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
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
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
produce you ought not to esteem it strange and impossible for how earthly and mortal things are converted into the substance of Christ ask thy self who art regenerated in Christ Not long since thou wast a stranger from life a pilgrim and wanderer from mercy and being inwardly dead thou wert banished from the way of life On a sudden being initiated in the laws of Christ and renewed by the Mysteries of Salvation thou didst passe suddenly into the body of the Church not by seeing but by believing and from a son of perdition thou hast obtained to be adopted a son of God by a secret purity remaining in a visible measure thou art invisibly made greater than thy self without any increase of quantity thou art the same thou wert and yet very much another person in the progression of Faith to the outward nothing is added but the inward is wholly changed and so a man is made the son of Christ and Christ is formed in the mind of a man As therefore suddenly without any bodily perception the former vileness being laid down on the sudden thou hast put on a new dignity and this that God hath done that he hath cured thy wounds washed off thy staines wiped away thy spots is trusted to thy discerning not thy eyes so when thou ascendest the reverend altar to be satisfied with spiritual food by faith regard honour admire the holy body of God touch it with thy mind take it with the hand of thy heart even with the draught of the whole inward man SECT V. Practical conclusions from the preceding Discourses THe first I represent in the words of St. Augustin who reduces this whole doctrine to practice in these excellent words let this whole affair thus far prevail with us that we may eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ not only in the Sacrament which many evil persons doe but let us eat and drink unto the participation of the spirit that as members we may abide in the Lords body that we may be quickened by his spirit and let us not be scandalized because many do temporally eat and drink with us who yet in the end shall find eternal torments that is let us remember that the exteriour ministery is the least part of it and externally and alone it hath in it nothing excellent as being destitute of the sanctity that God requires and the grace that he does promise and it is common to wicked men and good but when the signs and the thing signified when the prayers of the Church and the spirit of God the word and the meaning the sacrament and the grace do concur then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a venerable cup and full of power and more honourable than all our possessions it is a holy thing saith Origen and appointed for our sanctification For Christ in the Sacrament is Christ under a vail as without the hand of faith we cannot take Christ so we must be sure to look here with an eye of faith and whatsoever glorious thing is said of the holy Sacrament it must be understood of the whole Sacrament body and spirit that is the Sacramental and the spiritual Communion 2. Let no man be lesse confident in his holy faith and persuasion concerning the great blessings and glorious effects which God designs to every faithful and obedient soul in the communication of these Divine mysteries by reason of any difference of judgement which is in the several Schools of Christians concerning the effects and consequent blessings of this Sacrament For all men speak honourable things of it except wicked persons and the scorners of Religion and though of several persons like the beholders of a dove walking in the sun as they stand in several aspects and distances some see red and others purple and yet some perceive nothing but green but all allow and love the beauties so do the several forms of Christians according as they are instructed by their first teachers or their own experience conducted by their fancy and proper principles look upon these glorious mysteries some as vertually containing the reward of obedience some as solemnities of thanksgiving and records of blessings some as the objective increasers of faith others as the Sacramental participations of Christ others as the acts instruments of natural union yet all affirm some great things or other of it and by their differences confesse the immensity and the glory For thus Manna represented to every man the taste that himself did like but it had in its own potentiality all those tasts and dispositions eminently and altogether those feasters could speak of great and many excellencies and all confessed it to be enough and to be the food of Angels so it is here it is that to every mans faith which his faith wisely apprehends and though there are some who are of little faith and such receive but a less proportion of nourishment yet by the very use of this Sacrament the appetite will increase and the apprehensions grow greater and the faith will be more confident and instructed and then we shall see more and feel more For this holy nutriment is not only food but physick too and although to him who believes great things of his Physitian and of his medicine it is apt to do the more advantage yet it will do its main work even when we understand it not and nothing can hinder it but direct infidelity or some of its foul and deformed ministers 3. They who receive the blessed Sacrament must not suppose that the blessings of it are effected as health is by physick or warmth by the contact and neighbourhood of fire but as musick one way affects the soul and witty discourses another and joyful tidings a way differing from both the former so the operations of the Sacrament are produced by an energy of a nature intirely differing from all things else But however it is done the thing that is done is this no grace is there improved but what we bring along with us no increases but what we exercise we must bring faith along with us and God will increase our faith we must come with charity and we shall go away with more we must come with truly penitential hearts and to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly he shall be a better penitent when he hath eaten the sacrifice that was slain for our sins and died in the body that we might live in the spirit and die no more For he is the bread from heaven he is the grain of wheat which falling into the earth unless it dies it remains alone but if it dies it brings forth fruit and brings it forth abundantly 4. Although the words the names and sayings concerning the Blessed Sacrament are mysterious and inexplicable yet they do nay therefore weare sure they signifie some great thing they are in the very expression beyond our understanding therefore much more are
