their hands to bid them Receive Power to offer Sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass for the Living and for the Dead I shall need say very little to shew the falseness of this Interpretation which many of their own Doctors notwithstanding all their Definitions concerning it yet are not themselves very well satisfied withal They freely allow that this Command of our Saviour when he bids them Do this cannot be so restrain'd to his own Act of Consecrating the Holy Eucharist as not to have an equal respect to the Peoples Act of Receiving it And by consequence that all that can hence be gathered is that our Saviour has hereby obliged his Church to the continuance of this great Memorial of his Death both by the Consecrating and Distributing of the Priests and by the Receiving and Eating and Drinking of the People and which is no other Account than we our selves give of the Words before us 'T is from hence that Aquinas concludes that all Christians are obliged as far as they have opportunity to communicate in this Holy Sacrament not only in Obedience to the Commands of the Church but as a thing which our Saviour Christ himself required when he said in our Text This do in Remembrance of Me. But Estius is more express He tells us that by Do this our Saviour plainly intended the whole Action both of his Consecrating and Distributing and of their Receiving these sacred Elements As if he had said What you have seen now done by me and you that do you and your Successors henceforth in Remembrance of Me. And that this is clearly the meaning he shews from the Context of St. Paul in the following Verses where repeating the very same Command after the Distribution of the Cup that he had mentioned in my Text upon the delivery of the Bread he expresses himself in this plain manner This do ye says he as oft not as ye shall Consecrate or Offer but as ye shall drink it in Remembrance of Me. And then immediately subjoins a Reason which clearly refers to the Peoples Eating and Drinking and not to the Priest's offering any pretended Sacrifice in this Celebration For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's Death till he come that is ye do by this Action of yours fulfil the Command before us ye set forth the Memory of Christ's Death and Passion and do this in Remembrance of Him And even Bellarmin himself tho' he supposes these words to have been spoke in a peculiar manner to the Apostles as those who were hereby to be consecrated to the Priestly Office yet cannot but own that they must refer as well to the Action of their Eating as to those of our Saviour's Blessing and Distributing the Holy Elements Nay he says yet more that it is most agreeable both to the Context of St. Paul and to his Design of repeating the History of this Institution to apply them rather to the Disciples action of Eating and Drinking than to our Saviour's of Consecrating and Offering the Error of the Corinthians which he design'd to correct consisting not in their Consecrating but in their Receiving of the Holy Eucharist in that they did not do it with that due reverence which they ought to do Tho' how to reconcile this not only with the Opinion of his Church before mention'd but even with his own Interpretation of Aquinas's Argument from this place to prove the necessity of all Mens Receiving this Holy Sacrament where it may conveniently be had viz. that St. Thomas did did not intend to collect this immediately from this Command as if it had been given to All but only by consequence as our Lord must be understood to have commanded the People to Receive what he commanded the Priests to Consecrate and Distribute I cannot easily understand The truth is both the Opinion of our Saviour's making his Apostles Priests by these words and the Paraphrase which they now give of them in order thereunto are a meer Invention of these later Ages sought out to support that other great Corruption of this Holy Institution the Communicating of the Laity only in One Kind When being pressed both with the Example of our Blessed Lord in his Institution of this Holy Sacrament who gave the Cup as well as Bread to his Disciples and with his positive Command to do that to Others which Himself had done to Them The nice Masters of the Schools Men who never wanted a subtilty to elude what they could not otherwise fairly answer first found out this admirable Secret unknown to the Church for above a Thousand Years before viz. That our Saviour here Consecrating the Holy Eucharist and giving a Command to his Apostles to Do likewise did invest them thereby in their Priestly Office and so intitule them to a Right of Receiving the Cup from him which neither they therefore had any Right to before nor have the People by consequence any more Right to at this very day But however such an Evasion as this might well enough become the School-Errantry and serve to amuze a barbarous Age wherein it was first invented yet was it certainly too great a presumption in the Council of Trent in such inquisitive Times as these to impose it upon Mens Consciences as an Article of Faith and to think by the vain Terror of an ungrounded Anathema to secure it against all Opposition For not to insist First On the many gross Absurdities and even blasphemous Consequences of the very Doctrine of the Mass it self That there should be a true and proper Sacrifice and yet nothing truly and properly sacrificed A Propitiatory Offering and yet no Propitiation made by it That Christ was but once offered for our Sins and yet that he should be offered again ten thousand times every day That by that One offering of Himself he should have perfected for Ever them that are sanctified and yet that those that are sanctified should not be perfected without many of these New-Mass-Offerings made for them To say nothing Secondly Of the inconsistency there is in the very Supposition That our Saviour Christ should ordain Priests of the New-Covenant in his Church before he had yet so much as sealed that Covenant by his Death or establish'd his Church To pass by Thirdly That we have another plain and evident Account both when and after what manner and with what words our Blessed Saviour did ordain his Apostles to the Ministry of his Church namely in the Twentieth Chapter of St. John where we are told how after his Resurrection he thus gave them their Mission ver 21 22 23. Peace be unto you as my Father hath sent me even so send I you And then he breathed upon them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And which are at this day own'd by the
