And vers 17. These things I command you that ye love one another As if this were the end of all his Precepts and of his whole Doctrine to bring us to the practice of this Duty And so St. John the loving and beloved Disciple speaks of it as the great Message which the Son of God was to deliver to mankind 1 Joh. 3.11 This is the Message which ye have heard from the beginning that ye should love one another And ver 23. This is his Commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us Commandment And chap. 4. v. 21. This Commandment have we from him that he who loveth God love his Brother also But besides the Authority of our Saviour we have precedent obligation to it from our own Nature and from the Reasonableness and Excellency of the thing it self The frame of our Nature disposeth us to it and our inclination to Society in which there can be no pleasure no advantage without mutual love and kindness And Equity also calls for it for that we our selves wish and expect kindness from others is conviction enough to us that we owe it to others The fulfilling of this Law is the great perfection of our Natures the advancement and enlargement of our Souls the chief ornament and beauty of a great mind It makes us like to God the best and most perfect and happiest Being in that which is the prime excellency and happiness and glory of the Divine Nature And the advantages of this temper are unspeakable and innumerable It freeth our souls from those unruly and Troublesom and disquieting Passions which are the great torment of our Spirits from Anger and Envy from Malice and Revenge from Jealousie and Discontent It makes our minds calm and cheerful and puts our souls into an easie posture and into good humour and maintains us in the possession and enjoyment of our selves It preserves men from many mischiefs and inconveniences to which enmity and ill-will do perpetually expose them It is apt to make Friends and to gain Enemies and to render every condition either pleasant or easie or tolerable to us So that to love others is the truest love to our selves and doth redound to our own unspeakable benefit and advantage in all respects It is a very considerable part of our Duty and almost equall'd by our Saviour with the first and great Commandment of the Law It is highly acceptable to God most beneficial to others and very comfortable to our selves It is the easiest of all Duties and it makes all others easie the pleasure of it makes the pains to signifie nothing and the delightful reflection upon it afterwards is a most ample reward of it It is a Duty in every man's power to perform how strait and indigent soeever his fortune and condition be The poorest man may be as charitable as a Prince he may have as much kindness in his heart though his hand cannot be so bountiful and munificent Our Saviour instanceth in the giving of a cup of cold water as a Charity that will be highly accepted and rewarded by God And one of the most celebrated Charities that ever was how small was it for the matter of it and yet how great in regard of the mind that gave it I mean the Widow 's two mites which she cast into the Treasury One could hardly give less and yet none can give more for she gave all that she had All these excellencies and advantages of Love and Charity which I have briefly recounted are so many Arguments so many obligations to the practice of this Duty V. We will consider the great Instance and Example which is here propounded to our imitation As I have loved you that ye also love one another The Son of God's becoming man his whole Life his bitter Death and Passion all that he did and all that he suffered was one great and continued proof and evidence of his mighty love to mankind The greatest Instance of love among men and that too but very rare is for a Man to lay down his life for another for his Friend but the Son of God died for all mankind and we were all his enemies And should we not cheerfully imitate the Example of that great Love and Charity the effects whereof are so comfortable so beneficial so happy to every one of us Had he not loved us and died for us we had certainly perish'd we had been miserable and undone to all eternity And to perpetuate this great Example of Charity and that it might be always fresh in our memories the great Sacrament of our Religion was on purpose instituted for the Commemoration of this great love of the Son of God in laying down his life and shedding his precious blood for the wicked and rebellious Race of mankind But I have not time to enlarge upon this noble Argument as it deserves VI. The last thing to be considered is the place and rank which this Precept and Duty holds in the Christian Religion Our blessed Saviour here makes it the proper badg and cognisance of our Profession By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another The different Sects among the Jews had some peculiar Character to distinguish them from one another The Scholars of the several great Rabbi's among them had some peculiar Sayings and Opinions some Customs and Traditions whereby they were severally known And so likewise the Disciples of John the Baptist were particularly remarkable for their great Austerities In allusion to these distinctions of Sects and Schools among the Jews our Saviour fixeth upon this mark and character whereby his Disciples should be known from the Disciples of any other Institution A mighty love and affection to one another Other Sects were distinguish'd by little Opinions or by some external Rites and Observances in Religion but our Saviour pitcheth upon that which is the most real and substantial the most large and extensive the most useful and beneficial the most humane and the most divine quality of which we are capable This was his great Commandment to his Disciples before he left the World This was the Legacy he left them and the effect of his last Prayers for them And for this end among others he instituted the Sacrament of his blessed Body and Blood to be a lively remembrance of his great Charity to mankind and a perpetual bond of Love and Union amongst his Followers And the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour do upon all occasions recommend this to us as a principal Duty and Part of our Religion telling us That in Christ Jesus that is in the Christian Religion nothing will avail no not Faith it self unless it be enlivened and inspired by Charity That Love is the end of the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Evangelical declaration the first Fruit of the Spirit the spring and root of all those
