Sacrament is not a Common without hedge or barre but a Several inclosed as appears by this short word And so The celebration of this Ordinance requires some previous preparation and bespeaks some due and competent qualifications of the Communicant therein This medicine that it may have its effect and fruit requires a preparative One duty prepares unto another I le wash my hands in innocency saith the Psalmist and so will I compasse thine Altar The unclean under the Law had their Purifications before they drew near to God in his holy Ordinances for saith God I will be sanctified in all that draw nigh to me I hope you are not onely convinced of this but well satisfied in it by what I have delivered to you and therefore I will not draw the Saw and say over againe what is already setled §. 2 §. 2. Of Self-Examination Doct. The Lord affords the free use of his Table to a professed Christian upon fore-going Self-examination This is the proviso of this priviledge Here is Admission and Accesse here is free both invitation and allowance But let a man examine himself and so c. 1. Let a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every man as the Hebrew language sometimes expresses it self What every man an examiner Yea of himself For what man knows the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him 1 Cor. 2. 11. a partial examiner you may truly say but it is at his peril The Rule whereby he must proceed is impartial man that hath a reasonable soul hath this power above bruits which have not that we call conscience that he can make reflexion upon himself he can accuse testifie judge of and call himself to account But is every man in the world meant here The word examine rightly interpreted will answer that Question in the mean time I think it hath this restraint every man or every one of you and of them that are such as you Corinthians visible professours of Christ incorporate by Baptism Church-members that have all outward qualifications unto this Sacrament every such man Let him examine himself 2. Let every man examine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we try metal or gold by the touchstone or by the fire so the Greek version of the Septuagint useth this word Prov. 17. 3. God tries the hearts he tries man by tentations afflictions as gold by fire man tries himself as gold or silver by the Touchstone the Rule and Standard of this examination is the word of God called ◠Canon as a man that will not trust the fair looks of a piece of money rubs it on the stone and thereby discerns it whether true or spurious so not trusting the superficial outsides and forme which flatters us We must bring our selves to the standard and thereby judge whether we be drosse or gold 3. Let every man examine himself 2 Cor. 13. 5. Examine your selves prove your own selves Chrysostome 1 Cor. 11. 28. takes this word signantly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He doth not bid one saith he to examine another but a man himself to prove and search himself And Paraeus on the place speaking in opposition unto and detestation of the Popish Auricular Confession saith Non dicit Sacerdotes probent c. He saith not Let the Priests examine and dive into mens consciences but every man himself not that we refuse any just trial but we abhorre their tyranny and superstition I know men are backward to have their wounds searcht and very partial and indulgent to themselves but if conscience be set on work in the duty this unpopular Tribunal this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostome cals it is the most excellent for a man is within himself others are without him and he that is within may search the house bette◠than he that stands without Our secret hypocrisies and heart lusts may be discerned by our selves not by another and there is no mans heart but stoops most of all and is laid flat in the dust under self-conviction self-judgement Therefore let a man examine himself And so I have open'd the words Let a man examine himself which if any one cannot do as infants stupid ignorants men besides themselves or will not do because he hateth the light which discovers him or doth not do because worldly imployments possesse him or dare not do least he create trouble and pain to himself then he hath not performed the provilo which is And so let him eat of this Bread c. Quest There may be in some of your thoughts as there hath been in mine a Question upon this and it is thus Quest What if Judas by reflexion upon himself finde that he is conceived with a treasonable intention which he mindes to pursue and to bring forth What if any man upon examination of himself finde himself without any spark and without any desire of grace What if he be a scorner of all godlinesse and purposes so to be a vicious and flagitious slave of sinne and will not be made free Shall he come and eat this Bread because he hath examined himselfe Shall he plead his priviledge because he hath examined himself Answ Solut. If this were so then Examination is required for Examination sake but that is not so for self-examination is a duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tending to a further end and that is our meetnesse and fitnesse to come to this Table it is to finde a sacramental disposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that we may finde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a learned man saith Let us search and try our wayes and turn again to the Lord that 's the end and effect Lam. 3. 