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
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
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
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
Christs death an act of obedience a ceremony of memorial but of no spiritual effect and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver Against this besides the preceding discourse convincing their fancy of weakness and derogation the consideration of the proper excellencies of this mystery in its own seperate nature will be very useful For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into his oeconomy and dispensation For the understanding of which are to consider that Christ besides his Spiritual body and blood did also give us his natural and we receive that by the means of this For this he gave us but once then when upon the Crosse he was broken for our sins this body could die but once and it could be but at one place at once and Heaven was the place appointed for it and at once all was sufficiently effected by it which was design'd in the Counsel of God â—or by the vertue of that death Christ is become the Author of life unto us and of salvation he is our Lord and our Lawgiver but it he received all power in heaven and earth and by it he reconciled his Father to the world and in vertue of that he intercedes for us in heaven and sends his spirit upon earth and feeds our souls by his word he instructs us to wisdom and admits us to repentance and gives us pardon and by means of his own appointment nourishes us up by holinesse to life eternal This body being carried from us into heaven cannot be touch'd or tasted by us on earth but yet Christ left to us symbols and Sacraments of this natural body not to be or to convey that natural body to us but to do more and better for us to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body and the effusion of the blood which blessings being spiritual are therefore called his body spiritually because procured by that body which died for us and are therefore called our food because by them we live a new life in the spirit and Christ is our bread and our life because by him after this manner we are nourished up to life eternal That is plainly thus Therefore we eat Christs spiritual body because he hath given us his natural body to be broken and his natural blood to be shed for the remission of our sins and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance For by this gift and by this death he hath obtained this favour from God that by faith in him and repentance from dead works by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we may be saved To this sense of the Mystery are those excellent words of the Apostle He bare our sins upon his own body on the Tree that he might deliver us from the present evil world and sanctifie and purge us from all pollution of flesh and spirit that he might destroy the works of the devil that he might redeem us from all iniquity that he might purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and that we being dead unto sin might live unto righteousnesse Totum Christiani nominis pondus fructus mors Christi All that we are or do or have is produced and effected by the death of Christ. Now because our life depends upon his death the ministry of this life must relate â—o the ministry of this death and we have nothing to glory in but the Crosse of Christ the Word preached is nothing but Jesus Christ crucified and the Sacraments are the most eminent way of declaring this word for by Baptism we are buried into his death and by the Lords Supper we are partakers of his death we communicate with the Lord Jesus as he is crucified but now since all belong to this that Word and that Mystery that is highest and neerest in this relation is the principal and chief of all the rest and that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is so is evident beyond all necessity of inquiry it being instituted in the vespers of the Passion it being the Sacrament of the passion a sensible representation of the breaking Christs body of the effusion of Christs blood it being by Christ himself intituled to the passion and the symbols invested with the names of his broken body and his blood poured forth and the whole ministry being a great declaration of this death of Christ and commanded to be continued until his second coming Certainly by all these it appears that this Sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation here is the publication of the great word of salvation here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ the food of our souls much more clearly than in Baptism much more effectually than in simple enunciation or preaching and declaration by words for this preaching is to strangers and infants in Christ to produce faith but this Sacramental enunciation is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ a glorying in it giving praise for it a declaring it to be done and own'd and accepted and prevailing The consequent of these things is this That if any Mystery Rite or Sacrament be effective of any spiritual blessings then this is much more as having the prerogative and illustrious principality above every thing else in its own kind or of any other-kind in exteriour or interiour Religion I name them both because as in Baptism the water alone does nothing but the inward cooperation with the outward oblation does save us yet to Baptism the Scriptures attribute the effect so it is in this sacred solemnity the external act is indeed nothing but obedience and of it self only declares Christs death in rite and ceremony yet the worthy communicating of it does indeed make us feed upon Christ and unites him to the soul and makes us to become one spirit according to the words of S. Ambrose Ideo in similitudinem quidem accipis sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequeris thou recâ—ivâ—st the Sacrament as the similitude of Christs body but thou shalt receive the grace and the virtue of the true nature I shall not enter into so useless a discourse as to inquire whether the Sacraments confer grace by their own excellency and power with which they are endued from above because they who affirm they do require so much duty on our parts as they also do who attribute the effect to our moral disposition but neither one nor the other say true for neither the external act nor the internal grace and morality does effect our pardon and salvation but the spirit of God who blesses the symbols and assists the duty makes them holy and this acceptable Only they that attribute the efficacy to the Ministration of the Sacrament chose to magnifie the immediate work of man rather than the immediate work of God and prefer the external at least in glorious