Father hath not one God created us And are we not in a more peculiar and eminent manner Brethren being all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and Heirs of the same blessed Hopes of eternal life So that being Brethren upon so many accounts and by so many bonds and endearments all united to one another and all travelling towards the same heavenly Country why do we fall out by the way since we are Brethren Why do we not as becomes Brethren dwell together in unity but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats to crumble into Sects and Parties to divide and separate from one another upon every slight and trifling occasion Give me leave a little more fully to expostulate this matter but very calmly and in the spirit of meekness and in the name of our dear Lord who loved us all at such a rate as to die for us to recommend to you this new Commandment of his that ye love one another Which is almost a new Commandment still and hardly the worse for wearing so seldom it is put on and so little hath it been practised among Christians for several Ages Consider seriously with your selves ought not the great matters wherein we are agreed our union in the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and in all the necessary Articles of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints in the same Sacraments and in all the substantial parts of God's worship and in the great Duties and Vertues of the Christian life to be of greater force to unite us than difference in doubtful Opinions and in little Rites and Circumstances of worship to divide and break us Are not the things about which we differ in their nature indifferent that is things about which there ought to be no difference among wise men Are they not at a great distance from the life and essence of Religion and rather good or bad as they tend to the Peace and Unity of the Church or are made use of to Schism and Faction than either necessary or evil in themselves And shall little scruples weigh so far with us as by breaking the Peace of the Church about them to endanger our whole Religion Shall we take one another by the throat for an hundred pence when our common Adversary stands ready to clap upon us an Action of ten thousand talents Can we in good earnest be contented that rather than the Surplice should not be thrown out Popery should come in and rather than receive the Sacrament in the humble but indifferent posture of kneeling to swallow the Camel of Transubstantiation and adore the Elements of Bread and Wine for our God and Saviour and rather than to submit to a Set Form of Prayer to have the Service of God perform'd in an unknown Tongue Are we not yet made sensible at least in this our Day by so clear a Demonstration as the Providence of God hath lately given us and had not He been infinitely merciful to us might have proved the dearest and most dangerous Experiment that ever was I say are we not yet convinced what mighty advantages our Enemies have made of our Divisions and what a plentiful harvest they have had among us during our Differences and upon occasion of them and how near their Religion was to have entred in upon us at once at those wide breaches which we had made for it And will we still take counsel of our Enemies and chuse to follow that course to which of all other they who hate us and seek our ruine would most certainly advise and direct us Will we freely offer them that advantage which they would be contented to purchase at any rate Let us after all our sad experience at last take Warning to keep a stedfast eye upon our chief Enemy and not suffer our selves to be diverted from the consideration and regard of our greatest danger by the petty provocations of our Friends so I chuse to call those who dissent from us in lesser matters because I would fain have them so and they ought in all reason to be so But however they behave themselves we ought not much to mind those who only fling dirt at us whilst we are sure there are others who fly at our throats and strike at our very hearts Let us learn this wisdom of our Enemies who though they have many great differences among themselves yet they have made a shift at this time to unite together to destroy us And shall not we do as much to save our selves fas est ab hoste doceri It was a Principle among the ancient Romans a brave and a wise People donare inimicitias Reip. to give up and sacrifice their private enmities and quarrels to the publick good and the safety of the Common-wealth And is it not to every considerate man as clear as the Sun at Noonday that nothing can maintain and support the Protestant Religion amongst us and found our Church upon a Rock so that when the rain falls and the winds blow and the floods beat upon it it shall stand firm and unshaken That nothing can be a Bulwark of sufficient force to resist all the arts and attempts of Popery but an establisht National Religion firmly united and compacted in all the parts of it Is it not plain to every eye that little Sects and separate Congregations can never do it but will be like a Foundation of sand to a weighty Building which whatever shew it may make cannot stand long because it wants Union at the Foundation and for that reason must necessarily want strength and firmness It is not for private persons to undertake in matters of publick concernment but I think we have no cause to doubt but the Governors of our Church notwithstanding all the advantages of Authority and we think of reason too on our side are Persons of that Piety and Prudence that for Peace sake and in order to a firm Union among Protestants they would be content if that would do it not to insist upon little things but to yield them up whether to the infirmity or importunity or perhaps in some very few things to the plausible exceptions of those who differ from us But then surely on the other side men ought to bring along with them a peaceable disposition and a mind ready to comply with the Church in which they were born and baptized in all reasonable and lawful things and desirous upon any terms that are tolerable to return to the Communion of it a mind free from passion and prejudice from peevish exceptions and groundless and endless scruples not apt to insist upon little cavils and objections to which the very best things and the greatest and clearest Truths in the world are and always will be liable And whatever they have been heretofore to be henceforth no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
