of the Wheat Psal. 147. 14 so it s like they would not in their Passover in the Bread they used omit the commemoration of that Mercy and the same Bread which Christ made use of in the Passover we must suppose he made use of in the institution of this Sacrament This will give us occasion to enquire whether any other thing Men make use of instead of Corn-Bread may be used in this Holy Sacrament for it 's certain that in some Countries they have no Corn and divers Authors tells us how much the Bread differs in the several parts of the habitable World according to the nature of the Soil and temper of the Inhabitants The Egyptians heretofore made Bread of Millet and Milk and Water and in some part of the West-Indies at this day they make Bread of the roots of certain Trees which they dry and powder and then make up into Paste or Bread and so they do in divers parts of Africa And as it may be the lots of many Christians to be cast upon such places so the question may justly be ask'd Whether in the administration of the Lord's Supper being destitute of Bread made of Corn they may with a safe Conscience make use of any other And most Divines answer in the affirmative For tho' the Canonists among the Papists will allow nothing to be Bread but what is made of Corn yet whatever it is that nourishes like Bread made of Corn is Bread to them who are so nourish'd by it And since the reason of Christ's making use of Bread in this Sacrament was to represent the Spiritual nourishment of our Souls by application of the benefits of his death or as we commonly speak by his Body and Blood Why should not any Nation or People make use of that in the Sacrament to represent this Spiritual nourishment which serves them instead of Bread and gives the same nourishment to their Bodies that ordinary Bread doth especially where Bread of Wheat or Rye or Barley is not to be had Yet this is not to be applied to other Fruits of the Earth such as Pears and Apples and Figs and Melons c. as if they in case of necessity might be made use of instead of Bread for though they nourish too yet no Nation makes use of them as their Bread And since Bread is not only used by Christ but by all the Christian Churches in all Ages something that hath the nature and the name of Bread must still be used in this Holy Sacrament and all care imaginable taken that by making use of something else Men run not into Profanation of this Ordinance 3. As it was unleaven'd and wheaten Bread Christ made use of in the Institution of this Holy Sacrament so it was also substantial Bread not a Wafer as is now used in the Church of Rome That Christ used substantial Bread no Man ever doubted that understood what Bread the Jews made use of in the Celebration of the Passover and for a thousand years after Christ the Church was wholly ignorant of Wafers It 's granted that the Sacramental Bread was antiently called Host from the Latin Hostia a Sacrifice because the Bread represents the Body of Christ which was offered in Sacrifice for the sins of the World which name of Host the Church of Rome still applies at this day to their Wafers in the Mass but then it was substantial Bread or a whole Loaf they called by that name How these Wafers first came in is explain'd by Honorius Augustodunensis The report goes saith he that it was usual in former times for the Ministers of the Church when the Sacrament of the Altar was to be Celebrated to fetch a quantity of Meal or Flower from every House or Family in the place they lived in which Custom is yet observ'd among the Greeks and of that to make the Bread which was to be used at the Lord's Table and distributed among the Communicants But after the Church increased in number but decreas'd in Holiness it was order'd for the sake of carnal Men that those that could should communicate either every Lords Day or every Third Lord's Day or on the Festivals of the Year But the People not coming and there being no need of so great a Loaf as formerly it was thought good to use Wafers in the form of a larger Penny and that they might not want a Mystery for these new doings the People desired instead of Flower to offer every Man a Penny that thereby they might acknowledge how their Lord and Master was betraid for Thirty pieces of Silver So far he And it 's probable that from hence came the Easter-Offerings which as yet are usual in most Churches of the Nation And since these Wafers are the effects of so great no abuse which the wickedness of the times brought into the Church it can be no great encouragement for those that would preserve the solemnity of this Mystery to keep them up or plead in vindication of them It 's true the Wafers they use this day in the Church of Rome are made of Flower and Water But 1. There is not that quantity of Flower and Water in them as is required in substantial Bread Neither 2. Are they wrought or baked as common substantial Bread is Neither 3. When they are made are they design'd for any thing but to seal Letters withal I mean in the ordinary use of them before the Priest doth lay them upon the Altar which shews that they are not intended for nourishing Bread nor have they the right taste or smell or strength of Bread neither are they commonly sold for Bread nor doth any Man make use of them for his daily Bread thereby to strengthen his Body So that they do not answer Chrst's design and the Analogy that ought to be betwixt the thing signifying and that which is signified i. e. They being no substantial Bread cannot exactly represent the substantial Nourishment of the Soul and therefore have been most justly rejected by most Churches but by that which hath made bold with God himself with Scripture and the express Laws of our Saviour and substituted their own Inventions and Traditions IV. Why Christ made use of Bread in this Holy Sacrament is next to be consider'd Besides the general Reason I have already mentioned viz. To represent the Nourishment he intends our Souls by his Death and Crucifixion if we lay hold of it by an active and fruitful Faith there may these following Reasons be also given for it 1. To put us in mind that he was the Person prefigured by the Bread variously prepared and ordered under the Law and in the Temple and in the Rituals of the Jews The Shew-bread was to be before the Lord continually Exod. 25. 30. In the Original it 's called The Bread of Faces The Mystery of it was to shew that Christ was to be the great Mediator who should be always in the Presence of God behold his
will keep God in his Eye that he may not sin against him that he may do what is just and righteous in his sight and that at Night he may reap Comfort from a Review of his Actions of the Day Lawful Business is consistent with watching against Temptations and keeping our selves unspotted from the Pollutions of the World and this St. James calls Pure Religion Jam. 1. 27. And if this pure Religion be joyned with our Business I do not see how our lawful Business if we mind it the Day or Week before can make us unworthy Receivers 3. No Man hath so much lawful Business but if he pleases he may find time to retire and enter into his Closet and walk with God Where a Man pretends that his lawful Business allows him no time for Devotion 't is to be feared he either tells a Lye or he manages his lawful Business very ill or imitates the carnal Sort of Mankind who when they have spent the whole Day or the greatest part of the Day in Fooleries and needless Business give out they have no time and can find no time for God's Service A Conscientious Man if he be really so will take heed how he conforms to the World in this particular and if he manages his Affairs with discretion I question not but he will find time to ask his Heart what it is that is nearest to him whether God or the World what his chief Aim or Design is whether to be rich or to be good And as he will find time to ask himself such Questions so he will find time for pious Exercises whereby his Soul may be brought to a serious Sense of the Mystery proposed in this holy Sacrament and if he do so his lawful Worldly Business the Day or Week before as it need not discourage him from coming to this holy Table so it need not fill his Head with Doubts and Fears that coming to it having been engaged in much Business the Day before will make him an unworthy Communicant 6. Worldly Crosses Troubles and Disappointments do not make a Man an unworthy Receiver I do not deny but Crosses and Troubles of the World if they fill the Mind with Torments and mistrustful Cares if they depress the Understanding make it lie groveling on the Earth and mind little else but Second Causes if they possess the Soul with despairing Thoughts drive it into Discontent draw it away from Heaven render the Promises of God insipid to her and do so far prevail with her that the future Joys and the Bliss of the other World are insignificant things to her these Effects do not look very amiable in the sight of God are no very tempting Objects to the Son of God the Master of this Spiritual Feast and are so far from being Allurements of his Blessing that they are like to procure his Curse But I consider Worldly Crosses as abstracted from all these Abuses and as such they cannot make a Person eat and drink unworthily 1. Because What were the Communicants under the first Persecutions of the Church but so many afflicted distressed troubled and evil-entreated Christians Their Crosses were great their Afflictions heavy and their Pressures grievous they were in daily danger of losing not only their nearest Relatives but their Lands Houses Possessions they were hunted pursued driven from their Dwellings the Heathens were set against them the Jews were their Enemies they were reproached they were made Spectacles to Angels and to Men they were tormented they were committed to Wild Beasts they were harassed beaten bruised they were wrongfully accused of Treason of Sedition of Atheism of murthering their Children of promiscuous Copulations and of other Crimes they were hated branded with odious Names they were charged with being the Causes of Plagues Inundations Famine c. Yet nothing of these discouraged them from coming to this Table they came to it to chuse and thought themselves the fitter to approach because they were made conformable to Christ in his Afflictions 2. A Man may have such Crosses and yet be very Conscientious 'T is far from being impossible to be afflicted and yet good miserable and yet serious destitute and yet religious hated and yet a Lover of God In the midst of the greatest Troubles a Man may put his Confidence in God praise him for his Goodness rejoyce in him because he hath promised him Eternal Life keep his Tongue from Evil and his Lips from speaking Guile take occasion from his Troubles to consider the Emptiness of Sublunary Comforts the Permanency of Spiritual Consolations the Sweetness of God's Favour the Beauty of God's Providences the Wisdom of his Dispensations the Happiness of Lazarus in the midst of all his Sores and Boyls the Designs of God to make him humble and patient and to fit him for Eternal Happiness And where a Person makes this use of his Afflictions there is nothing can dispose him better for receiving the holy Communion 3. This Sacrament is an excellent Help to bear our Troubles and Misfortunes with a contented and chearful Mind For here the Lord Jesus is represented to us as dumb under all Reproaches unmoved at all the bitter Language that is given him silent under the Rage of Enemies meekâ—under the foulest Accusations giving his Back to the Smiter and not opening his Mouth under the Scorns and Derisions of his Adversaries contented under all his Losses courageous under all the Calumnies that False Witnesses invent against him satisfied with the Will of God bearing his Cross without murmuring answering calmly to his Oppressors patient under his Scourges ready to do good to those that came to apprehend him And is not this a powerful Motive to bear what Providence thinks fit to inflict upon us And therefore Crosses and Worldly Troubles separated from the ill Management of them cannot make a Person an unworthy Receiver Where Men storm and fret and burn with Revenge under an Affliction will be their own Carvers will be vindicated their own way that way that Flesh and Blood suggests and will rid themselves of their Trouble by unlawful Means these indeed if they receive they eat and drink unworthily But that is not a necessary Effect of the Affliction but a Product rather of their Wickedness and Carnality which instead of being cherished must be cut off and mortified 7. A Man's having formerly received unworthily and coming again afterwards to the holy Sacrament with a great Sense and Abhorrency of his former unworthy Receiving doth not make him an unworthy Receiver For 1. If it did we might as well say that he who hath sinned grievously cannot safely venture on a true Repentance To have done ill is no Bar to a sincere Return but a Motive to it and though the Sin be never so great yet if he can so order and manage his Remorse that it may be hearty kindly and attended with a real and universal Change of Life and Love to Goodness he hath no reason to despair of
Persecution The Danger and Imprudence of those who neglecting to receive it in Publick do not think of it till they come to lye upon their Death-beds What a mercy it is that we have Publick Churches where we may serve and worship God without fear or molestation Great Gravity and Devotion required in the Publick Worship of God The Prayer I. THat the publick Church is the most proper most warranted and fittest place to celebrate and eat the Lord's Supper in seems to have been the constant belief of the Christian Church and they have grounded their Belief on the Apostles Expostulation with the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11. 20 22. where speaking of their coming together into one place and distinguishing private Houses from the Church of God he intimates a known custom in that Age to meet in certain Oratories or places appointed for publick Worship and there receive the Holy Symbols That which is commonly objected of the great Improbability of publick Buildings and Edifices in times of Persecution such as the Apostles and the Christians for the first three Centuries had sad experience of seems to carry greater weight than really it doth for though we speak of places appointed for Publick Worship no Person of common Sense can imagine that we mean they had such stately and magnificent Buildings as our Churches are at this day the Effects of Ease and Peace and Plenty These came not in till Constantine procured the Churches Respit and Freedom from their former Bondage yet we may justly enough suppose that even in those days of trouble and calamitous times they either converted some spacious upper Room in a charitable Believer's House into a Church or some good Christian gave and dedicated his House for that Religious Use or the Believers by common consent turned it into a Place of publick Worship which is the reason that the Disciples are said to have met in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper Room Act. 1. 13. possibly the same which Christ celebrated the Eucharist in and who knows not that mention is sometimes made of a Church in such a Man's House as Colos. 4. 15. Salute Nymphas and the Church at his House Upon which words Oecumenus tells us He was a was a great Man for he had converted his House into a Church And though it is said Act. 2. 46. That the Believers continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking of Bread from House to House did eat their Meat with gladness of heart yet the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render from House to House as our Translators take notice in the Margent may as well be rendered in the House and then the meaning will be this That continuing daily in the Temple or frequenting the Temple daily they broke Bread in the House i. e. in the House by the Temple appropriated to the publick Christian Worship and particularly in that upper Room by the Temple where the Apostles and Believers used to meet in which place when they had broken Bread or received the Eucharist they went home to their own Houses and sat down to their private Meals with joy and great comfort II. The succeeding Churches observ'd this very Religiously and therefore call'd the Holy Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Convocation because they judged it meet the whole Church should be together when it was administred For this reason it was also call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liturgy which properly imports Publick Administration of an Office and therefore applied Rom. 15. 27. to publick distribution of Alms to the Magistrate's executing of his Office Rom. 13. 4 and to the Office of Teaching and Prophecying in the publick Congregation Acts 13. 2. And this gave occasion to Cyril of Alexandria to say in an Epistle to Coelosyrius That the Eucharist or Sacred Symbols ought to be offered no where but in the Churches of Believers and that he who attempts the contrary doth manifestly violate the Law of God meaning the Apostles practice before-mentioned which he supposes amounts to a virtual Command To this purpose the Council of Laodicea forbad all Bishops and Priests to celebrate the Communion in private Houses and Eustathius the Bishop of Sebastia as Socrates tells us among other reasons was deposed from his Place and Dignity for this because he had given permission to have the Lord's Supper administred in private Houses which was saith the Historian against the Ecclesiastical Rules Notwithstanding this it was customary at Rome to do so which makes St. Hierome in his Book against Jovinian find fault with the abuse and expostulate with them Why do they not go to Church to receive Christ's Body and Blood Are there two Christs one in publick another in private And indeed those Christians that insisted upon this publick Administration had the Jewish Church for their pattern for it being taken for granted that the Lord's Supper was succedaneous to the Passover as the Paschal Lamb was to be kill'd in the Temple and in publick so it was fit that the solemn Remembrance of the Death of that Lamb which was to take away the sins of the World the Antitype of the other should be celebrated in publick and in the Congregations of Christians That the Paschal Lamb which every Family among the Jews were obliged to eat of was killed in the Temple is more than probable for though Philo the Jew seems to take it for granted that every Master of a Family had Liberty to kill the Paschal Lamb at his own House yet as judicious Men have observed Philo being an Alexandrian and not having those opportunities of searching into the Jewish Rites that others had who lived at Jerusalem might easily run into a mistake the rather because Josephus and most Jews affirm the contrary viz. That every Master of a Family was obliged to bring the Lamb intended to be eaten at the Celebration of the Passover to the Temple to the Priests who were to kill it for him If it had not been so it is not easie to imagine how the Priests could have given so exact an account to Cestius of the number of the Jews that were come up to the Passover at that time for they gave in an account of 55000 and 600 Persons that had presented themselves at the Feast which in all likelihood they knew by the Lambs the People brought to them to be slain for their respective Families and though Jewish Customs lay no Obligations upon Christians yet where the Gospel gives a Rule a Jewish practice in a case not much unlike may serve for confirmation of the Observance III. The publick eating of the Lord's Supper doth certainly best represent the end for which Christ died and that is the Publick Good a Good which Caiaphas ignorantly acknowledged and confessed when he told the Jews Ye know nothing at all nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole multitude perish
Deacon's Hand or whether they took it out of the Dish into which the sacred Bread was broken with their own Hands is not very material to determine Though whatever Passages there may be in Clemenâ— of Alexandria and St. Cyprian which seem to import that the Communicants did take the broken Bread out of the Dish yet most of the Ancients do agree that the consecrated Elements were taken from the Hands of Ecclesiastical Persons And though among the Jews the Master of the Family that broke the Bread did not always give it into the Hands of every Guest but having broken it laid it upon the Table and every one took a Piece yet the Practice of the Christian Church for Six Hundred Years at least after Christ sufficiently shews how the holy Apostles took it whom we may suppose the first Churches did imitate And as the Disciples took it from Christ's Hands so the Communicants afterward took it from the Apostles and their Successors Hands which Practice continues this Day in most Churches of the Protestants that call themselves Reformed I say in most for in some and particularly those of the United Provinces the Communicants take it out of the Dish after it is broken by the Minister It was Ignorance and Superstition that brought in a contrary Custom And from hence rose that Canon in the Council of Antisiodorum celebrated about the Year after Christ 613. That Women must not take the Eucharist with their bare Hands but in a Linen Cloth which they called Dominicale Soon after as Folly and Superstition increased some began to take the consecrated Bread in little Vessels of Gold or of some other Metal against whom the Sixth Council of Constantinople about the Year of our Lord 676. made a Canon and forbad them to do so for the future but to put their Hands cross-wise and so to receive it The Pretence in receiving the holy Bread in some Thing besides their bare Hands was that they might not defile the Body of Christ with their Hands as if touching it with baser Things than their own Hands would be more acceptable to God For as Solomon tells us a living Dog is better than a dead Lion so we may with far greater Reason say That a living Hand is infinitely better than all the dead Things which are made either of Gold or Silver or Brass or any other Mineral But though these Abuses crept in so early yet the Custom of receiving the holy Bread with their Hands continued in abundance of Churches till the latter end of the Ninth Century by which Time it began to be customary in the Western Church to put the Eucharist into the Mouths of the Communicants as it is practised this Day in the Roman Church as also among the Lutheran Protestants It is confessed that a Canon was made in a Council of Roan about the Year of our Lord 685. That the Eucharist should for the future by the Priest be put into the Mouth of the Communicant whether Woman or Lay-man Yet there are sufficient Testimonies extant that assure us that this Canon was not observ'd every where till about the latter end of the Ninth Century In a Word As Superstition grew and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation began to prevail so this ancient Rite of taking the Eucharist with the Hand was abolished and the Priests of the Church of Rome would not so much as suffer Lay-men to touch the Sacramental Bread with the Tip of their Fingers pretending that it was only given by Christ into the Hands of Priests an Absurdity so great that by the same Rule it would follow that the Laity must be totally excluded from the Sacrament because at the first Institution it was received by none but Priests Nay to that heighth of Folly did Men arise by degrees not only Papists but many also that professed the Purity of the Gospel that it was counted a great Profanation of the Eucharist if the People did any way touch the sacred Bread and therefore great Care was and is still taken even at this Day that the Bread be put exactly upon the Tongue of the Communicant that he may not touch it so much as with his Teeth So that under a pretence of Religion Men are made to forbear that which true Religion commands to be done And what an Injury is it to the People to hinder them from touching and taking the holy Bread in their Hands when Christ laid down his Life for them as well as for the Priests Did the Priests receive greater Benefit by Christ's Death than the People Or were some peculiar Advantages consigned to them by his Death over and above what is intended for the Laity If this could be proved there might be some Colour for this Pretence But when all equally share in his Mercies why should not all take the Bread in their Hands whereby they remember the Benefits of his Death Are the Priest's Hands holier or cleaner than the People's Would to God they were so not only in this Sacrament but in all Things But after all what can be more weak or silly than to imagine that the holy Bread is defiled more by the Hands and Teeth than by the Tongue or Bowels or Stomach which receive it Is not the Tongue a Member of the Body as well as the Hand Or are the Bowels into which the Bread is received purer than the Hand If it be said that by the Hands great Sins are usually committed I would fain know whether greater Sins are not daily committed with the Tongue than with the Hand So impertinent is this Plea that it deserves no Argument or Answer In the Greek Church the Custom of taking the holy Bread with the Hand was kept up for many Hundred Years till of late they have got a way of mingling the holy Wine with the Bread in a Spoon whence the Communicants do take it II. As we are commanded to take the holy Bread with our Hands which makes it no indifferent Thing so we cannot suppose that Christ would command it without intending some Mystery in that Action and if it be lawful to guess we may piously believe that by that Taking he intended these following Things 1. It puts us in mind with what Alacrity we should accept of the unspeakable Gift viz. The Mercy of Reconciliation by the Death of Christ Jesus As we readily stretch forth our Hands to receive a Present that is pleasing to us so ought we to accept of what a merciful God doth so freely and so frankly bestow upon us Accept of it You will say Who can be supposed to refuse it Will a Malefactor scruple to accept of his Prince's Pardon Or If a King put a Treasure into a poor Prisoner's Hands will he scorn it or withdraw his Hand 'T is true Men are willing enough to accept of a Saviour so they may have him upon their own Terms If he will give them leave to do what they please and