neither more nor less and lying along with our Heads in one anothers Bosoms as the Apostles now did and which I suppose no Christian of whatsoever Church or Persuasion he be does at all think himself obliged to do But my meaning herein is this That in those things wherein the Nature of this Holy Sacrament consists and which the Holy Scriptures have recounted to us on purpose to direct us in the Celebration of it in those we are not to depart from our Saviour's Institution nor to presume to set up our own Innovations as the Council of Constance has most presumptuously done in opposition to and even in defiance of our Blessed Lord's Appointment To receive the Holy Sacrament in this or that posture with such or such particular Ceremonies these are things wholly foreign to the Nature and Design of this Blessed Sacrament and therefore such as may in different places and Ages be different And every Christian ought to comply with what is used and prescribed in that Church with which he communicates But for those things in which the very Nature of this Holy Sacrament is concern'd for such parts as constitute the integrity of it and serve the more lively to set it off as a memorial of the Death and Passion of Christ and which therefore we must look upon our Lord and Saviour to have sealed with his express Command Do this In these I say we are to keep close both to the Example of our Saviour and to the Command of the Text and when he has distinctly instituted this Holy Supper in Two Kinds not dare to command Men under the pain of an Anathema to believe that One alone is sufficient And this may suffice for the Explication of the former part of my Text What it is we are to understand by that Phrase of my Text Do this I go on Secondly to enquire Secondly What it is to do this in Remembrance of Christ. It is I think agreed on all hands That the Design of our Saviour in this Command was to set forth the great End of his Instituting this Holy Sacrament viz. That it was to keep up in our own Minds and set forth to others a solemn and lively Remembrance of his dying for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages that accrue to us thereby And however it be pretty hard to reconcile this plain Design of this Institution with what those of the other Communion now make to be the main business of it namely to be a true and proper Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Living and of the Dead in nothing differing from that upon the Cross but only in the manner of the Oblation A remembrance being ever of things absent from not present with us and the same Sacrifice very improperly said to be a Type or Memorial of it self yet so clearly is this design of this Holy Sacrament here declared to be for the remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion that they have chosen rather to encounter all these Absurdities than to adventure to deny what our Savior has so very plainly delivered as the End of this Institution But though it is not therefore to be doubted but that the Intention of our Blessed Lord in this Command was to oblige us by such a Solemn Ceremony as this to continue the Memory of his Death yet we are not therefore to think that all we have to do when we come to the Holy Table and attend on this Great Memorial is simply to remember or call to mind the Sufferings of our Saviour No this is not sufficient to answer either the meaning of this Command or the design of this Institution The word in the Original which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and imports not a bare calling to mind but a renew'd Commemoration It regards the Affections of the Heart as well as the Action of the Mind In a word it denotes not so much a private Remembrance as a publick and solemn Commemoration when in our Apostle's Phrase ver 26. we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate and shew forth to others at the same time that we thus call to mind our selves the Lord's Death and that with all those pious motions and resentments that befit so excellent and so advantageous a Remembrance To know therefore what it is that our Saviour here requires of us when he bids us to do this in Remembrance of Him two things will be necessary to be considered by us First What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Secondly In what manner and with what Motions and Affections we are to do it And First let us examine What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Now this in general St. Paul here tells us is his Death ver 26. that is that bitter Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for our sakes when he established this Solemn Memorial of it For says he as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the LORD 's Death till his coming But because a bare Remembrance of the Death of Christ without any farther Consideration either of the cause and manner of it or of those infinite Advantages which accrue to us thereby will afford but a very imperfest Memorial to us We must therefore for a full discharge of this duty and to raise up in our Souls those suitable resentments we ought to bring to this Holy Administration take a farther and more particular prospect of it And consider First What our State and Condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us Secondly What that Death Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and has therefore commanded us to remember in this Holy Sacrament Thirdly What the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby And First To do this in Remembrance of Christ will engage us to call to mind what our State and condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us For however we were by Baptism wash'd from all the Guilt and delivered from the Punishment of our Original Pollution and admitted into the Covenant of Grace and made Heirs of the Promise of Eternal Glory yet we are not therefore to think our selves ever the less concerned when we come to this Holy Sacrament and shew forth that Death of the Lord by which our very Baptism it self was consecrated into a laver of Regeneration there to call to mind that wretched State in which we once were and must for ever have lain had not the Blessed Jesus given himself up unto Death for us I should indulge too much your Curiosity in an Argument of this moment should I enter on that vain Speculation which the School-men first started and has since been made the Sport and Diversion of our Modern Scepticks in Religion Whether God could not otherwise have provided for
