes he hath done it is to promote his own glory and our value of the Blessed Sacrament the great ministry of salvation 7. The sum of all I represent in these few words of St. Hilary These holy mysteries being taken cause that Christ shall be in us and we in Christ and if this be more than words we need no further inquiry into the particulars of blessing consequent to a worthy communion for if God hath given his Son unto us how shall not he with him give us all things else nay all things that we need are effected by this said St. Clement of Alexandria one of the most antient Fathers of the Church of Christ Eucharistia qui per fidem sunt participes sanctifiâ—antur corpore animâ They who by faith are partakers of the Eucharist are sanctified both in body and in soul. Fonte renascentes membris sanguine Christi Vescimur atque ideo templum Deitatis habemur Sedul How great therefore and how illustrious benefits it is the meditation of St. Eusebius Emissenus does the power of the Divine blessing
Consecration of the holy Mysteries as is to be seen in many Ecclesiastical Records The reason of this is noâ—hing but the nature and analogy of the thing it self For we first come to Christ by faith and we first come to Christ by Baptism they are the two doors of the Tabernacle which our Lord hath piâ—ched and not man By faith we desire to go in and by baptism we are admitted Faith knocks at the door and baptism sets it open but until we are in the house we cannot be entertained at the Masters Table they that are in the high ways and hedges must be called in and come in at the doors and then they shall be feasted The one is the moral entrance and the other is the ritual Faith is the door of the soul and baptism is the door of the man Faith is the spiritual addresse to God and baptism is the Sacramental Baptism is like the pool of Siloam appointed for healing it is salutary and medicinal but the Spirit of God is that great Angel that descends thither and makes them virtual and faith is the hand that puts us in So that faith alone does not do it and therefore the unbaptized must not Communicaâ—e So neither will baptism alone admit us and therefore Infants and Innocents are yet uncapable But that 's the next inquiry SECT II. Of Communicating Infants Question Whether Infants are to be admitted to the Holy Communion WHether the holy Communion may be given to Infants hath been a great question in the Church of God which in this instance hath not been as in others divided by parties and single persons but by whole ages for from some of the earliest ages of the Church down to the time of Charles the Great that is for above six hundred years the Church of God did give the holy Communion to newly baptized Infants St. Cyprian recounts a miracle of an Infant into whose mouth when the parents had ignorantly and carelesly left the babe the Gentile Priests had forced some of their Idol Sacrifice But when the Minister of the Church came to pour into the mouth the Calice of our Lord it resisted and being over-powred grew sick and fell into convulsions By which narrative the practice of the Church of that age is sufficiently declared Of the matter of fact there is no question but they went further The Primitive Church did believe it necessary to the salvation of Infants St. Austin believed that this Doctrine and practice descended from the Apostles that without both the Sacraments no person could come to life or partake of the Kingdom of heaven which when he had endeavoured to prove largely he infers this conclusion It is in vain to promise salvation and life eternal to little children unlesse they be baptized and receive the body and blood of Christ since the necessity of them both is attested by so many so great and so divine Testimonies And that this practice continued to the time of Charlemaine appears by a Constitution in his Capitular saying That the Priest should always have the Eucharist ready that when any one is sick or when a child is weak he may presently give him the Communion lest he die without it And Alcuinus recites a Canon expresly charging that as soon as ever the Infants are baptized they should receive the holy Communion before they suck or receive any other nourishment The same also is used by the Greeks by the Aethiopians by the Bohemians and Moravians and it is confessed by Maldonate that the opinion of St. Austin and Innocentius that the Eucharist is necessary even to Infants prevailed in the Church for six hundred years together But since the time of Charles the Great that is for above eight hundred years this practice hath been omitted in the Western Churches generally and in the Council of Trent it was condemned as unfit and all men commanded to believe that though the ancient Churches did do it upon some probable reasons yet they did not believe it necessary Concerning which I shall not interrupt the usefulnesse which I intend in this discourse by confuting the Canon though it be intolerable to command men to believe in a matter of fact contrary to their evidence and to say that the Fathers did not believe it to be necessary when they say it is and used it accordingly yet because it relates to the use of this divine Sacrament I shall give this short account of it The Church of Rome and some few others are the only refusers and condemners of this ancient and Catholick practice But upon their grounds they cannot reasonably deny it 1. Because Infants are by them affirmed to be capable of the grace and benefits of the Eucharist for to them who put no bar as Infants put none the Sacraments by their inherent virtue confer grace and therefore particularly it is affirmed that if Infants did now receive the Eucharist they should also receive grace with it and therefore it is not unreasonable to give it to them who therefore are capable of it because it will do them benefit and it is consequently upon these grounds uncharitable to deny it For 2. They allow the ground upon the supposition of which the Fathers did most reasonably proceed and they only deny the conclusion For by the words of Christ it is absolutely necessary to eat his flesh and drink his blood and if those words be understood of Sacramental manducation in which interpretation both the ancients and the Church of Rome do consent then it is absolutely necessary to communicate For although there are other ways of eating his flesh and drinking of his blood besides the Sacramental manducation yet Christ in this place meant no other and if of this he spake when he said Without doing this we have no life in us then it will not be sufficient to baptize them though it baptism they should receive the same grace as in the Eucharist because abstracting from the benefit and grace of it it is made necessary by the Commandment and by the will of God it is become a means indispensibly necessary to salvation It is necessary by a necessity of the means and a necessity of precept True it is that in each of the Sacraments there is a proportion of the same effect as I have already discoursed yet this cannot lessen the necessity that is upon them both for so Pharaohs dream was doubled not to signifie divers events but a double certainty and therefore although children even in baptism are partakers of the death of Christ and are incorporated into and made partakers of his body yet because Christ hath made one as necessary as the other and both for several proportions of the same reason the Church of Rome must either quit the Principle or retain the consequent for they have digged a ditch on both sides and on either hand they are fallen into inconvenience But it will be
is the first principle of the world not meaning that darknesse was before light but by Darkness they mean God as Damascius the Platonist rightly observes saying This darknesse or obscurity is the beginning of every intellectual being and every Sacramental action and therefore in their ceremonies they usually made three acclamations to the unknown Darkness that is to God whose secrets are pervious to no eye whose dwelling is in a light that is not to be discerned whose mysteries are not to be understood by us and whose Sacraments are objects of faith and wonder but not to be disordered by the mistaking undiscerning eye of people that are curious to ask after what they shall never understand Faith is oftentimes safer in her ignorance than in busie questions and to enquire after the manner of what God hath plainly and simply told may be an effect of infidelity but never an act of faith If concerning the things of God we once ask Why or How we argue our doubt and want of confidence and therefore it was an excellent Counsel of S. Cyril Believe firmly in the mysteries and consent to the words of Christ but never so much as speak or think How is this done In your faith be as particular and minute as Christ was in his expressions of it but no more He hath told us This is his body This is his blood believe it and so receive it but he hath not told us how it is so it is behind a cloud and tied up with a knot of secrecy therefore let us lay our finger on our mouth and worship humbly But he