afford matter of comfort to think at such times that the same Jesus who was crucified will ere long appear in Glory with all his mighty Angels to give those that have followed him in the Regeneration full possession of the purchas'd Glory However at the best the Celebration of this Feast at night was but a circumstantial thing and therefore the Church is not obliged to keep to it circumstantial things depending much upon conveniency or inconveniency which vary in several Ages and this was the reason that though standing at the eating of the Passover was a commanded circumstance Exod. 12. 11. yet the Jewish Church in after Ages varied from it even by Christs own Approbation and turned that posture into leaning as I shall have occasion to shew more largely in the Chapter about Kneeling at the Communion The Church therefore sins not in Celebrating this Feast at any other time especially in a circumstance barely related not commanded Yet as I said before because this Spiritual Feast kept up in all Churches is still in imitation of Christs Supper and that Supper is religiously remembred in it and the same essential things together with the scope drift and design of all are still preserved it is not unfitly called the Lords Supper still so that if any man seems to be contentious about the name We have no such Custom neither the Churches of God 1 Cor. 12. 16. IV. Yet this is no Argument but that it may also lawfully be called and expressed by other Names and this we find the Christian Churches have done from time to time Tertullian was the first that called it a Sacrament taking the Name from the Oaths the Roman Soldiers took that they would be true and faithful to their Emperor and the rather because we vow Allegiance and Fidelity in this Ordinance to the great Master that died for us Others have call'd it an Oblation because we offer up our humble Prayers and Supplications to the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ and our Souls and Bodies too when we remember this Beneficial Death Sometimes it hath been call'd a Sacrifice because it is not only a commemoration of the wonderful Sacrifice of Christs Death but we chearfully offer up the Sacrifice of our Praises for this inestimable Mercy The name of Communion occurs frequently in the Writings of the Ancients because all sincere Christians are hereby tyed in a bond of mutual Love participate of the same Bread are Fellow-members of the Mystical Body of Christ and have Communion with Christ their Head and enjoy all the same Benefits of his Death and sufferings The word Eucharist is used as often as any other because Thanksgiving and Magnifying the Goodness Mercy and Charity of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are a great part of the Service here The name Mass which they of the Roman Persuasion and even the Lutheran Churches make use of as it was not known in the Church for the first Four hundred years after Christ so the Original of it was this When the Lords Supper was to be celebrated after Sermon the Deacon or some other Officer of the Church called to the People that did not or were not to receive in these words Ite missa est Depart the Congregation is dismissed In time that which was only a Preliminary circumstance of the Lords Supper was applied to the whole Office and the Service was called Missa or Mass a word which the Romanists make a great stir with and turn into a perfect Charm and a monstrous Sacrifice to the great disparagement of Christs Sufferings and the Benefits that accrue thereby to true Believers Some of their Writers make it a Hebrew word and fetch it from the Old Testament others derive it from the Greek others from the Northern Language and though it expresses less then any of those Names we mentioned before yet hath this swallowed up all the rest and the more superstitious in the Roman Church are almost afraid to call it by any other Name and the Mass is that which both young and Old both learned and unlearned among them have most frequently in their Mouths though few of the Vulgar know what it means I omit here many other Names appropriated by Writers to this Mystery such as Collect Oeconomy Liturgy Dominical Agenda Anaphora Synaxis c. partly because I intend no Critical History and partly because by the names I have already spoken of this Sacrament is usually known in the Western Churches That we do so often call it a Mystery is because the things discovered and imitated here do altogether depend upon Divine Revelation and are such as Flesh and Blood understand not and the Secrets of which none but a Person enlightned by the Spirit of God apprehends to any purpose and which transcend all the Arcana or hidden points of Heathen Divinity V. The name of the Lords Supper puts us in mind that this Holy Feast differs from Common Suppers 1. In that Common Suppers are for the support of Nature this for the support of Grace and Goodness in our Souls The former are intended for the strengthning of the Body this for the corroboration of our Faith and Hope and Love Our Common Supper represents to us the Ordinary Providence of God which opens its hand and fills the desire of every living thing This Gods extraordinary dispensation which shews at what cost and charges we are made the Children of God and fitted for everlasting habitations The former gives us an account of the Blessings of Gods Left this of the favours of his Right Hand The former bids us look into the nether this into the upper Springs of the Divine Clemency 2. In our Common Suppers our Spirits may unbend and our Minds and Tongues take liberty of thinking and speaking of things relating to our necessary Employments in the World in this our thoughts must rise mount up with Wings as Eagles pierce the Clouds and fix on the Riches of Divine Love retire from the World view God and his glorious Attributes and unite with that excellent object improve themselves into Contemplaâ—ion and adore the Mystery of Redemption In the former no other Preparation is required but what we are to bring with us to common affairs and businesses i. e. Gravity and Sobriety but in this the Heart must be prepared the Soul chafed the Affections warmed prayers offered Ejaculations press into Gods presence and Self-examination dispose the Soul for the visits of the Holy Ghost that it may be a worthy Guest at so great a Table and the rather because God is in a special manner present here for wherever Providence displays its brighter beams of Love there God is eminently present that makes Heaven what it is because there the Divine Goodness shines most gloriously In this Sacrament are set before us more then ordinary Characters of Gods Love the Angels of Heaven saith St. Chrysostom stand round about the Altar and while the Minister
not Jon. 11. 49. 50. But St. John is fuller in the explication of this Good when he asserts that his death is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World 1 Jon. 2. 2. Many things are by Men pretended to be done for the Publick Good but what they call Publick is either for the Good of a Family or Corporation or Parish or City or a certain Territory or a Kingdom But the Death of Christ spreads its Virtues infinitely wider not confining its Benefits to a Province or a part of the World but the whole Race of Mankind was concern'd in the Favour so that nothing was ever done so truly for the Publick Good as Christ's Suffering and Dying and whoever remembers it in publick testifies his esteem and value of it not only by his inward sense and admiration of it but by the very place in which he doth remember it The Truth is Christ was crucified publickly in the face of the Sun and before huge multitudes both of Jews and Proselytes who were come to give their attendance at the Passover Both Jews and Gentiles beheld the spectacle and Men of all sorts and conditions crouded to see so dreadful a shew which was an Item that the remembrance of it should be in the most publick place the Church the rather because this publick remembrance doth best promote Christ's Glory as multitudes joyning together in Confessions and Praises must necessarily advance it more than the Hallelujahs of two or three in private IV. Private Communions or Communions in places which were neither Churches nor publick Oratories owe their first rise to the Churches persecutions For when Nero and his successors in the Roman Empire began to defile the Faith with Blood and to be a Christian and a Malefactor were made convertible Terms the Christians were forced to serve God as they could and therefore celebrated the Communion in any place to which they were driven in the common Storm in Mines in Ships in Stables in Prisons in Caves and Dens of the Earth and where two or three Christians had the convenience of getting a Bishop or Minister to consecrate the Elements they chearfully remember'd their Crucify'd Lord and Master as Dionisius of Alexandria tells us in Eusebius And this soon occasion'd another Custom which was to send part of the Consecrated Bread and Wine to Peoples Houses and Cottages in the Country Justin Martyr is very express in this point And hence it came to pass that the Christians kept the Consecrated Elements by them to make use of them when either sickness seiz'd them or they found death approaching and upon this account the Sacrament was called the Viaticum or provision for a Man's Journy into another World as we learn from Gregory the Great And because the Holy Bread thus kept for use was sometimes too big for the sick or dying Person to swallow they crumbled the Bread into the Consecrated Wine and gave it the sick Person in a Spoon as we see in the example of Serapian in Eusebius a thing which in process of time was thought so necessary for all dying Christians that in some places where Superstition thrust out true Devotion in case a Person dyed before he had received the Communion they would thrust and force the crums of Bread mingled with Holy Wine into the Mouths of Persons already departed against which profanation the Fathers thought themselves obliged to Enact very severe Canons which was done accordingly in the Councils of Carthage Antisiodorum and Constantinople and Julius Bishop of Rome forbad putting the Crums of Consecrated Bread in Wine a practice which in all probability came first from sending the Consecrated Elements to Persons absent from the Publick who either could not or durst not appear in the publick Oratories a thing that Origen either foresaw or knew would be abused which makes him inveigh against such presumption So that as Persecution first brought in private Communions so when those Persecutions ceased the Church still obliged her Members to receive the Communion in publick according to the first institution It is therefore wisely ordered by our Church that People shall be exhorted in time of their health to receive the Eucharist in publick that they may not be disquieted for the omission of it when Diseases or Distempers do suddainly seize upon them at which times as the Senses and Faculties are weak so Men cannot receive these Mysteries with that Vigor Zeal and Love that is required in the right use of the Ordinance And indeed where People neglect receiving in publick not thinking of their Duty till death put them in mind of it we can promise them but little comfort He that hath often appeared at the Lord's Table in publick and concludes the scene of his life with this remembrance may reap more than ordinary satisfaction from it because he perfects that in private which he so often comfortably made use of in publick but he whose Eyes were never open to see the necessity of it till his dying groans remove his blindness as he hath despised the Church of God and neglected the time of his Visitation so his Comforts can neither be so great nor so solid as his who hath frequently strengthen'd his Soul in publick with this Cordial when the powers of the Soul are shaken with a violent sickness and the Limbs are weak the Spirits faint and the Thoughts diverted by uneasiness and pain Alas How can the Soul fix on the Cross of Christ What Sense what touches of his Love can it have or what guesses can it make at its Spiritual growth and advancement in Holiness And though according to the old Proverb It 's better late than never yet it 's to be fear'd such Men come so very late that if they were to be pictur'd they might justly be drawn as the Cardinal drew Salomon hanging betwixt Heaven and Hell it being very doubtful which of these two would fall to their share So that upon a review of the whole tho' private Communions cannot be said to be altogether unlawful especially in times of persecution nor inconvenient to persons who have frequently attended this Ordinance in publick when they were able so in times of Peace and Liberty and Tranquility for Men and Women to continue strangers to publick Receiving and to satisfie themselves with a private Communion upon a Death bed is a thing so inexcusable that we cannot but with all possible earnestness discourage it as a thing that 's dishonour to the Church they live in a disgrace to the Religion they profess an impediment to their comfort a remora to their joy an affront to their Saviour and an uncertain cherisher of their hopes of Salvation The Preceeding Considerations reduced to Practice I. WHat a mercy is it that we have Publick Churches and Oratories to go to without lett or hindrance that we have no Tyrants nor Foreign Enemies no Rods no
not been for such forcible means or straits and necessities so that the Minister of the Ordinance may thank their Office more than their Religion that he sees them in that holy place And most certainly this is not Eating the Lord's Supper for nothing is properly an act of Religion but what is a free-will-offering and flows from an internal love of the Duty And what is here said of accidental Employments is too true of standing Offices of the Church A Minister or Clergyman may come to the Lord's Supper and yet not eat the Lord's Supper he may celebrate it as a Minister and yet not eat it as a sincere Christian he may eat it because his Office obliges him to administer it and yet not eat it with that sense which becomes a sincere believer And it is so with lesser Officers about a Church Custom may carry them a great way and for some years they may never fail to come to this Table and yet may not eat as they ought for they may do it upon the account of their Office only and because it is expected of them but the sense of the end and of the love of God may be wanting which defect makes it a very lame offering 3 Such Men however come and to this they are led by a fancy they are willing to entertain that other Men who come receive it with no greater sense or seriousness than they They consider not whether this will be a good Plea another day but it gives present satisfaction and this makes them espouse it Not to mention that it is great rashness and presumption in them to judge of other Mens hearts the secrets of which they are for the most part ignorant of and if other men should be no better than they yet that would be no excuse Men being to live by Precepts not by every Example that is before them yet thus Men love to delude themselves and by that means precipitate themselves into unspeakable Dangers For III. This not eating as they ought strangely hardens them in Sin If the Cross of Christ cannot open their eyes or make them sensible of their Errors few things can be supposed able to do it to their comfort If the Blood of the Covenant cannot supple their hearts other things must be believed to be ineffectual because God looks upon this as the most potent remedy to effect it nor is this to be understood only of scandalous sins but all such offences which Christ hath peremptorily forbid though the world takes no great notice of them such as are aversion from holy Thougts and Discourses and neglect of those Gospel Graces the Apostle presses upon such as would not be Christians in vain And hence it is that where Men do not eat the Lord's Supper aright our Exhortations to those nobler Duties of Religion are lost upon them and all the severe threatnings we rehearse and mention to rouze them from their Spiritual slumber are spoke into the wind and they continue strangers to that Spiritual frame which the Apostle calls Rom. 8. 5. minding the things of the Spirit By a Spiritual frame of the heart I mean a God-like Temper which is pleased with any thing that makes for the Glory of God and as Fire converts all things into its own substance spiritualizeth Objects or makes a spiritual use of them and is truly enamoured with the severer Precepts of the Gospel and looks upon them as perfective of our natures and consequently thinks no Commandment grievous Hence it is that such Men who are strangers to this frame their Religion turns into mere Formality and Hypocrisie and however it may look in their own eyes in the sight of God it goes for no more than Paint and Varnish mere Glow-worm light that shines but warms not glitters but gives no Heat blazes but doth not touch the Heart and like rotten Wood seems bright but hath nothing of Fire in it and this must necessarily cause very false Applications of Gospel Promises which at last produces such Self-deceptions that when they come to appear before the Bar of God's Justice they 'll not only wonder at the Cheats they have put upon themselves but tear their hair and smite their breasts and be ready to kill themselves to think how they have murthered their own Souls with kindness and by fair Words and Speeches enticed them into ruin IV. From what we have said it will easily appear what eating of the Lord's Supper doth import eating it I mean in a Scripture Sense 1. To eat it with a relish of the Benefits of Christ's Death and Passion even in our common Meals we find a great difference betwixt eating and relishing betwixt eating with and without an Appetite betwixt tasting the juice and delicacy of the Meat and fancying it to be no better than Chaulk or Ashes He that eats the Lord's Supper aright his Soul must eat as well as his outward Organs and as Christ saith John 6. 63. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life so the Soul that eats as it should do the benefits of Christ's Death they must be Life and Spirit to her a perfect Cordial true Elixir real Sweetness comfortable Balm and sweeter than Honey to the Palate These Benefits are Pardon and Peace and reconciliation to God and Salvation and the Soul must be affected with them prize them value them practically above the Riches of the World and count all things dross and dung for the excellency of them and be willing to part rather with Father and Mother and Lands and Houses than with the Comforts of them and that is to relish and then the Soul eats indeed whereas a person that either thinks not of these Benefits or if he thinks of them hath no actual value for them so as to feel in himself how highly he esteems them and what a mighty veneration he hath for them though he may be said to eat yet he doth not relish them and therefore doth not eat aright 2. It is to eat with secret longings to be conformable to Christ Jesus in his Humility and Charity or as the Apostle expresses it to have the same mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus Phil. 2. 5. And this in another place is called hungring and thirsting after righteousness Matth. 5. 6. and was represented of old by the secret longings of the Spouse Cant. 1. 3. Draw me after thee and I will run Where there is no such longing to conform to Christ in these Virtues a Man doth not properly eat the Lord's Supper like a healthy man for he digests not the Food doth not turn into good Juice it doth not nourish him he doth not thrive upon it I call it longing for the desire after these Graces which were so eminent in Christ must be strong and vehement ardent and grounded upon the Beauty Loveliness and Amiableness of them such a longing as David expressed for the Lord's House and his
the Honour of the true God which the Pagans did to their false and imaginary Deities Yet see the abuse of these Feasts of Charity 1 Cor. 11. 22. especially in the Church of Corinth in the days of the Apostles For St. Paul being busie abroad partly in Planting partly in Confirming Churches the richer sort of the Christians at Corinth began to think it below them to admit the poor to that Familiarity as to eat with them in these charitable Collations and therefore either prompted by their own Pride or encouraged by some false Teachers that had Mens Persons in admiration because of advantage would indeed send the Meat and Drink they had prepared to those Oratories or places of publick worship but when they came they superciliously separated themselves from the Poorer sort and ate and drank by themselves and so freely that many of them became drunk and in that condition had the hellish impudence afterward to come to the holy Sacrament If they left any thing at these Feasts the Poor might take it and make the best of it if not they were forced to go away hungry and too often discontented So early grew this abuse and though in Process of time these Feasts were used after the Eucharist and in many places in Church-yards at the celebration of the Memories of holy Martyrs at the Dedication of Churches and at the Funerals of holy Men and Women yet nothing could keep out Intemperance and Excess and Disorders for which reason the Church at last thought herself obliged to abolish and put them down which was done accordingly by the Council of Laodicea in the Year of our Lord 364. by the Council of Carthage in the Year 419. and by the Council of Constantinople in the Year 692. II. Whence Abuses of Holy things arise is no hard matter to guess for 1. We find them spring from an Itch of Novelty Men not contented with the plain and simple Truths God hath vouchsafed to Mankind are strangely tickled with new things which are often called Refinings or Improvements of old Truths under which plausible name they are easily swallowed down Hence rose the various Idolatries in the World that it became as modish to invent new Gods as it was to invent new Fashions in Cloaths and Habits Adam no doubt deliver'd the notion of one Eternal invisible God Creator of Heaven and earth and the decent worship of him to his posterity This notion being become common and stale the succeeding Ages thought themselves obliged to invent something new and counted it more gay and glorious to worship the Creator in the Creature and seeing the Sun and Moon and Stars that they were the brightest Monuments of God's Power they easily fell into the Worship of those Luminaries till the more brutish among the People adored them as Gods indeed and this novelty once broach'd one God brought in another and as Men were still fond of Novelties so they went on and fell a Worshipping deceased Hero's and Princes in whom the Image of the Supreme Deity resided and who had been famous for some notable exploits or benefits and from hence they still went on even to the Worshipping of Trees Herbs Plants Beasts Crocodils Fishes and creeping things one Age still thinking to out-do the other in new inventions of objects of Worship till it came to pass that those were counted most Religious that Worshipt the greatest number of Gods as the Athenians who had more Gods than any one City besides of which the Apostle takes notice Acts 17. 22 23. 2. Another cause of these abuses is an Opinion That God is pleased more with the Externals than the Internals of Religion an Opinion which Men are very apt to slide into because they find the Internal Devotion is troublesome and requires intention of the Mind and mortification of the Affections and the other is more easily performed To this Original the Corruptions that did over-spread the Jewish Church owe their rise who in despight of all the Warnings of the Prophets to the contrary laid the stress of their Piety on the strict observations of their Sabbaths new Moons Sacrifices Phylacteries and legal Purifications This gave Mahomet occasion to corrupt Religion for knowing what would please the sensual inclinations of Men he craftily drew People away from the Internal Worship and Consecration of the Souls and Affections to the Supreme Being and taught them to place all Devotion in these five external Acts of Worship Saying their Prayers five times a day keeping the Mouth Ramasan giving the hundredth part of their incomes to Pious uses Washing before Prayer and making a Pilgrimage if possible to Mecca And thus the Church of Rome at this day comes to deviate from the true Religion not only by adding new Articles of Faith to the antient Creeds but by turning the whole Worship of God in a manner into Ceremonies and external Services Saying so many Ave-Maries visiting such a Saint's Shrine Processions offering Wax-Candles to the Virgin Praying by Beads undergoing Penances c. 3. A Third cause of these abuses is a mistake of Fancy and Passion for true Religion and Revelation From hence have come all the barbarous attempts of Pretenders to the true Religien against Magistrates and a well setled Church and State From hence have risen all those Enthusiastical conceits both in this and former Ages whereby the Gospel it self hath been in danger of being overthrown From hence come those rude and undigested Notions of Hildegard Bridget Catharine of Siena Teresa St. Francis and others in Popery who by their Dreams and Visions have sought to establish the erroneous Doctrines of the Roman Church From hence it was that the Messaliani of Old pretended and made People believe that upon a Man's Regeneration or being purged from Sin the Devil and his Angels came out of his Mouth in the shape of Swine To say no more in Men and Women whose notions of Religion are crude and undigested and who are made up of a strong Fancy and stronger Passions Religion must needs run into Wild-fire and pervert the simplicity of the Gospel 4. A Fourth Cause is suiting Religion to our own Humours Lusts and Interest The Tartars therefore embraced the Mahometan Religion and rejected the Christian because the former gave greater liberty to the Flesh. This made the Heathens invent to themselves Deities that were favourers of their Vices And from hence it was that in the Primitive Church Basilides Carpocrates Valentinus the Nicolaitans and Archonticks denied the necessity of a Holy Life because they loved to wallow like Swine in the Mire and in all probability upon this ground it was that Hymeneus and Philetus as the Apostle informs us 2 Tim. 17 18. affirm'd and gave out that the Resurrection was already past because they were loath to be called to an account for their evil lives 5. False Teachers and turbulent Souls are another cause Discontented Men because they cannot be Great or Rich or have their Will