unsutable carriage at the Lord's Supper They came to it very disorderly one before another It was the custom of Christians to meet at their Feast of Charity in which they did communicate with great sobriety and temperance and when that was ended they celebrated the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Now among the Corinthians this order was broken The rich met and excluded the poor from this common Feast And after an irregular feast one before another eating his own supper as he came they went to the Sacrament in great disorder one was hungry having eaten nothing at all others were drunk having eaten intemperately and the poor were despised and neglected This the Apostle condemns as a great profanation of that solemn Institution of the Sacrament at the participation whereof they behaved themselves with as little reverence as if they had been met at a common supper or feast And this he calls not discerning the Lord's body making no difference in their behaviour between the Sacrament and a common meal which irreverent and contemptuous carriage of theirs he calls eating and drinking unworthily for which he pronounceth them guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord which were represented and commemorated in their eating of that bread and drinking of that cup. By which irreverent and contemptuous usage of the body and bloud of our Lord he tells them that they did incur the Judgment of God which he calls eating and drinking their own judgment For that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translatours render damnation does not here signifie eternal condemnation but a temporal judgment and chastisement in order to the prevention of eternal condemnation is evident from what follows He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself And then he says For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep That is for this irreverence of theirs God had sent among them several diseases of which many had dyed And then he adds For if we would judge our selves we should not be judged If we would judge our selves whether this be meant of the publick Censures of the Church or our private censuring of our selves in order to our future amendment and reformation is not certain If of the latter which I think most probable then judging here is much the same with examining our selves ver 28. And then the Apostle's meaning is that if we would censure and examine our selves so as to be more carefull for the future we should escape the judgment of God in these temporal punishments But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world But when we are judged that is when by neglecting thus to judge our selves we provoke God to judge us we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world that is he inflicts these temporal judgments upon us to prevent our eternal condemnation Which plainly shews that the judgment here spoken of is not eternal condemnation And then he concludes Wherefore my Brethren when ye come together to eat tarry for one another And if any man hunger let him eat at home that ye come not together unto judgment where the Apostle plainly shews both what was the crime of unworthy receiving and the punishment of it Their crime was their irreverent and disorderly participation of the Sacrament and their punishment was those temporal judgments which God inflicted upon them for this their contempt of the Sacrament Now this being I think very plain we are proportionably to understand the precept of examination of our selves before we eat of that bread and drink of that cup. But let a man examine himself that is consider well with himself what a sacred Action he is going about and what behaviour becomes him when he is celebrating this Sacrament instituted by our Lord in memorial of his body and bloud that is of his death and passion And if heretofore he have been guilty of any disorder and irreverence such as the Apostle here taxeth them withall let him censure and judge himself for it be sensible of and sorry for his fault and be carefull to avoid it for the future and having thus examined himself let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. This I think is the plain sense of the Apostle's Discourse and that if we attend to the scope and circumstances of it it cannot well have any other meaning But some will say Is this all the preparation that is required to our worthy receiving of the Sacrament that we take care not to come drunk to it nor to be guilty of any irreverence and disorder in the celebration of it I answer in short this was the particular unworthiness with which the Apostle taxeth the Corinthians and which he warns them to amend as they desire to escape the judgments of God such as they had already felt for this irreverent carriage of theirs so unsutable to the holy Sacrament He finds no other fault with them at present in this matter though any other fort of irreverence will proportionably expose men to the like punishment He says nothing here of their habitual preparation by the sincere purpofe and resolution of a good life answerable to the rules of the Christian Religion This we may suppose he took for granted However it concerns the Sacrament no more than it does Prayer or any other religious duty Not but that it is very true that none but those who do heartily embrace the Christian Religion and are sincerely resolved to frame their lives according to the holy rules and precepts of it are fit to communicate in this solemn acknowledgment and profession of it So that it is a practice very much to be countenanced and encouraged because it is of great use for Christians by way of preparation for the Sacrament to examine themselves in a larger sense than in all probability the Apostle here intended I mean to examine our past lives and the actions of them in order to a sincere repentance of all our errours and miscarriages and to fix us in the steady purpose and resolution of a better life particularly when we expect to have the forgiveness of our sins sealed to us we should lay aside all enmity and thoughts of revenge and heartily forgive those that have offended us and put in practice that universal love and charity which is represented to us by this holy Communion And to this purpose we are earnestly exhorted in the publick Office of the Communion by way of due preparation and disposition for it to repent us truly of our sins past to amend our lives and to be in perfect charity with all men that so we may be meet partakers of those holy mysteries And because this work of examining our selves concerning our state and condition and of exercising repentance towards God and charity towards men is incumbent upon us as we are Christians and can