in Trespasses and Sins we are now raised to the Hopes and Assurance of Everlasting Glory But here therefore I will be a little more particular And First By these Sufferings our Saviour Christ delivered us from the Curse which descended to us by our first Parents Transgression and from that Eternal Punishment which must otherwise have been the consequence of it For not to enter now into any scrupulous Enquiry concerning the Nature of Original Sin or the Grounds upon which God is supposed to impute it to us Or how far we should have been either condemn'd or not for the Actual Sin of Adam in Eating of the forbidden Fruit This at least cannot be doubted of by any That our Nature is now much degenerated from that primitive Purity in which Man was at first created that we have all the very best of us a strange Propensity to Evil and are born with an Impotency if not Adverseness to that Virtue and Piety which the Principles of natural Religion as well as of revealed require of us So that if we should allow the contentious Disputers of our Days that God will not impute Adam's Transgression to us for Sin nor condemn us for a Defect which we are not our selves consenting to but bring into the World with us yet would this have stood us but in very little stead Whilst we should every one of us have been Guilty of so many Actual Sins as had not Christ purchased a Redemption for us must for ever have sunk us down into Ruine and Destruction And certainly we ought then to esteem it no small Benefit of our Saviour's Passion that he has now delivered us from this Danger and removed the fatal Necessity we must otherwise have lain under of being for ever miserable without all possibility of preventing of it But this is only one Part and that the first and least of those Blessings which his Death and Passion has obtained for us For Secondly Our Saviour Christ has not only delivered us from those Dangers to which we were before exposed but he has put us in a new and better way of attaining to that nay perhaps to a greater Happiness than what we should have had if Adam had never sinned nor by consequence our Saviour Christ ever given himself an Offering for our Sins This is indeed the great Commendation of our Saviour's Love to us that not content to deliver us from those Dangers that before threatned us He saves to the uttermost those that come to him And here to unfold the Greatness of this Benefit as I ought to do I must run through all the excellent Advantages of that New-Covenant God entred into with us by the Blood of his Son But this would carry me into an Argument great indeed and worthy your Attention but beyond the Bounds of my present Discourse In general * If to have a Systeme of the noblest and most admirable Rules of Living that were ever communicated to the World such as by their own Excellence no less than by God's Command recommend themselves not only to our Practice but to our Love too * If to be endued with a supernatural Divine Assistance to enable us to fulfil them and overcome all those Temptations that may at any time seek to draw us from them * If to be assured That upon our hearty Endeavours and earnest Prayers to God this Grace of his shall still increase in us according as we sincerely apply our selves to make use of it or as other Circumstances shall happen to put us in need of it * If besides this Help to keep us from sinning to live under a Gracious Promise of Pardon for those Sins which many times we shall commit notwithstanding all our Labour to the contrary upon our humble Confession and hearty Repentance of them * If to know that for all these Ends we have a Redeemer in Heaven who stands continually in the Presence of God to make Intercession for us and represent to his Father that Death and Passion which he underwent on purpose that he might obtain this Forgiveness for us In a Word * If to be undoubtedly secured That whatever becomes of us now yet let us but sincerely labour what in us lies to fulfil our Duty and we shall be in a little Time eternally happy in the Consummation of all these Blessings in the Kingdom of our Saviour That yet a few Years and our High-Priest shall again return in Glory and pronounce the great and final Blessing upon us which shall instate us in Joys never to be forfeited If I say to live under the Conduct of such a Saviour and such a Religion to have the Comfort of so great Promises now and the blessed Assurance of such Glory hereafter may be esteemed a Blessing as indeed what can we think of it but to be the greatest Blessing that a merciful God could bestow upon his Creatures or a Divine Saviour purchase for his Servants All this and many other Benefits which I cannot now so much as mention to you Christ purchased for us by his Sufferings and calls upon us in this Holy Sacrament to remember with the highest Joy and the most grateful Acknowledgments Which brings me to the other thing proposed for the full Explication of the Duty here required of us viz. Secondly * After what Manner and * With what Affections it is that we are to Do this in Remembrance of Him For the former of these I. The manner How we are here to remember Him I have already observed That the original Word which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and implies not any calling to Mind all these things but a frequent renewed Commemoration of them And that especially such by which we may not only remember our selves but also set forth to others the Memorial of them So S. Paul interprets it v. 26 As often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate shew forth make a solemn Declaration of the Lord's Death until his coming And so indeed the very Design of this Institution will oblige us to understand it When our Saviour first celebrated this Holy Sacrament and commanded his Disciples by the like Sacred Ceremony to continue the Memory of his Death until the End of the World We are told by the Evangelists That he had just finished the Feast of the Passover into the Place whereof he substituted this Christian Feast and as all the Circumstances of it plainly shew designed this to have the same Place in the Christian that the other had till then had in the Jewish Church Now concerning that solemn Feast we read in the Book of Exodus cap. xii 17 That God appointed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Memorial that is for a solemn Recognition which the People was thereby to make every Year of that great Deliverance by which they were brought up out of the Land of Egypt And in the thirteenth Chapter they are
