the spices and gums upon the Altar of Incense SECT II. What it is which we receive in the holy SACRAMENT IT is strange that Christians should pertinaciously insist upon carnal significations and natural effects in Sacraments and Mysteries when our blessed Lord hath given us a sufficient light to conduct and secure us from such mis-apprehensions The flesh profiteth nothing the words which I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life that is the flesh is corruption and its senses are Ministers of death and this one word alone was perpetually sufficient for Christ's Disciples For when upon occasion of the grosse understanding of their Masters words by the men of Capernaum they had been once clearly taught that the meaning of all these words was wholly spiritual they rested there and inquired no further insomuch that when Christ at the institution of the Supper affirmed of the bread and wine that they were his body and his blood they were not at all offended as being sufficiently before instructed in the nature of that Mystery And besides this they saw enough to tell them that what they eat was not the natural body of their Lord This was the body which himself did or might eat with his body one body did eat and the other was eaten both of them were his body but after a diverse manner For the case is briefly this We have two lives a natural and a spiritual and both must have bread for their support and maintenance in proportion to their needs and to their capacities and as it would be an intollerable charity to give nothing but spiritual nutriment to a hungry body and pour diagrams and wise propositions into an empty stomach so it would be as useless and impertinent to feed the Soul with wheat or flesh unless that were the conveyance of a spiritual delicacy In the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the body of Christ according to the proper signification of a humane body is not at all but in a sense differing from the proper and natural body that is in a sense more agreeing to Sacraments so St. Hierom expresly Of this sacrifice which is wonderfully done in the commemoration of Christ we may eat but of that sacrifice which Christ offered on the altar of the Crosse by it self or in its own nature no man may eat For it is his flesh which is under the form of bread and his blood which is in the form and tast of wine for the flesh is the Sacrament of flesh and blood is the Sacrament of blood for by flesh and blood that is invisible spiritual intelligible the visible and tangible body of our Lord Jesus Christ is consigned full of the grace of all vertues and of Divine Majesty So St Augustine For therefore ye are not to eat that body which ye see nor to drink that blood which my crucifiers shall pour out it is the same and not the same the same invisibly but not the same visibly For until the world be finished the Lord is above but the truth of the Lord is with us The body in which he rose again must be in one place but the truth of it is every where diffused For there is one truth of the body in the Mystery and another truth simply and without Mystery It is truly Christs body both in the Sacrament and out of it but in the Sacrament it is not the natural truth but the spiritual and the mystical And therefore it was that our Blessed Saviour to them who apprehended him to promise his natural body and blood for our meat and drink spake of his ascension into heaven that we might learn to look from heaven to receive the food of our souls heavenly and spiritual nourishment said St. Athanasius For this is the letter which in the New Testament kills him who understands not spiritually what is spoken to him under the signification of meat and flesh and blood and drink So Origen For this bread does not go into the body for to how many might his body suffice for meat but the bread of eternal life supports the substance of our spirit and therefore it is not touch'd by the body nor seen with the eyes but by faith it is seen and touched So St. Ambrose And all this whole mystery hath in it neither carnal sense nor carnal consequence saith St. Chrysostom But to believe in Christ is to eat the bread and therefore why do you prepare your teeth and stomach believe him and you have eaten him they are the words of S. Austin For faith is that intellectual mouth as S. Brasil calls it which is within the man by which he takes in nourishment But what need we to draw this water from the lesser cisterns we see this truth reflected from the spring it self the fountains of our blessed Saviour I am the bread of life he that cometh unto me shall not hunger and he that believeth on me shall not thirst and again He that eats my flesh hath life abiding in him and I will raise him up at the last day The plain consequent of which words is this that therefore this eating and drinking of Christs flesh and blood can only be done by the Ministeries of life and of the spirit which is opposed to nature and flesh and death And when we consider that he who is not a spiritual and a holy person does not feed upon Christ who brings life eternal to them that feed on him it is apparent that our manducation must be spiritual and therefore so must the food and consequently it cannot be natural flesh however altered in circumstance and visibilities and impossible or incredible changes For it is not in this spiritual food as it was in Manna of which our Fathers did eat and