Graces and Virtues which concern our duty towards one another That it is the sum and abridgement the accomplishment and fulfilling of the whole Law That without this whatever we pretend to in Christianity we are nothing and our Religion is vain That this is the greatest of all Graces and Virtues greater than Faith and Hope and of perpetual use and duration Charity never fails And therefore they exhort us above all things to endeavour after it as the Crown of all other Virtues Above all things have fervent charity among your selves saith St. Peter And St. Paul having enumerated most other Christian Virtues exhorts us above all to strive after this And above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfection This St. John makes one of the most certain signs of our love to God and the want of it an undeniable argument of the contrary If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar for he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen This he declares to be one of the best evidences that we are in a state of Grace and Salvation Hereby we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the brethren So that well might our blessed Saviour chuse this for the badge of his Disciples and make it the great Precept of the best and most perfect Institution Other things might have served better for pomp and ostentation and have more gratified the Curiosity or Enthusiasm or Superstition of mankind but there is no quality in the World which upon a sober and impartial consideration is of a more solid and intrinsick value And in the first Ages of Christianity the Christians were very eminent for this Vertue and particularly noted for it Nobis notam inurit apud quosdam it is a mark and brand set upan us by some saith Tertullian and he tells us that it was proverbially said among the Heathen Behold how these Christians love one another Lucian that great scoffer at all Religion acknowledgeth in behalf of Christians that this was the great Principle which their Master had instill'd into them And Julian the bitterest Enemy that Christianity ever had could not forbear to propound to the Heathen for an example the charity of the Galileans for so by way of reproach he calls the Christians who says he gave up themselves to humanity and kindness which he acknowledgeth to have been very much to the advantage and reputation of our Religion And in the same Letter to Arsacius the Heathen High Priest of Galatia he gives this memorable Testimony of the Christians that their Charity was not limited and confin'd onely to themselves but extended even to their Enemies which could not be said either of the Jews or Heathens His words are these It is a shame that when the Jews suffer none of theirs to beg and the impious Galileans relieve not onely their own but those also of our Religion that we onely should be defective in so necessary a Duty By all which it is evident that Love and Charity is not onely the great Precept of our Saviour but was in those first and best Times the general practice of his Disciples and acknowledged by the Heathens as a very peculiar and remarkable quality in them The application I shall make of this Discourse shall be threefold 1. With relation to the Church of Rome 2. With regard to our selves who profess the Protestant Reform'd Religion 3. With a more particular respect to the occasion of this Meeting First With relation to the Church of Rome Which we cannot chuse but think of whenever we speak of Charity and loving one another especially having had so late a discovery of their affection to us and so considerable a testimony of the kindness and charity which they design'd towards us such as may justly make the ears of all that hear it to tingle and render Popery execrable and infamous a frightful and a hateful thing to the end of the World It is now but too visible how grosly this great Commandment of our Saviour is contradicted not onely by the Practices of those in that Communion from the Pope down to the meanest Fryar but by the very Doctrines and Principles by the Genius and Spirit of that Religion which is wholly calculated for cruelty and persecution Where now is that mark of a Disciple so much insisted upon by our Lord and Master to be found in that Church And yet what is the Christian Church but the Society and Community of Christs Disciples Surely in all reason that which our Lord made the distinctive Mark and Character of his Disciples should be the principal mark of a true Church Bellarmine reckons up no less than fifteen marks of the rrue Church all which the Church of Rome arrogates to her self alone But he wisely forgot that which is worth all the rest and which our Saviour insists upon as the chief of all other A sincere Love and Charity to all Christians This he knew would by no means agree to his own Church But for all that it is very reasonable that Churches as well as particular Christians should be judged by their Charity The Church of Rome would engross all Faith to her self Faith in its utmost perfection to the degree and pitch of Infallibility And they allow no body in the world besides themselves no though they believe all the Articles of the Apostles Creed to have one grain of true Faith because they do not believe upon the Authority of their Church which they pretend to be the onely foundation of true Faith This is a most arrogant and vain pretence but admit it were true yet in the Judgement of St. Paul Though they had all Faith if they have not Charity they are nothing The greatest wonder of all is this that they who hate and persecute Christians most do all this while the most confidently of all others pretend to be the Disciples of Christ and will allow none to be so but themselves That Church which excommunicates all other Christian Churches in the world and if she could would extirpate them out of the world will yet needs assume to her self to be the only Christian Church As if our Saviour had said Hereby shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye hate and excommunicate and kill one another What shall he done unto thee thou false tongue thou empty and impudent pretence of Christianity Secondly With relation to our seves who profess the Protestant Reformed Religion How is this great Precept of our Saviour not onely shamefully neglected but plainly violated by us And that not only by private hatred and ill-will quarrels and contentions in our civil conversation and entercourse with one another but by most unchristian divisions and animosities in that common relation wherein we stand to one another as Brethren as Christians as Protestants Have we not all one