in the Church under whose Government they live to revenge themselves many times will poison the Doctrine make Proselites and resolve to become great by doing mischief since they cannot be so by lawful means To such persons we owe the Heresies of Marcion of Novatus of Arius of the Donatists and others and it 's no more than what St. Paul hath told us long ago for the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves Teachers having itching Ears 2 Tim. 4. 3. And to this purpose St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 1 2 3. But there were false Prophets also among the people even as there shall be false Teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction And many shall follow their pernicious way by reason of whom the Truth shall be evil spoken of and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make Merchandize of you c. III. Nor hath the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper fared better than other Religious Institutions for this in all Ages hath had its share in the abuses of foolish Men and while they forgot to fix their Eyes upon the Spiritual Nature and design of it have entertained gross and carnal apprehensions concerning it The Corinthians very early abated in their esteem and reverence of it as appears from the latter part of 1 Cor. 11. The Pepuziani and Collyridianes Hereticks suffer'd their Women to administer this Holy Sacrament The Ebionites used Water instead of Wine in imitation of the Athenian and Heathenish Sacrifices which were therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sober and without Wine The Montanists Cataphrygians and Gnosticks proceeded to that tremendous barbarity in this Sacrament that they took a Child of a year old and pricked it with Pins and Needles and drew a considerable quantity of Blood from it which Blood they mingled with the Meal or Flower of which they made the Sacramental Bread The Child if it dyed after these Torments was counted a Martyr if it survived them they gave it the respect and veneration of a Priest and all these horrid practices came merely from hence because they stupidly thought that real Blood was necessary in this Ordinance Some other Villanies they committed which modesty bids me to conceal The Artotyritae another sort of Hereticks made use of Bread and Cheese in this Sacrament and to this they were led by a fancy that because the first Inhabitants in the World offered to God the First Fruits of the Earth and particularly the Milk of their Sheep and Kine they were obliged to do so too The Messaliani made this Sacrament an indifferent thing and gave out that it neither promoted nor hindred Man's Salvation an Error which the Quakers have taken up at this day Nor were they only profess'd Hereticks that committed these abuses but the Popes of Rome by degrees brought in abundance of needless Ceremonies whereby this Plain and Heavenly Ordinance was very much corrupted Pope Alexander about the Year of Christ 115 ordered what was indifferent before that Wine should be mixt with Water in this Sacrament and that no other Bread should be used but unleaven'd Bread that Holy Water mingled with Salt should be consecrated before the Eucharist that the Communicants after they had receiv'd might be sprinkled with it Sixtus about the Year 125 ordered that no Nun or Women should touch the Holy Vessels or the Cloth of the Communion Table Hyginus about the Year 140 enjoyn'd that the Sacrament of the Eucharist should ever be used and celebrated at the Dedication of Churches Soter about the Year 163 that no Bishop or Priest should taste of any thing before the Communion but abstain from all manner of Food before they administred or received Urban about the Year 230 ordained that no other Vessels should be used at the Communion but either Golden or Silver ones if the Church were poor then Pewter should be made use of Felix about the Year 277 ordered that the Eucharist should be celebrated no where but in a consecrated place Sylvester who lived about the Year 324 gave command that the Altars on which the Sacrament was celebrated should be of Stone Syricius about the Year 383 that no married Priest should celebrate or administer the Eucharist Innocent about the Year 410 gave order that the Names of those who had given Alms at the Communion should be rehears'd and proclaim'd in the Church at the celebration of this Mystery and that even Infants should be brought to communicate in this Sacrament Zosimus his Successor enjoyn'd that the Deacons while the Sacrament was administring should have their Hands covered with a Linen Cloth Thus Superstition came in by degrees and while the People were taught an external Veneration of the Sacrament they neglected the fruits of Repentance which the Worthy receiving should have produced in them There was an ancient Custom in the Christian Church at the Communion to rehearse the Names of Martyrs and their Glorious Actions and the Miracles they had wrought both alive and dead from hence by degrees crept in the unhappy practice of Invocation of Saints and Martyrs in the Eucharist and this being once allowed of the Doctrine of Purgatory beginning to spread about St. Austin's time and more universally about the time of Gregory the Great Men fell into an Opinion that by the Eucharist their Names that were gone into Purgatory being rehears'd their Souls might be delivered out of Purgatory some thought that even the Souls of the Damned were in some measure reliev'd by this unbloody Sacrifice And nothing is more common at this day in the Church of Rome than to say Masses for Souls in Purgatory a Doctrine they prove from the infirmities errors and corrupt opinions of some of the Fathers but which the Scripture doth not speak the least syllable of Into such abuses hath the World run by deviating from the simplicity of the Gospel And that which must be matter of grief and sorrow to all good Men is that this Sacrament which was intended as the Bond of Peace is made the Ball of Contention and the Engine of Division the motive to Hatred and the fire of Wrath and Animosities For this the Lutherans write Invectives against the Calvinists and the Papists against both and that which should have united all Men's Hearts makes them hate one another mortally and no other reason can be assigned for it but Mens Pride and Passion and their other Vices Who doth not tremble that reads the History of the Gunpowder-Treason in which the Sacrament was without a Metaphor made the Covenant of Blood and the Conspirators united by it to be bold and resolute in this Enterprize Not to mention other abuses of sensual and carnal Men too frequent among us that can engage themselves in this Ordinance to follow their Master's steps and notwithstanding these Engagements live like Swine
Sacrament which is to consecrate our selves to God in Christ Jesus and that is not to be done without a very serious Use of this Ordinance in which we acknowledge with the deepest Humility that our Souls and Bodies and all the Gifts and Graces we have are the Effects of his Bounty and declare our unfeigned Purposes to speak and act and think as he would have us and dedicate our selves to his Service professing that we will use the Blessings he hath given us to his Glory and the Good of his People will resign our selves to his Providence and be content with the Lot and Portion he shall think fit to assign us and be thankful for Afflictions too as well as for Prosperity they being both his Gifts and Blessings and say and confess under the various Dispensations we shall meet withal Lord not as I will but as thou wilt And who can forget himself so much as to think that all this may be done without a serious Behaviour IV. The Church of Rome at this Day makes strange Work with Consecration of the Elements in the Supper of the Lord. And though they are told by one of their own Popes Gregory the Great that the Apostles consecrated only with saying the Lord's Prayer yet they boldly according to their Custom place Consecration in the Priests muttering these Words Hoc est Corpus meum hic est Sanguis meus This is my Body This is my Blood over the Bread and Wine Which Words partly by their own secret Virtue and partly by virtue of the Priest's Office immediately upon their being secretly pronounced change the Bread and Wine into the substantial Body and Blood of Christ whereof we shall have Occasion to speak more largely in the Sequel And this is their Consecration contrary to the Sense of the Primitive Church which was of Opinion that Consecration was performed by Prayer and Praises And though some think that Christ used a peculiar Form of Consecration which is either lost or the Church did not think necessary to preserve yet that Fancy is altogether needless since we are told by the inspired Writers that Christ gave Thanks In which he either observ'd the usual Form used in the Passover Blessed be God who hath created the Fruit of the Earth and Blessed be God who hath created the Fruit of the Vine Or Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who bringest forth Bread out of the Earth and Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who createst tbe Fruit of the Vine Or some other though it is more probable that he did not vary from the common Practice of the Jews in this Particular And what is this but Consecrating the Elements and Sanctifying of them For every Creature of God is good and not to be refused for it is sanctified by the Word of God and by Prayer saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 4. 4 5. The Greek Church at this Day lays the Stress of Consecration upon the Prayer of the Holy Ghost as they call it whereby the Holy Spirit of God is invited to come down and make a Change in the Bread and Wine In our Church we joyn Prayer and Praises and the Words of Institution which is the safest Way and such as no rational Person can find fault with though the Words of Institution are sufficient in this Case which we discover in our Practice when the first Consecrated Bread and Wine are spent and the Number of the Communicants require a new Consecration V. Though the Gospel tells us only in general that Christ gave Thanks yet we cannot but suppose that they were particular Things he praised the Divine Bounty for and it is very rational to conclude that he gave Thanks 1. For the Providence of God which watches over Mankind and brings forth Fruit out of the Earth to satisfie the Desire and natural Appetite of Man God the Creator of all Things provides Food and Sustenance for all his Creatures He causes the Grass to grow for the Cattel He sends the Springs into the Valleys which run among the Hills they give Drink to every Beast of the Field the Wild Asses quench their Thirst the Lions receive their Prey from him He it is that hath appointed Toads and Snakes to be proper Meat for the Stork and Flies for the Nourishment of Spiders for some Birds of the Air he hath design'd Variety of Seeds and Worms of the Earth for others He provides Leaves for Caterpillars and those Insects for the Use of other Animals and the young Ravens that make a noise and upon that Account are said to cry to him are fed and maintain'd by his Power He prevents the Crocodile from doing excessive Mischief by making the Ichneumon his Enemy and the lesser Fishes prove a Prey to the greater by his Order In all these Things the Divine Providence displays it self and because the rest of the Creatures are not endow'd with Reason to celebrate God for his Bounty he hath placed Man in the Earth and enrich'd him with an Angelical Soul to be the Trumpet of his Glory and to take notice of God's feeding his Creatures of all sorts and sizes and particularly the Children of Men and when he sees Bread before him the Staff of Humane Life to admire the Wisdom Power and Goodness of the Almighty And upon this Account it was that Christ as Man and Mediator gave Thanks and when he took Bread blessed the Author of it who had made it agreeable to Man's Nature and gave it Strength to nourish him sent the Former and the Later Rain to nourish the Seed in the Ground and gave his Sun-shine to warm and ripen the Corn into Perfection 2. It was not God's Providence alone that he gave Thanks for but for the more indearing Expressions of God's Love to Mankind too And this we need not wonder at when we read how at other Times he magnified his Father's Goodness to sincere Believers particularly Matth. 11. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the Wise and Prudent and hast revealed them unto Babes No Man ever saw the immense Charity and Goodness of God to the lapsed Progeny of Adam in those lively Characters that he did We can only speak of it with stammering Tongues and give some faint Descriptions of it but He felt it The Sense of that Love over-spread his Soul and he saw the Heighth and Depth and Breadth and Length of it He beheld the Miracles of this Love in all the amazing Circumstances and what it was for God to give a Son to redeem a Servant to expose a Lamb to buy a Wolf and to let an innocent Sheep be led to the Slaughter to ransom Swine He saw how that Compassion extended it self and what it was for the Word to be made Flesh and to run about to seek the lost Sheep and when he had found it to rejoyce over it and
yet still these Spirits as bright as they were were Creatures and as Creatures mutable and as mutable subject to falling and falling might expect Mercy and Compassion from an All-merciful Master yet in the great Work of Redemption no Regard is had to them but to Man only and he alone with his Race and Posterity is put in a Possibility of being saved and pardon'd a Mercy fit to be remembred in this Sacrament but not to be remembred without Thanksgiving and Praises 4. For the Opportunity we have of remembring Christ's Death in the holy Sacrament That we have Liberty to meet in the House of God to behold his Power and Glory to speak of his Love and Compassion and to come to his Table and to come of often and so freely without Disturbance or Molestation without Fear of Danger from the Tabernacles of Edom or from the Ishmaelites from Moab or the Hagarens Though these are Things which seem to be no great matter to an Eye that looks on Things superficially yet to a Person that knows how in the Greek Church the holy Sacrament is consecrated but once a Year how in Heathenish Countries where Ministers of the Word are scarce this Ordinance is used but seldom and how great an Hindrance to Goodness the celebrating it but rarely is how apt the Inward Man in such Cases is to faint and languish and grow sick for want of it will think himself obliged to open his Heart and Mouth in Praises at this holy Table and adore the Divine Bounty which hath given him Will and Strength and Opportunity to come to this comfortable Ordinance 5. For feeling our Hearts affected with the Mystery of Reconciliation or finding in our selves those happy Qualifications which make us worthy Receivers at this Table To feel in our Hearts a lively Faith a Faith which with Moses sees him that is invisible a Faith that overcomes the World a Faith that purifies the Heart a Faith that with Abraham moves us to sacrifice and offer that to God which is most dear to us a Faith that makes us patient under Reproaches and Injuries a Faith that is fruitful in good Works To find in our selves an Hope that makes not ashamed an Hope that makes us wait for the Kingdom of God as the Husbandman waits for the Fruit of the Earth an Hope that upholds our Hearts in Afflictions an Hope that makes us look upon that within the Vail into the Sanctuary of Heaven and counts the Troubles of this present Life not worthy to be compared with the Glory which ere long shall be revealed in us To find in our selves an holy Charity which believes the best of our Neighbours and thinks no Evil except there be very great Cause for it a Charity which suppresses Revenge and Malice and not only suppresses it for the present but labours to destroy it too a Charity which moves us to Kindness and Compassion not only verbal but actual a Charity which makes us tender-hearted forgiving one another and forbearing one another To find all this in some measure must needs fill our Hearts with strong Desires and Endeavours to be thankful VII This Praise and Thanksgiving cannot but be essential to this holy Sacrament not a mere Ornamental Thing without which the blessed Effects may be perceived and felt For 1. Is it possible to behold God's bleeding Love and not cry Praise the Lord O Jerusalem Praise thy God O Zion Is it possible to see the surprizing Humiliation of the Son of God and not to say Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name Is it possible to see God offer himself for his Enemies and not to sâ—ng Lord what is Man that thou so regardest him and the Sons and Daughters of Men that thou hast such Respect to them Is it possible to see Innocence nailed to the fatal Cross not for any Sins of its own but for our Transgressions and not to break forth into Admiration with St. John Behold what manner of Love the Father hath shewn to us that we should be called the Sons of God The Heart must be of Stone that can survey these Wonders and be silent or dumb to joyful Praises 2. What Comfort or Consolation can be supposed to flow into the Soul without it Praise is the Gate of Mercy The Soul that praises the Divine Love much will have a greater Sense of his Love and feel the Power of it and feel how it melts the Heart supples the Spirit softens the Inward Man and makes it fit for the Impress of the Image of the Son of God As the Jews say of the Spirit of Prophesse That it rests on valiant and chearful Men so it may be said of the Divine Love Where the Soul is much and often engaged in Praises of it there it loves to dwell there it is ready to build Tabernacles and take up its Residence The Preceeding Considerations reduced to Practice I. EVen the meanest Capacities from hence learn the Way to arrive to holy Thoughts viz. by making the most ordinary Blessings Occasions of Praise and Thanksgiving Nothing is more common than Bread yet for this the Son of Man gave Thanks and in doing so bid us imitate his Practice when the like familiar Mercies come before us or present themselves to our View About the Time of the Council at Constance two Cardinals as they were travelling upon the Road not far from the City saw a poor Shepherd weeping and thinking that some sad Accident might have befallen him either his Dog lost or some of his Sheep stolen had the Curiosity to ask him the Reason of his Tears who answer'd I am looking here upon a Toad and cannot but weep to think what an ungrateful Beast I have been to my God to whom I never before in all my Life gave Thanks that he â—e did not make me so homely and so odious a Creature The Truth is you and I can hardly walk the Street but we meet with Men either ragged or lame or maim'd or blind or dumb or some other way deform'd and extreamly miserable Can we look on such Objects and not think with our selves what a Favour and Mercy it was in our great and gracious God not to plunge us into that wretched State but to give us Necessaries and Conveniencies a right Shape and Soundness of Limbs c. These 't is true are but very ordinary Blessings yet if we consider how many Thousands want them and that God who can do all Things and whose Hand is to be seen in all Things might as easily have reduced us to such a miserable Condition as he hath done others and that it is nothing but his Infinite Goodness and Wisdom that hath made this Distinction this cannot but quicken our Understandings And if so none of us can complain that we have no Faculty of furnishing our Minds with holy Thoughts To this purpose certainly was our Reason given us that we might
look on such Mercies with spiritual Reflections and Praises and these Praises are holy Thoughts Nay the Task is very easie and there is nothing lies more in our power than by taking a View of such Blessings to think This God hath done this is part of his Charity this is a Character of his Bounty What am I and what is my Father's House that God hath brought me thus far And as it is easie so it is profitable too for this will fill our Minds with humble Thoughts and teach us to have a low Opinion of our selves it being impossible to think our selves very unworthy of God's Favours and not to despise our selves II. I told you in the first Chapter of this Discourse that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper among the Ancients was frequently called the Eucharist Here we see the Reason of it for as the Word Eucharist imports Praise so Thanksgiving is one of the principal Actions and Offices in this Sacrament The Church of Rome will have it called a Sacrifice because in the Primitive Church it went by that Name We deny it not but then they meant by it a Sacrifice of Praise and this Sacrifice we exhort every one of you to offer when you remember your Great Master's Funeral Give Thanks for that Death when you are preparing your selves for this spiritual Feast Give Thanks when you feed at this holy Table Give Thanks when you depart from that Banqueting-house Give Thanks unto the Lamb that was slain bless him for his Wounds bless him for his Cross bless him for his Bloody Sweat bless him for all his Sighs and Groans bless him for his Merits for through these your Souls must triumph over Hell and Sin and Devils But then take heed of praising him at Church and affronting him at home These Praises must be uniform and equal and constant not that you are obliged in all Places to speak of his Glory whatever Business you have or that you must do nothing but sing Psalms to him where-ever you are but your upright and Christian Behaviour in all Places is a Glorification of his Mercy For you are a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the Praises of him who hath called you out of Darkness into his marvellous Light 1 Pet. 2. 9. The PRAYER O Thou who inhabitest the Praises of Israel our Fathers trusted in thee they trusted and thou didst deliver them they cried unto thee and they were delivered they trusted in thee and were not confounded Praise waits for thee in Sion Thou deservest my devoutest Praises my most hearty Thanks my loudest Celebrations Can I think of what thou hast done for me and be loath to praise thee What should I do but praise thee All that I see within me or about me is Mercy my Meat my Drink my Clothes are Mercies But Oh! what a Mercy is that Spiritual Food thou settest before me at thy Table Oh let my Mouth be filled with thy Praise all the Day long I am sensible not only of the Necessity but the Comeliness of it too It sets a Lustre on my Soul it is an Ornament to my better Part it makes me glorious in thy Sight Oh teach me the Art of praising thee Let me but love thee and I cannot but praise thee My Love will dictate Words and suggest Meditations and I shall speak of all thy wondrous Works Let this be my greatest Delight my greatest Joy my greatest Pleasure that I may praise thee at last with all the Saints and Angels to Eternal Ages through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. IX Of Breaking the Bread and the Mysteries of it The CONTENTS The Action of Breaking Bread borowed from the Jews used by Christ to put us in mind of his Crucifixion Of the broken State of Mankind Of his going to break down the Partition Wall betwixt the Jews and Gentiles Of the Communion of the Body of Christ Of our Coming to his Table with Broken Contrite Hearts Of his Readiness to comfort the Bruised and Broken Spirit Of the Vertue and Power of his Death in breaking the Force of God's Wrath against us Of the Miracle that was to happen at his Death in the Earth and Rocks c. And of the strange Divisions that would rise about this Sacrament The Action of Breaking the Holy-Bread doth not interfere with the Canon in the Rule of the Passover that not a Bone of the Lamb should be broken The Church of Rome is to blame for not Breaking the Bread Christ as well as the Disciples received the Communion Reflections to be made by Christians when they see the Bread broken The Prayer I. AMong the Jews as no Man durst eat Bread without consecrating it by Thanksgiving so no Man gave Thanks for the Bread but he broke part of it did eat of it and gave of it to the rest that were with him at the Table and the Master of the House if present was usually the Person that did all this gave Thanks and dealt the Bread about To this End the Loaves among the Jews were made with divers Cuts or Incisions that when they were brought to Table they might be broken with greater Ease by the Head of the Family and distributed to those that did eat with him Among the ancient Romans it was otherwise for though they had Cuts and Divisions upon their Loaves yet those Cuts were but four in all in the Shape of a Cross to the End that when they came to reach it to their Guests they might easily break it into four Parts Which was the Reason why they called the Portion that fell to one Man's Share Quadra or the fourth Part of a Loaf If Christ imitated any Custom in Breaking of Bread 't is most probable he followed that of the Jews from whose manner of living he used not to vary if their Actions and Customs had nothing of Sin in them shewing thereby how loath we should be Quieta movere to change or alter Things in a Church or Nation which through a long Succession of Time have been received provided there be nothing of Immodesty Superstition or Indecency or Irregularity in it The Unleaven'd Cakes of the Jews they use at this Day in the Celebration of their Passover are in all probability Relicks of that ancient Way among their Country-men of ordering their Loaves and making them with many Cuts and Divisions in them whereby the Master of the House took occasion to break off a just and convenient Piece for each Member of his Family But though Christ in breaking the Sacramental Bread might borrow that Right and Action from the Jews yet we must not suppofe that therefore he had no farther Design in it but rather sanctified it into a Mystery as he did the Washing of the Feet received among the Jews Joh. 13. 14 15. II. As Breaking the Sacramental Bread was an Action design'd to represent several Things of great Importance so