that looks into the eye of the Sun shall be blind and he that searches into the secrets of Majesty shall be confounded with the glory The next enquiry is What is the use of faith in this Sacrament It is tied but to little duty and a few plain articles what then is the use and advantages of it To what graces does it minister and what effect does it produce To this the answer is easie but yet such as introduces a further enquiry Faith indeed is not curious but material and therefore in the contemplation of this mysterious Sacrament and its Symbols we are more to regard their signification than their matter their holy imployment than their natural usuage what they are by grace than what they are by nature what they signifie rather than what they are defin'd Faith considers not how they nourish the body but how they support and exalt the soul that they are Sacramental not that they are also nutritive that they are made holy to purposes of Religion not that they are salutary to offices of nature that is what they are to the spirit not what they are to sense and disputation For to faith Christ is present by faith we eat his flesh and by faith we drink his blood that is we communicate not as men but as faithful and believers the meaning and the duty and the effect of which are now to be inquired 1. It signifies that Christ is not present in the Sacrament corporally or naturally but spiritually for thus the carnal and spiritual sense are opposed So St. Chrysostom upon those words of Christ the flesh profiteth nothing what is it to understand carnally To understand them simply and plainly as they are spoken For they are not to be judged as they seem but all mysteries are to be considered with internal eyes that is spiritually For the carnal sense does not penetrate to the understanding of so great a secret saith St. Cyprian For therefore we are not devourers of flesh because we understand these things spiritually So Theophilaect 2. Since the spiritual sense excludes the natural and proper it remains that the expression which is natural be in the sense figurative and improper and if the holy Sacrament were not a figure it could neither be a sign nor a Sacrament But therefore it is called the body and blood of Christ because it is the figure of them as St. Austin largely discourses â—or so when good Friday draws neer we say to morrow or the next day is the passion of our Lord although that passion was but once and that many ages since and upon the Lords day we say to day our blessed Lord arose from the dead although so many years be passed since and why is no man so foolish as to reprove us of falshood but because on these dayes is the similitude of those things which were done so long since Was not Christ once sacrificed and yet he is sacrificed still on the solemnities of Easter and every day in the Communions of the people neither does he say false who being asked shall say that he is sacrificed for if the Sacraments had not a similitude of those things whereof they are Sacraments they would be no Sacraments at all But most commonly by their similitudes things receive their names Thus Tertullian expresses this mystery This is my body that is the figure of my body and St. Gregory Nazianzen calls the Passeover because it antedated the Lords Supper a figure of a figure 3. But St. Austin added well The body of Christ is truth and figure too The holy Sacrament is not only called the Lords body and blood for the figure similitude and Sacramentality but for the real exhibition and ministration of it For it is truly called the body of Christ because there is joyned with it the vital power vertue and efficacy of the body and therefore it is called by St. Austin the intelligible the invisible the spiritual body by St. Hierom the Divine and spiritual flesh the celestial thing by St. Irenaeus the spiritual food and the body of the divine Spirit by St. Ambrose for by this means it can very properly be called the body and blood of Christ since it hath not only the figure of his death externally but internally it hath hidden and secret the proper and divine effect the life-giving power of his body so that though it be a figure yet it is not meerly so not only the sign and memorial of him that is absent but it bears along with it the very body of the Lord that is the efficacy and divine vertue of it Thus our blessed Saviour said of John the Baptist that Elias is already come because he came in the power and spirit of Elias As John was Elias so is the holy Sacrament the body and blood of Christ because it hath the power and spirit of the body of Christ. And therefore the ancient Doctors of the Church in their Sermons of these divine Mysteries use the word Nature and Substance not understanding these words in the natural or Philosophical but a Theological in a sense proper to the Schools of Christians by Substance meaning the power of the substance by Nature the gracious effect of his natural body the nature and use and mysteriousnesse of Sacraments so allowing them to speak
of our faith and acts of obedience and the confirmation of our hope and the increase of our charity So that although God be gracious in every dispensation yet he is bountiful in this although we serve God in every vertue yet in the worthy reception of this divine Sacrament there must be a conjugation of vertues and therefore we serve him more we drink deep of his loving kindnesse in every effusion of it but in this we are inebriated he always fills our cup but here it runs over The effects of these Considerations are these 1. That by Faith in our dispositions and preparations to the holy Communion is not understood only the act of faith but the body of faith not only believing the articles but the dedication of our persons not only a yielding up of our understanding but the engaging of our services not the hallowing of one faculty but the sanctification of the whole man That faith which is necessary to the worthy receiving this divine Sacrament is all that which is necessary to the susception of Baptism and all that which is produced by hearing the word of God and all that which is exercised in every single grace all that by which we live the life of grace and all that which works by charity and makes a new creature and justifies a sinner and is a keeping the Commandments of God 2. If the manducation of Christs flesh and drinking his blood be spiritual and done by faith and is effected by the spirit and that this faith signifies an intire dedition of our selves to Christ and sanctification of the whole man to the service of Christ then it follows that the wicked do not Communicate with Christ they eat not his flesh and they drink not his blood They eat and drink indeed but it is gravel in their teeth and death in their belly they eat and drink damnation to themselves For unlesse a man be a member of Christ unlesse Christ dwells in him by a living faith he does not eat the bread that came down from heaven They lick the rock saith St. Cyprian but drink not the waters of its emanation They receive the skin of the Sacrament and the bran of the flesh saith St. Bernard But it is in this divine nutriment as it is in some fruits the skin is bitterness and the inward juice is salutary and pleasant the outward Symbols never bring life but they can bring death and they of whom it can be said according to the expression of St. Austin they eat no spiritual meat but they eat the sign of Christ must also remember what old Simeon said in his prophecy of Christ He is a sign set for the fall of many but his flesh and blood spiritually eaten is resurrection from the dead SECT VI. Meditations and Devotions relative to this Preparatory Grace to be used in the days of Preparation or at any time of spiritual Communion St. Bernard's Meditation and Prayer THE Calice which thou O sweetest Saviour Jesus didst drink hath made thee infinitely amiable it was the work of my redemption Certainly nothing does more pleasingly invite or more profitably require or more vehemently affect me than this love for by how much lower thou didst for me descend in the declinations of humility by so much art thou dearer to me in the exaltations of thy charity and thy glory * Learn O my soul how thou oughtest to love Christ who hath given us his flesh for meat his blood for drink the water of his side for our lavatory and his own life for the price of our redemption He is stark and dead cold who is not set on fire by the burning and shining flames of such a charity I. Blessed Saviour Jesus the author and finisher of our faith the fountain of life and salvation by thee let us have accesse to thy Heavenly Father that by thee he may accept us who by thee is revealed to us Let thy innocence and purity procure pardon for our uncleannesse and disobedience let thy humility extinguish our pride and vanity thy meeknesse extinguish our anger and thy charity cover the multitude of our sins II. O blessed Advocate and Mediator intercede for us with thy Father and ours with thy God and ours and grant that by the grace which thou hast found by the prerogative which thou hast deserved by the