40. Prove your selves whether ye be in the faith examine whether Jesus Christ be in you 2 Cor. 13. 5. So here Let a man examine himself that is Let him prove in himself a disposition of fitnesse and meetnesse and so let him come as a man that tries gold at the stone he will not take it because he tries it for he findes it copper but if it be indeed true gold So one will not go abroad because he hath beheld himself in the Looking-glasse for he may finde deformity and filthinesse but because he hath corrected all inconcinnity by the glasse and composed his dresse And so except we will prevaricate the holy Ghost intends a fitnesse and meetnesse found by this self-examination and then and so Let him come and eat c. The garment is not made by taking measure nor the wedding-garment by meer examination For the clearer opening of this point of self-examination I might thus distinguish There is a self-examination required of all men of all Christians of all Communicants That which is required of all men is To search and try their wayes in order to conversion or repentance Lam. 3. 40. Let us search and try our selves and turn unto the Lord which if diligently done they might
thus God offers the body and bloud of his Sonne which was shed for the remission of sinne and saith Take ye Eat ye Drink ye and that inward act which answers to this outward action whereby we do receive Christ that is exhibited we call faith when Christ is tender'd to us in the Word we believe ex-promisso when offer'd in the Supper we believe ex pignore There we have a promise here a pawn or pledge This faith is the taking hand which goes forth to the offering-hand of God This taking eating drinking are but faith appropriating and applying Christ You say you believe What believe you That God offers Christ to your faith What 's a poor man the richer for believing that one offers him a shilling What 's a condemned man the better for believing that a pardon is offer'd to him This is but a faith of the truth of the offer But doe ye receive Christ offered Do you close in with Christ Do you take him into you Here is the best Covenant sealed with the best blood that ever was You believe this to be a truth but come not in to this Covenant that saith doth but serve to your just condemnation It is the Christ-receiving not the truth acknowledging saith that brings salvation to you If men did but know what saving saith is we should have either more or â—ewer believers more for they would renounce that superficial thing cahed faith and buy gold tried in the fire Fewer for they would not count themselves to believe by that faith which they have A woman may believe a man to be rich and honourable and â—eall in his suit yet that belief doth not make a marriage but actual consent to take him for a husband For saith gives as well as takes it gives a man up to Christ as well as takes Christ to be a Saviour It is not true faith that blows hot and cold out of the same mouth and cries Hosanna to Christ a Saviour but yet I will not have him reigne over me This Sacrament presents Christ to faith thus It presents Christ himself his body and bloud not the benefits of Christ apart and abstract but Christ himself It presents Christ for intimate union with us as the nourishment is to the body It presents him really as the bread and wine is really taken and received It presents him crucified and suffering as if he was now dving and bleeding in whom faith findes reconciliation remission justification and redemption so is it acted and exercised in this Ordinance §. 4. Thirdly The third grace that is freshly revived and set on work in this Sacrament is Repentance and that appears thus Here is represented Goes Justiâ—e against our sinne in bruising his own Sonne with fore and dreadfull breaches made upon him and this Justice is mixt with goodnesse in transferring and laying upon the Sacrifice the delinquencies and sinnes which had they been charged on us had sunk us into the bottome of perdition and who that sees this shall not tremble at the fearfull wrath of God which Angels and men could not stand before Who shall not mourn over Christ whom we have pierced as it 's said of them Zech. 12. 