but One God and one only Mediator between God and Man Christ Jesus But our New-Masters are not thus content They set up if not more Gods yet I am sure more Objects of their Religious Worship more Mediators than one and teach men to address their Prayers more frequently through the Merits and Intercession of their new Advocates to whose Patronage they have committed themselves than through His who is the true Christians only Advocate Christ blessed for ever * Christianity forbids us to make any graven Images the likeness of any thing in Heaven above to Bow down before it and worship it These false Prophets set up their Images in every Church and bow down to the work of their hands For this end they consecrate them with many Abominations And however some think fit to dissemble it yet others speak it boldly out as the Doctrine of their Church That the very same Religious Worship is to be given to the Cross of Christ that is paid to Him that suffered upon it * Christianity commands us to pray in a tongue which the Church understands that so the unlearned may be able to say Amen at our giving of thanks Our New Guides direct men to pray in a tongue which to be sure the people do not and which sometimes even the Priest too that officiates understands as little as they * Christianity is a Religion that teaches men to be meek and humble not to think of themselves above what they ought to think but when they have done all to say they are unprofitable servants But our new Teachers have not so learnt of Christ. They know a little better how to value their own performances Instead of saying they are unprofitable servants they teach men to value themselves on the account of their Merits to look upon Heaven to be but an equal recompence of their Piety nay yet more that they may live so as to make God a Debtor to them beyond all the Glories of Eternity and to merit a Crown both for themselves and others * In short for there is indeed no end of the contradiction Christianity commands us to take bread to bless it and break it To take Wine bless it and pour it out and eat and drink at the Holy Table in remembrance of that Death and Passion which our Blessed Saviour once for all underwent upon the Cross for us But what now do our new Instructors They tell us here is neither Bread nor Wine to be eaten or drunk that they are I know not how converted into the very Natural Substance of Christ's Body and Blood That he was not offered up once for all but is here again as truly offered as ever he was upon the Cross That thereby a new Expiation is made for the Sins both of the dead and the living and thô our Saviour has as expresly commanded both kinds as either yet they declare that one is sufficient for the people to partake of and accordingly they give no more to them Thus you see how very little a Knowlege of our Lord and his Religion will suffice to show that there cannot be any just cause for any one to forsake the Communion of our Church to plunge himself into such an abyss of Error and Superstition as this And then if he be but equally advanced 2 dly In Grace too this will certainly secure him that no base motive no danger or Interest shall be able to prevail with him so to do Let the Seducer display all the seeming advantages of such a change Let him with his Master the Devil set us up upon the high mountain of our own vain imaginations There let him shew us all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glories of them and to compleat the Parallel let him if he can add too All these things are mine and to whomsoever I will I can give them if thou wilt therefore renounce thy Faith and fall down and worship me all shall be thine By Grace we shall learn to despise them all This will convince us that there can be no true honour in dissembling a mans conscience and prostituting his Soul his Religion and his God to a little present advantage That the Riches of this world are but vanity that the true treasure is in Heaven In a word That the favour of the greatest Monarch is not worth the purchasing if to obtain that we must lose the favour of God for ever Let him shift the Scene instead of all these advantages let him set forth all the dangers that either the Devil can suggest or his own more furious Zeal invent By Grace we shall be able to despise even those too This will teach us that there is a God in Heaven who shall laugh them to scorn and whose Counsel it is that when all is done shall stand That if he pleases to protect us 't is not all their malice that can do us the least injury But that should he either for our Punishment or our Trial expose us to their rage yet still we ought with Moses to esteem the reproach of Christ beyond all the treasures of Egypt and chuse rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season This was the brave resolution of the Saints of old They were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection When Nebuchadnezzar commanded the three Children in Daniel to worship the golden image which he had set up they regarded neither the Majesty of the King nor the Threats of his fiery furnace They told him plainly That they were not careful to please him in that matter that their God if he pleased both could and would deliver them out of his hand But if not yet Be it known to thee O King that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up And the same has been the spirit of our forerunners in the Faith they have overcome all the fiery darts of the Devil whilst that Blessed Saviour who first gave the Command has ever since inspired his followers with strength and resolution to fulfil it Fear not them who can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but fear him who can cast both soul and body into hell-fire yea I say unto you fear him Here then let us exercise our selves Let us be stedfast to our Faith and that we may be so Let us grow in grace and in the knowledg of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Seducers amongst us are many they are diligent and watchful by any means to draw us into their Nets and God knows both their Religion and their Arguments are but too much adapted to our Passions and our Interests and may therefore be but too likely to prevail upon us But Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye know these things before beware Behold I have