mercy which thou hast purchased for us that as thou wert partaker of our sufferings and infirmities so we by thy death and resurrection and by thy infinite gracious intercession may be made partakers of thy holinesse and thy glory III. Let the brightnesse of the divine grace for ever shine upon thy servants that we being purified from all errour and infidelity from weak fancies and curious inquiries may perceive and adore the wisdom and the love of God in the truth and mysteriousnesse of this Divine Sacrament And be pleased to lighten in our spirits such a burning love and such a shining devotion that we may truly receive thee and be united unto thee that we may feed on thee the celestial Manna and may with an eye of faith see thee under the cloud and in the vail and at last may see thee in the brightest effusions of thy glory Amen A Confession of Faith in order to the Mysteries of the Holy Sacrament taken out of the Liturgy of St. Clement to be used in the days of Preparation or Communion HOly Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory Blessed art thou O God and blessed is thy Name for ever and ever Amen For thou art holy and in all things thou art sanctified and most exalted and sittest on high above all for ever and ever Holy is thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ who in all things did minister to thee his God and Father both in the creation of the world and in the excellent providence and conservation of it He suffered not mankind to perish but gave to him the Law of nature and a Law written in Tables of stone and reproved them by his Prophets and sent his Angel to be their guards And when men had violated the natural Law and broken that which was written when they had forgotten the Divine Judgment manifested in the deluge upon the old world in fire from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah in many plagues upon the Egyptians in the slaughters of the Philistins and when the wrath of God did hang over all the world for for their iniquity according to thy will he who made man resolved to become a man he who is the Law-giver would be subject to Laws he that is the High Priest would be made a Sacrifice and the great Shepherd of our souls would be a Lamb and be slain for us Thee his God and Father he appeased and reconciled unto the world and freed all men from the instant anger He was born of a Virgin born in flesh He is God and the Word
a capacity of doing this action For it is not Lent nor the Epiphany which makes us worthy to approach to the Son of God But the sincerity and purity of the soul with this come at any time but without this never In fine it is the general doctrine of the holy Fathers and the publick practice of the Primitive Church that no impenitent person should come to these divine Mysteries and they that are truly penitent should practice deep humility and undergo many humiliatioÌ„ns and live in a state of repentance till by little and little they have recover'd the holinesse they had lost and must for a long time live upon the word of God before they approach to the holy Table to be nourished by his body For so should every prodigal child cry unto his Lord Drive me not O Lord out of thy doors lest the enemy espying a wanderer and a vagabond take me for a slave I do not yet desire to approach to thy holy Table thy mystical and terrible Table for I have not confidence with my impure eyes to behold the holy of holies Only suffer me to enter into thy Church amongst the Catechumens that by beholding what is there celebrated I may by little and little enter again into the participation of them to the end that the Divine Waters of thy Word running upon me may purifie my ears from the impressions which have been made upon them by ungodly songs and from the filthinesse they have left behind and seeing how the righteous people partake by a holy violence of thy precious jewels I may conceive a burning desire to have hands worthy to receive the same excellencies I end this collection of the ancient Doctrine of the Church with recitation of the words of Gennadius I perswade and exhort Christians to receive the Communion every Lords day but so that if their mind be free from all affection of sinning For he who still hath will or desires of sin he is burdened and not purified by receiving the Eucharist And therefore although he be bitten or griev'd with sin let him for the future renounce all will to sin and before he communicate let him satisfie with prayers and tears and being confident of the mercy of our Lord who uses to pardon sins upon a pious confession let him come to the Eucharist without doubting But this I say of him who is not pressed with capital and deadly sins for such a person if he will not receive the Eucharist to judgment and condemnation let him make amends by publick penance and being reconcil'd by the Bishop or Priest let him communicate I doubt not also but such grievous sins may be extinguish'd by private satisfactions but this must be done by changing the course of his life by a professed study of Religion by a daily and perpetual mourning or contrition that through the mercy of God he may do things contrary to these whereof he does repent and then humbly and suppliant let him every Lords day communicate to the end of his life This advice of Gennadius declares the sentiment of the Church that none must communicate till they have worthily repented and in the way of piety and contrition made amends for their faults as well as they may and have put themselves into a state of vertue contrary to their state of sin that is have made progression in the reformation of their lives that they are really changed and become new men not in purpose only but actually and in the commencement of holy habits And therefore it is remarkable that he advises that these persons who do not stand in the place of publick penitents should upon the commission of grievous faults enter into Religion he means into solitude and retirement and renunciation of the world that by attending wholy to the severities and purities of a religious life they may by such strictnesses and constant piety be fitted for the communion Now whatever ends besides this the Divine Providence might have yet it is not to be neglected that when the ancient discipline of the Church of penances and satisfactions was gone into desuetude the Spirit of Religion entred more fully into the world and many religious orders and houses were instituted that at least there the world might practise that severity in private which the change of affairs in the face of the Church had taken from the publick ministeries Penance went from the Churches into desarts and into Monasteries but when these were corrupted and the manners of men were worse corrupted it is hard to say whither it is gone now It may be yet done in private and under the hand of a spiritual guide or by the spirit of penance in the heart of a good man and by the conduct of a wise counsellor but besides that the manners of men are corrupted the doctrines also are made so easie and the Communion given to sects and opinions or indifferently to all that it is very rare to see them who have sinn'd grievously repent worthily who therefore can never be worthy communicants for no impenitents can partake of Christ who as S. Hierom cals him is the prince of penance and the head of them who by repentance come unto salvation But this was his advice to them that commit grievous sins such which lay the conscience wast and whose every single action destroyes our being in the state of grace But as for them whose sins are but those of dayly incursion and of infirmity or imperfection such which a great diligence and a perpetual watchfulness might have prevented but an ordinary care would not these must be protested against they must not joyn with our consent our will must be against them and they must be confess'd and deplor'd and prayed against before we may communicate This is the sense of the Church of God Having established this great general measure of preparation it will not be very difficult to answer that great question often disputed amongst spiritual persons viz. Question I. Whether is it better to communicate seldom or frequently To this I answer That it is without peradventure very much better to receive it every day than every week and better every week then every month Christiani omni die carnes agni comedunt said Origen Christians every day eat of the flesh of the sacrificed lamb And St. Basil expresly affirms that to communicate every day and to partake of the body and blood of Christ is excellent and very profitable Christ himself having manifâ—stly said it he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood hath life eternal For if the Sacrament does no benefit to souls and produces no blessings then a man can institute a Sacrament for he may appoint any thing that shall be good for nothing But if it be an instrument in the hand of God to procure blessings to us and spiritual emolument if it be a means of union with Christ who would not willingly