that Covenant which we entred into by Baptism and are going solemnly to renew and confirm by our receiving of this Sacrament we are at least in some degree and in the main qualified to partake of this holy Sacrament and the way for us to be more fit is to receive this Sacrament frequently that by this spiritual food of God's appointing by this living bread which comes down from heaven our souls may be nourished in goodness and new strength and vertue may be continually derived to us for the purifying of our hearts and enabling us to run the ways of God's commandments with more constancy and delight For the way to grow in grace and to be strengthned with all might in the inner man and to abound in all the fruits of righteousness which by Christ Jesus are to the praise and glory of God is with care and conscience to use those means which God hath appointed for this end And if we will neglect the use of these means it is to no purpose for us to pray to God for his grace and assistence We may tire our selves with our devotions and fill heaven with vain complaints and yet by all this importunity obtain nothing at God's hand Like lazy beggars that are always complaining and always asking but will not work will do nothing to help themselves and better their condition and therefore are never like to move the pity and compassion of others If we expect God's grace and assistence we must work out our own Salvation in the carefull use of all those means which God hath appointed to that end That excellent degree of goodness which men would have to fit them for the Sacrament is not to be had but by the use of it And therefore it is a preposterous thing for men to insist upon having the end before they will use the means that may further them in the obtaining of it 2. The total want of a due preparation not only in the degree but in the main and substance of if though it render us unfit at present to receive this Sacrament yet does it by no means excuse our neglect of it One fault may draw on another but can never excuse it It is our great fault that we are wholly unprepared and no man can claim any benefit by his fault or plead it in excuse or extenuation of this neglect A total want of preparation and an absolute unworthiness is Impenitency in an evil course a resolution to continue a bad man not to quit his lusts and to break off that wicked course he hath lived in But is this any excuse for the neglect of our duty that we will not fit our selves for the doing of it with benefit and advantage to our selves A father commands his son to ask him blessing every day and is ready to give it him but so long as he is undutifull to him in his other actions and lives in open disobedience forbids him to come in his sight He excuseth himself from asking his father blessing because he is undutifull in other things and resolves to continue so This is just the case of neglecting the duty God requires and the blessings he offers to us in the Sacrament because we have made our selves incapable of so performing the one as to receive the other and are resolved to continue so We will not do our duty in other things and then plead that we are unfit and unworthy to do it in this particular of the Sacrament 3. The proper Inference and conclusion from a total want of due preparation for the Sacrament is not to cast off all thoughts of receiving it but immediately to set about the work of preparation that so we may be fit to receive it For if this be true that they who are absolutely unprepared ought not to receive the Sacrament nor can do it with any benefit nay by doing it in such a manner render their condition much worse this is a most forcible argument to repentance and amendment of life There is nothing reasonable in this case but immediately to resolve upon a better course that so we may be meet partakers of those holy Mysteries and may no longer provoke God's wrath against us by the wilfull neglect of so great and necessary a duty of the Christian Religion And we do wilfully neglect it so long as we do wilfully refuse to fit and qualifie our selves for the due and worthy performance of it Let us view the thing in a like case A Pardon is graciously offered to a Rebel he declines to accept it and modestly excuseth himself because he is not worthy of it And why is he not worthy because he resolves to be a Rebel and then his pardon will do him no good but be an aggravation of his crime Very true and it will be no less an aggravation that he refuseth it for such a reason and under a pretence of modesty does the most imprudent thing in the world This is just the case and in this case there is but one thing reasonable to be done and that is for a man to make himself capable of the benefit as soon as he can and thankfully to accept of it but to excuse himself from accepting of the benefit offered because he is not worthy of it nor fit for it nor ever intends to be so is as if a man should desire to be excused from being happy because he is resolved to play the fool and to be miserable So that whether our want of preparation be total or only to some degree it is every way unreasonable If it be in the degree only it ought not to hinder us from receiving the Sacrament If it be total it ought to put us immediately upon removing the impediment by making such preparation as is necessary to the due and worthy receiving of it And this brings me to the IV. Fourth and last thing I proposed viz. What preparation of our selves is necessary in order to the worthy receiving of this Sacrament Which I told you would give me occasion to explain the Apostle's meaning in the last part of the Text But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. I think it very clear from the occasion and circumstances of the Apostle's discourse concerning the Sacrament that he does not intend the examination of our state whether we be Christians or not and sincerely resolved to continue so and consequently that he does not here speak of our habitual preparation by the resolution of a good life This he takes for granted that they were Christians and resolved to continue and persevere in their Christian profession But he speaks of their actual fitness and worthiness at that time when they came to receive the Lord's Supper And for the clearing of this matter we must consider what it was that gave occasion to this discourse At the 20th verse of this Chapter he sharply reproves their irreverent and