obtained and did obtain that Prerogative that in the Lords Supper only and at no time else it had the priviledge to be in many places at once About 150 years after him one James Faber of Stapula enlarged this Privilege of Christ's Human Nature and what Gerson had restrain'd only to the Sacrament he extended to the whole World and made Christ's Human Nature as extensive as his Divinity Luther afterward exceeding fond of this Opinion establish'd it in the Churches of Saxony insomuch that he averâ—'d Christ's Body was as much in a Baker's Shop as in the Eucharist only in the Shop he did not desire to be taken and worshipp'd because he had not tyed himself to a Shop by any word of Promise Nay that his Body was in the very Rope wherewith Judas hang'd himself and went through doors that were lock'd and through the very Stone that was laid upon his Sepulchre A strange fancy For certainly Christ's Body was Crucified at Jerusalem and not in all places of the World and when he fate at Table with his Disciples he did not sit at the same time at Rome or in the East-Indies How near this Doctrine approaches to the errors of the Marcionites and Manichaeans of old who taught that Christ had no real or substantial Body but only a Bodily Shape and that when he was felt and found to have Flesh and Bones it was only by special Dispensation how near this Doctrine I say approaches these Errors condemn'd by the Antient Church I will not determine It cannot be denied that Luther was not always the same and sometimes he seem'd to deny what he asserted before But still those among the Lutherans that are for this Ubiquity make him the Great Patron of their Doctrine And though some of them give out that they do not assert the Ubiquity of Christ's Body so much as his Omnipresence yet it will be a hard matter to shew how Ubiquity and Omnipresence differ Some pretend that the fore-mention'd expressions were not Luther's expressions but foisted in by some that would fain take Sanctuary at his Books for the defence of their Opinions But the composers of the History of the Augsburg Confession are ashamed of this Conceit and the Elector of Saxony when in the Year 1574. he came to examine the thing found that it was only an idle report and that in the Edition of Luther's Works there was no variation used from his own words and expressions And if Luther writes in some places against this Ubiquity of Christ's Body it 's an argument that he ought not to be believ'd in other Books where he asserts it Thus came in Consubstantiation and this Opinion the Lutheran Churches do at this time follow and maintain very eagerly And though in all other Points they differ very little from the Protestants of the Reformation for with us they protest against Popish Invocation of Saints Religious Worship of Images Human Satisfactions Indulgences Purgatory Worship of Relicks Prayers in an unknown Tongue Merit of Works Transubstantiation Adoration of the Sacrament Sacrifice of the Mass Monarchy of the Pope pretences of Infallibility and blind Obedience to the decisions of Councils c. Yet this Point they do so stifly and so uncharitably maintain that the greatest part of them refuse communion with us upon this account which as it is an error so we believe it is no fundamental one especially since all this while they are against Transubstantiation and Adoration of the Sacrament and though in the point of their Consubstantiation they ground themselves much upon that saying of Christ Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you always even into the end of the World Yet this is easily answer'd For 1. From hence it doth not follow that he will always vouchsafe them his Bodily Presence for he was after this receiv'd into Heaven and therefore could not be present with his Body at that time 2. What he promises here he made good when he sent the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of Truth upon them Which Spirit though not as to his miraculous Gifts yet as to his saving Graces is with all true Believers to the end of the World So that 3. His being always with them must be understood of his Power and Virtue and Influence which would be with them and with the Churches they should Plant unto the end of the World as the Sun is in Heaven and with his Virtue and Influence cherishes this lower World And thus far we agree with them that Christ is present in the Holy Sacrament by his Power and Influence and Gracious Assistances which sincere Believers feel in their worthy Receiving But from hence it can never be made out that his Body therefore is hid under the Bread in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist III. In what sense the Bread in this Sacrament is the Body of Christ we may easily guess if we explain Scripture by Scripture and compare this expression with others not unlike it 1. This is my Body i.e. This is a significant Emblem or Sign or Figure of my Body Or this Bread thus broken represents my Body that shall be Crucified for the Sins of the World Thus not only Rabanus Maurus Erigena Bruno Berengarius and other wise Men understood it in the Ninth and Eleventh Centuries but most of the Fathers that lived before Pasâ—â—sius or before 800 Years after Christ. So that This is my Body is as much as this Bread is representative of my Body As Bread is proper Food for your Bodies so my Crucified Body is proper Food for your precious and immortal Souls As Bread strengthens your Bodies so shall the Comforts and Benefits of my Crucified Body support and fortifie your inward Man As Bread nourishes your mortal Bodies so shall the Love and Charity express'd in my giving my Body to be Crucified for your Sins nourish your better part and a sense of that Love cause a reciprocal Love and Charity in your Souls As Bread unites with your Bodies and turns into the substance of your Bodies So my Crucified Body or Faith in me who give my self for you shall be a means of my being one with you and of your being one with me And this interpretation is conformable to the sense of parallel places I am the door of the sheep saith our Saviour Joh. 10. 9. i.e. As the Door opens and being open'd the Sheep are let into the Fold so I am he by whose Light and Influence Men are admitted into the number of God's Children or by my Gospel they get admittance to God's marvellous Light by this they are let into the knowledge of the greatest Mysteries and by believing in me Men have access to the greatest Felicity So Joh. 15. 1. I am the true Vine and my Father is the Husbandman i. e. As the Vine hath Branches so I have Disciples As the Branches are nourish'd by the Vine so are my Disciples by me As the Vine yields an excellent Juice so my
Blood is for the healing of Mens Souls or what a Vine is to Men on Earth the same am I to my living Members and what an Husbandman doth to his Vineyard the same doth my Father to the Branches that shoot forth from me or to my Followers 2. This is my Body i. e This Bread is my Body as the roasted Lamb is the great Festival of the Jews was the Passover i. e. The Memorial of it This Sacrament of the Lords Supper being instituted immediately after the celebration of the Passover as hath been often hinted the Disciples of our Lord being acquainted with that way of speaking could not wonder at Christ's expression for thus the Jews used to say of the Paschal Lamb This is the Passover as we may read Exod. 12. 11. And there was not any so rude among them but understood by this phrase that by eating that Lamb they were to remember the Angels passing by the Houses of the Israelites in Egypt to save them from Destruction This Sense they imbibed with their Mothers Milk and when the Father instructed his Children he told them that by these words This Lamb is the Passover was meant nothing else but this Lamb is the Memorial or puts us in mind of the Passover for so God had himself explain'd it Exod. 12. 26 27. So that our Saviour in saying of the Bread he broke This is my Body brought in no new way of speaking but what the Disciples and all the Jews were already sufficiently acquainted with in Sacramental Discourses which makes Christ add immediately to shew that he meant no more by it but a Memorial Do this in remembrance of me i. e. As the Lamb put the Jews in mind of the destroying Angel's passing over their Houses so the Bread in this Ordinance puts you in mind of my Body that shall be nailed to the Tree of the Cross for the Life of the World and tells you how by that Sacrifice offer'd for your Souls ye shall escape the Everlasting Wrath of God and the burning Lake prepared for the Devil and his Angels as they did the Destruction prepared for Pharaoh and his People 3. That Christ's Church is often called his Body none can be ignorant that peruses these passages Col. 1. 18. Ephes. 5. 23 Ephes. 4. 12. 1 Cor. 10. 16. 1 Cor. 12. 27. And though that Sense we have already alledgâ—d be the principal thing aim'd at in these words This is my Body yet to shew how little need there is to have recourse either to Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation rather than run into such absurdities we might very well say that the Bread is an Emblem or Adumbration of Christ's Body i. e. of Christ's Church For as that Bread is made up of many Particles so Christ's Church of many Members and as those various Crums are closely united to th' other so the various Members ought to be link'd together in Love and Charity according to the Royal Law given by our Master Joh. 13. 34. A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another But this we add to shew rather what little temptation there is to run our selves into inextricable difficulties in the explication of these words than to express the immediate intent of this expression All Churches agree in 't That Christ's Crucified Body is meant here only the difference is how the Bread is Christ's Body and how Christ's Body is present in the Sacrament we say it is there spiritually as the Bread is a Symbol a Figure a Sign a Representation and a Memorial of Christ's Body which was offer'd for the Sins of the World and this Interpretation is so easie so intelligible so agreeable to Sacramental expressions and to the Analogy of Faith that one would think it should be impossible for Men to contradict it except they were resolv'd to defend an Opinion right or wrong merely because it is their interest to do so The Romanists indeed have of late years endeavour'd very much to perswade the World that the Greek Church in the Levant is of their Opinion in the Sacrament but not to mention the rudeness and ignorance of those poor Churches which scarce understand the Principles of their own Faith if the Protestants had but taken the same pains with the Modern Greeks that the Popish Missioners do i. e. bribed and paid them for their assent and consent to their Faith they would have been Protestants in this Article of the Sacrament as some of them are Papists at this present Cyril who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 1622 where-ever he imbibed his Doctrine certainly was not for Transubstantiation and though by the endeavours of the Jesuits he was afterwards strangled yet that doth not make him an Heretick And though several Synods have been held by the Greeks of late years which have establish'd Transubstantiation yet it 's sufficiently known that it hath been by instigation of those of the Roman Communion who spare no cost that they may bring them to say as they do However such Greeks as are not yet corrupted by the Roman Emissaries are so far from believing Transubstantiation that they know not what it is and as a late ingenious Travellr hath observed wonder any Man should think them such Beasts as to believe such an Absurdity But what doth it signifie whether the Modern Greeks who are sunk into gross Ignorance and Barbarism be of our Opinion or no 'T is sufficient that the ancient Greek Church is and hath been of the same Belief with us The Churches of the Levant at this Day as Learning is become a very scarce Commodity among them so their Opinion in a controverted Point is of no great Consequence Where they can give Proof of an uninterrupted Succession of their Doctrine it may be of importance else not The Church of the Aethiopians or Habessines as they have for many Centuries continued in the honest Simplicity of their Doctrine so their Testimony in this Point of the Eucharist may be of some use and by what appears they seem to joyn with us in this Sacrament For though they pray in their Liturgy That the Holy Ghost may descend and come and shine upon the Bread that it may become the Body of Christ and that the Taste of the Cup may be changed and become the Blood of Christ yet by what one of their own Priests confessed they believe no other Change but a mysterious or representative one or a Change of the use of the Bread whereby from common it becomes sacred And so much appears from the Exposition they give of the Words used by Christ for they say expresly This Bread is my Body and This Cup is my Blood IV. From what hath been said 't is easie to conclude what it is to eat Christ's Body in this holy Sacrament 1. It is to contemplate Christ's crucified Body and the Cause and Reasons of that Crucifixion to view all this with our warmest Thoughts to make
the Alphabet that we might not look upon Letters in a Book without thinking Lord be thou the First and the Last in all my Actions Let me begin with thee and end with thee Be thou my Book let me read the Characters of thy Love and rejoyce in thee for ever For this Cause he is styled a Shepherd that whenever we cast our Eye upon a Man of that Employment we may beg of Christ to feed us with his Spirit And a Lamb that whenever we see one we may intreat him to cloath us with his Innocence And a Sower that whenever we see the Husband-man throwing Seed into the Ground we may beseech him to manure the Ground of our Hearts that we may be neither barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he that thus remembers him in Season and out of Season will without dispute be the better able to remember him in this Sacrament And to such a Soul David's Saying may justly be applied The Righteous shall be had in Everlasting Remembrance surely he shall not be moved for ever Psal. 112. 6. The PRAYER O Blessed Redeemer who didst remember me when I had forgetten thee and thoughtest of me when I did not regard thee When I lay buried in the common Mass of Corruption thou didst not disdain to think on this forlorn Creature Thou didst pity me thou sawest my Misery and it grieved thee at thy Heart Thy Bowels yearn'd over me and thou didst spread thy Mantle over me O happy Remembrance I had been lost if thou hadst not looked upon me I had been undone if thou hadst not cast thine Eye upon me yet how loth have I been to think of thee What an Aversion have I had from remembring thee How have I shifted off all serious Reflections on thy Love I have more delighted in Trifles than in thee How sweet have the Thoughts of my Corn and Wine and Oil been to me and how tedious how irksome all Contemplation of tbee When thou hast sometimes put me in mind of thy Sufferings how have I suffered Worldly Thoughts to drive thee out of my Mind How justly mightest thou turn thy Eyes away and hide thy Face from me O Sweet O Glorious Object Appear in thy Beauty appear in thy Glory to my Mind that I may be throughly convinced that nothing deserves my Thoughts so much as thy self I am resolved to remember thee with greater Delight and Constancy Help thou me Should not I remember thee who hast in a manner forgotten thy self to remember me I can remember a Temporal Deliverance and shall not the Deliverance of my Soul procured by thy Death be remembred by me I can remember a Disaster which hath some Years agone befallen me and shall not I remember the infinite Misery from which thou camest to rescue me I will think of thee in the Night-Watches I will think of thee when I lie down when I awake when I rise again In the great Ordinance of thy Supper I will in a most solemn manner think of thee Teach me to remember thee here with Joy with Pleasure with Comfort to my Soul Here let my Thoughts of thee be sweet Whenever I think on thy Cross let me remember how by thy Charity I was freed from the Curse of God Thou becamest a Curse for me Ought not this Mercy to be remembred for ever Write it in my Mind engrave it upon my Heart let this Remembrance be easie to me Chase away all Unwillingness all Backwardness to this Duty from my Soul Oh let it become natural and make this Remembrance profitable to me that my Inward Man may be renewed by it Day by Day and abound in Love and the longer I live the more conformable I may be to thee sweet Jesu to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen CHAP. XIII Of the other Element or Part of this holy Sacrament viz. the Wine and the Cup Christ made use of in the Institution of the Eucharist The CONTENTS Red Wine in all probability made use of by Christ in the Institution of this Sacrament As also Wine mixed with Water Too great a Stress laid upon this Mixture by the Roman and Eastern Churches The Cup Christ used in this Sacrament pretended by the Romanists to be in their Possession The Cups made use of by the Ancient Churches what Matter or Substance they were of examined On the Sacramental Cup anciently was engraven the Figure of a Shepherd and a Lamb. The Cup in process of Time changed into Silver Pipes Christ gave the Cup to the Disciples as well as the Bread for weighty Reasons to shew that the Bread and the Cup are of the same Worth and that those who receive the one should receive the other also The Abuse of the Church of Rome in denying the Cup to the Laity laid open Their Reasons and Arguments answered Why Christ made use of Wine in this Sacrament discovered in five Particulars The Reasons why he made use of a Cup and no other Vessel An Enquiry made why Christ took the Cup after he had done with the Cup in the Passover The Cup in this Sacrament contrary in its Effects to Circe's Cup among the Heathens None fit to drink of this Cup but Men of Valour and Courage This Cup very comfortable to all distressed Spirits The Prayer I. THough it be not very material to know what Wine it was Christ made use of in the Institution of this Sacrament what Colour it was of or whether it was pure and unmix'd yet we have Reason to believe that it was Red Wine and Wine mix'd with Water Red because this was the usual Wine among the Jews and therefore called The Blood of the Grape Gen. 49. 11. And when the Royal Prophet would express God's Vengeance upon the Wicked and Incorrigible by Wine he saith The Wine is red Psal. 75. 8. And this sort of Wine did best represent the Blood of Christ which was to be spilt for the Sins of the World and to make a considerable Figure in this Sacrament And to this purpose is that famous Prophecy Esay 63. 1 2 3. Who is this that comes from Edom with died Garments from Bozra Wherefore art thou red in thy Apparel and thy Garments like him that treads in the Wine-Fat Which Words as by the Consent of Interpreters they relate to Christ's Death and bearing the Burthen of God's Anger for our Transgressions so they at once express the Blood of Christ and the Colour of the Wine that was most in use among the Jews and consequently 't is very likely that Christ made use of Red Wine in this Ordinance And as it was Red so it is probable it was Wine mixed with Water this also being customary in that Country as we see Prov. 9. 2. in which our Blessed Master lived during his Abode in the World The Evangelists indeed mention no such Thing but in general only tell
his Heart for if that be as it should be it is indifferent what Matter the Cup is made of in the Administration of this Ordinance As to the Figure Form or Shape of the Cup Christ made use of Tradition saith It was a Cup with two Handles holding a Quart of Wine 'T is true the Jews in their Passover made use of such a Measure which was therefore called Robiit or a Fourth Part and Christ might possibly accommodate himself to that Custom the rather because it was a Cup that all the Disciples drank of according to Christ's Order Drink ye all of it yet this is still conjectural only and therefore the Christian Churches are in this Case left to their Prudence and Discretion Tertullian tells us and he lived about the Beginning of the Third Century that in his Days there was engraven on the sacred Chalice the Figure of a Shepherd carrying a Lamb upon his Shoulders an Emblem either of the Parable Luk. 15. 4 5. or of the Son of God who walked through the Wilderness of this World to seek those which were lost and having found them brought them back to the Fold again and to his Father's House But see how soon an innocent Custom draws on more dangerous Practices In process of time the holy Cup in the Sacrament began to be adorned with various Images and Inscriptions Such was the Cup which Remigius Archbishop of Rhemes who died in the Year 535. bequeathed to his Church with this Inscription Out of this Cup the People drink Life and Happiness through the Blood of Christ Jesus As Superstition afterward increased instead of Silver Cups the People made use of the Monks invented little Silver Pipes through which the People were to suck the holy Wine out of the Cup the Priest made use of which is the Reason why in the Rules of the Carthusian Monks this among the rest was one That they shall have nothing of Silver in their Colleges save only a Silver Chalice and Silver Pipes through which the Lay-men are to suck the Blood of Christ. These Things are hinted here to shew how necessary it is to keep up to the Primitive Institution of this Sacrament for if once Men presume to deviate from that Simplicity they know not where to stop and they will be tempted to hancker after new Devices and Inventions every Day III. That Christ gave the Cup to his Disciples as well as the Bread is evident from the Institution And the Reasons were these 1. To shew that this part of the Sacrament is of the same worth and value with the other and that we are to esteem the sacred Cup as highly as we do the Bread for as the former represented his broken Body so this his spilt and flowing Blood Nay if there be any Preeminence in the one above the other it must be ascribed to the Cup or the Blood of Christ represented by the Wine in the Cup for upon the Blood of the Son of God the weight of Redemption lies according to what the Apostle tells us Heb. 9. 11 12. But Christ being become an High-Priest of good Things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with Hands that is not of this Building neither by the Blood of Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he enter'd in once into the Holy Place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us And Without shedding of Blood there is no Remission as it is Vers. 22. And this shews how miserably the poor People are deluded in the Modern Church of Rome in that they are denied the Cup in this Ordinance for hereby they are deprived of that which should afford them the greatest Comfort and assure them of the Remission of their Sins For if the great Stress of Redemption must be laid on the Blood of Christ and they are deprived of that part of the Sacrament which properly and immediately represents his Blood which was shed for the Remission of their Sins it must necessarily follow that they are intolerably cheated And what Assurance can they have from this Sacrament that their Sins are or will be pardoned when they receive not that which must assure them of it So that the Laity in that Church are left in a most uncomfortable Condition Nor will it avail much to say that the People believe that they receive the Blood in the Bread for it is not Fancy or Imagination that will do any good here Christ certainly did not think so which made him appoint a distinct Symbol for his Blood and but that they are not to believe their own Senses in that Church their Eyes and Tongues might convince them that they do not remember the shedding of Christ's Blood for the Remission of their Sins by drinking of the Wine designed for that purpose For 2. Christ in giving the Cup to his Disciples as well as the Bread intimated thereby that those who received the one should receive the other also This hath been the Sense of the Christian Church for many Hundred Years after Christ The Greek from the Apostles Days to this Hour hath inferred and doth infer so much and even the Latin Church for above a Thousand Years was of the same Opinion 'T is true in the Church of Rome the Priest drinks of the consecrated Cup as well as eats the consecrated Wafer But what have the poor Sheep the Lay-men done that they must be excluded from the Cup The Apostles 't is granted were Priests but they received not the holy Sacrament as Priests but as Believers Christ at that time was the Priest that administred the holy Symbols to them and Children can tell that according to this way of arguing the People ought not to receive the holy Bread because the Apostles were Priests when they received it However to do even an Enemy right the Church of Rome is ingenuous enough in their maintaining of this Sacrilege for the Council of Constance expresly tells us That though Christ gave the Sacrament to his Disciples in both kinds and though in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by the Faithful in both Kinds yet notwithstanding all this the Fathers of that Council think it fit to abrogate that Custom and threaten the Priest with Excommunication that shall offer to give the consecrated Wine or Cup to the Common People And I confess this is plain Dealing but in the worst Sense as Men do justifie their Sins and boast of their Iniquities And with what Conscience any Person can be of that Church that doth assert and defend and obliges her Members to comply with such manifest contrariety to the Doctrine of Christ I know not This I know that Obedience to the Precepts of the Gospel is a commanded Duty and they are excluded from Christ's Favour and Friendship that will not keep his Words and all pretences of Love are rejected as Pageantry where obedience to his Commands is not the product of that Love and consequently