it self indeed shall have what reward God please to apportion to it as it is obedience yet of it self it hath no other worthiness it is not so much as an argument of persuasion for the pouring forth of wine can no more prove or make faith that Christs blood was poured forth for us than the drinking the wine can effect this persuasion in us that we naturally though under a vail drink the natural blood of Christ which the Angels gathered as it ran into golden phials and Christ multiplied to a miracle like the loaves and fishes in the Gospel But because nothing that naturally remains the same in all things as it was before can do any thing that it could not do before the Bread and wine which have no natural change can effect none and therefore we are not to look for an egge where there is nothing but order and a blessing where there is nothing but an action and a real effect where there is nothing but an analogy a Sacrament a mystical representment and something fit to signify and many things past but nothing that is to come This is the sense and discourse of some persons that call for an express word or a manifest reason to the contrary or else resolve that their belief shall be as unactive as the Scriptures are silent in the effects of this mystery Only these men will allow the Sacraments to be marks of Christianity symbols of mutual Charity testimonies of a thankful mind to God allegorical admonitions of Christian mortification and spiritual alimony symbols of grace conferred before the Sacrament and rites instituted to stir up faith by way of object and representation that is occasionally and morally but neither by any Divine or physical by natural or supernatural power by the work done or by the Divine institution This indeed is something but very much too little But others go as far on the other hand and affirm that in the Blessed Sacrament we receive the body and blood of Christ we chew his flesh we drink his blood for his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed and this is the Manna which came down from heaven our bodies are nourished our souls united to Christ and the Sacrament is the infallible instrument of pardon to all persons that do not maliciously hinder it and it produces all its effects by vertue of the Sacrament it self so appointed and that the dispositions of the Communicants are only for removing obstacles and impediments but effect nothing the sumption of the Mysteries does all in a capable subject as in infants who do nothing in penitents who take away what can hinder for it is nothing but Christ himself the body that dyed upon the crosse is broken in the hand of him that ministers and by the teeth of him that communicates and when God gives us his Son in this Divine and glorious manner with heaps of miracles to verify heaps of blessings how shall not he with him give us all things else They who teach this doctrine call the holy Sacrament The host the unbloody sacrifice the flesh of God the body of Christ God himself the Mass the Sacrament of the Altar I cannot say that this is too much but that these things are not true and although all that is here said that is of any material benefit and reall blessing is true yet the blessing is not so conferred it is not so produced A third sort of Christians speak indefinitely and gloriously of this Divine mystery they speak enough but they cannot tell what they publish great and glorious effects but such which they gather by similitude and analogy such which they desire but cannot prove which indeed they feel but know not whence they do derive them they are blessings which come in company of the Sacraments but are not alwayes to be imputed to them they confound spiritual senses with mystical expressions and expound mysteries to natural significations that is they mean well but do not alwayes understand that part of Christian Philosophy which explicates the secret nature of this Divine Sacrament and the effect of it is this that they sometimes put too great confidence in the mystery and look for impresses which they find not and are sometimes troubled that their experience does not answer to their Sermons and meet with scruples instead of comforts and doubts instead of rest and anxiety of mind in the place of a serene and peaceful conscience But these men both in their right and in their wrong enumerate many glories of the holy Sacrament which they usually signifie in these excellent appellatives calling it the Supper of the Lord the bread of elect souls and the wine of Angels the Lords body the New Testament and the calice of benediction spiritual food the great Supper the Divinest and Archisymbolical feast the banquet of the Church the celestial dinner the spiritual the sacred the mystical the formidable the rational Table the supersubstantial bread the bread of God the bread of life the Lords mystery the great mystery of salvation the Lords Sacrament the Sacrament of piety the sign of unity the contesseration of the Christian communion the Divine grace the Divine making grace the holy thing the desirable the comunication of Good the perfâ—ction and consummation of a Christian the holy particles the gracious symbols the holy gifts the Sacrifice of commemoration the intellectual and mystical good the hereditary donative of the New Testament the Sacrament of the Lords body the Sacrament of the Calice the Paschal Oblation the Christian pasport the mystery of perfection the great Oblation the Worship of God the life of Souls the Sacrament of our price and our Redemption and some few others much to the same purposes all which are of great and useful signification and if the explications and consequent propositions were as justifiable as the titleâ— themselves are sober and useful they would be apt only for edification and to minister to the spirit of devotion That therefore is to be the design of the present Meditations to represent the true and proper and mysterious nature of this divine nutriment of our souls to account what are the blessings God reacheth forth to us in the Mysteries and what returns of duty he expects from all to whom he gives his most holy Son I shall only here add the names and appellatives which the Scripture gives to these Mysteries and place it as a part of the foundation of the following doctrines It is by the Spirit of God called The bread that is broken and the cup of blessing the breaking of bread the body and blood of the Lord the communication of his body and the communication of his blood the feast of charity or love the Lords Table and the Supper of the Lord. Whatsoever is consequent to these titles we can safely own and our faith may dwell securely and our devotion like a pure flame with these may feed as with
himself and therefore since it is necessaâ—y that he hath something to offer so long as he is a Priest and there is no other sacrifice but that of himself offered upon the crosse it follows that Christ in heaven perpetually offers and represents that sacrifice to his heavenly Father and in vertue of that obtains all good things for his Church Now what Christ does in heaven he hath commanded us to do on earth that is to represent his death to commemorate this sacrifice by humble prayer and thankful record and by faithful manifestation and joyful Eucharist to lay it before the eyes of our heavenly Father so ministring in his Priesthood and doing according to his commandment and his example the Church being the image of heaven the Priest the Minister of Christ the holy Table being a Copy of the celestial altar and the eternal sacrifice of the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World being alwayes the same it bleeds no more after the finishing of it on the Crosse but it is wonderfully represented in heaven and graciously represented here by Christs action there by his commandment here and the event of it is plainly this that as Christ in vertue of his sacrifice on the crosse intercedes for us with his Father so does the Minister of Christs Priest-hood here that the vertue of the eternal sacrifice may be salutary and effectual to all the needs of the Church both for things temporal and eternal and therefore it was not without great mystery and clear signification that our blessed Lord was pleased to command the representation of his death and sacrifice on the crosse should be made by breaking bread and effusion of wine to signifie to us the nature and sacredness of the Liturgy we are about and that we minister in the Priest-hood of Christ who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck that is we are Ministers in that unchangable Priest-hood imitating in the external Ministery the prototype Melchisedeck Of whom it is said he brought forth bread and wine and was the Priest of the most high God and in the internal imitating the antitype or the substance Christ himself who offered up his body and blood for atonement for us and by the Sacraments of bread and wine and the prayers of oblation and intercession commands us to officiate in his Priest-hood in the external ministring like Melchisedeck in the internal after the manner of Christ himself This is a great and a mysterious truth which