never be put in practice more seasonably and with greater advantage than when we are meditating of this Sacrament therefore besides our habitual preparation by repentance and the constant endeavours of a holy life it is a very pious and commendable custome in Christians before their coming to the Sacrament to set apart some particular time for this work of examination But how much time every person should allot to this purpose is matter of prudence and as it need not so neither indeed can it be precisely determined Some have greater reason to spend more time upon this work than others I mean those whose accounts are heavier because they have long run upon the score and neglected themselves And some also have more leisure and freedom for it by reason of their casie condition and circumstances in the world and therefore are obliged to allow a greater portion of Time for the exercises of piety and devotion In general no man ought to doe a work of so great moment and concernment slightly and perfunctorily And in this as in all other actions the end is principally to be regarded Now the end of examining our selves is to understand our slate and condition and to reform whatever we find amiss in our selves And provided this end be obtained the circumstances of the means are less considerable whether more or less time be allowed to this work it matters not so much as to make sure that the work be throughly done And I do on purpose speak thus cautiously in this matter because some pious persons do perhaps err on the stricter hand and are a little superstitious on that side insomuch that unless they can gain so much time to set apart for a solemn preparation they will refrain from the Sacrament at that time though otherwise they be habitually prepared This I doubt not proceeds from a pious mind but as the Apostle says in another case about the Sacrament shall I praise them in this I praise them not For provided there be no wilfull neglect of due preparation it is much better to come so prepared as we can nay I think it is our duty so to doe rather than to abstain upon this punctilio For when all is done the best preparation for the Sacrament is the general care and endeavour of a good life And he that is thus prepared may receive at any time when opportunity is offered though he had no particular foresight of that opportunity And I think in that case such a one shall do much better to receive than to refrain because he is habitually prepared for the Sacrament though he had no time to make such actual preparation as he desired And if this were not allowable how could Ministers communicate with sick persons at all times or persuade others to doe it many times upon very short and sudden warning And indeed we cannot imagine that the primitive Christians who received the Sacrament so frequently that for ought appears to the contrary they judged it as essential and necessary a part of their publick worship as any other part of it whatsoever even as their Hymns and Prayers and reading and interpreting the Word of God I say we cannot well conceive how they who celebrated it so constantly could allot any more time for a solemn preparation for it than they did for any other part of divine worship And consequently that the Apostle when he bids the Corinthians examine themselves could mean no more than that confidering the nature and ends of this Institution they should come to it with great reverence and reflecting upon their former miscarriages in this matter should be carefull upon this admonition to avoid them for the future and to amend what had been amiss which to doe requires rather resolution and care than any long time of preparation I speak this that devout persons may not be entangled in an apprehension of a greater necessity than really there is of a long and solemn preparation every time they receive the Sacrament The great necessity that lies upon men is to live as becomes Christians and then they can never be absolutely unprepared Nay I think this to be a very good preparation and I see not why men should not be very well satisfied with it unless they intend to make the same use of the Sacrament that many of the Papists do of Confession and Absolution which is to quit with God once or twice a year that so they may begin to sin again upon a new score But because the Examination of our selves is a thing so very usefull and the time which men are wont to set apart for their preparation for the Sacrament is so advantageous an opportunity for the practice of it therefore I cannot but very much commend those who take this occasion to search and try their ways and to call themselves to a more solemn account of their actions Because this ought to be done sometime and I know no fitter time for it than this And perhaps some would never find time to recollect themselves and to take the condition of their souls into serious consideration were it not upon this solemn occasion The summ of what I have said is this that supposing a person to be habitually prepared by a religious disposition of mind and the general course of a good life this more solemn actual preparation is not always necessary And it is better when there is an opportunity to receive without it than not to receive at all But the greater our actual preparation is the better For no man can examine himself too often and understand the state of his soul too well and exercise repentance and renew the resolutions of a good life too frequently And there is perhaps no fitter opportunity for the doing of all this than when we approach the Lord's table there to commemorate his death and to renew our Covenant with him to live as becomes the Gospel All the Reflexion I shall now make upon this Discourse shall be from the consideration of what hath been said earnestly to excite all that profess and call themselves Christians to a due preparation of themselves for this holy Sacrament and a frequent participation of it according to the intention of our Lord and Saviour in the institution of it and the undoubted practice of Christians in the primitive and best times when men had more devotion and fewer scruples about their duty If we do in good earnest believe that this Sacrament was instituted by our Lord in remembrance of his dying love we cannot but have a very high value and esteem for it upon that account Methinks so often as we reade in the institution of it those words of our dear Lord doe this in remembrance of me and consider what he who said them did for us this dying charge of our best friend should stick with us and make a strong impression upon our minds Especially if we add to these those other words of his not