the Church of Rome at this day is nothing else for they keep it in Boxes or Chests that they may carry it about and promote the Adoration of it in the Circumgestation and when any great Fire or Wind or Tempest happens this is pretended to have great Virtue either to lessen or avert those evils It is pleaded commonly that the Laity may with greater convenience receive only in one kind and with as much profit to as if they received in both but that this is false appears from hence 1. Because nothing can be convenient for the Laity that is against Christ's Institution and Command and as the Bread is to lead them to the contemplation of Christ's Crucified Body so the Cup is to direct them to fix their Thoughts on the Blood he spilt for them And if this way of reasoning were just why should it not be as convenient for the Priest to receive in one kind as for the Laity 2. Because the Profit that is to be received by the Communion must be received in that method and order that Christ hath thought fit to dispense it and since Christ thought it most proper that this Profit should be received by communicating in both kinds to expect Profit contrary to Christ's design and intention is to deceive our selves Some of the Papists themselves grant and it was asserted by several in the Council of Trent That greater Grace and Comfort was to be received by Communion in both kinds than by Communion in one only and there were some of the Primitive Fathers that thought that the Bread extended its Virtue to the Body only but the Wine to the Soul and if this were to be allow'd of the Laity in the Church of Rome must be either supposed to have no Souls or that their Souls receive no Profit by the Sacrament since they are denied the Wine But however if Communion in one kind be so profitable for the Laity why should it not be as profitable for the Clergy V. Why Christ made use of Wine in the Institution of this Sacrament several Reasons may be given As 1. One great property of Wine is to give Man a chearful countenance and to make glad the Heart Psal. 104. 15. And surely this was to let us see what joy our Souls are to express at the remembrance of God's Compassion and Charity a joy which will appear very rational if we frame right apprehensions of our natural condition for let me take a view of the state of my Soul abstractedly from Christ's mediation and God's Love I shall appear to my self a creature forsaken of God destitute of Mercy deprived of hopes of Pardon an object of Wrath a scorn of Angels the sport of Devils a companion of Reprobates a prey to ravenous Birds an heir of the burning Lake a subject of Damnation a slave to the worst of Masters hated by Heaven condemned by mine own Conscience and in a worse condition than the Beasts that perish and let me suppose that I were surrounded by Wolves and Lions in a barren Wilderness Vipers and Serpents crawling about my heels every moment in danger of being torn to pieces and in danger of a cruel lingring and barbarous death and in these sad circumstances should some kind Deliverer leap from behind a Thicket or come riding toward from afar to rescue me from this impendent ruin how should I rejoyce at the unexpected and unlook'd for Providence My case by nature is much worse for wild Beasts may devour me and make an end of my pain but here I find my self beset with hellish furies so far from being willing to make an end of my life and pain together that they seem resolved to increase it daily and no Angel no Lazarus no Messenger out of the Clouds vouchsafes a drop of Water and therefore in so deplorable an estate to see the Son of God spriging in and flying to my rescue and crying I will heal thy backslidings and unto my Enemies round about me O death I will be thy Plague O grave I will be thy destruction what joy what gladness what comfort must this cause 2. By Wine he represented the everlasting joys he intended to purchase for his followers by his bitter death and passion he himself gives us a hint of this Matth. 26. 29. I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this Vine until the day that I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom i. e. Of this material Wine I shall after this drink no more in your company but when you are advanced to the Joys and Glories of my Father's Kingdom then I 'll Drink and Feast with you again and the Wine I will then give you to drink of shall be new Wine infinitely different from this Wine which shall have others effects and other operations Wine which the dull World is a stranger to Wine which Glutâ—ons and Drunkards shall never taste of Wine that shall fill your Souls with the purest Joy's with Delights purely Spiritual and Celestial so that these everlasting Joys may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wine fulfilled as St. Luke speaks of the Bread Luke 22. 16. And then the Wine may be said to be compleated and fulfilled when that which is represented by it is actually fulfilled and conferred on the person who are counted worthy of it The Joys above are the Wine of Angels this Wine is the clear vision of God or the Glorious sight of the Fountain of Light and Beatitude this inebriates their Understandings irrigates the Spirits of Men made perfect makes them drunk with Joy and their Reason is lost in Raptures and Extasies and therefore justly styled Joy which Eye hath not seen and Ear hath not heard and Heart cannot conceive The Souls of Men it seems are channels too narrow to hold those joys they over-run the Banks and as the flame of a Candle is lost in the brighter Sun-shine so the Divine Light in Heaven shining upon Souls they are as it were lost in that Glorious splendor 3. Wine is the Emblem of Wisdom too so much we may guess from what we read Prov. 9. 1 5. Wisdom hath built her a bouse she hath hewen out her seven Pillars she hath kill'd her Beasts she hath mingled her Wine she cries Come eat of my Bread and drink of the Wine that I have mingled So that we have reason to conclude that our Saviour in using Wine in this Sacrament would express the necessity of a vigorous application of our Minds to spiritual Wisdom even to that Wisdom which drives out sensuality expels the Wisdom of the Flesh despises the Wisdom of the World and values Christian simplicity above all words which human Wisdom teaches Wisdom which seems folly in the eyes of the World but is really an effect of the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding Wisdom which concludes If Christ hath done for me what the Scripture saith he hath laid down his life spilt his blood sacrificed himself given himself
and Feet and Gestures and Behaviour thy Reason Memory and Passion should all be at his beck move by his prescription act according to his appointment be seasoned with his Grace and conducted by his Wisdom If thou art content that all shall go rather than his Favour if his Love or a share in it be dearer to thee than the dearest of all outward enjoyments be of good cheer it 's a good sign and thou mayst rationally infer that thou art in Covenant with thy Lord and hast a right to all the priviledges that are annex'd to it for thy encouragement V. And here we may justly reflect what a mercy it is to be in Covenant with God a mercy indeed which no Tongue can express nay no Apollos neither as eloquent as he was can describe no Tertullus no Cicero no Demosthenes represent according to its worth a mercy which no Man knows save he who receives it a mercy weich fills the Tongues of departed Saints with praises a mercy which unhappy Souls that groan among Devils would give Millions for if they had them a mercy which sweetens all Conditions makes Sickness easie and Iron Chains sit soft mitigates pain and tempers grief and anguish A mercy which made the penitent Publican stand confounded amaz'd the humble Magdalen caused St. Paul to go chearfully through Stripes and Imprisonment and encouraged the Believers of old to defie death and torments He that is in Covenant with God enjoys all that Son of God enjoys though not as yet in fruition and possession yet in title and reversion God the Father carries him on his Wings as the Eagle doth her young the Eternal Son of God is his faithful Friend The Holy Spirit of God speaks to him in the still voice of peace and comfort He that is in this Covenant is safe in the midst of Spears and Arrows safe when he goes through the Water safe when he passes through the Fire safe when the Waves do roar safe when Hell gapes upon him safe in a Storm safe at Sea safe on the Shore safe in his Life safe in his Death God is concern'd for him in all his afflictions He is afflicted The Lord Jesus is touch'd with his infirmities and the Spirit of God makes intercessions for him with groans that cannot be utter'd In a word there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. The PRAYER O God! whose pity is infinite whose compassion knows no bounds How shall I extol thy Humiliation How shall I admire thy condescension to this poor Worm Will God the Great the omnipotent God look upon such an one as I Wilt thou enter into a Covenant with this lump of Clay wilt thou tye and oblige thy self to do me good The Favour is wonderful I could not have thought it possible but that thou hast most graciously revealed it to me I believe Lord help my unbelief Behold I am Servant the Son the Daughter of thine Handmaid Be it unto me according unto thy Word I accept of thy offer I count my self happy that I may be admitted into Covenant with thee I renounce the Devil and all his Works Thou shalt be my Master my Father my Guide my Director my King and my God my Master to command me my Father to counsel me my Guide to lead me my Director to conduct me my King to rule me my God to dispose of me as thou pleasest I will know no Will but thy Will By the Blood of the Covenant unite my Will to thy Will Grant me to desire what thou delightest in desiring to search after it searching to know it and knowing it to fulfil it Make me O Lord for thou alone canst do it make me Obedient without contradiction Holy without defection Chast without corruption Patient without murmuring Humble without dissimulation Chearful without licentiousness Sorrowful without dejection Grave without affectation nimble in Religion without lightness Fearful without despair Upright without Hypocrisie and fruitful in good Works without presumption Give me a watchful Heart a Heart not easily drawn away by vain imaginations a Heart unbroken by afflictions unaffected with the vanities of the World that may not swell with prosperity nor sink in adversity Grant me understanding to know thee diligence to seek thee wisdom to find thee a readiness to please thee perseverance to wait for thee and confidence at last to embrace thee O Holy and Eternal Spirit I depend upon thy assistance Make me faithful to my God faithful to my Neighbour faithful to mine own Soul faithful in my Calling faithful in the discharge of my Duty faithful in my Promises faithful in my Conversation faithful in my Love faithful in my Obedience faithful in thy House faithful in mine own faithful unto Death that I may obtain a Crown of Life through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen CHAP. XV. Of frequent receiving the Holy Communion and the necessity of it The ONTENTS Frequent coming to the Lord's Table the Practise of the Primitive Christians Receiving every Lord's Day an universal observance Different Customs in different Churches Decay of a good life the cause of Communicating seldom The necessity of frequent Communicating shewn in four particulars as the Eucharist is a great preservative against Sin an engagement to emulate Christ's Virtues a Motive to Charity and the frequent coming a thing very pleasing to God Inquiry made how often a conscientious Christian is bound to Communicate The measures of that Obligation to be taken partly from the Orders of the Church we live in and partly from the fervency of our love to Christ. An Objection drawn from the danger of contempt and disesteem of the Ordinance if we come often answered Arguments to prove that lawful business in the World is no just impediment of Communicating frequently An Expostulation pressing frequent Receiving The frequent Communicant an Object of Divine Mercy The Prayer I. THough the Example of the Primitive Believers is not properly a Law yet we may have leave to infer so much from it that being well acquainted with the Will of Christ and his Apostles in those Practises especially which were universal we ought not without very urgent reasons to depart from that Pattern and if this Rule hold frequent communicating at the Lords Table will become if not absolutely necessary yet highly useful and expedient since it was the practise of the best of Men in the best of Ages and of this the Acts of the Holy Apostles give us a very large account particularly Ch. 2. 42. 46. which place being generally understood of the Eucharist it must follow that the Believers did daily participate of it But this seems to have been a custom peculiar to the Church of Jerusalem for though St. â—yprian St. Chrysostom and St. Austin speak of some places in their time where the daily Sacrifice was celebrated yet even in the Apostles days we find other Churches did
not tie themselves to that practise particularly that of Troas where the Communion was celebrated every Lords Day only as St. Luke informs us Act. 20. 7. And upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread Paul preach'd unto them and this custom the Apostles seem to have establish'd in most Churches because it was follow'd almost in all places not only while they lived but after they had left the world and continued for several Centuries till Zeal and Fervor in the House of God decayed and because none of the Ancients hath so fully described this custom as Justin Martyr who lived in the second Century or 150 years after Christ it will not be amiss to set down his words which are On the day called Sunday all who are either in the City or Country come together in one place and the comentaries or Writings either of the Apostles or Prophets as time will permit are read to the Congregation The Reader having done the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 President or the Chief Minister of the Church makes an Oration in which he instructs the hearers and exhorts them to a sincere imitation of the excellent things that have been delivered to them Upon this we all rise and apply our selves to Prayer This done Bread and Wine and Water are brought forth and the President as far as he is able offers to Almighty God Prayers and Praises at which the People joyfully say Amen Whereupon distribution is made of the consecrated things to all that are present If any be absent the Deacons carry them to their Houses Those who are of the richer sort contribute Alms every one according to his ability and what is thus gathered is deposited in the President 's hand and out of that he re lieves Orphans and Widows and such as by reason of sickness or some other distresses have need of it such also as are in bonds and poor Strangers that come to him in a word he is a Steward to all that are in want And on Sunday particularly we meet thus because it is the first day in which God out of darkness and matter which he had created before framed this visible World and Jesus Christ our Redeemer rose that day from the Dead for the day before Saturday he was Crucified and after that which is Sunday he appear'd to his Disciples and bid them do what we have here related To this purpose speaks Tertullian who lived about Fifty years after him and of this Lords Day it 's probable Pliny the Heathen Governor spoke when giving Trajan the Emperor an account of the life and manners of the Christians he tells them that they used to meet Stato die on a set day In a word for Believers to receive the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day was counted in those Ages as necessary as publick Prayer and hearing the Word of God explained In Epiphanius's time it was customary in some places to receive the Holy Communion thrice a week and they looked upon that practise as derived from an Apostolical Tradition viz. Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays In some Churches as Socrates informs us they had a Sacrament constantly on the Sabbath-day or Saturday but that was much disliked by the Churches of Rome and Alexandria St. Basil makes mention of a Custom in his time which was to Communicate four times a week Wednesdays Fridays Saturdays and Sundays Afterwards some received the Holy Communion once in three weeks At last as all things in progress of time deviate from the first Institution the Christians came to Receiving of it thrice in a year which they thought was the least a Man who profess'd himself a Christian could do which occasioned that Canon in the Council of Turin that a Lay-man who did not Communicate thrice a year should be Excommunicated or which is the same not be counted a Christian from which Historical reflections it 's evident that in the purer Ages of the Church frequent Communion was counted a very necessary Duty II. What was necessary then cannot must not be counted needless now and the reasons that enforce the necessity of it at this Day are these following 1. It must be granted that this frequent Communicating is a very great preservative against Sin The Heathens talk'd much of their Amulets and preservatives against the Arts of Sorcerers and Magicians but this without any Superstition may more truly be called a preservative against the Witchcraft of Sin and offending God Nothing is more rational for in this Sacrament the demerit of Sin is represented in very sad Characters In the Wounded and Mangled Body of our Great Master in the Anguish His Soul was in upon the account of our Sins we behold what odious and monstrous things they are how abominable to God's purer Eyes how contrary to His Holiness and what a separation they make betwixt the Creator and the Creature how they move Him to forsake us to withdraw His Gracious Presence from us What fears what tremblings what shame what ignominy what sorrow and what grief they cause All this certainly is to be seen in the floods of Misery which fell upon our Mediator who undertook our Cause bore our Sins upon the Cross and was made Sin for us put his Shoulder under our Griefs and carried our Sorrows was wounded for our Transgressions and bruised for our Iniquities And having taken that tremendous burden upon himself see how he was rejected despised forsaken trampled on what horror what fears what darkness fell upon Him which is an Item not only of what our Sins have deserved but of what we shall feel everlastingly if we embrace not this Mediator as our Sovereign Lord or are not resolved to tread in his steps for when he cry'd My God why hast thou forsaken me it was not for his own sake that he fell into this exclamation but for ours to shew that the Sinner who after this would not repent should be forsaken of God for ever And can I see in this great Example how God will deal with me if I neglect the calls of Grace and Mercy And can I be so brutish and hug those Sins which upon my account were so severely lashed in him that was my Surety who stept in and took the Blow that would have lighted upon me All the Goodness Holiness and Divinity that was in this Saviour of Mankind could not make the Sins he bore look lovely in the Eyes of God and though he was the Son of God yet our Sins being laid upon him as they were on the Sacrifice under the Law God's Justice and Purity would not dispense with looking upon them with a favourable Eye and though he was the dearly beloved of his Eternal Father yet God punished those Sins in him in a very terrible manner to let us know that if we accept not of the remedy Christ offers us do not make his Cross a motive to Conversion they shall be thus punished in our