as it is plainly manifested in the Epistle to the Hebrews so it is understood by the ancient and holy Doctors of the Church So St. Ambrose Now Christ is offered but he is offered as a man as if he received his passion but he offers himself as a Priest that he may pardon our sins here in image or representation there in truth as an Advocate interceding with his Father for us So St. Chrysostom In Christ once the Sacrifice was offered which is powerful to our eternal salvation but what then do we do not we offer every day what we daily offer is at the memorial of his death and the Sacrifice is one not many because Christ was once offered but this Sacrifice is the example or representation of that And another Christ is not impiously slain by us but piously sacrificed and by this means we declare the Lords death till he come for here through him we humbly do in earth which he as a son who is heard according to his reverence does powerfully for us in heaven where as an advocate he intercedes with his Father whose office or work it is for us to exhibit and interpose his flesh which he took of us and for us and as it were to presse it upon his Father To the same sense is the meditation of St. Austin By this he is the Priest and the Oblation the Sacrament of which he would have the daily Sacrifice of the Church to be which because it is the body of that head she learns from him to offer her self to God by him who offered himself to God for her And therefore this whole Office is called by St. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prayer of oblation the great Christian Sacrifice and Oblation in which we present our prayers and the needs of our selves and of our brethren unto God in virtue of the great Sacrifice Christ upon the Crosse whose memorial we then celebrate in a divine manner by divine appointment The effect of this I represent in the words of Lyra That which does purge and cleanse our sins must be celestial and spiritual and that which is such hath a perpetual efficacy and needs not to be done again but that which is daily offered in the Church is a daily commemoration of that one Sacrifice which was offered on the Crosse according to the command of Christ Do this in commemoration of me Now this holy Ministry and Sacrament of this death being according to Christs commandment and in our manner a representation of the eternal Sacrifice an imitation of Christs intercession in heaven in vertue of that Sacrifice must be after the pattern in the Mount it must be as that is pur â prece as Tertullians phrase is by pure prayer it is an intercession for the whole Church present and absent in the virtue of that Sacrifice I need add no more but leave it to the meditation to the joy and admiration of all Christian people to think and to enumerate the blessings of this Sacrament which is so excellent a representation of Christs death by Christs commandment and so glorious an imitation of that intercession which Christ makes in heaven for us all it is all but the representment of his death in the way of prayer and interpellation Christ as head and we as members he as High Priest and we servants as his Ministers and therefore I shall stop here and leave the rest for wonder and Eucharist we may pray here with all the solemnity and advantages imaginable we may with hope and comfort use the words of David I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord we are here very likely to prevail for all blessings for this is by way of eminency glory and singularity Calix benedictionis the cup of blessing which we bless and by which God will bless us and for which he is to be blessed for evermore 5. By the means of this Sacrament our bodies are made capable of the resurrection to life and eternal glory For when we are externally and symbolically in the Sacrament and by faith and the spirit of God internally united to Christ and made partakers of his body and his blood we are joyned and made one with him who did rise again and when the head is risen the members shall not see corruption for ever but rise again after the pattern of our Lord. If by the Sacrament we are really united and
which is intended to be signified by all the exterior passions but when he hath no sign he must be the more careful he have the thing signified and then all is right again But happy is that soul which comes to these springs of salvation as the Hart to the water brooks panting and thirsty longing and passionate weary of sin and hating vanity and reaching out the heart and hands to Christ and this we are taught by the same Mystery represented under other Sacraments the waters of the spiritual Rock of which our fathers drank in the wilderness the Rock was Christ and those waters were his blood in Sacrament and with the same appetite they drank those Sacramental waters withal we are to receive these divine Mysteries Evangelical Now let us by the aids of memory and fancy consider the children of Israel in the wildernesse in a barren and dry land where no water was marching in dust and fire not wet with the dew of heaven wholly without moisture save only what dropt from their own brows the air was fire and the vermin was fire the flying serpents were of the same cognation with the firmament their sting was a flame their venome was a fever and the fever a calenture and their whole state of abode and travel was a little image of the day of judgment when the elements shall melt with fervent heat These men like Salamanders walking in fire dry with heat and scorched with thirst and made yet more thirsty by calling upon God for water suppose I say these thirsty souls hearing Moses to promise that he will smite the Rock and that a River should break forth from thence observe how presently they ran to the foot of the springing stone thrusting forth their heads and tongues to meet the water impatient of delay crying out that the water did not move like light all at once and then suppose the pleasure of their drink the unsatiableness of their desire the immensity of their appetite they took in as much as they could and they desired much more This was their Sacrament of the same Mystery and this was their manner of receiving it and this teaches us to come to the same Christ with the same desires For if that water was a type of our Sacrament or a Sacrament of the same secret blessing then that thirst is a signification of our duty that we come to receive Christ in all the ways of reception with longing appetites preferring him before all the interests in the world as birds do corn above jewels or hungry men meat before long orations For it is worth observing that there being in the Old Testament thirteen Types and Umbrages of this holy Sacrament eleven of them are of meat and drink such are * the tree of life in the midst of Paradice * the bread and wine of Melchisedeck * the fine meal that Sarah kneaded for the Angels entertainment * the Manna * and the roasted paschal Lamb * the springing Rock * and the bread of proposition to be eaten by the Priests * the barley cake in the host of Midian * Sampsons Fathers oblation upon the rock * the honey-comb that opened the eyes of Jonathan * and the bread which the Angel brought to Elijah in the strength of which he was to live fourty days all this to shew that the Sacrament is the life of the spiritual man and the food of his soul the light of his eyes and the strengâ—h of his heart and not only all this and very much more of this nature but to represent our duty also and the great principle of preparation Meat is the object and hunger is the address The wine is the wine of Angels but if you desire it not what should you do with it for the wine that is not to satisfie your need can do nothing but first minister to vanity and then to vice first to wantonness and then to drunkenness St. Austin expressing the affections of his Mother Monica to the Blessed Sacrament says that her soul was by the ligatures of faith united so firmly to the Sacrifice which is dispensed in the Lords Supper that a Lion or a Dragon could not drag her away from thence and it was said of St. Katherine that she went to the Sacraments as a sucking infant to his mothers breasts and this similitude St. Chrisostom presses elegantly See you not with what pretty earnestnesse and alacrity infants match their nurses breast how they thrust their lips into the flesh like the sting of a Bee Let us approach to this Table with no lesse desire and with no lesse suck the nipple of the holy Calice yet with greater desire let us suck the grace of the holy Spirit And it is reported that our Blessed Lord taught St. Mechtildis When you are to receive the holy Communion desire and wish to the praise of my Name to have all desire and all love that ever was kindled in any heart towards me and so come to me for so will I inflame and so will I accept thy love not as it is but as thou desirest it should be in thee Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden saith Christ that is they that groan under the burden of their sins and feel the load of their infirmities and desire pardon and remedy they that love the