died but whosoever eats this divine nutriment shall never die The Sacraments indeed and symbols the exterior part and ministeries may be taken unto condemnation but the food it self never For an unworthy person cannot feed on this food because here to eat Christs flesh is to do our duty and to be established in our title to the possession of the eternal promises For so Christ disposed the way of salvation not by flesh but by the spirit saith Tertullian that is according to his own exposition Christ is to be desired for life and to be devoured by hearing to be chewed by the understanding and to be digested by faith and all this is the method and oeconomy of heaven which whosoever uses and abides in it hath life abiding in him He that in this world does any other way look for Christ shall never find him and therefore if men say Loe here is Christ or loe there he is in the desart or he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Cupboards or Pantries where bread or flesh is laid believe it not Christs body is in heaven and it is not upon earth the heavens must contain
him till the time of restitution of all things and so long as we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord. In the mean time we can taste and see that the Lord is gracious that he is sweet but Christ is so to be tasted as he is to be seen and no otherwise but here we walk by faith and not by sight and here also we live by faith and not by meer or only bread but by that Word which proceedeth out from God that as meat is to the body so is Christ to the soul the food of the soul by which the souls of the just do live He is the bread which came down from heaven the bread which was born at Bethlâ—hem the house of bread was given to us to be the food of our souls for ever The meaning of which mysterious and Sacramental expressions when they are reduced to easie intelligible significations is plainly this By Christ we live and move and have our spiritual being in the life of grace and in the hopes of glory He took our life that we might partake of his he gave his life for us that he might give life to us He is the Author and finisher of our faith the beginning and perfection of our spiritual life Every good thought we think we have it from him every good word we speak we speak it by his spirit for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost and all our prayers are by the aids and communications of the spirit of Christ who helpeth our infirmities and by unutterable groans and unexpressible representment of most passionate desires maketh intercession for us In fine all the principles and parts all the actions and progressions of our spiritual life are derivations from the Son of God by whom we are born and nourished up to life Eternal 2. Christ being the food of our souls he is pleased to signifie this food to us by such symbols and similitudes as his present state could furnish us withal He had nothing about him but flesh and blood which are like to meat and drink and therefore what he calls himself saying I am the bread of life he afterwards calls his flesh and his blood saying My flesh is meat indeed my blood is drink indeed that is that you may perceive me to be indeed the food of your souls see here is meat and drink for you my flesh and my blood so to represent himself in a way that was neerest to our capacity and in a more intelligible manner not further from a Mystery but neerer to our manner of understanding and yet so involved in figure that it is never to be drawn neerer than a Mystery till it comes to experience and spiritual relish and perception But because we are not in darknesse but within the fringes and circles of a bright cloud let us search as far into it as we are guided by the light of God and where we are forbidden by the thicker part of the cloud step back and worship 3. For we have yet one further degree of charity and manifestation of this Mystery The flesh of Christ is his word the blood of Christ is his spirit and by believing in his word and being assisted and conducted by his spirit we are nourished up to life and so Christ is our food so he becomes life unto our souls Thus St. Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian affirm the Church in their days to have understood this Mystery saying The word of God is called flesh and blood For so the eternal wisdom of the Father calls to every simple soul that wanteth understanding come eat of the bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled and that we may know what is this bread and wine he adds forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding Our life is wisdom our food is understanding The Rabbins have an observation that when ever mention is made in the Book of the Proverbs of eating and drinking there is meant nothing but wisdom and the Law and when the Doctors using the words of Scripture say Come and eat flesh in which there is much fatness they would be understood to say Come and hear wisdom and learn the fear of God in which there is great nourishment and advantage to your souls Thus Wisdom is called Water and Vnderstanding Bread by the son of Sirach with the bread of understanding shall she feed him and give him the water of wisdom to drink It is by the Prophet Isaiah called water and wine and the desires of righteousness are called hunger and thirst by our blessed Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount And in