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
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
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
live with him and converse with him for ever It is good to be with Christ and S. Hierom said I would to God that we could alwayes receive with a pure conscience and without self-condemnation It is without dispute that it is better to be with Christ in all the wayes of being with him than to be away from him one hour this therefore ought to be no part of the question But because there is more required to the receiving Christ than eating the Symbols and a man may eat to his condemnation and increase his sins and swell his sad accounts and be guilty of Christs body and blood if he does not take heed therefore first men must be prepar'd and be in the state of holiness or else they may not receive at all and they that are so may receive it frequently the oftner the better So Hierom and St. Austin tell that even till their dayes the cuâ—tome of receiving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain and all the Ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent communion but just as Physicians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and the infant but the strong man and the healthful And this we find thus determined by S. Chrysostom There are some living in desarts who receive but once in a year or it may be once in two years what then whom shall we account best of them that receive but once or that receive but seldome or that receive frequently Neither one nor the other But them that communicate with a sincere conscience with a pure heart and an unreprovable life They that are such let them alwayes communicate and they that are not so let them not approach so much as once because they do nothing but draw upon themselves the judgements of God and make themselves worthy of condemnation To which if we add the excellent discourse of S. Austin in this question the consequents of it may suffice to determine the whole inquiry Some will say that the Eucharist is not to be receiv'd every day If you ask why he tels you because some dayes are to be chosen in which a man may live more purely and continently that so he may come to so great a Sacrament more worthily because he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself On the other side another sayes if thou hast received so great a wound and contracted so violent a disease that such remedies are to be deferr'd every such man ought by the authority of the Bishop to be remov'd fâ—om the Altar and put to penance and by the same authority be reconcil'd For this is to receive unworthily then to receive when a man should be doing penance and not according to his own pleasure offer himself to or withdraw himself from the Communion But if his sins be not so great as to deserve excommunication he ought not to separate himself from the dayly medicine of the Lords Body Between these possibly a man may determine the question better if he admonishes that men should abide in the peace of Christ. But let every one do what according to his faith he piously believes ought to be done For neither of them dishonours the body and blood of the Lord if they in their several wayes contend who shall most honour the most holy Sacrament For Zachaeus and the Centurion did not prefer themselves before one another when the one received Christ into his house and the other said he was not worthy to receive him under his roof both of them honouring our Blessed Saviour by a divers and almost a contrary way both of them were miserable by sins and both of them obtain'd mercy Now from the words of these two Saints put together we may collect these resolutions 1. The question does no way concern evil men desperately or greatly wicked for they so remaining or committing such sins quae non committit omnis bonae fidei speique Christianus which exclude men from the Kingdom of heaven and cannot stand with the hopes of a good man are separate from the Spirit of the Lord and ought not to touch the body of our Lord. 2. Neither does it concern such imperfect persons and half Christians who endeavour to accord the rules of the Gospel with their irregular and ruling passions who would enter into heaven and yet keep their affections for earth and earthly interests who part stakes between God and the world and resolve to serve two Masters who commit oftentimes deliberate and great sins and repent and yet sin again when the temptation comes for they are yet very far from the Kingdom of God and therefore ought not to be admitted to the portion of sons and the bread of children 3. It concerns only such whose life does not dishonour their profession who pretend to be servants of Christ and indeed are so in great truth whose faith is strengthned with hope and their hope animated with charity who cannot pretend to be more perfect than men yet really contend to avoid all sin like the children of God who have right to be nourished by the body of the Lord Corpus Christi quod ipsi sunt because they are indeed members of his body and joyned in the same Spirit The question is not between the Publican and the Pharisee but between the converted Publican and the proselyte Centurion between two persons who are both true honour ours of Christ. and penitent sinners and humbled persons and have no affection for sin remaining the question then is which is more to be commended he that out of love receives Christ or he who out of humility and reverence abstains because he thinks himself not worthy enough To this St. Chrysostome answers 4. They that are such have a right to receive every day and because they are rightly disposed it is certain that a frequent Communion is of great advantage to them and therefore they that frequent it not are like to be losers For this is the daily bread the heavenly supersubstantial bread by which our souls are nourished to life eternal This is the medicine against our daily imperfections and intrudings of lesser crimes and sudden emigration of passions it is the great consignation of pardon and St. Ambrose argues well If Christs bloud is powred forth for the remission of sins then I ought as often as I can receive it when it is poured forth to me that because I sin often I may perpetually have my remedy Which discourse of his is only to be understood of those imperfections of our life which perpetually haunt those good men who are growing in grace untill they come to perfection and consummation in grace 5. They that in conscience of their past sins and apprehension of their repentance do abstain for fear of irreverence and the sentence of condemnation do very well as long as they find that their sin returns often or tempts strongly