instruments of grace as they are channels of Salvation they that come to the Sacrament out of earnest desires to receive the blessings of Christ's death and of his intercession these are the welcome guests for so saith God Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it for he hath filled the hungry with good things said the holy Virgin Mother for Christ is food and refreshment to none else for the full he hath sent empty away If therefore you understand your danger and deeply resent the evil of your infirmities and sinful state if you confesse your selves miserable and have all corresponding apprehensions if ye long for remedy and would have it upon any termes if you be hungry at your very heart and would fain have food and Physâ—ck health and spiritual advantages if you understand what you need and desire what you understand if these desires be as great as they are reasonable and as lasting as they are great if they be as inquisitive as they are lasting and as operative as they are inquisitive that is if they be just and reasonable pursuances of the means of grace if they carry you by fresh and active appetites to the communion and that this may be to purpose if they fix you upon such methods as will make the Communion effect that which God designed and which we need then we shall perceive the blessings and fruits of our holy desires according to those words of David as it is rendered in the vulgar Latin the Lord hath heard the desire of the poor and his ear hath hearkned to the preparation of their heart An earnest
the Lord Jesus Christ. SECT III. Of speaking good of our neighbours IF it be not in our hands to do well it must be in our hearts and the contrary must never be upon our tongues we are sure we can speak well or we can abstain from speaking ill If it be otherwise with us we can not be welcome here we shall not worthily communicate God opens his mouth and his heart and his bowels his bosome and his treasures to us in this holy Sacrament and calls to us to draw water as from a river and can we come to drink of the pleasant streams that we may have only moisture enough to talk much and long against the honour of our brother or our sister Can it be imagined that Christ who never spake an ill word should take thee into his arms and feast thee at his table and dwell in thy heart and lodge thee in his bosome who makest thy self all one with the Devil whose office and work it is to be an accuser of the Brethren No Christ never will feast serpents at his Table * persons who have stings instead of tongues and venom in all the moisture of their mouth and reproach is their language We should easily consent that he â—hat kiâ—â—â—d a man yesterday and is likely to kill another to morrow were not this day worthy to Communicate now some persons had rather lose their lives than lose their honour what then think we of their preparation to the holy communion that make nothing of murdering their brothers or their sisters same that either invent evil stories falsely and maliciously or believing them easily report them quickly and aggravate them spitefully and scatter them diligently He that delights to report evil things of me that will not endure so much as to have me well spoken of hath certainly but little kindness to me he would very hardly die for me or lay out great sums of mony for me that will not afford me the cheapest charity of a good word The Jewes have a saying that it were better that a man were put into a flame of fire than he should publickly disgrace his Neighbour But in this there are two great considerations that declare the unworthiness of it 1. They who readily speak reproachfully of others destroy all the love and combinations of charity in the world they ruine the excellency and peculiar priviledge of mankind whose nature it is to delight in society and whose needs and nature make it necessary Now slander and reproach and speaking evil one of another poysons love and brings in hatred and corrupts friendship and tempts the biggest vertue by anger to passe unto revenge For an evil tongue is a perpetual storm it is a daily temptation and no vertue can without a miracle withstand its temptation If you strike a lamprey but once with a rod saith the Greek proverb you make him gentle but if often you provoke him A single injury is entertained by Christian patience like a stone into a pocket of wooll it rests soft in the embraces of a meek spirit which delights to see it self overcome a wrong by a worthy sufferance but he that loves to do injury by talk does it in all companies and takes all occasions and brings it in by violence and urges it rudely till patience being weary goes away and is waited upon by Charity which never forsakes or goes away from patience A wound with the tongue is like a bruise it cannot be cured in four and twenty hours 2. No man sins singly in such instances as these Some men commit one murder and never do another some men are surprized and fall into uncleanness or drunkenness but repent of it speedily and never again return to folly but an evil and an uncharitable tongue is an accursed principle it is in its very nature and original equal to an evil habit and it enters without temptation and dwells in every part of our conversation and injures every man and every woman and is like the evil spirit that was in love with Tobias his wife if you drive him from Nineve he will run to the utmost parts of Egypt there also unlesse an Angel binde him he will do all the mischief in the world for there is not in the world a worse Devil than a devilish tongue But I am not now to speak of it as it is injurious to our neighbour but as it is an hinderance to our worthy communicating The mouth that speaketh lies or stings his neighbour or boasteth proud things is not fit to drink the blood of the sacrificed Lamb. Christ enters not into those lips from whence slander and evil talkings do proceed and the tongue that loves to dispraise his brother can not worthily celebrate the praises and talk of the glorious things of God and let no man deceive himself an injurious talker is an habitual sinner and he that does not learn the discipline of the tongue can never have the charity of Christ or the blessings of the peaceful Sacrament Persons that slander or disgrace their brother are bound to make restitution It is as if they had stoln a jewel they must give it back again or not come hither But they that will neither do nor speakwell of others are very far from charity and they that are so ought to be as far from the Sacrament or they will not be very far from condemnation But a good man will be as careful of the reputation as of the life of his brother and to be apt to speak well of all men is a sign of a charitable and a good man and that goes a great way in our preparation to a worthy Communion SECT IV. Forgiveness of injuries a necessary part of preparation to the holy Sacrament THis duty is expressed not only as obligatory to us but as relative to the Holy Sacrament in the words of our blessed Saviour When thou bringest thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gâ—ft and go be first reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer This Precept was indeed instanced in the Levitical Sacrifices and Jewish Altars but because as St. Irenaeus observes the Precepts of Christ however expressed relate to Moses Law but less principally and chiefly designe an Evangeli al duty therefore he referrs these words to the celebration of the Christian Eucharistical Sacrifice and Oblation concerning which he hath these excellent words From the beginning God respected Abels offering because he offered in righteousness and singleness of heart But God regarded not the Sacrifice of Cain because he had a heart divided from his Brother full of zeal and malice and therefore God who knoweth all secrets thus reproves him If thou doest rightly offer but not rightly divide be quiet God will not be appeased with thy sacrifice For if any one in outward appearance offers a clean