Church of Rome as well as by us for one Essential part of the Priestly Mission and accordingly made use of by them in their Ordination So that either this Sacrament may be reiterated or the Character divided and one part conferr'd at one time the other at another all which is contrary to their own Principles or else the Apostles were not ordain'd Priests when they received the Holy Eucharist but when our Saviour here breathed upon them and both by his Action and his Words plainly expressed his Mission of them I say not to insist on any of these things either we must look upon these words to relate to the whole Church to the People as well as to the Priests and then to be sure they cannot have either the Effect or Signification that they herein attribute unto them or else it will remain that there is no Divine Command at all entituling the People to any Right to this Holy Sacrament For if our Saviour spoke to his Apostles as Priests if he not only took the Bread and the Cup and consecrated them as a Priest himself but also distributed them to the Apostles as Priests and bad them Take Eat and Drink as Priests then are not the People no not by Cardinal Bellarmin's consequence at all concerned in any part of this Institution which the Priests only by virtue of this Command are obliged to continue and consecrate offer give receive all by themselves and to one another as Christ and his Apostles here are supposed without the rest of the Disciples and as Priests to have done To pass by therefore this Interpretation both so lately invented and so weakly established set up to support that bold attempt of depriving the People of one half of the Communion and that upon such Principles as in the natural consequence of them rob them of both I go on to the other Point I have proposed and shall now take leave somewhat more largely to insist upon Viz. II. To shew what indeed it was that our Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them all of us to do in Remembrance of Him And to this end it will be necessary that we distinctly to consider these Two things First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this Secondly What it is to Do this in Remembrance of Christ First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this I answer That if we take these words as they lye before us in the first and most obvious Form of a Command they will then imply a Commission hereby given to the Apostles and in them to the whole Church to continue this Holy Sacrament by an Ordinance for ever as a Solemn Memorial of that Death and Passion which he was now about to undergo for us When God was pleased by a wonderful Deliverance to bring up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt we read in the Twelfth Chapter of Exodus That the same Night in which he did it he commanded them to kill a Lamb and eat it after a solemn manner with bitter herbs and unleavened-bread and to continue every Year by a constant repetition of that Sacred Ceremony the Memory of that Deliverance which he had wrought for them In like manner our Saviour Christ being now to fulfil that Redemption wâ—ereof the other was but a Type and Representation takes care for a Solemn Memorial to be continued of it in all Ages of his Church to the End of the World He institutes another and better Supper and the Observation whereof should not only be the Commemoration of his Delivering us but to the worthy Partaker of it the application also of all the Benefits of it He takes Bread blesses it and breaks it He takes the Cup and blesses it and distributes both to his Disciples and then in the words of the Text bids them also do the same in Remembrance of Him That as the Jewish Church had by their Paschal Feast hitherto kept up the Memory of God's once delivering their Fathers from the destroying Angel in the Land of Egypt so should we from henceforth by this Feast of Eucharist continue the remembrance of that infinitely greater and better Redemption which he was just now about to purchase by his own Death upon the Cross for us And this is no doubt the first and most proper design of these words But now Secondly If we consider them not only as a Command but as they are a Direction to inform his Apostles first and then us how we should celebrate this Holy Sacrament they will then add thus much to our former Account namely that we have here not only in general a Command to continue the Memory of the Death of Christ in this Holy Sacrament but moreover an Instruction also after what manner we are to do it That as our Saviour Christ here took the Bread blessed it and brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which was given for you As he took the Cup blessed it and gave it to them saying Drink ye All of this so should those who now minister in Holy Things when they stand at the Altar and set forth the Death of Christ in this Sacred Memorial of it after his Example and in Obedience to his Command in like manner take and bless and distribute these Sacred Elements to all those who partake with them in this Sacrament * As the Apostles received first the Bread then the Cup too at his Hands so should all they who supply the place of the Apostles at our Tables receive both the one and the other of these after their Example * And whosoever he be that celebrates this Holy Feast in any other manner than the Blessed Jesus did and has given us a Command to do it he therein both departs from the Example of our Saviour and violates the design of his Precept who not only in that particular manner as so many of the Holy Pen-men have set forth to us establish'd this Sacrament Himself but in the words of my Text has expresly commanded us to continue it for ever in the same manner in which he established it Do this in Remembrance of Me. But here therefore let me not be mis-understood For when I say that our Saviour Christ in my Text commanding his Apostles to do this in Remembrance of him did not only in general command them to perpetuate the Memory of his Death by this Holy Ordinance for ever but did moreover direct them after what Manner they should do it I do not mean to signifie thereby that we ought to look upon our selves to be so tied up to the Example of Christ as not to be at liberty to depart in any the least Circumstances from that first Celebration of it For then we must never administer nor receive this Holy Sacrament but after Supper in a private Chamber or upper Room to Men only and not to Women and those just twelve