by a vigorous resolution and an unwearied diligence and a patient continuance in well doing might win and wear a more glorious Crown and be fit to receive a more ample reward from his bounty and goodness yea in some sense I may say from his justice For God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour and love He will fully consider all the pains that any of us take in his service and all the difficulties that we struggle with out of love to God and clashing of our duty with our inclination is I hope fully answered Since God hath provided so powerfull and effectual a remedy against our natural impotency and infirmity by the Grace of the Gospel And though to those who have wilfully contracted vicious habits a religious and vertuous course of life be very difficult yet the main difficulty lyes in our first entrance upon it And when that is over the ways of goodness are as easy as it is sit any thing should be that is so excellent and that hath the encouragement of so glorious a reward Custome will reconcile men almost to any thing but there are those charms in the ways of wisedom and vertue that a little acquaintance and conversation with them will soon make them more delightfull than any other course And who would grudge any pains and trouble to bring himself into so safe and happy a condition After we have tryed both courses of Religion and Profaneness of Vertue and Vice we shall certainly find that nothing is so wise so easie and so comfortable as to be vertuous we are inwardly convinced we ought to do Nor would I desire more of any man in this matter than to follow the soberest convictions of his own mind and to do that which upon the most serious consideration at all times in prosperity and affliction in sickness and health in the time of life and at the hour of death he judgeth wisest and safest for him to do I proceed to the Branch of the Objection that the Laws of Religion and particularly of the Christian Religion are a heavy yoke laying too great a restraint upon humane nature and entrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it There was I confess some pretence for this Objection against the Jewish Religion which by the multitude of its positive Institutions and external observances must needs have been very burthensome And the same Objection lyes against the Church of Rome who as they have handled Christianity by the unreasonable number of their needless and senseless Ceremonies have made the yoke of Christ heavier than that of Moses and the Gospel a more carnal Commandment than the Law So that Christianity is lost among them in the trappings and accoutrements of it with which instead of adorning Religion they have strangely disguised it and quite stifled it in the crowd of external Rites and Ceremonies But the pure Christian Religion as it was delivered by our Saviour hath hardly any thing in it that is positive except the two Sacraments which are not very troublesome neither but very much for our comfort and advantage because they convey and confirm to us the great blessings and privileges of our Religion In other things Christianity hath hardly imposed any other Laws upon us but what are enacted in our Natures or are agreeable to the prime and fundamental Laws of it nothing but what every man's reason either dictates to him to be necessary or approves as highly fit and reasonable But we do most grosly mistake the nature of pleasure and liberty if we promise them to our selves in any evil and wicked course For upon due search and tryal it will be found that true pleasure and perfect freedom are no where to be found but in the practice of vertue and in the service of God The Laws of Religion do not abridge us of any pleasure that a wise man can desire and safely enjoy I mean without a greater evil and trouble consequent upon it The pleasure of commanding our appetites and governing our passions by the rules of Reason which are the Laws of God is infinitely to be preferred before any sensual pleasure whatsoever Because it is the pleasure of wifedom and discretion and gives us the satisfaction of having done that which is best and fittest for reasonable Creatures to do Who would not rather chuse to govern himself as Scipio did amidst all the temptations and opportunities of sensual pleasure which his power and victories presented to him than to wallow in all the delights of sense Nothing is more certain in reason and experience than that every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to it self and is perpetually crossing its own pleasure and defeating its own satisfaction by over-shooting the mark it aims at For instance Intemperance in eating and drinking instead of delighting and satisfying nature doth but load and cloy it and instead of quenching a natural thirst which it is extremely pleasant to do creates an unnatural one which is troublesome and endless The pleasure of Revenge as soon as it is executed turns into grief and pity guilt and remorse and a thousand melancholy wishes that we had retrained our selves from so unreasonable an Act. And the same is as evident in other sensual excesses not so fit to be dedescribed We may trust Epicurus for this that there can be no true pleasure without temperance in the use of pleasure And God and Reason have set us no other bounds concerning the use of sensual pleasures but that we take care not to be injurious to our selves or others in the kind or degree of them And it is very visible that all sensual excess is naturally attended with a double inconvenience As it goes beyond the limits of nature it begets bodily pains and diseases As it transgresseth the rules of Reason and Religion it breeds guilt and remorse in the mind And these are beyond comparison the two greatest evils in this world a diseased body and a discontented mind And in this I am sure I speak to the inward feeling and experience of men and say nothing but what every vicious man finds and hath a more lively sense of than is to be expressed by words When all is done there is no pleasure comparable to that of Innocency and freedom from the stings of a guilty conscience This is a pure and spiritual pleasure much above any sensual delight And yet among all the delights of sense that of health which is the natural consequent of a sober and chaâ—te and regular life is a sensual pleasure far beyond that of any Vice For it is the life of life and that which gives a gratefull relish to all our other enjoyments It is not indeed so violent and transporting a pleasure but it is pure and even and lasting and hath no guilt and regret no sorrow and trouble in it or after it which is a worm that infallibly breeds in all vicious and unlawfull pleasures and