must follow Gods example for in this alone he else will follow ours In imitating him it is certain we are innocent and if in this he follows us though we be wicked yet he is holy because revenge is his and he alone is to pay it If therefore we will forgive he will if we will not neither will he for he makes his spear as long and his angers as lasting as we do ours But this duty and the great reasonableness and necessity I shall represent in the excellent words of the Talmudists recorded also by the famous Bensirach He that revengeth shall find vengeance of the Lord and he will surely keep his sins in remembrance Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done unto thee so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest One man keepeth anger against another and doth he seek healing from the Lord He sheweth no mercy to a man that is like himself and doth he ask forgiveness for his own sins If he that is but flesh nourish hatred who will intreat for pardon of his sins The duty is plain and the reason urgent and the Commandment express and the threatning terrible and the promise excellent There is in this no more to be said but that we consider concerning the manner of reducing it to practice in order to our preparation to a worthy Communion and consider the special cases of conscience relating to this great duty 1. Therefore we are bound to forgive every man that offends us For concerning every one of our Brethren it is equally true that he is an excellent creation that he is thy brother that he is heir of the same hopes born to the same inheritance descended of the same Father nursed by the Church which is his Mother and thine that there is in him Gods Image drawn by the same hand described in the same lines that there are in him many good things for which he can be loved and many reasons in him for which he ought to be pardoned God hath made many decrees for him and the Angels minister to him and Christ died for him and his soul is very precious in the eyes of God and in Heaven it self the man whom thou hatest is very considerable and there there are great desires for his temporal and eternal happiness and why shouldest thou despise and why shouldest thou stand out against all this 2. Not only every man but every offence must be forgiven The Wise man saies That for some things there will be no returning again a blow indeed or an evil word may be pardoned but for upbraiding and pride and disclosing secrets and a treacherous wound every friend will depart and never return again But he only tells how it will be not what ought to be what it is likely to be in matter of fact not how it should be in case of conscience and he means this of societies and civil friendships but in Religion we go higher and even these also and greater than these must be pardoned unless we would prescribe a limit to Gods mercy in the remission of our sins He will pardon every sin of ours for the pardon of which we can rightly pray but yet we must pray for it and hope it upon no measures but those of our forgiveness O Jupiter said the distressed Prince hear our prayers according to our piety look upon us and as we do so give us help and there is no instance that can be considerable to the lessening or excusing of this duty We must forgive not only injuries in the matter of money but in all errours and crimes whatsoever in which any man can sin and thou canst be offended 3. Although in these things there is no difficulty yet in the intention and expressions of this duty there is some For if it be inquired what is meant by forgiving many men suppose it is nothing but saying I forgive him with all my heart and I pray God forgive him But this is but words and we must have more material significations of it then so because nothing can commute for the omission of the necessary parts of this duty It is therefore necessary that we observe these measures 1. Every man that hath received injuries be they never so great must have a mind perfectly free from all intentions of revenge in any instance whatsoever For when the question is concerning forgiving him that did the wrong every man can best answer his question by placing himself in the seat of him that did the offence and considering to what purposes and by what significations and in what degrees and to what event of things himself would fain be pardoned if he were in his case and did repent the injury and did desire pardon That 's the measure and the rule and we learn it from Chrysologus Thou art a sinful man and thou wouldst that God and man should alwaies forgive thee Do thou forgive alwaies so much so often so intirely as thou wouldest be pardoned thy self so much so often and so intirely give pardon to thy enemy and this together with the reason of it is well expressed in the Gospel of the Nazarens If thy Brother sins against thee in words and offers thee satisfaction seven times in a day receive him Simon his Disciple saith unto him seven times in a day The Lord answers yea I say unto you seventy times seven times For even amongst the Prophets also after they were annointed with the Holy Ghost there was found the word of sin that is they also offended in their tongues Against this there is no objection but what is made by the foolish discourses of young men fighters and malicious who by the evil manners of the world are taught to call revenge gallantry and the pardoning of injuries to be pusillanimity and cowardice for this Devil that dwells in tombs and and cannot be bound with chains prevailes infinitly upon this account amongst the more glorious part of mankind but as all other things are which oppose the wisdom of God is infinitely unreasonable there being nothing in the world a greater testimony of impotency and effiminacy of spirit than a desire of revenge Who are so cruel as Cowards and who so revengeful as the weakest and the most passionate women Wise Crysippus and gentle Thales and the good old man who being to drink his poyson refused to give any of it to his persecutor these men did not think revenge a pleasure or a worthy satisfaction Fot what man is so barbarous as to recover his leprosie by sucking the life blood from dying infants a good man would rather endure ten leprosies than one such remedie Such a thing is revenge it pretends to cure a wound but does it with an intolerable remedy It was the song of Cyclops to his sheep feed you upon the tender herbs I mean to feed upon the flesh and drink the blood of the Greeks this is a
Heathens and especially in that grace which is the ornament and jewel of our Religion that is in forgiving our enemies in appeasing anger in doing good for evil in returning prayers for cursings and gentle usages for rude treatments this is the glory of Christianity as Christianity is the glory of the world I end this with the advice of St. Bernard let every man who desires to come worthily to the Sacrament of peace the communion of Christs body for the wrong that he does be ready to ask pardon and for the wrong that he receives be ready to give pardon and so Christs members will be in peace Quest. VI. Whether the precept of forgiveness and the charity of the Communion must of necessity put a period to all Law-suits To this I answer that suits at Law in matters Criminal relating to injuries done or suffâ—r'd are so often mingled with interests of anger and revenge they are so often conducted violently and passionately that he who forbiâ—s angers and reveâ—ge does also in effect forbid suits of Law upon the account of injuries receiv'd But this is to be understood only of such repetitions of right or vindications of wrong as cannot or will not be separated from revenge Thus if the Law which God gave to Moses in the matter of injuries were the measure of our judicatories An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth it were not lawful to go to Law to get his eye put out that had extinguish'd mine for this does not repair me but only afflicts him A Wolf is in nature less hateful than a Viper He wounds that he may drink the blood and kills that he may eat but the Viper smites that he may kill and gets nothing by it So is every Law-suit that vexes one and repairs no man But the rules and measures of conscience in this particular are briefly these 1. If the injury be transient and passes away in the Act it is not lawful for a Christian to go to Law because he cannot rescind the act and he cannot repair himself and that which remains is nothing but revenge which can never consist with charity 2. The case is the same if the injury be permanent but irremediable for if nothing can be rescinded if no amends can be made it is but a phantastick pleasure to delight in the affliction of him that injur'd me If cutting off his arm would make mine grow if striking him upon the face would bring me a new tooth in stead of that which he struck out of mine then there might be a just cause of going to Law but when the evil remains after all that the Law can do it is enough that I lost a limb I will not lose my charity which iâ— left me to make amends to me and to procure a blessing to make me reparation If by my arm I got my living it is fit that he that cut my arm off should give me maintenance because he can repair my losse of livelihood though he can never restore my arm and to cause him to be barely afflicted for my affliction when I am not relieved by his affliction is barbarism and a rude uncharitableness To revenge is but the more excusable way of doing injury Nay Maximus Tyrius sayes it is worse the revenging man is worse than the injurious and therefore to prosecute him in Law who did me wrong and cannot now amend me is but uncharitableness acted under the visor of authority so Methridates affirm'd that usually men carry arms against a thief for revenge as much as for their security it is in many cases nothing else but revenge 3. He thâ—t hath receiv'd an injury must not avenge himself by going to Law though with a purpose to prevent another injury that is tolerable and inconsiderable The reason is because if he fears an evil that is but little the smalnes of the evil and the uncertainty of its event are not considerable if compar'd to the evil of revenge that is included to the trouble of