10 Who can love the knife that slew his friend I meane the sinne that our Saviour bore in his body on the Tree This consideration here presented to you if you follow Christ from the Garden to Golgotha should me thinks affect the soul of a believer 1. With tender meltings of godly sorrow for sinne 2. With fresh purpose of amendment of life 1. With godly sorrow for sinne To hear the strong cries and see the streaming bloud of Christ for can there be a greater demonstration either of Gods Justice toward sinne or of his goodnesse to a sinner They say an adamant will be broken by bloud but alas the heart of man hath lost ingenuity or else the bloud of Christ would make us love sinne as bad as the terrours of Mount Sinai yea and to love it lesse and hate it more Fear may break a man but goodnesse melts him The terrours of the Lord may amaze and leave a man as hard still but godly sorrow makes tender and changes the disposition of the soul Revive then the sense of your sinne even pardon'd sins do revive godly sorrow and the more because he tastes goodnesse and grace to him unworthy the sweet of the Passeover is lost for want of bitter herbs 2. With fresh purpose of amendment a needfull grace to be renew'd at this Sacrament we should eat this Passeover with shoes on our feat and slaves in our hand ready to march out of Aegypt We cannot eat the Passeover and stay in Aegypt still God confirmes his Covenant and we must restipulate with God to cast out and execrate the old Leaven Let 's carry wounded sinnes from this Table Bring wonded hearts and carry away wounded sinnes Let 's learne to die to sinne by seeing Christ die for sinne Mutet vitam qui vult accipere vitam saith Austine The Covenant of Grace is sealed Let us seal a Covenant of Obedience By the merit of Christs death we are purchased to be Gods not our own By the power of his Death we are slain dead to sinne But here I must break out to meet with our common purposers and resolvers which if ever in their lives do now when they come toward the Lords Table flatter God and themselves with a new beginning of a new life from this time they are resolved that the ear that hath heard them shall hear them swear no more The eye that hath seen them shall see them drunk no more c. I would these greene cords would hold but we finde this righteousnesse is but a morning dew their Sampson lusts when they awake break all these cords And why Because these purposes arise from a fit of conscience not from a principle of life or love and so they prove but Lucida intervalla they returne to their madnesse againe when the fit takes them I would such men would resolve to be ashamed of these resolutions which so often leave them in the dirt that selfe confusion may carry them out of their owne strength which selfe-resolution doth but arme them with and therefore doth not stand For he that hath the Falling-sicknesse may resolve to fall no more but in vaine untill the disease be purged These are the principall the staple graces to be exercised in this Ordinance there are others which are included in these which I but name As §. 5. Fourthly Spiritual appetite of hunger and thirst after Christ who is here offered as full nourishment for the soul under the form of bread and wine I account gracious desires to be the immediate products of regenerated graces and very comfortable testimonies of life spirituall 1 Peter 2. 2. but it is called vehement desire 2 Cor. 7. 11. in difference from the sluggards desires which are but wishes and which every man pretneds
garment We love a sweet willing disposition in a childe ready to do what it can than alwayes to be crying for plums God highly prizes those that set on work their obediential graces to observe the Law of any Ordinance and perform it for if we can lust for quails and yet murmur at the way of the wildernesse we are too like the carnal Israelites There is in all spirituall joyes comforts and raptures two parts the one is the fruition of the sweet of them the other is the serviceable use of them to oil the wheels and with more freedome to perform hardest duties of obedience Now if in this latter respect we improve or seek them it 's farre the better to like in any Christian for it's Gods part or share The joy of the Lord is your strength yet duty is the door by which reward enters as reaping comes by sowing They that sow to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Gal. 6. 8. Motive III. 3. There is a sacramental disposition requisite to a Sacramental Communion and it is a very spiritual disposition as the Communion is spiritual This disposition is not one single grace but a complexion or temperament made up of divers ingredients which are not all distinctly and eminently acted by every man at this present but some of them as occasion and necessity may require I have already shown you them in general and told you that they are bespoken by the Sacrament it self and as it were deduced from it This Sacrament affords us the communion of Christs death where his body broken and bloud shed are set before us Here we communicate of a dying Christ in heaven we shall have him as a Tree of life This is that epulum foederale or Covenant-feast made for confederates God is one party and the faithfull are the other and both parties of confederates do sic dicam partake of the same foederal Sacrifice Christ Jesus the bloud of the Sacrifice is offer'd up to God The same bloud in the Sacrament is offer'd and given to us as it 's said Exod. 24. 