works upon strangers more to joyn themselves to the Mystical Body of Christ than to see the Professors live up to their Principles and maintain the rules their Master hath given them This enforces even such as are Aliens to the Commonwealth of Israel to encourage one another in the Language of those votaries we read of Psal. 122. 1 2 3. Let us go into the house of the Lord our Feet shall stand within thy Gates O Jerusalem Jerusalem is builded as a City that is compact together whither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give Thanks unto the name of the Lord for there are set Thrones of Judgment the Thrones of the House of David Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love thee Peace be within thy Walls and Prosperity within thy Palaces for my brethren and companions sake I will now say Peace be within thee because of the House of the Lord our God I will seek thy good So that what the Apostle 1 Cor. 14. 22. says of the gift of Tongues the same may be said of frequent Communicating that it is a sign to them that believe not Hereby they are perswaded to believe seeing the Professors act like persons that believe what their Master hath said This frequent Communicating shews their Zeal and Unity and there is no Man vers'd in Ecclesiastical History but knows how much these two prevailed with Infidels to come in to the Sheep-fold of Christ Jesus It being evident therefore that this frequent Communicating is very acceptable to God how can we say we love him if we are loath to do what we know will please him The Father hath not left me alone saith our Saviour because I do always the things that please him Joh. 8. 29. And the same may be applied to the frequent Communicant the Father will not leave him alone He will be sure to guard him though a thousand fall on his side and ten thousand on his right hand yet he 'll take care that no evil shall happen unto him for he doth those things that please him III How often a conscientious Christian is bound to Communicate the Scripture hath not thought fit to determine That it ought to be done often the Apostle doth sufficiently intimate 1 Cor. 11. 26. but there is no Law extant in the whole Gospel that saith So many times a Year or Month or Week you shall appear at the Lord's Table and from hence rose that variety of customs in several Churches we mentioned before And what Socrates observes in this point is very probable that that variety of practice derived its Original from the various Judgments and Constitutions of Bishops in their several Dioceses which with their posterity past into a Law yet though they varied in Times and Days and Hours yet it 's easier to gather from those various customs that all made conscience of coming frequently to the Holy Communion till Ignorance and Vice invaded the Priesthood as well as the Laity and when the Priests became regardless of this Ordinance no marvel if the Laity did either despise or neglect it And most certainly to Communicate once or twice or thrice a Year cannot be called frequent eating of this Bread and drinking of this Cup for this is to do it but seldom and is an argument that we are not very solicitous to gain or preserve our Master's Favour and good Will which is ever kept warm by frequent Addresses and Importunity It was therefore an unworthy act of Pope Innocent the Third in the Lateran Council in the year 1215. to make a Canon for Laymen that it was sufficient for them to Communicate but once a year for hereby they fell into great Ignorance Debauchery and Sensuality and that which should have restrained them from Sin being so seldom administred to them they sunk daily into greater barbarity This Petrus Cluniacensis was so sensible of that having understood of the Petrobrusians that they had a Communion but once a year he thus expostulates with them You say once only but Christ and his Apostles say not once or twice or thrice or an hundred times or a thousand times only but as often as you do it There is a great difference between as often and once or twice Here is the beginning of numbers but the other expression exceeds all numbers here is more singularity but in the other is infinite multiplicity The Arabians have a Proverb Visit seldom and you increase Love but however this Maxim may hold among Men I am sure it is not so with God who in the commendation of his Servants lays their stress up-the assiduity in his Service and therefore when the Holy Ghost speaks in the praise of Anna the Prophetess he gives her this Character that though she was a Widow of about fourscore and four years yet she departed not from the Temple but served God with Fastings and Prayers night and day I know this is not spoken with respect to this Sacrament but all that I prove from it is this that the assiduity and frequency of Divine Worship is that which God is pleased to make a sign not only of his Love but our Sincerity too His kindness to our Souls advances with our Importunities and frequent Adorations cause frequent influences of his Love and since the Holy Ghost hath not thought fit to resolve how many times in the year we are to Communicate on purpose to leave room for our Free-will-offerings the Examples of the Saints of old are a very safe Rule to go by in our civil Affairs where a Statute is wanting Customs and Presidents are a Law and we think it reasonable it should be so and when St. Paul calls to us in the style of a Command Brethren be followers of me and mark them that walk so having us for an ensample Phil. 3. 17. The Examples of the Saints of old will be found to be of greater force in our practise than is generally believed and though the antient Churches have had different customs in this particular yet that which most have agreed on may justly oblige us to imitation However nothing is more certain than that we are placed under Governors whose lawful Commands we are to obey and as the Governors of the respective Churches have power to order the circumstantial and decent part of Divine Worship so he acts most safely that conforms to the constitutions of the Church he is of and since in the Church we are Members of both to prevent contempt of this Sacrament by too frequent coming and Peoples hardning their Hearts in Sin by a too long neglect of it it is thought fit to receive the Holy Communion once a Month we have not only great reason to conform to that order but to thank God we are encouraged to this frequent Devotion In some particular Churches among us a Communion every Lord ' Day is kept up according to the Primitive Rule however
when he whose Wisdom cannot by searching be found out hath given us these Symbols and by them thought fit to help our infirmities to fancy that Christ did more than he need to have done as if he understood not our Natures better than we Those that look upon those Symbols as Crutches for weaker Christians to lean upon and such as they themselves have no need of had need examine and search their Hearts better than hitherto they have done lest they be unable when the time comes to stand before the Son of Man II. Why this Sacrament is to last in the Christian Church to the end of the World or till Christ come to Judgment may easily be guess'd at for 1. The means of Grace are the same and unalterable to the end of the World and whatever things bore the name of ordinary means of Grace in the Apostles days still bear that Name and shall bear it till Heaven and Earth do perish for God intended but one Gospel to the Christian World even that Gospel which we have and after it we are to expect no other This is to serve the Church while it is a Church and as the Church is to last to the consummation of all things so this Gospel is to last for which reason it is expresly call'd The Eternal Gospel Rev. 14. 6. And the Apostle is very peremptory in his Assertion Though we or an Angel from Heaven should Preach any other Gospel meaning either now or hereafter than what we have Preached to you let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. And if the Gosbe to last to the end of the World this Ordinance of the Lord's Supper in the Church must needs last as long for this is part of the Gospel as much as Prayer Preaching or any other message delivered in that Book That which is most properly called the Gospel or Glad-tidings is the mistery of God's reconciling the World to himself in Christ Jesus and this is in an eminent manner express'd in this Sacrament so that this Sacament is the principal part of the Gospel the chief subject it treats of the principal thing it aims at the very foundation of the whole For other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Christ saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 3. 12. Nay he determined with himself not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him Crucified which is the very purport and scope of this Ordinance and if the Gospel be a thing perpetual and eternal the principal part of it without all peradventure must be so 2. The comforts of Christian Souls are to last while Christians live in the World and that by virtue of Christ's Pontificial Prayer Joh. 17. 20. 21. Neither Pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word i. e. to the end of the World that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us than which there cannot be greater comforts and if such are to last to the Worlds end the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper must needs be of the same perpetuity for from hence flow the greatest comforts of true Believers this assuring us that as the material Bread by eating is united to ouâ— Bodies so is Christ united to our Souls or our Souls united to him as Members to their Head and to be one with Christ it such a Treasury of Comforts that there is no affliction no condition so mean or so calamitous but may receive ease and content from this Consideration for if I am one with Christ my Blessed Redeemer will be concern'd for me will take care of me will be with me in the Tryals that fall to my share will support me under Temptations assist me with his Grace relieve me by his Presence subdue Satan under my Feet shortly will furnish me with Arguments to resist will not leave me when I dye but convey and conduct my Soul where her Head is that it may be for ever with her Lord and will make me partaker of the same Glories too which himself is possest of By this Sacrament we become one with Christ Jesus and this comfort being to attend sincere Christians while Christians are in the World the means whereby that Union is made must necessarily last as long as Christianity lasts i. e. to the Day of Judgment 3. Lo I am with you saith Christ to his Disciples who were Representatives of all future Christian Congregations that should maintain the purity of his Doctrine and Morals to the end of the World Matth. 28 20. This is not to be understood of his Bodily Presence or Human Nature for that was to be Translated into his Father's Kingdom and with respect to that he had told his Followers before that they should not have him always with them Matth. 26. 11. And as to his Divine Nature though the words may be referr'd to that yet it is to be noted that he spoke these words as one who had all Power given him in Heaven and in Earth v. 18. and therefore as Mediator or the promised Messiah of the World and if he spake these words as Mediator or Head of the Church it must follow that he meant them of his being with them and their Followers to the World's end by his Spirit and virtue and influence in their observing all things whatsoever he Commanded them as the words immediately preceding do evince for he doth not tye his special Presence to a bare function of Men as the Romanists falsly infer but to Obedience and as Baptism was one of the things he commanded them to use and observe in the Verse before so the Lord's Supper and Celebration of it was another so that if Christ's Presence be necessary to the Worlds end and that Presence be tied to Obedience and this Sacrament be one of the things he hath commanded and in which he must be obey'd in order to his Gracious Presence this Ordinance also must be necessary and must needs be kept up to the end of the World 4 Christ's Church is to last to the World's end for it is for his Church's sake that the World stands so long as it doth as the World was created upon that account because God meant to gather a Church out of the World out of the foreseen corrupt Mass of Mankind so it is preserved upon that account even that the number of those that shall be saved may be compleated which great Truth is I believe aim'd at by the Apostle Col. 1. 15 16 17 18. and to this end this Church is said to be so durable and so firm that the Gates of Hell shall not be able to prevail against it Matth. 16. 18. The Devil we may be confident will endeavour to bâ—tter it to to the very last moment of the World's duration and if with all his stratagems and continued and lasting assaults he shall not be able to conquer or to destroy
it it must stand and last as long as those assaults do last The Apostle therefore makes mention of sincere Christians that will be alive at Christ's coming to Judgment 1 Thess. 4. 17. And consequently the Church will last till then and if the Church is to last to the Worlds end the Marks of that Church must last as long It 's true Holiness of life is one Mark but that 's not all the Marks the Christ's Church must have The Sacraments are Marks too and Marks whereby it may be better known than by Holiness not but that Holiness is the principal Ornament of the Church but as those that are to joyn themselves unto the Church are generally more inquisitive after the Constitutions and Ordinances of it and the means whereby that Holiness is effected than after any thing else so this Sacrament being part of those means and therefore one of the necessary Marks it must last to the end of the World as much as the Church it self and as long as there is any probability of Mens joyning themselves to the Church and by this means Holiness of Life is signally promoted as experience sufficiently witnesses As Christians in general so the Church of Christ or the respective Societies of Christians professing Christ's Doctrine and imitation of his life are compared to a City set on a Hill and which cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Not that Christ's Church must always appear outwardly Magnificent and Glorious thereby to attract the Eyes of Spectators no but that the purity of Doctrine and sound Preaching of the Word and the due administration of the Holy Sacraments together with innocence of Life must make it visible and this it may be under the greatest persecution and when a severe Tempest falls upon her by these Marks she may still be known and if these are her Marks these Marks must last as long as the Church it self III. The term therefore to which this Holy Sacrament is to last even Chrst's coming to Judgment may very justly be taken into consideration in receiving of the Blessed Eucharist I hinted so much Ch. 1. Fa. 9. But must upon this occasion enlarge upon it For 1. This consideration will help to encourage us to Patience under reproaches Injuries and Mens unrighteous dealing with us It serves to quiet the Soul to think that Christ knows my Sufferings aud the Injuries that are done me and sees my Integrity and Innocence and will clear me in the last day before the whole World What need I resent such an affront when the Son of God takes notice of it and if I am patient under it will in that great day plead my Cause set the Sinners Transgression if he repents not before his Eyes and confound him not that I am to wish that confusion of the offender but my consideration that Christ will actually do it may promote my contentedness under that affliction What need I revile my Persecutors when he for whose sake I endure that persecution will sufficiently vindicate me in that day for it is a righteous thing with God to recompense Tribulation to those that trouble you saith St. Paul 2. Thes. 1. 6 7 8. This Judge will at last discover how Men were mistaken in us how unjust there Censures were what sinister Constructions they put upon our Actions how malicious their Slanders were how unjust the Punishments they inflicted on us how inhuman how contrary to Charity all their ill Lauguage was He shall bring forth our Righteousness as the Light and our Judgment as the Noon-day Psal 37. 6. and this consideration must needs be very effectual to promote Patience 2. This Consideration will help to increase our confidence and arm us against distrust and diffidence for if the powers of darkness would fright us from laying hold on Christ's Merits because he will be a very severe Judge in the last day the timerous Christian may answer thus True he will be my Judge but he hath promised to be a Father too to those that fear him He 'll be my Judge Indeed but he is a Judge of my Flesh and of my Bone and who will have regard to my infirmities He 'll be my Judge but he is my Head withal who will be tender of his Members He 'll be my Judge but he is a merciful High Priest withal who will be my Advocate and answer the Objections I cannot confute I will cling to his Precepts I will not wickedly depart form him I will express my Love to him in Holy Obedience I will dread his Judgments and make his Mercy a motive to Purification I will not give place to the Devil I will fight against his Temptations I will stand upon my watch I will not lie asleep in the Bed of Sin I will get up if I chance to fall I will rise again when I am overtaken in a fault I will accuse my self and beg his pardon I will endeavour to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith I am called with all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering I will not take part against him with his Enemies This is the work I have resolved upon according to this Rule I will walk and such a Soul I know this Gracious Judge will not cast away nor condemn what inadvertencies I may run into I will not justifie but strive against them and I doubt not but his Cross will cover them while my Heart is sincere and my Soul is ever toward him This Judge will absolve me he will deal favourably with me as with a person whom he hath redeemed I will look upon the Promises and apply them He hath promised that he will not take away his kindness utterly from such as love him while I live I will love him and I question not but as severe as he is to the obstinate and untractable he will visit me with everlasting kindness The Preceding Considerations improved and reduced to Practise I. O Let us admire the Goodness of God and his marvellous care of our everlasting welfare He sees how slippery our Natures are how fickle how mutable how changeable how apt to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered to them and therefore he ties us in Bonds in Covenants and in Sacraments of of Virtue whereof the Lord's Supper is the strongest the greatest and most Sacred and therefore the best defensative and guard against the encroachments of Temptations insomuch that he who can break through this Mound and will not be kept in by Arguments drawn from the Death of Christ but in despight of the Blood of the Covenant he hath drunk and sealed his Promise with will plunge himself into known sins that Man's case is desperate that Man is truly resolved to be miserable and will die though the Lord Jesus call to him from the Cross Live in thy Blood live He that can Swear and Vow to God in this Sacrament vow upon the Body and Blood of Christ that he 'll be Drunk no more and Swear no more
you to destruction both of Body and Soul But though this be a kind of general Excommunication yet except the particular Persons be taken notice of and branded by the Church a private Chrstian must judge charitably of those that come and if he do so their Impiety cannot hinder him from being a worthy Partaker of the Sacrament I have been the longer upon this Point because I have known it to be a great Scruple that hath hinder'd many from coming to the Lord's Table being possessed with Fear that if they should meet with such Persons there they should eat and drink unworthily 12. Eating and Drinking at this Table with some scruples upon the Mind doth not necessarily make a Man an unworthy Receiver By a scrupulous Conscience I do not mean an erroneous nor a doubtful Conscience the former being when a Person thinks that his Duty which is directly against the Word and Will of God as it was with the Jews Joh. 16. 2. The other when a Person doubts whether such and such Actions be lawful or unlawful as it was with those Christians Rom. 14. 23. But a scrupulous Conscience proceeds from fear and fear caus'd by slight and weak Arguments whereby a Person is satisfied that such a Thing or Action is his Duty but Melancholy or the Devil or Converse with scrupulous Persons inject some Thoughts which makes a Person fluctuate or waver in his performance For example a Man conscious of his own wants knows that coming to the Lord's Table is his Duty and accordingly he comes yet comes with fears in his Mind fears caus'd either by what he hath read or by what he hath heard or by what he hath seen in others fears that suggest to him that he should not have come because he hath not every thing that he observes in other good Christians Now I say that eating and drinking with such scruples upon his Mind doth not make him an unworthy Receiver 1. Because notwithstanding these scruples he may be sincere in his Faith and Love he may sincerely desire and be sincerely willing to keep himself unspotted from the World and to embrace the Wisdom which is from above first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated He may for all this deliberately chuse Holiness as the better part and his Faith may be carried out to embrace Christ as his Mediator and Governor and he may actuate his Love so that he shall be afraid of the appearances of Evil and if it be thus with him notwithstanding his little scruple he may be and will certainly be a welcome Guest at this Holy Table for God judges of us by the sincerity of our Hearts not by every little accidental fear that may surprize us and to discompose a timorous Mind And therefore 2. Such scruples may lawfully be rejected opposed and banish'd out of our Minds without danger Nay they ought to be resisted and a Christian in this case is obliged not to harbour them and to be resolute in stopping his Ears against them especially where he finds so good a foundation in himself as I mentioned in the foregoing Paragraph To give regard to them is the way to multiply them and to ruminate upon them is to let in or to open the Door to greater perplexities Nor is this to act against Conscience but according to the true Rules of Conscience for a Scruple is a needless Fear and without just ground which Fear can bring no obligation upon the Party thus assaulted And it is observed by experience where Persons use a kind of Violence to expel such Scruples they strengthen their Faith and their Conscience fit themselves for greater Duties and become more expedient in their Journey to the City of the living God 13. Want of great Knowledge doth not make a Man an unworthy Receiver It 's confessed that some knowledge is necessary in order to a worthy Receiving for this is Eternal Life that they know thee the only true God and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 3. But the knowledge requisite lies within a small compass and he that knows no more than the six Fundamental Principles laid down by St. Paul Heb. 6. 1 2. knows enough in order to a comfortable Communion Those Principles are 1. Repentance from dead Works That Repentance from our known Sins is absolutely necessary 2. Faith towards God That God must be believ'd according to the Revelations he hath vouchsafed to Mankind in his Word and that the things contain'd in that Book are infallibly true 3. The Doctrine of Baptism That we are Baptiz'd in the Name of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and thereby have given our selves up to his Service 4. Laying on of hands That the Holy Ghost whereof that laying on of hands in Confirmation is an external Sign is certainly dispensed and bestowed in some measure on all those that are Baptiz'd whereby they are enabled to fight against Sin the World the Flesh and the Devil 5. Resurrection of the Dead That there shall be a Resurrection of Men's Bodies wherein they shall be reunited to their Souls and appear before God's dreadful Tribunal to give an account of their Lives and Actions 6. Eternal Judgment That in the last Day the controversie of Men's Happiness or Unhappiness shall be decided and Men shall be either sent into Eternal Life or into Eternal Fire He that knows there Six Principles and believes them and is resolv'd to act accordingly hath knowledge enough to fit him for a worthy participation of this Ordinance for these are sufficient Motives to remember the Death of the Son of God with holy Resolutions to follow him that we may be partakers of his everlasting Bliss But that a Man must needs be a competent Scholar and understand the whole Mystery of Godliness and be able to give an account of the nicer Points of Divinity and to answer the harder Questions about the manner and nature of those Things which God hath revealed This is not necessary Ignorance of the abstruser Problems of Theology doth not make a Man an unworthy Receiver For 1. So much Knowledge is only necessary as serves to make us Practical Christians and a small stock of Knowledge will do that and he that knows that Mankind was lost by Adam's â—all and stands in need of a Saviour to reconcile them to God and that Christ Jesus the Son of God who being in the Form of God assumed our Nature and died for us is that Saviour who is both able and willing to reconcile us to an offended God upon the reasonable terms of turning from a sensual and sinful Life and making his Life and Precepts the Rule of our Conversation whereupon we shall be pardoned and obtain Eternal Life He that knows these few particulars and how easily are they learned and imbibed knows enough to make him a Practical Christian if he will but act according to these Principles and this unfeigned willingness makes him a worthy