the suit to the evil of our Brothers punishment to his shame and to his smart to his expence and his disorder and the charity of forgiveness shall never have a proper season for its exercise or an opportunity to get a reward if every excuse and every degree of temptation or seeming warranty can legitimate that action which is more like a revenge than it can be to prudence and a reasonable caution All quarrellngs and contentions at Law for little matters are arguments of impatience of a peevish spirit and an uncharitable mind He is a very miserable man that is unquiet when a mouse runs over his shooe or a fly does kiss his cheek Whatsoever is little and tolerable must be let alone said Aristides and Apollonius answered that wars must not be undertaken for great causes nor suits at Law for little ones There is in such persons who run to Courts and complain for every small offence such a stock of anger and peevishness and such a spirit of fire within them that every breath and every motion from without can put it into a flame and the Devil will never be wanting to minister occasions to such prepar'd materials It is told in the Annals of France that when the Kings of England and France in a deadly war had their armies ready to joyn bâ—ttel the French officers having felt the force of the Englâ—sh valoâ—r were not willing to venture the hazard of a battel and perswaded their King to offer conditions of peace The treaty was accepted and the two Kings withdrew into an old Chappel in the field where when they had dicours'd themselves into kindness they resolved to part friends and to appoint Commissionners to finish the Treaty But as they were going out a great Serpent issued out of the ruinous wall and made toward the Kings who being affrighted with the danger drew their swords and in that manner ran out of the Chappel Their guards who in equal numbers attended at the door seeing their Princes in a fright and with their swords drawn suppos'd they were fighting and without any sign instantly drew upon each other which alarm the two armies taking instantly engag'd in a bloody fight and could not for all the power of their Kings be totally disengag'd till the night parted them Just such is the danger of an angry and quarrelsome spirit He hath his sword by his side and his army in the field his hand is up and his heart is ready and he wants nothing but an occasion a Serpent to set him on and that will never be wanting as long as the old Serpent the Devil hath any malice or any power But let us not deceive our selves we are bound very far by the laws of charity to the soul of our Brother and we are very much concern'd that he be saved and therefore our Blessed Saviour commanded us if our brother have sinned against us to
do thou relieve him and never communicate but be sure to give thy alms for one part of thy offering St. Cyprian does with some vehemency upbraid some wealthy persons in his time who came to the celebration of the Lords Supper and neglected the Corban or the ministring to the Saints Remember that by mercy to the poor the sentence of dooms-day shall be declared because what we do to them we do to Christ and who would not relieve Christ who hath made himself poor to make us rich And what time is so seasonable to feed the members of Christ as that when he gives his body to feed us and that when his members are met together to confess to celebrate to remember and to be joyned to their head and to one another In short The Church alwaies hath used at that time to be liberal to her poor and that being so seasonable and blessed an opportunity and of it self also a proper act of worship and sacrifice of religion and homage of thankfulness and charity it ought not to be omitted and it can have no measure but that of your love and of your power and the other accidents of your life and your religion 12. As soon as ever you have taken the holy Elements into your mouth and stomach remember that you have taken Christ into you after a manner indeed which you do not understand but to all purposes of blessing and holiness if you have taken him at all And now consider that he who hath given you his Son with him will give you all things else therefore represent to God through Jesus Christ all your needs and the needs of your relatives signifie to him the condition of your soul complain of your infirmities pray for help against your enemies tell him of your griefs represent your fears your hopes and your desires But it is also the great sacrifice of the world which you have then assisted in and represented and now you being joyned to Christ are admitted to intercede for others even for all mankind in all necessities and in all capacities pray therefore for all for whom Christ dâ—ed especially for all that communicate that day for all that desire it that their prayers and yours being united to the intercession of your Lord may be holy and prevail 13. After you have given thanks and finished your private and the publick devotions go home but do not presently forget the solemnity and sink from the sublimity of devotion and mystery into a secular conversation like a falling star from brightness into dirt The Ethiopians would not spit that day they had communicated thinking they might dâ—shonour the Sacrament if before the consumption of the Symbols they should spit but although they meant reverence yet they express'd it ill It was better which is reported of St. Margaret a daughter of the King of Hungary that the day before she was to communicate she fasted with bread and water and after the Communion she retired her self till the evening spending the day in meditations prayers and thanksgiving and at night she eat her meal Her imployment was very well sitted to the day but for her meal it is all one when she eat it so that by eating or abstaining she did advantage to her spiritual imployment But they that as soon as the office is finished part wiâ—h Christ and carry their mind away to other interests have a suspicious indifferency to the things of God They have brought their Lord into the house and themselves slip out at the back-door Otherwise does the Spouse entertain her beloved Lord I found him whom my soul loveth I held him and would not let him go He that considers the advantages of prayer which every faithful soul hath upon a Communion day will not easily let them slâ—p but tell all his said stories to his Lord and make all his wants known and as Jacob to the Aâ—gel will not let him go till he hath given a blessing Upon a Communion-day Christ who is the beloved of the soul is gone to rest and every secular imployment that is not necessary and part of duty and every earthly thought does waken our Beloved before he please let us take heed of that 14. But what we do by devotion and solemn religion that day we must do every day by the material practice of vertues we must verifie all our holy vows and promises we must keep our hearts curiously restrain our passions powerfully every day proceed in the mortification of our angers and desires in the love of God and of our neighâ—â—urs and in the patient toleration of all injuries which men offer and all the evil by which God will try us Let not drunkenness enter or evil words go forth of that mouth through which our Lord himself hath passed The Heathens used to be drunk at their Sacrifices but by this sacrifice Eucharistical it is intended we should be filled with the Spirit If we have communicated worthily we have given our selves to Christ we have given him all our liberty and our life our bodies and our souls our actions and our passions our affections and our faculties what we are and what we have and in exchange have received him and we may say with St. Paul I live but not I But Christ liveth in me So that we must live no more unto the world but unto God and having fed upon Manna let us not long to return to Aegypt to feed on Garlick For as when men have drank wine largely the mind is free and the heart at liberty from care so when we have drank â—he bloud of Christ the cup of our salvation the chains of the old man are untied and we must forget our secular conversation So St. Cyprian But the same precept is better given by Saint Paul But the love of Christ constraineth uâ— becuase we thus judge that he died for all that thâ—y which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away bâ—hold all things are become new He that hath communicated and does not afterwards live by the measures of that daies duty hath but acted a scene of Religion but himself shall dearly pay the pâ—ice of the pompous and solemn hypocrisie Remember that he is sick who is not the better for the bread he eats and if thou dost not by the aids of Christ whom thou hast received subdue thy passion and thy sin thou hast eaten the bread of idleness for so saith St Hierom does every one who when he hath taken of the Sacrificâ— of the Lords body does not persevere in good works imitating that in deed which he hath celebrated in mystery Let us take heed for the Angels are present in these mysteries to wait upon their Lord and ours and it is a matter of great caution