6. Moses took half the blood and sprinkled it on the Altar and he sprinkled the other on the people and said Behold the bloud of the Covenant If we understood the Ordinance we should easily agree that a sacramental disposition is a very spiritual disposition and requires the very purest addresses that we can make to it where God himself entertains his people with no other cheer than which satisfies himself and will have them taste of that which he himself is pleased and delighted with that is I say again Christ Jesus Now in this so near approach to God ye have an excellent Rule as in all other approaches Levit. 10. 3. I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me the case was that two Priests had taken strange or other fire not Gods fire from his Altar but other fire common fire and so themselves became the Sacrifice for God will not be slighted If we bring fire and it be not his own but ours we may be consumed by it but he not pleased To which end and purpose that we be not found in this case and under this wrath I shall endeavour to shew you that strange fire or those false and insufficient qualifications which men draw nigh to God in this Sacrament withall to their own hurt and prejudice CHAP. XXVII False and insufficient Qualifications for the Receiving of this Sacrament §. 1. A Fair carriage of outward life or a good complexion of moral vertues is not a sacramental disposition but rather shew a plethorick constitution a self-fulnesse a self-righteousnesse which are the greatest obstructions against Christ that can be I confesse grace often dwels in a worse house and in rougher natures and constitutions but all the starres do not make day The metal of these vertues is very good but they want a superscription upon them there may be nothing of Christ and he that comes worthily to this Sacrament must have somewhat of Christ in him or must be in some necessity of him that he may eat with sour herbs A man may come with lesse sinne unworthily I say lesse than a worthy Communicant For it 's not the number or quality of sinne but the sense of and repentance for it that is here considerable A bottle stopt with gold receives not so much as an empty shell it 's Christ that must be in your eye and thirst or else your fire is strange fire II. A man may be humiliatus not humilis humbled not humble The Angels that sinn'd were tumbled down into a lower place without any abatement of their God-opposing pride man-opposing malice If God pound thee in a mortar by crosses pains miseries dreadfull horrours of conscience yet pride lives an argument whereof is thou wilt not adventure thy soul on free-grace without something to recommend thee to it and he that hath nothing else will have his misery to be his worthinesse and the murmurings which a broken estate and broken body and spirit do belch forth what are they but fumes and smoke of pride Cut a Bee in pieces yet she puts forth her sting There are many long for humbling breaches smarting sorrows and it may be their intention is good but the bottom is merit and pride most commonly they would make their humiliations their Christ Alas if God should charge but one sin in his full weight on thee it would break thee as a great stone an egge-shell Did it not so in Angels Who would be a Pharaoh Cain or Judas Is not broken iron broken ice hard still as ever But true humility is a Leveller there are 2 Cor. 10. 5. two things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every high thing and that is taken away and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every device and that is brought into captivity not only to the salvation but to the obedience of Christ The metal must be melted as well as broken and it 's enough melted when it will runne into the mold and take the impression Is the will conquer'd and changed to receive Gods Image Submit to Christ his righteousnesse and to his Soveraignty to receive the promises and take up the yoke of crosses and commandments Art thou humbled for sinne and hatest it humbled under thy own righteousnesse and castest it out Art thou willing to take Christ a Saviour and a Lord to have him and be his not on terms of thine own but terms of the Covenant Draw nigh to God this is not strange fire for it hath melted thee and not only tormented thee III. Thou findest in thy self a faith whereby thou assentest to the goodnesse and veracity of God the truth and all-sufficiency of Christ the whole tenour of the Covenant and Doctrine of the Gospel I say with James Chap. 2. 19. Thou believest that God is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou doest well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so believe the devils They have so great