Receiver for this Sacrament as hath been often hinted in the Premises is to increase our Practice to augment our Love to Holiness to strengthen our Resolutions to follow Christ to cleanse us from that filthines which naturally besets us and to enlarge our Graces and since that Knowledge I have mentioned is a sufficient Preparative for all this it must be a sufficient Preparative for the Holy Sacrament 2. Much Knowledge very often hinders Men from the Practical part of Religion It need not do it and it ought not to do it but we see it frequently doth for Men are apt to be taken with fine Notions and while their Delight runs all that way they forget too often to delight greatly in God's Commandments This is too evident in many Men who are great Scholars who satisfie themselves with this that they know more than the Vulgar and neglect those severer Parts of Practical Religion which many of the Vulgar do conscientiously observe and many an ordinay Man that knows little more than his Creed but makes that Creed an inforcive to Obedience is in a happier condition than the greater Literati who trouble their Heads so much about Controversies and Criticisms that they bestow little time upon Mortification In the Primitive Ages when Men knew not much they practis'd more as since Knowledge hath increas'd Men's practices have much degenerated from the simplicity of the Gospel Not that I commend Ignorance in the Laity as they do in the Church of Rome but I think a little knowledge improv'd into great severity of Life is safer and more beneficial than great skill in Divinity without suitable Fruits of Righteousness So that upon a review of the whole I may safely conclude that want of great Knowledge doth not make a Man an unworthy Receiver III. From what we have said it will be easie to guess in the next place what it is to Eat and Drink unworthily For from Negatives Affirmatives may be inferred without any great difficulty and tho' after this Discourse I might spare my pains in setting down the particulars yet to assist the Weak and to conform my self to the meanest capacity I shall explain the Nature of this unworthy Eating and Drinking in the following Observations 1. To Eat and Drink unworthily is to Eat and Drink by force By Eating and Drinking by force I mean coming to this Sacrament either because the Law of the Land Commands it or because our Superiors under whose Command we are or from whom we expect some Gain and Benefit or in case of neglect of their Orders apprehend some danger or injury to our Temporal Concerns will not be satisfied without it Not but that a Servant or whoever is under a Command of others ought to give heed to the Pious Counsel and Advice of those that are above him take it into consideration and make advantage of that opportunity to apply himself to the serious practice of it and thereupon consuâ—t with Divines and with his own Conscience how to make his Calling and Election sure but where a Person is altogether passive in the thing regards more what his Superiors say than what his Conscience feels and comes more to please those which are above him than to discharge his Duty where his chief motive is to give content to those whose Favour he is loth to lose where he would certainly neglect coming were it not for the danger of prejudicing what is very dear to him in the World there I say he Eats and Drinks unworthily For 1. Such a Person stands more in awe of Man than of God God's Command cannot make him do that which Human Injunctions can Dust and Ashes prevail more with him than the Holy One of Israel Man's Anger and Displeasure moves and affects him more than the Indignation of a jealous God and with what Eyes can the Almighty look upon that Wretch whom he sees more concern'd to please a poor Grashopper so Man is call'd Es. 4. 22. than him that sits upon the Circles of the Earth How can he but set his Face against that Communicant whose slavish temper he spies at his Table whose Heart sticks close to the Earth and makes no great account of him who daily courts him by his Favours How can he but frown upon that Creature whom no Charms of an Almighty Love can melt and the threatning of Man can affright into any thing Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a Man that shall dye and of the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass And forgettest the Lord thy Maker that hath stretched forth the Heavens and laid the foundations of the Earth saith God Isa. 51. 12 13. 2. Such a Person his outward Man only receives the Holy Sacrament His Soul for which this Feast is chiefly prepared receives nothing The Brute only appears at the Table the Angel stays away God expects the Master at this Banquet not the Slave The Body is not capable of this Sacred Food the Soul is the proper Guest This is it that can expect refreshment at this Board and he that comes to feed his Body only knows not yet what this Ordinance was intended for where a Man brings nothing but his Body to this Love-Feast leaving his Soul enslaved to the Profits of the World or to the Will of Mortal Men he must needs receive unworthily for God's enemy which is the World engrosses that part which should appear before God and behold and be ravish'd with his excellent Greatness and Goodness and with the admirable designs in spreading the Royal Table for him To what purpose is the Carkase while that which should animate it is engaged another way Can the Shell please God who hath so often declared that he will be satisfied with nothing but the Kernel And in vain doth he require the Heart if the outward frame were Sacrifice sufficient So that what Christ saith Joh. 6. 63. may justly be applied here tho' with some variation of the Sense It 's the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profits nothing 2. To Eat and Drink unworthily is to make this receiving a matter of custom only Where Men approach because it 's fashionable to observe the decorum of their being Members of a Church more than to grow in a Spiritual Life and know no other enforcive or can give no account of any other but this Because it is usual for Men who are Baptized and profess themselves Christians and go to the Publick to do so there they must needs Eat and Drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 undecently or unworthily And this is the case of many ignorant People both in City and Country who come for company-sake and because their Neighbors use to do so who think it not a Province belonging to them to know or dive into the mysteries of Salvation but trust to it that God is merciful and will save them though they know not why or how whose Affections are bound up with the Earth and will be
that Account makes himself guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Our Church therefore in her Confession before the Sacrament obliges all those that come to receive to say We do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our Mis-doings Now he that is heartily sorry for his known Sins will watch and strive against them and take heed he doth not through Carelesness rush into them again which the unworthy Receiver not being from the Heart resolved to do involves himself in that Guilt we speak of The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. HEre I cannot but take notice of the great Errour of the First Council of Toledo celebrated about the Year 400. after Christ which made a Canon that he who had no Wife but instead of a Wife a Concubine ought not to be kept or debarred from the holy Communion provided that he content himself with one Concubine and add no more 'T is evident that such a Conjunction is Filthiness and Uncleanness condemned by the Apostle Gal. 5. 19. Marriage it is not and Carnal Copulations without it are mere Fornications as we see Heb. 13. 4. And therefore such Persons if admitted to the Communion could not but eat and drink unworthily Nor doth it mend the matter that Leo I. Pope of Rome approved of that Canon for that only shews that Popes are as fallible as other Men nay more subject to mistake as they are very jealous of their Riches and Grandeur and Temporal Interest Bellarmine to excuse this Fault alledges that by Concubine in that Canon was meant nothing but a lawful Wife only married and taken without a Portion or publick Solemnity But this Conjecture must be false because both in the Civil and Canon-Laws Concubines are Persons distinguished from lawful Wives and but a better Name for Whores And as that Concil did very ill to admit such Persons that were known to live in such Sins to the Sacrament so they did as ill to prohibit Ministers Widows if they married again or took a second Husband the use of the Communion as if an honst Marriage were more scandalous than Fornication And though a Bishop or Pastor of the Church is ordered by the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. 2. to be the Husband of one Wife yet how doth it follow from thence that his Widow when he dies must never marry again II. There is a great difference betwixt Receiving unworthily and being unworthy to receive Every Man that thinks himself unworthy to receive these Mysteries is not therefore an unworthy Receiver Alas If we go to the Worthiness of the Person that comes to this Table Who of us can be said to be worthy to come before so holy so jealous so great a God Or Who of us is worthy of that incomprehensible and diffusive Love represented to us in this Ordinance If we reflect on the marvellous Purity of the Divineâ—Nature Who of us can be thought worthy to approach it The best of us have reason to cry out at the sight of that Tremendous Holiness Unclean Unclean There are few of us who have not reason to complain to use the Words of Thomas de Kempis that they are yet so carnal so worldly so unmortified in their Passions so full of disorderly Motions of the Flesh so unwatchful over their outward Senses so often entangled with vain Thoughts and Fancies so vehemently inclined to external Comforts so negligent of the Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit so prone to immoderate Laughter and Immodesty so indisposed to Tears and Compunction so strongly inclined to the Ease and Pleasures of the Flesh so dull to Strictness and an holy Zeal so curious to hear News and to see gaudy Sights so slack to embrace what is humble and low so covetous of Abundance so niggardly in giving to pious Uses so close in keeping what Providence hath bestowed upon them so inconsiderate in speaking so unbridled to Silence so loose in Manners so covetous after Gain so greedy after the Meat which perishes so deaf to the Word of God so apt to sit still so slow to labour so watchful to idle Tales so drowsie in God's Service so hasty to make an end of their Prayers so inconstant in Attention so cold in Devotion so undevout in the holy Communion so quickly discomposed so seldom wholly gathered into themselves so suddenly provoked to Anger so ready to take Displeasure at their Neighbour's Actions so prone to judge so severe in Reprehension so jolly in Prosperity so impatient in Adversity so often purposing much Good and yet performing little There are very few of us who have not reason to deplore such Defects as these and then Who can be worthy to feast with the King Invisible Immortal Blessed for evermore But it is God that makes us worthy He will not count us unworthy if we strive against these Errours if we labour to conquer them if we will not be Friends with them if we proclaim War against them if we are resolved whatever we venture to be rid of them if we will not hug them in our Bosoms if we will open the Everlasting Doors and let the King of Glory come in if we will hate what he hates and love what he loves and will continue our Hostility against those Lusts which interfere with his just Right and Prerogative He will not go to the utmost rigour with us He will deal gently with us liker a Father than a Judge To let us go on in our Offences without Remorse or a serious Care to please him he cannot and such is his Holiness that he must not He considers our Frame that we are Dust and therefore will not take advantage of every accidental Miscarriage But he considers withal that he hath given us his Gospel and Everlasting Motives and his Holy Spirit whereby we may certainly master the Corruptions we find stirring in us though not immediately yet by degrees if we are but willing and labour and wrestle and are active and do not suffer our selves to be overcome by Laziness and the Satisfactions of this present World And upon these Terms he is willing to count us worthy Receivers O Sweetness incomparable O Condescention ineffable beyond all that Kings and Princes express to their Subjects What Christian that is acquainted with this Frame this Spirit this humble and tractable Temper this Resolution and this Willingness and that feels these Characters in his Soul can after all this forbear coming upon a pretence of being unworthy Coming to this holy Table with such Purposes with such Designs with such Qualifications let him be confident that his Father his Saviour his Redeemer will bid him welcome This spiritual Frame Christian will make thee worthy Thou comest not to this Sacrament to give God any thing but to receive a Blessing from him Thou comest not hither to contribute any thing to his Happiness but to open thy Mouth wide that he may fill it Thou comest not hither to proclaim thy
her receiving the Body of Him who fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence but whether it was so or no I enquire not At these words of the Apostle a serious Reader hath reason to tremble and to be afraid and take care he comes not to this Table without a decent behaviour And indeed not a few are so frighted by these words that they think it safer to abstain from this Sacrament than to come to it tho' it is evident that they might come and yet prevent that danger if they were not more in love with their own than God's Will What we render Damnation here is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we may justly question whether by this word is always meant an everlasting separation from the Glorious Presence of God having our Portion with Devils feeling the treasures of God's everlasting Wrath and suffering the vengeance of Eternal Fire That the Word is used sometimes in Scripture in this Sense is evident from Joh. 9. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where though our Translation Reads For judgment am I come into the World yet the Greek Interpreters Theophylact especially interprets the expression of Damnation I am come into the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their greater punishment and condemnation and Rom. 13. 2. They that resist shall receive to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Damnation On the other side it is as certain that by this word is very often understood no more than Judgment and particularly some extraordinary signal exemplary punishment whether Spiritual or Corporal inflicted in this present Life therefore our Translators finding the word ambiguous like Men of Integrity and Honesty have put the word Judgment in the Margent and indeed the words v. 30. where the Apostle explains himself and shews what he means by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import so much For this cause saith he many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep which words cannot be conveniently applied to any other but some exemplary punishment in this World inflicted on the first Offenders and Prophaners of this Ordinance However since the Word is of that large extent it 's fit we should consider it in both significations as it imports both Temporal and Eternal Judgment and consider the reasonableness of the Commination So that we shall be obliged to speak 1. Of Temporal Judgments in general 2. Of Bodily Sickness and Weakness 3. Of Spiritual Sickness and Weakness or Sleepiness And 4. Of Damnation it self All which are implied in this one word and are all just consequences and very sad effects of unworthy Eating and Drinking in this Holy Sacrament II. I begin with Temporal Judgments in general which he that Eats and Drinks unworthily Eats and Drinks to himself That Judas receiv'd this Sacrament unworthily none of those Divines that believe he receiv'd it at all doth doubt but see the vengeance that attended him he went and hang'd himself and though it is confess'd that his Betraying of innocent Blood was one cause of it yet this unworthy Receiving may very well be supposed to have been another The Judgment falling upon him after Commission of both those Crimes both may justly be supposed to have been the ingredients of it The Guest that came to the Royal Supper without a Wedding-Garment went home with Fetters on his Feet Mat. 22. 12 13. which was no other than an Emblem of the Judgments that those may look for that come defiled and polluted with Impenitence to this Table It hath been observ'd by most Historians both Civil and Ecclesiastical how God as patient as he is for the most part yet hath frequently reveng'd the contempt of Sacred Things by visible Judgments Nadab and Abihu for offering strange Fire unto the Lord are suddenly consumed by Fire Levit. 10. 2. Uzziah for invading the Priests Office is soon after struck with a loathsome Leprosie 2 Chron. 26. 19. and Josephus takes notice of one Theopompus who attempting to take something out of the Bible and to mingle it with some profane Discourses of his own ran mad upon it and continued so for Thirty days till applying himself to God by Prayer he at last recover'd And he adds of one Theodectes a Poet who having taken some passages out of the Word of God to embellish his looser Verses a sudden blindness seiz'd upon him And to go no further than our own Chronicles William the Conqueror destroy'd no less than 36 Mother Churches in Hampshire to make his New Forest And besides all this takes away all their Plate and Treasures even Chalices Soon after his Son Robert rebels against him his second Son Richard was kill'd in the New Forest and himself at last is thrown by his Horse and dies upon 't his Body for Three days lies neglected and at last is buried by a private Gentleman at Cane where the Clergy refused to bury him till an agreement of Rent was made and in fine his Bones are digg'd up again and scatter'd abroad William Rufus afterward who stor'd his Treasure by the sale of Church Chalices and Jewels was accidentally as the Story says kill'd by Sir Walter Tyrrel the Arrow glancing from the Deer and by as signal a Providence dispatching him as Ahab King of Israel was kill'd by an Arrow shot out of a Bow drawn at a venture 1 King 22. 34. The Heathens themselves have observ'd a signal Vengeance which hath waited on the Profaners of Holy Things And therefor Aelian makes this remark upon Ochus Artaxerxes that having spoiled and robb'd several Temples he was in a short time after miserably slain and his Body thrown to Dogs and Cats and Vermin and of his Shin-bones his Enemies made Hilts and Handles for Knives and Swords and other Instruments and Lactantius mentions a passage concerning the Potitii a Noble Family who having been notoriously guilty of profaning the Sacred Rites of Hercules Thirty of that Family died all in less than a years time And Appius who was the encourager of the Sacriledge was struck blind And Servius saith of Glaucus the Son of Sisyphus that having derided and mocked some Holy Rites he was torn in pieces by his Horses If it be said that these sad accidents were inflicted by the Devil whom these Heathens worshipp'd and that these were only the effects of his Tyranny over Mankind yet from hence we may infer that as the Devil is the Ape of God so from God he hath learnt to punish the abuse and profanation even of his own worship And if Lucifer cannot endure to see his own Sacred Rites profaned how shall we think that God who is of infinite Holiness will permit such abuses to be committed in things appertaining properly to him without some manifestation of his Vengeance When the French under Charles King of Sicily had turn'd the stately Church of St. Narcissus into a Stable and the Altars there serv'd for Mangers for their Horses a new sort of Flies was sent by an invisible Hand which
some farther Prospect than this present Life and that he uses the Word not only to terrifie the unworthy Receiver with Sickness and Weakness of the Body and a Spiritual and Temporal Judgment but at the same time bids him take heed that in case any of the former doth not for Reasons best known to Providence light upon him or in case the Thoughts of the former do not work upon him and transform him into a better Man he doth not run himself into Hell-Fire and Eternal Misery It is plainly to tell him that since the Word includes both Judgments Temporal and Eternal he hath no reason to flatter himself that it will be only a Temporal judgment but may justly fear he shall in our God's Everlasting Indignation And therefore our Church retains both Significations of the Word in her Exhortation before the Sacrament So is the Danger great if we Receive the same unworthily for then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour we Eat and Drink our own Damnation not considering the Lord's Body we kindle God's Wrath against us we provoke him to plague us with divers Diseases and sundry kinds of Death II. How an unworthy Communicant eats and drinks Damnation to himself is the next thing we are to explain And this he doth this following Way 1. He makes himself obnoxious to the fierce Anger of the Judge that is to decide the Controversie of his Life and Death to all Eternity and this Judge is the Son of God Christ Jesus who hath protested that Not every one who saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and therefore will say unto them in the last Day I know you not depart from me ye Workers of Iniquity And there is nothing more certain than that the unworthy Receiver is resolved not to do the Will of his Father which is in Heaven whose Will is that Men should honour the Son as they do the Father Joh. 5. 23. i. e. believe in him as they do in the Father and come to this Sacrament like Persons redeemed from their vain Conversation resolved to war against the Lusts of the Flesh like Soldiers of the Cross and to remember the Death of the Son of God here with that Respect and Devotion they owe to God resolved to live and die with him like Persons who have listed themselves under his Colours with an Intent to fight against his Enemies and to take heed they do not dishonour the Son of God by an evil Heart of Unbelief in departing from the Living God This is the Will of God and since Christ the Judge of the World is the Person appointed to examine whether this Will of God hath been obeyed the unworthy Receiver dying in Impenitence and coming before him and it appearing that he hath nothing less than the Will of God professed indeed that he would do it pretended Service and Obedience to him and yet done his own Will though exhorted and moved to do the Will of God by numberless Arguments Arguments big with the greatest Charms what can his Obstinacy cause but Anger in the Judge Anger implacable since he would continue dead and unconcerned under the lively Oracles of Heaven and under the most lively Representations of the Love of God The Effect of which Anger is the Sentence of Everlasting Condemnation Depart from me ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire c. Matth. 25. 41. And for this Reason the Psalmist calls to all Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the right Way when his Anger shall be kindled but a little Psal 2. 11. 2. He puts himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Sinners are in to whom is reserved the Blackness of Darkness for ever And that State and Condition is Wilful Disobedience to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what the Consequence of this State is St. Paul explains 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power And that this is the unworthy Receiver's Condition is manifest from hence because he knows not God i. e. he will not know him nor obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He might know that God is an holy God and hath called him to Holiness and is not to be put off with blind lame and slovenly Devotion and yet he will not nor doth he obey the Gospel which obliges him by virtue of the Grace of God appearing to all Men to renounce Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts. This Ungodliness and these Worldly Lusts he retains and cherishes and makes much of notwithstanding his coming to the Lord's Table and so putting himself in the same State and Condition that other ungodly Men are no wonder if he makes himself liable to the same Damnation 3. He makes himself fit Company for the Damned and the Sufferers in Hell Those that are in that miserable State did as he doth and he doth as they did They suffer'd the Profits and Pleasures of the World to justle out a serious Sense of Religion so doth the unworthy Receiver They had a Form of Godliness and denied the Power thereof so doth he They some of them at least came to this Sacrament with unmortified Lusts with unsubdued Passions of Anger and Pride and with ungovernable Desires after the World and had no real Intent to become Proselytes of Righteousness so doth he They did not think that the holy Sacrament was such an Inforcive to a Change of Life as Divines talked of so doth he They made no great matter of this Ordinance but thought it expedient to comply with the Custom of the Country and the Usages of the Church they lived in and that was all and so doth he They made nothing of promising and breaking their solemn Promises to God no more doth he And being like them in Manners no wonder if he be like them in Torments too Being their Companion in their Sins 't is just he should be a Companion with them in their Misery Having been their Associate in Hypocrisie 't is fit he should have his Portion with Hypocrites III. But here the Sinner I know will be apt to clamour and say What Justice can there be in it that God for eating a Piece of Bread and for drinking a few Drops of Wine irreverently and unworthily without observing some Punctilio's and Nicer Rules of Divinity should inflict Eternal Damnation upon a poor Creature To which I answer 1. Every supreme and absolute Law-giver hath liberty to set what Penalties he thinks fit upon the Breaches of his Law If he will appoint a Punishment that is very dreadful for a certain