the Pardon and Salvation of Mankind than by the Death of his Son For since it was the Pleasure of God to pitch upon this way of doing it to what purpose is it for us vainly to enquire whether he might not have made use of some other This we ought at least to believe That God had his Reasons for preferring this and that however we ought not so far to tye up the Power and Liberty of our Creator as to presume to say he could not otherwise have redeem'd us than by the Death of Christ yet thus much we may and 't is our duty to conclude That none could have better or so well have answer'd the great Ends both of his Justice and of his Mercy or more illustriously have set forth the Riches of his Love and Favour to Mankind or more powerfully have engaged us to a suitable return of Love to him or more clearly have convinced us of the hatred of God to Sin or more effectually have stir'd us up to our utmost endeavours to live as we ought to do and as becomes those who had been so wonderfully redeem'd by the precious Blood of the Son of God himself But though this then be a Question otherwise of more Curiosity than Vse and raised for the most part rather to cavil at Religion than to magnifie the Power of it yet may it here perhaps be of some benefit to us to fill our Souls with the highest resentments of Love and Gratitude to our Great Redeemer to consider not only from what Miseries he has delivered us but with what a freedom and readiness and good-will to us he did it No God was not constrain'd nor any necessity put upon our Saviour Christ as if either the one must have died or that the other could not by any other means have reconciled Mankind unto himself It was the free Choice of both by this means the better to magnifie their Love to us and to secure our Love and Duty to them again that so as St. John says 1 Ep. iv 19 We may love God because he first loved us Hence it is that the Holy Scriptures every where set out to us the whole business of our Salvation as the effect of the free Choice and Pleasure of God So says St. John cap. iii. 16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life So says St. Paul 2 Tim. i. 9 where he makes the business of our Redemption to have been the eternal purpose of God before Adam had yet sinned or by consequence before there could be any necessity of Christ's dying for us who hath saved us says he and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the World began And of our Blessed Saviour the same Apostle tells us not only that He gave Himself for us Tit. ii 14 but that he did it with all imaginable readiness and with the same good-will with which God designed it Lo I come says he to fulfil thy Will O God Heb. x. 7 9. And again in St. John speaking of laying down his life for us he declares ver 18. No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Such therefore was the love of our Blessed Saviour to us in freely giving up himself to the Death for us And for the reason that induced him to it and the benefits which thereby accrue to us I shall not need to say either what or how great they were Indeed the time would fail me should I go about particularly to lay them all before you Miserable was the State and deplorable the Condition of Mankind beyond any thing that we are able almost to conceive We were all dead in Trespasses and Sins and must for ever have lain both under the Guilt and Punishment of our Transgressions had not the Blessed Jesus opened to us the Gates of Heaven and sealed a Gospel of Repentance with his own Blood for the Remission of our Sins Our Nature was decayed and that he has restored so that whereas before we had no sufficiency of our selves we have now a sufficiency of God and can do all things through Christ that strengthens us Our Sins had got the dominion over us and these he has not only very much prevented by his Grace but will also utterly wipe away by his Death and Satisfaction for us We were under a miserable Sentence of Death and Judgment But Christ has now took away the sting of the one and the danger of the other so that our Temporal Death is no longer a Punishment but rather a Blessing to us and the Eternal Judgment of God shall instead of being our Condemnation prove to us perfect Absolution and a glorious Reward This is the blessed Change which has been made in our Condition and which certainly ought to render the remembrance of our Text most dear and precious to us But I must not insist any longer upon this Point I am persuaded there is no one that now hears me so ignorant in the great Mystery of Godliness as not to be fully acquainted with this first and chiefest Foundation of all our Faith Nor have I mentioned that little which I have now remark'd of it so much to instruct you in what you ought to make a great part of your Memorial when you come to this Holy Sacrament as rather if it shall please God to stir up some Affections both in my self and you that may be suitable to a serious Reflection on all these things There being nothing it may be in the World more apt to fill our Souls with that due resentment we then especially ought to have of the Death of Christ when we come to this Sacred Memorial of it than to consider the wretched condition from which we were delivered by it nor more apt to engage us to live as becomes those who have been freed from such unspeakable Miseries and are now put into a capacity of Everlasting Glory and without which our remembrance of him in this Sacrament will be a Reproach and a Scandal not an Honour and a Service to him we shall forfeit all the benefits of that Death we are call'd to commemorate and as our Apostle phrases it ver 29. of this Chapter Eat and drink our own Damnation not discerning the Lord's Body This is the first thing we are to do in pursuance of the Command of the Text This do in Remembrance of Me. Secondly This remembring of Christ in this Holy Sacrament will oblige us to consider what that Death and Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and commanded us in this place to continue the Memory of in this Institution And this to be sure must be the proper business of every one when