key of knowledge and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven against Men That is doing what in them lies to render it impossible for men to be saved For this he denounceth a terrible Woe against the Teachers of the Jewish Church Though they did not proceed so far as to deprive men of the use of the H. Scriptures but only of the right knowledge and understanding of them This alone is a horrible impiety to lead men into a false sense and interpretation of Scripture but much greater to forbid them the reading of it This is to stop knowledge at the very Fountain-head and not only to lead men into Errour but to take away from them all possibility of rectifying their mistakes And can there be a greater sacrilege than to rob men of the word of God the best means in the world of acquainting them with the will of God and their duty and the way to eternal happiness To keep the people in Ignorance of that which is necessary to save them is to judge them unworthy of eternal life and to declare it do's not belong to them and maliciously to contrive the eternal ruine and destruction of their Souls To lock up the Scriptures and the service of God from the people in an unknown tongue what is this but in effect to forbid men to know God and to serve him to render them incapable of knowing what is the good and acceptable will of God of joyning in his worship or performing any part of it or receiving any benefit or edification from it And what is if this be not to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men This is so outragious a cruelty to the souls of men that it is not to be excused upon any pretence whatsoever This is to take the surest and most effectual way in the world to destroy those for whom Christ dyed and directly to thwart the great design of God our Saviour who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth Men may misâ—â—â—ry with their knowledge but they are sure to perish for want of it The best things in the world have their inconveniences aâ—â—â—ding them and are liable to be aâ—used but surely men are not to be ruâ—â—â—d and damned for fear of abusing their knowledge or for the prevention of any other inconvenience whatsoever Besides this is to cross the very end of the Scriptures and the design of God in inspiring men to write them Can any man think that God should send this great light of his Word into the world for the Priests to hide it under a bushel and not rather that it should be set up to the greatest advantage for the enlightening of the world St. Paul tells us Rom. 15. 4. That whatsoever things were written were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope And 2 Tim. 3.16 That all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is prositable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness And if the Scriptures were written for these ends can any man have the face to pretend that they do not concern the people as well as their teachers Nay St. Paul expresly tells the Churâ—â— of Rome that they were written for their learning however it happens that they are not now permitted to make use of them Are the Scriptures so usefull and profitable for doctrine for reproof for instruction in righteousness and why may they not be used by the people for those ends for which they were given 'T is true indeed they are fit for the most knowing and learned and sufficient to make the man of God perfect and throughly furnished to every good work as the Apostle there tells us But do's this exclude their being profitable also to the people who may reasonably be presumed to stand much more in need of all means and helps of instruction than their Teachers And though there be many difficulties and obscurities in the Scriptures enough to exercise the skill and wit of the learned yet are they not therefore either useless or dangerous to the People The ancient Fathers of the Church were of another mind St. Chrysostome tells us that Whatever things are necessary are manifest in the Scriptures And St. Austin that all things are plain in the Scripture which concern faith and a good life and that those things which are necessary to the Salvation of men are not so hard to be come at but that as to those things which the Scripture plainly contains it speaks without disguise like a familiar friend to the heart of the learned and unlearned And upon these and such like considerations the Fathers did every where in their Orations Homilies charge and exhort the people to be conversant in the holy Scriptures to reade them daily and diligently and attentively And I challenge our Adversaries to shew me where any of the ancient Fathers do discourage the people from reading the Scriptures much less forbid them so to do So that they who do it now have no Cloak for their sin And they who pretend so confidently to Antiquity in other cases are by the evidence of truth forced to acknowledge that it is against them in this Though they have ten thousand Schoolmen on their side yet have they not one Father not the least pretence of Scripture or rag of antiquity to cover their nakedness in this point With great reason then does our Saviour denounce so heavy a Woe againd such teachers Of old in the like case God by his Prophet severely threatens the Priests of the Jewish Church for not instructing the people in the knowledge of God Hosea 4.6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because thou hast rejected knowledge I will also reject thee thou shalt be no more a Priest to me seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy God I will also forget thy Children God you see lays the ruine of so many Souls at their doors and will require their blood at their hands So many as perish for want of knowledge and eternally miscarry by being deprived of the necessary means of Salvation their destruction shall be charged upon those who have taken away the key of knowledge and shut the kingdom of heaven against men And it is just with God to punish such persons not only as the occasion but as the Authours of their ruine For who can judge otherwise but that they who deprive men of the necessary means to any end do purposely design to hinder them of attaining that end And whatever may be pretended in this case to deprive men of the holy Scriptures and to keep them ignorant of the service of God and yet while they do so to make a shew of an earnest desire of their Salvation is just such a mockery as if one of you that is a master should tell his prentice how much you desire he should thrive in the world and be a rich