thy mysteries and communicate to me thy gifts and love me with that love thou bearest to the Sons of thy house Thou hast given me thy Son with him give me all things else which are needful to my body and soul in order to thy glory and my salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. III. An act of Love and Eucharist to be added if there be time and opportunity O Lord Jesu Christ Fountain of true and holy love nothing is greater than thy love nothing is sweeter nothing more holy Thy love troubles none but is entertained by all that feel it with joy and exultation and it is still more desired and is ever more desirable Thy love O dearest Jesu gives liberty drives away fear feels no labour but suffers all it eases the weary and strengthens the weak it comforts them that mourn and feeds the hungry Thou art the beginning and the end of thy own love that thou mayest take occasion to do us good and by the methods of grace to bring us to glory Thou givest occasion and createst good things and producest affections and stirrest up the appetite and dost satisfie all holy desires Thou hast made me and fed me and blessed me and preserved me and sanctified me that I might love thee and thou would'st have me to love thee that thou mayest love me for ever O give me a love to thee that I may love thee as well as ever any of thy servants loved thee according to that love which thou by the Sacrament of love workest in thy secret ones Abraham excelled in faith Job in patience Isaac in fidelity Jacob in simplicity Joseph in chastity David in religion Josiah in zeal and Manasses in repentance but as yet thou hadst not communicated the Sacrament of love that grace was reserved till thou thy self shouldst converse with man and teach him love Thou hast put upon our hearts the sweetest and easiest yoke of love to enable us to bear the burden of man and the burden of the Lord give unto thy servant such a love that whatsoever in thy service may happen contrary to flesh and bloud I may not feel it that when I labour I may not be weary when I am despised I may not regard it that adversity may be tolerable and humility be my sanctuary and mortification of my passions the exercise of my daies and the service of my God the joy of my soul that loss to me may be gain so I win Christ and death it self the entrance of an eternal life when I may live with the Beloved the joy of my soul the light of my eyes My God and all things the blessed Saviour of the world my sweetest Redeemer Jesus Amen An Eucharistical Hymn taken from the Prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the blessed Sacrament Praise ye the Lord I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the Assembly of the upright and in the Congregation He hath made his wonderful works to be remembred the Lord is gracious and full of compassion He hath given meat unto them that fear him he will ever be mindful of his Covenant His bread shall be fat and he shall yield royal dainties Binding his Foal unto the vine and his Asses colt unto the choice vine he washed his garment in wine and his cloaths in the bloud of grapes In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of wine on the lees He will swallow up death in victory and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth for the Lord hath spoken it And the Lord their God shall save them as the flock of his people for how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty Corn shall make the young men chearful and new wine the virgins The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple even the messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in He shall purifie the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness O Israel return unto the Lord thy God for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity Take with you words and turn to the Lord saying Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously so will we render the calves of our lips for in thee the Fatherless findeth mercy The Lord hath said I will heal their backslidings I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away They that dwell under his shadow shall return they shall revive as the corn and blossom as the Vine the memorial thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon The poor shall eat and be satisfied they shall praise the Lord that seek him your heart shall live for ever for he hath placed peace in our borders and fed us with the flower of wheat For from the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same the Name of the Lord shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offered unto his Name and a pure offering for his Name shall be great among all Nations Who so is wise he shall understand these thiâ—gs and the prudent shall know them for the waies of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them but the transgressors shall fall therein Glory be to the Father c. A Prayer to be said after the Communion in behalf of our souls and all Christian people 1. O most merciful and gracious God Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory thou art the great lover of souls and thou hast given thy holy Son to die for our salvation to redeem us from sin to destroy the work of the Devil and to present a Church to thee pure and spotless and undefiled relying upon thy goodness trusting in thy promises and having received my dearest Lord into my soul I humbly represent to thy divine Majesty the glorious sacrifice which our dearest Jesus made of himself upon the Cross and by a never ceasing intercession now exhibites to thee in heaven in the office of an eternal Priesthood in behalf of all that have communicated this day in the Divine Mysteries in all the Congregations of the Christian world and in behalf of all them that desire to communicate and are hindred by sickness or necessity by fear or scruple by censures Ecclesiastical or the sentence of their own consciences 2. Give unto me O God and unto them a portion of all the good prayers which are made in heaven and earth the intercession of our Lord and the supplications of all thy servants and unite us in the bands of the common faith and a holy charity that no interests or partialities no sects or opinions may keep us any longer in darkness and division 3. Give thy blessing to all Christian Kings and Princes all Republicks and Christian Governments grant to them the