pursuance of this mysterious truth we find that God in his anger threatens a famine of hearing the words of the Lord when we want Gods word we die with hunger we want that bread on which our souls do feed It was an excellent Commentary which the Jewish Doctors make upon those words of the Prophet with joy shall ye draw waters from the wells of salvation that is from the choicest or wisest of the just men saith Rabbi Jonathan from the chief Ministers of Religion the Heads of the people and the Rulers of the Congregation because they preach the Word of God they open the wells of salvation from the fountains of our Saviour giving drink and refreshment to all the people Thus the Prophet Jeremy expresses his spiritual joy and the sense of this Mystery Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart for I am called by thy Name O Lord God of Hosts the same with that of our Blessed Saviour My words are spirit and they are life they give life and comfort they refresh our souls and feed them up to immortality As the body or flesh of Christ is his Word so the blood of Christ is his Spirit in real effect and signification For as the body without blood is a dead and liveless trunck so is the Word of God without the Spirit a dead and ineffective Letter and this Mystery we are taught in that incomparable Epistle to the Hebrews For by the blood of Christ we are sanctified and yet that which sanctifies us is the spirit of grace and both these are one For so saith the Apostle the blood of Christ was offered up for us for the purification of our consciences from dead works but this offering was made through the eternal spirit and therefore he is equally guilty and does the same impiety he who does dâ—spâ—te to the spirit of Grace and he who accounts the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing for by this spirit and by this blood we are sanctified by this spirit and by the blood of the everlasting Covâ—nant Jesus Christ does perfect us in every good work so that these are the
Christs death an act of obedience a ceremony of memorial but of no spiritual effect and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver Against this besides the preceding discourse convincing their fancy of weakness and derogation the consideration of the proper excellencies of this mystery in its own seperate nature will be very useful For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into his oeconomy and dispensation For the understanding of which are to consider that Christ besides his Spiritual body and blood did also give us his natural and we receive that by the means of this For this he gave us but once then when upon the Crosse he was broken for our sins this body could die but once and it could be but at one place at once and Heaven was the place appointed for it and at once all was sufficiently effected by it which was design'd in the Counsel of God â—or by the vertue of that death Christ is become the Author of life unto us and of salvation he is our Lord and our Lawgiver but it he received all power in heaven and earth and by it he reconciled his Father to the world and in vertue of that he intercedes for us in heaven and sends his spirit upon earth and feeds our souls by his word he instructs us to wisdom and admits us to repentance and gives us pardon and by means of his own appointment nourishes us up by holinesse to life eternal This body being carried from us into heaven cannot be touch'd or tasted by us on earth but yet Christ left to us symbols and Sacraments of this natural body not to be or to convey that natural body to us but to do more and better for us to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body and the effusion of the blood which blessings being spiritual are therefore called his body spiritually because procured by that body which died for us and are therefore called our food because by them we live a new life in the spirit and Christ is our bread and our life because by him after this manner we are nourished up to life eternal That is plainly thus Therefore we eat Christs spiritual body because he hath given us his natural body to be broken and his natural blood to be shed for the remission of our sins and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance For by this gift and by this death he hath obtained this favour from God that by faith in him and repentance from dead works by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we may be saved To this sense of the Mystery are those excellent words of the Apostle He bare our sins upon his own body on the Tree that he might deliver us from the present evil world and sanctifie and purge us from all pollution of flesh and spirit that he might destroy the works of the devil that he might redeem us from all iniquity that he might purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and that we being dead unto sin might live unto righteousnesse Totum Christiani nominis pondus fructus mors Christi All that we are or do or have is produced and effected by the death of Christ. Now because our life depends upon his death the ministry of this life must relate â—o the ministry of this death and we have nothing to glory in but the Crosse of Christ the Word preached is nothing but Jesus Christ crucified and the Sacraments are the most eminent way of declaring this word for by Baptism we are buried into his death and by the Lords Supper we are partakers of his