few Exceptions that have sometimes been offer'd to justifie the doing of it This is a work both too large for such a Discourse and besides the design of my present Undertaking And that one Concession of many of our Brethren themselves who tho' they continue ordinarily to separate from us yet nevertheless freely allow of what they call Occasional Communion with us I think sufficiently shews how little real ground there is for those Scruples that have so long detain'd them in an unjust aversion to our Worship Blessed be God who has abundantly justified both the Purity of our Doctrin and the Innocency of our Worship not only by the general Approbation of the Reformed Churches abroad who both freely communicate with us in our religious Offices and have often given Testimony in favour of them but in the happy Conviction of many at Home who were once Enemies to our Constitution but who now go with us into the same House of God as Friends And indeed the things for which some forsake us now are no other than what they were in the Beginning of the Reformation when yet there was no such thing as Separation from our Communion But on the contrary the old Non-Conformists themselves tho' they disliked some things in our Worship yet freely declared they thought it a Crime to divide the Church on the account of them And they who at this day separate from us for the sake of those few Constitutions that have been made for the Order and Decency of our Publick Worship must for the same reason have separated from all the Churches of the Christian World for above 1500 years in none of which they might not have found as great that I do not say and much greater occasion of Offence than they can in Ours But yet since Mens Scruples are unaccountable and after all that can be said they will still differ even about indifferent things and be afraid many times where no Fear is and a too long Experience has already shewn us That if ever we mean to accomplish that Union so much recommended to us by our Apostle so advantagious to the Church at all times but especially at this time so necessary to our Peace and our Establishment that it seems to be the only way that yet remains to settle and to secure us and upon all these accounts so much to be desired by all Good Men we must seek it by that Rule which St. Paul here proposed to the Dissenting Christians of my Text We then that are strong in the faith ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves I cannot but think it a Reflection becoming every good Christian among us but in a more especial manner worthy the Consideration of such an Auditory as this Whether somewhat may not yet be done for the sake of Peace and to bring things to such a TEMPER that both Order and Decency may still be preserved and yet our Vnity no longer broken And for Exhortations to so Good and Christian a Work shall I set before you the Example of our Blessed Saviour recommended to us in the Text with what a mighty condescension he has treated Us how he came down from Heaven and took upon Him the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of a sinful man humbled Himself even to the Death upon the Cross for us How He still bears not only with our Infirmities but with our Sins too and by all these wonderful instances of his Love to us teacheth us says St. John How we ought also to love one another Or rather shall I shew you how far such a Blessed Vnion as this would conduce to the Glory of God to the Security of our Religion and to the Promotion of Peace and Charity and Piety among us I need not say what a dishonour our Divisions have already brought to the Reformation nor what a stop they have put to the progress of it Great to be sure is the Advantage which our Enemies either have or at least hoped to have made by those Contests which they have taken so much pains both to bring in and to keep up among us And methinks there should need no other Argument to stir up every true Friend to the name of Protestant to endeavour all he can to compose our Differences than this one thing That we are sufficiently convinced who they are that we please and whose Interests we serve by the continuance of them Let us add to this what great Obligations our Holy Religion lays upon us to follow after those things that make for peace and whereby we may edifie one another How our Saviour has set it down as the very Badge of our Discipleship By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another What Exhortations his Apostles have given us If it be possible as much as in us lies to live peaceably with all men But especially with reference to the differences about Religion To mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which we have learnt and avoid them With what a scrupulous care did St. Paul manage himself between the dissenting parties in my Text What admirable Rules did he lay down for them to walk by And with what an affectionate earnestness did he enforce them If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of Love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any Bowels and Mercies fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded having the same Love being of one Accord of one Mind And may I not beg leave tho' not with the Authority yet with the Charity of St. Paul to apply all this to those unhappy Divisions that at this day rend in pieces the Church of Christ among us and beseech you by all these endearing Considerations to pursue those things which may make for our Peace and for the closing of those breaches which the malice of our Enemies too successfully begun and our own weakness has too fatally kept up among us Never certainly was there a time since the name of Separation was first heard of among us in which we had greater reason to consider of such a Vnion or I hope a fairer opportunity to promise our selves an Accomplishment of it Only let us be on all hands as careful to improve it as I am persuaded we have all of us not only seem'd to desire but have indeed earnestly long'd for it Let us shew the sense we have of that wonderful Deliverance God has given us out of the hand of our Enemies by uniting our selves in the strictest League of Friendship with one another Hitherto we have defended our Church by our Arguments let us now by our Charity settle and establish it against the like Dangers for the time to come This will indeed render both our selves and our Religion Glorious to the World and may be a Happy Augury