Confessions specifies the particular Acts wherein he hath walk'd contrary to God discovers an earnest desire to grow in Grace and in this St. Paul shews us an example 1 Tim. 1. 13. where he doth not say I have been a great Sinner but a Blasphemer spoke ill of the way to Life a Persecuter afflicted oppressed and made havock of the Churches of God injurious done great injuries to St. Stephen and to abundance of other Christians In a word such a person by his particular Confession deals faithfully with his own Soul and by mentioning the particular Diseases that annoy him manifests his earnest desire of a Cure whereas General Confessions leave the Soul ignorant dull careless and unaffected with the great Concerns of Salvation And tho' a person every time he accuses himself or confesses his Errors is not bound to enumerate all the particular Sins of his Life he can charge his Memory with yet if he never did it before it 's fit he should do it at least when first he receives the Holy Sacrament and at other times confess such fins as he finds himself most inclin'd to and most apt to harbor in his Bosom 2. These Confessions must be accompanied especially the Confessions before the Sacrament with aggravations of our Offences and with shame and confusion of Face I joyn these two together because aggravating of them is the cause of that confusion and he that reflects in his Confessions what light what knowledge what checks of Conscience what motions of God's Spirit what goodness of God what mercy what patience what promises what threatnings he hath sinn'd against what time he hathlost what opportunities he hath neglected what a gracious what a merciful God he hath offended even love it self and sweetness and beauty it self and what blessings what priviledges what advantages what offers he hath slighted will find himself obliged to have very low and mean thoughts of himself This was the Publican's case Luke 18. 13. Who standing afar off would not lift up so much as his Eyes to Heaven but smote upon his Breast saying God be merciful to me a Sinner He was ashamed and confounded His Conscience told him how unworthily he had dealt with his Creator how strangely he had carried himself to God his best and greatest Friend how unthankful and how base he had been to his most gracious Benefactor and how strangely he had carried himself to the best of Beings He was confounded with the thoughts of his vileness and conscious of his guilt he â—ast his eyes to the ground unable to look his offended Father in the Face His Heart was full of grief Sorrow fate heavy on his Soul and though his Tongue could not express his particular acts of injustice oppression pride anger and greediness after the World yet his Mind confess'd them thought of them his Heart was ready to break at the dismal sight and this was a very acceptable Confession 3. These Confessions must be joyned with invincible purposes to endeavour after a better and more Spiritu-Temper So the wise Man tells us He that confesses his Sins and forsakes theâ— shall find mercy Prov. 28. 13. Without this Qualification our Confessions are mere Lip-services and rceive not one gracious Look from above nay are accounted no better than Israel's Devotion Hos. 10. 1. Israel is an empty Vine He brings forth fruit unto himself Why unto himself The reason is because in that fruit he aim'd not so much at God's Glory as his own Profit Nor was any Person the better for it the design was selfish it was just to satisfie the present terror within no love of God lay at the bottom the ground of all was self-love and God had nothing to do with it The same may justly be said of him that confesses but is not concern'd whether his Flesh be subdued to the Spirit or not Such a Confession is his own invention it is not that Confession which God requires If he confesses it must not be to himself for God regards it not and indeed till this actual endeavour to forsake them is added to the Confession our Sins continue still in God's Books of Accompt look still as black as ever not one of them is blotted out for the enmity against God is still maintained and whilst that lasts it naturally follows that God and we cannot be friends III. The second act of judging our selves is upon this Confession to condemn our selves And indeed if the Soul be truly awake and the Heart sincerely sensible of its errors and miscarriages the Penitent cannot but condemn himself and acknowledge that the Judgments threatned in the word of God are due to him and cry Ah! my God and my Lord Who shall deliver me from the Body of this death from this confluence of Misery I have deserv'd with Adam to be thrown out of Paradise and to be for ever forbid eating of the Tree of Life I have deserv'd to drown'd with the first World or to be consumed for ever as Sodom and Gomorrah I have deserved the sudden and unnatural death of Nadab and Abihu to be stoned with Achan to be struck with Leprosie as Miriam to be swallowed up â—live by the Earth as Dathan and Abiram I have deserv'd Manasseh's Prison and Zedekiah's Chains and what is worse the everlasting Chains of Darkness I acknowledge that I have deserved it should be more tolerable for Infidels in the Great Day than for me for I have seen the mighty works of God and continu'd a stranger to Repentance I have deserved to be called upon at Midnight as that careless Man Thou Fool this Night thy Soul shall be required of thee and whose shall be which thou hast provided To this Wretch that is before thee belongs nothing but Wrath and Indignation On this Head of mine thou mightest justly discharge the Ordinance of Justice and pour out the Vials of thy Wrath On me thou mightest justly rain snares and Fire and Brimstone I have deserv'd to be plagued with Diseases tormented with grievous Pain haunted by panick Terrors If any of these Judgments do not fall upon mee it is thy Patience not my Goodness and I may wonder I have escaped them all this while I have deserved to be made a Prey to that Devil whose Temptations I have swallow'd with Greediness Instead of rejoycing over me to build me up thou mightest justly rejoyce over me to destroy me Justly O Lord thou mightest send upon me trembling of Heart and fainting of Eyes and sorrow of Mind I have deserv'd that my Life should hang in doubt before me that I should fear day and night that in the Morning I should say Would God it were Even and at Even Would God it were Morning Mercy Lord I have deserved none The Crums that fall from thy Table are Blessings too good for me if I deserve any thing it is thy Rod thy Scourges thy Waves thy Billows and a horrible Tempest To condemn is the proper act of a
than by thy Will and Precepts Give me understanding that I may do that which is most agreeable to thy holy Nature and the interest of my immortal Soul O let thy Grace awaken my Reason that I may exercise my self for the future more in things Spirtual and invisible Thy Gospel is so true The Miracles recorded there so convincing the Doctrine so weighty the beauty of Holiness so charming thy promises so gracious thy threatnings so terrible thy Laws so equitable that I wonder at my backwardness to offer unto thee my reasonable service Thou art my Father how reasonable is it that I should love thee Tâ—ou art my Master how reasonable is it that I should obey thee Thy Rewards are infinite how reasonable is it that I should contend earnestly to get them Lord thou knowest my weakness and the stubbornness of my Heart O adjure me by the mercies of God to present unto thee my Soul and Body as a living Sacrifice that whether I live or die I may live and die in the Lord Jesus Amen CHAP. XXX Of the Ceremony or Posture of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament The CONTENTS Want of Charity the great Cause of Men's separating from a Church sound in her Doctrines and Morals in point of Ceremonies Essential Things in the first Institution of this Sacrament must be separated from Circumstantial The Posture Christ used was not Sitting but Leaning or Lying on one Side No Churches ever used that Posture Several Reasons why Kneeling is the most proper Posture in Receiving The Prayer I. IT is observed by Eusebius that when Polycarp the famous Bishop of Smyrna came to Rome though he differed from Anicetus the Bishop of that See in Points of Ceremony and Customs he had received from St. John yet they communicated together and did not think it Christian-like to break Communion for any Difference in Things of that Nature An excellent Temper and which I could wish had been observed by our Dissenting Brethren who have been over-scrupulous about the Posture of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament 'T is a lamentable thing to see how Men divide and separate one from another in Religion upon the Account of little External Formalities and neglect the Substance for a Circumstance and the great Duty of Charity because the Ornaments and Decencies of a Church are not modell'd according to their Humour What Account can such Men give of themselves to God who leave a Church by their own Confession sound in Doctrines and Morals for a few External Things which are not agreeable to their Fancy Is this a Cause worth suffering for And can they imagine that God will reward them for neglecting a greater Duty for a less Into what Passion and Bitterness have some been transported that they have even ventured to call this Kneeling at the Communion Idolatry and Superstition When the Children of Reuben Josh. 22. 27. protested that the Altar they had erected was not for Sacrifice or Burnt-Offering but only as a Witness that they were part of the Tribes of Israel the whole Congregation of the Children of Israel acquiesced and were satisfied Our Church protests publickly against any Intent of Paying Adoration by this Ceremony to the Consecrated Elements which would make it Idolatry and yet so dis-ingenuous are some that notwithstanding this Protestation they fill both their own and other People's Heads with Fears that Popery and Idolatry may be hid under that fair Outside In which Proceedings there is so little Charity and Ingenuity that it is a Shame Men should pretend to Conscience and shew so little of it in their Censures II. That which hath betrayed too many into these uncharitable Verdicts hath been their not distinguishing betwixt the Essentials and Circumstantials of this Sacrament betwixt things barely related and commanded And while they have thought themselves obliged to keep exactly to every occasional Action or Gesture used by Christ but not commanded in this Sacrament they have led themselves and others into very palpable Mistakes and Delusions And yet when all is done even these Persons that plead against Kneeling at this Sacrament under a Pretence of keeping close to the Letter of Christ's Actions do at the same time neglect several Circumstances observed in the first Institution for it was celebrated in an Upper Room administred only to Twelve to Men and not to Women and at Night c. None of which Circumstances are observed by these Men. And if one Circumstance may be neglected why may not another such as Sitting be forborn That Christ and his Disciples sate at this Sacrament is the common Allegation and we render the Greek Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by He sate down And the Reason why we render it so is because Sitting comes nearer to the Posture Christ used than Standing or Kneeling But any Man that is no Stranger either to Greek or to the Custom of the Jews must needs know that these Words do properly import Leaning or Inclining or Lying on one Side And this the Jews express by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Sitting by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making a great Difference betwixt these two This Leaning or Lying the Jews used at their Passover Whether they borrowed this Rite or Posture from the Grecians Romans and Persians who used to Sup in that Posture I will not determine But the manner was this they lean'd or lay on their Left Side upon little Beds made for that purpose called in their Language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mittoth by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and each Bed held three Persons The Law had commanded Standing at the Eating of the Passover but the Church looked upon that Posture as Servile accommodated only to those Times when they were in Egypt and therefore changed it into the Posture of Leaning which they thought was a Badge of Liberty Nor doth Christ find fault with their Church for making this Alteration in a commanded Posture for himself practised it knowing that Circumstantial Things are left to the Discretion of the Governors of Churches to keep or abolish them as they shall see convenient And this was so universally believed by all Churches of the Christian World that none I could ever hear or read of hath kept to the posture of Leaning or Lying on one Side in the Use of this Holy Sacrament which they would not have presumed to do if this Posture had been Essential to the Receiving of the Sacrament And whereas it is commonly said that this was a Table-posture to which Sitting succeeded still this shews that Men have varied from the Posture Christ used And since he hath commanded no Posture all Churches are at their liberty to order what Posture they think fit and he is a contentious Man that opposes it What Posture the Primitive Church used at the Receiving of the Sacrament Antiquity hath not left upon Record That they stood at their Publick Prayers on Sundays and on other
would to God it might be as surprizing to see one Christian fall out with the other 5. He broke the Bread to hint to us with what Hearts we ought to come to the Table of our Lord and to the Altar of the Cross even with humble broken contrite Hearts Such Hearts we might get if it were not for our Pride It was therefore prohibited in the Old Law to use Leaven in God's Sacrifices and Offerings Leaven was the Emblem of Pride which makes us unfit to appear before the humble Jesus I am broken with their whorish Heart which hath departed from me saith God Ezech. 9. 6. This was literally fulfilled in Christ And shall not we share in the Depth of that Sorrow Shall we see him bow his Head under the Weight of our Offences and shall not the Burthen appear heavy and insupportable to our Spirits Shall we see the innocent Lamb weep for our Stubbornness and be unconcerned at the Spectacle 6. He broke the Bread to let us see how ready he is to comfort the Contrite and Broken Heart Christian as great as the Agonies were thy Sins did put him to as great as the Torments were he felt upon thy Account as bitter as the Death was he suffered and tasted for thee yet if thy Soul relents and if that which made him die becomes loathsome and abominable in thy Sight if a deep Sense of thy Unworthiness fills the Chanels of thy Heart if the Fountain of thy Head runs with Water if thine Eyes gush out in Tears if the Weight of thy Sins presses thy Soul into an holy Self-abhorrency if his Passion can fright thy Sins into a languishing Condition abate their Courage and break their sturdy Necks and his broken Body proves a Motive strong enough and obliges thee to break loose from the Government of Hell behold those very Wounds thou madest shall be thy Balsam and the Blood thy Sinns did spill shall turn into Oyl to supple thy broken Bones with that precious Liquor thy Soul shall be washed and that which was his Death shall be thy Life and Antidote with that Offering of himself once made he will expiate thy Filth and perfume thy Services render them acceptable to God give thee a Right to Heaven comfort thee in all thy Tribulations and call to thy Soul Be of good chear thy Sins are forgiven thee 7. He broke the Bread to let us know that his Death would break the Wrath of God allay his Anger pacifie his Justice and satisfie for the Affront his Holiness had suffered from the Sins of Men and make way for the Penitent's Admission to God's Bosom This is St. Bernard's Observation and the Mystery is rational for by his Death he broke the Power of him who had the Power of Death Heb. 2. 14. This was the Devil who got that Power by Man's Apostacy which provoked the Almighty's Wrath and moved him to permit the Enemy to exercise that Power over Mankind who was therefore not only the Cause of Adam's Death but of all the Deaths that followed that for which Cause Christ called him a Murtherer from the Beginning Joh. 8. 44. And the Jews stile him the Angel of Death and if any extraordinary Judgments were inflicted on Men at any time he was still the Executioner Besides all this he had Power given him to fright Men with Death either violent or natural and the dreadful Consequences of it of all which Man's Apostacy was the Cause This Power given him by the Justice and Wrath of God against the Sins of Man was broken by the Death of Jesus who thereby gave all true Believers Power and Courage to undervalue these Fears and Terrours to look upon them as Bugbears and Things to fright Slaves withal since this wonderful Death brings Life and Pardon and Salvation to their Souls and makes their own Death a Passage to the full Possession of the Joys to come 8. He broke the Bread prophetically to fore-tell what Miracles would happen at his Death how the Veil of the Temple would rend the Rocks break and the Graves burst their Bonds and open even then when Men's Hearts would be harder than Flints more impenetrable than Stones more insensible than Adamants less tractable than the Earth more rigid than the Grave and less relenting than inanimate Creatures 9. He broke the Bread Why may not we think that hereby he signified the Breaches and Divisions that through the Passions and various Interests of Men would happen in future Ages in the Church upon the Account of this Sacrament What Strife what Bitterness what Contentions hath this Ordinance occasion'd betwixt the Eastern and Western Churches and in the Western betwixt the Papists and Protestants and among the Protestants betwixt the Lutherans and those that call themselves of the Reformed Religion Upon which Account I cannot but think of the bitter Language that both Luther and his Followers have given to the Zwinglians and Calvinists that differ'd from them in Opinion about the Supper of the Lord. Nor did the Fury stop here but in many Places where any of the Zwinglians were they were turned out imprisoned harrassed expelled driven into Exile and forced away to Sea in a severe Winter in Frost and Snow when the Winds blew hard and the Weather was exceeding tempestuous and all because they would not abjure these Six Propositions 1. That these Words Take eat this is my Body and Take drink this is my Blood must not be understood literally but typically and figuratively 2. That the Elements in the Lord's Supper are only Signs and Symbols and that Christ's Body is as far removed from the Bread in the Sacrament as Heaven is from Earth 3. That Christ is present in this Sacrament by his Virtue and Power and not with his Body as the Sun with his Light and Operation assists and refreshes the Creatures of God in this lower World 4. That the Bread in the Sacrament is the Emblem and Figure of Christ's Body and signifies and represents only 5. That Christ's Body is eaten only by Faith mounting up into Heaven not with the Mouth 6. That only true Believers do properly eat Christ's Body but wicked Men who have no lively Faith receive nothing but the bare Bread and Wine Those that would not abjure these Doctrines were used like Hereticks Fanaticks and Vagabonds By their usage one would have taken them to have been guilty of Sacrilege Murther Robbery Sedition Rebellion c. but the chief Crime it seems was because having imbibed Zwinglius and Calvin's Doctrine about the Eucharist they could not conform to the Lutheran Persuasion in that Point Wonderful Barbarity which one would scarce have expected from Heathens much less from Christians and Fellow-Protestants who together with them protested against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome Into such an unseemly Behaviour do Men precipitate themselves when they let loose the Reins of their Passions instead of becoming Repairers of Breaches they make them wider and
render that Wound incurable which if wise impartial and charitable Men had the handling of might be heal'd up with great Facility III. It was indeed a Rule in the Rubrick of the Passover Exod. 12. 46. That a Bone of the Paschal Lamb should not be broken but that Type doth not interfere with Christ's Breaking the Sacramental Bread For though the Paschal Lamb represented the Lamb of God which was to die for the Sins of the World yet that particular Rite had relation only to that Providence in the Scene of Christ's Passion in which Care was taken that his Legs should not be broken as those of Malefactors commonly were as St. John expresly explains it Joh. 19. 21. And this shews the wonderful Exactness of Providence that both foretold and fulfilled that Particular in our great Redeemer's Funeral And though he was numbred with the Transgressors yet in many Things his Usage was different from theirs to let the World see that a special Dispensation attended him and that in the midst of all his Misery an unknown Hand restrain'd the unruly Wills of Men and made them against their Intent and Design correspond with God's Prescience and Determination This was so minute a Circumstance that one would have thought it deserved no Cognisance or Prediction But as inconsiderable as it appears to vulgar Eyes God knew it was of Consequence and hereby he taught future Ages at once to admire the Treasures of his Wisdom and his Care of his only begotten Son who though he condescended to die so ignominious a Death yet was to enjoy this Privilege above other Malefactors that even Infidels might see he was no common Creature So that this Rite in the Passover must be stretched no farther than it was at first intended and if so it clashes not with Christ's Breaking the Bread for other Designs and Purposes The Preceding Considerations reduced to Practice I. SInce Christ broke the Bread and the Act is so significant the Church of Rome is certainly in the wrong who neglects this Breaking and gives the Wafer whole But we need not wonder at their Neglect of this Practice in their Rituals who have made bold with the one half of the Sacrament and deprived the Laity of an Essential Part of it viz. The Cup whereof we shall have occasion to speak more largely in the Sequel Men who are resolved to establish their Errours into which Ignorance first led them must be bold and daring and since the Word of God doth contradict them invent and erect an Authority equal with that of God and set up an Infallible Chair to bear the World in hand that they can do nothing that is unlawful and while Oral Tradition that Nose of Wax which you may turn and set which way you list is pretended there is no Doctrine so absurd but may be water'd from that impure Spring And who can question it when the Laity are kept ignorant of the Word of the Living God and the Scriptures as much forbidden as the Tree of Life was to Adam lest he should eat thereof and live II. As Christ broke the Bread so it is justly supposed that he did eat of it himself for this was the Custom among the Jews for the Master of the Family who broke the Bread to eat of it himself And though he had no need of it and the Mercy intended by this Sacrament was intended altogether for the Benefit of his Disciples and Followers yet as he was baptized to shew a good Example and that he might be in all Things like unto his Brethren so he did eat of the Sacramental Bread thereby to encourage all Christians to come and participate of that blessed Symbol And we may add he did it to shew that those that did eat worthily had Communion with him and that he would be in them and they in him as those who are admitted to eat of the same Meat the Prince himself eats of are supposed to be his Favourites But if Christ did eat of the consecrated Bread himself the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that Idol of the Church of Rome falls to the Ground For from hence it will follow that Christ did eat and devour himself which as it is absurd so it wants very little of being ridiculous III. See here what Reflections thou art to make when thou seest the holy Bread broken before thine Eyes in this Sacrament This thou must not look upon as an empty Ceremony but thy Soul must flee away to Gethsemane walk about Golgotha take a Turn on the Mount of Olives and stand still a while on Moriah and behold how the innocent Isaac is bound upon the Altar how the Son of God hangs on the infamous Tree a Spectacle to Angels and to Men And here the Tremendous Object must arrest thy Thoughts and infuse such Reflections See here my Sins what Work ye have made what Injury ye have done The Son of the Living God could not be quiet for you in Heaven ye pulled him down from the Mansions of Glory ye afflicted persecuted broke him here on Earth and left him not till ye had kill'd and murther'd him How shall I be reveng'd upon you How shall I testifie my Concernedness at the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus How shall I convince the holy Angels that stand about me that I condole with him Pride and Desire of Vain-Glory thou shalt die Envy and Malice thou shalt live no longer in my Soul Wrath and Anger thou shalt be dispatch'd Hypocrisie and Covetousness thou shalt be broke to pieces Intemperance and Luxury thou shalt breath thy last I 'll harbour no Murtherers in my Bosom no such Traitors shall lodge in my House O Blessed Master Shall I see thy Head broke with Thorns and not cry out O that my Head were Water and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears Shall I see thy Face broke with Grief and not blush at my daring Sins that broke it thus Break stubborn Heart Break my perverse and ungovernable Will Break my head-strong Passions O Jesu break these Cockatrices Eggs and let all the Poyson evaporate then then thy Servant shall be whole IV. Hear this thou broken thou contrite Penitent Hear this thou distressed Soul that art broken with a Sense of Sin who feelest the Burthen heavy and bowest under it Behold the Rock that was broken for thee and of the Waters that flow from it drink yea drink abundantly This Water is cordial thou needest not be afraid of Intemperance here Hide thy self in the Holes in the Clests of this Rock hither flee for Refuge When Devils haunt thee when Temptations follow thee when Despair like the Avenger of Blood is at thy Heels run into this City of Refuge save thy self in this Zoar here fear no Storm no Waves no Tempest here all travelling and weary Souls find Rest here Devils have no Power for they are conquered their Dominion is taken away their Empire broken here is Balm of Gilead here lives the Physician whose Blood