can that Soul expect any benefit of his Death and Sufferings for his forgiveness hereafter who now will not vouchsafe so much as to make that common Acknowledgment which every Christian ought of his remembrance of it or shew any sense of his Obligation though we have here so plain and peremptory a Comâ—â—â—d to do it And if we look to the Denuntiations of the Old Testament against those who should thus neglect to joyn in the Jewish Passover and shew forth this remembrance of the deliverance which that Feast referr'd to we may I think have some cause to fear how much greater shall be our Punishment whose neglect is certainly upon many accounts much more inexcusable than theirs If any man says Moses Deut. xii 15 shall eat leavened-bread in that time that Soul shall be cut off from Israel But more expresly Numb ix 3 He that is clean and is not on a journey and forbeareth to keep the Passover even the same Soul shall be cut off from his People Whatever the meaning of that Excision be which God here threatned that People with whether it be that such a one should have no part in the World to come as some interpret it or that God would cut him off by an untimely temporal death as others Or lastly which was esteemed by them no small Curse that he should die childless and have his name put out in Israel This is certain that the Denuntiation is very severe and if the Remark of a very learned Rabbin be true almost particular to the thing in hand there being but two of all the affirmative Precepts to which God made this Denuntiation viz. to him that neglected the first Sacrament of Circumcision and this second of the Passover But perhaps it will here be said That this Commination was to those that were clean and near at hand and yet neglected this Holy Institution And therefore ought not to be applied to them with reference to the Blessed Sacrament which we are speaking of who would gladly receive it and have a very honourable remembrance in their hearts of the Death of Christ but alas either they are not clean or are in a journey either they are not prepared or have not the leisure to come to this Table 'T is true indeed God did here restrain the Judgment I have mention'd to such as were clean and at or near to Jerusalem but the rest were not therefore by any means excused and permitted to neglect the partaking of it They had time given them till the next Month to cleanse themselves and to come up to Jerusalem and if they neglected in the second Month to keep the Feast after having omitted it in the first there was then no farther Provision for them but they fell under the Curse of those who neglected altogether to eat of it And this therefore may serve for a useful Admonition as well as full Answer to the Excuses of those who are still pretending they are not worthy to come to this Sacrament or else have not time and leisure to prepare themselves for it If indeed this should chance by any accident to hinder them at this time or on this occasion from receiving of it they ought not therefore to disquiet themselves but to believe that in such a case our Saviour Christ will make the same allowance for this Feast that God did for that other and permit them yet another Month to remove the Obstacle and prepare themselves to come to his Table But if instead of doing this they shall still go on to insist upon these vain Pretences and live so as not to be worthy to receive the Holy Sacrament and continue to live so still without taking any care to put themselves into a better state this will prove an aggravation of their Sin not a lessening of it and their neglect will be but the more inexcusable for being grounded on a reason so contrary not only to the design of this Holy Sacrament but of the whole Christian Religion But Sixthly And to close all The Command of our Saviour in these words we have been so long considering will not only oblige us in the general sometimes to remember his Death by receiving this Holy Sacrament but frequently and oftentimes so to do I have before observed that the word which we here render Remembrance does not imply a bare Memorial but a renew'd Commemoration to teach us that we are often to refresh the Memory of Christ's Death in our minds by this Sacred Solemnity and to repeat again and again the Remembrance of it And though it be pretty hard to say how often a Man ought to receive the Sacrament yet 't is plain he is not so zealous a Christian as he should be that very seldom or never does it We know that in the first Ages of Christianity when Devotion was quick and vigorous and Men had the most sensible impressions upon their minds of the love of our Saviour in giving himself to die for us that then they received it ordinarily every day Insomuch that some of those Fathers who then lived have interpreted this Eucharistical Bread to be that daily Bread which our Lord has taught us to pray for Afterwards as Mens Zeal cool'd so did their frequent Communicating decay in proportion with it At first it fell in some Churches to four in others to three times in the Week and in a little while it came to be the distinctive Devotion of the Lord's days And at last the necessary least proportion established was the three great Feasts of the Year in which our Church still obliges all her Members to partake of it But as he who is in a pure and holy state can never receive it too often so certainly it is a thing than which none would more advance our Piety to labour as frequently as we can to fit our selves for it And since it has pleased God to revive something of the Primitive Zeal among us as to this particular in bringing our Solemn Communions to a monthly course besides other extraordinary occasions of it I do not see what better Exhortation I can leave with you as to this Matter than seriously to advise and earnestly beseech every one of you to examine and prepare your selves then at least to joyn with your Brethren in these Holy returns and not deprive your Souls of the Benefits which are thus graciously offered to you in this great and most useful Remembrance This will indeed both best answer the design of our Blessed Lord in the Text and be the best Application I could even wish you would make of my Discourse upon it But then I must observe that I speak now by way of Exhortation not as necessarily requiring this in Obedience to the Command before us but as the improvement I desire if it were possible you might all make of those Opportunities God is pleased here to reach out to you in order to this End and which I do