death we communicate with the Lord Jesus as he is crucified but now since all belong to this that Word and that Mystery that is highest and neerest in this relation is the principal and chief of all the rest and that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is so is evident beyond all necessity of inquiry it being instituted in the vespers of the Passion it being the Sacrament of the passion a sensible representation of the breaking Christs body of the effusion of Christs blood it being by Christ himself intituled to the passion and the symbols invested with the names of his broken body and his blood poured forth and the whole ministry being a great declaration of this death of Christ and commanded to be continued until his second coming Certainly by all these it appears that this Sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation here is the publication of the great word of salvation here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ the food of our souls much more clearly than in Baptism much more effectually than in simple enunciation or preaching and declaration by words for this preaching is to strangers and infants in Christ to produce faith but this Sacramental enunciation is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ a glorying in it giving praise for it a declaring it to be done and own'd and accepted and prevailing The consequent of these things is this That if any Mystery Rite or Sacrament be effective of any spiritual blessings then this is much more as having the prerogative and illustrious principality above every thing else in its own kind or of any other-kind in exteriour or interiour Religion I name them both because as in Baptism the water alone does nothing but the inward cooperation with the outward oblation does save us yet to Baptism the Scriptures attribute the effect so it is in this sacred solemnity the external act is indeed nothing but obedience and of it self only declares Christs death in rite and ceremony yet the worthy communicating of it does indeed make us feed upon Christ and unites him to the soul and makes us to become one spirit according to the words of S. Ambrose Ideo in similitudinem quidem accipis sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequeris thou recâ—ivâ—st the Sacrament as the similitude of Christs body but thou shalt receive the grace and the virtue of the true nature I shall not enter into so useless a discourse as to inquire whether the Sacraments confer grace by their own excellency and power with which they are endued from above because they who affirm they do require so much duty on our parts as they also do who attribute the effect to our moral disposition but neither one nor the other say true for neither the external act nor the internal grace and morality does effect our pardon and salvation but the spirit of God who blesses the symbols and assists the duty makes them holy and this acceptable Only they that attribute the efficacy to the Ministration of the Sacrament chose to magnifie the immediate work of man rather than the immediate work of God and prefer the external at least in glorious
the fruits of his passion and we shall if we abide in this union be all one body of a spiritual Church in heaven there to reign with Christ for ever Now unless we think nothing Good but what goes in at our eyes or mouth if we think there is any thing good beyond what our senses perceive we must confess this to be a real and eminent benefit and yet whatever it be it is therefore effected upon us by this Sacrament because we eat of one bread The very repeating the words of St. Paul is a satisfaction in this inquiry they are plain and easie and whatever interpretation can be put upon them it can only vary the manner of effecting the blessing and the way of the Sacramental efficacy but it cannot evacuate the blessing or confute the thing Only it is to be observed in this as in all other instances of the like nature that the grace of God in the Sacrament usually is a blessing upon our endeavours for spiritual graces and the blessings of sanctification do not grow like grasse but like corn not whether we do any husbandry or no but if we cultivate the ground then by Gods blessing the fruits will spring and make the Farmer rich if we be disposed to receive the Sacrament worthily we shall receive this fruit also Which fruit is thus expressed saying this Sacrament is therefore given unto us that the body of the Church of Christ in the earth may be joyned or united with our head which is in the heavens 3. The blessed Sacrament is of great efficacy for the remission of sins not that it hath any formal efficacy or any inherent vertue to procure pardon but that it is the ministery of the death of Christ and the application of his blood which blood was shed for the remission of sins and is the great means of impetration and as the Schools use to speak is the meritorious cause of it For there are but two wayes of applying the death of Christ an internal grace and an external ministery Faith is the inward applicatory and if there be any outward at all it must be the Sacraments and both of them are of remarkable vertue in this particular for by baptisme we are baptized into the death of Christ and the Lords supper is an appointed enunciation and declaration of Christs death and it is a Sacramental participation of it Now to partake of it Sacramentally is by Sacrament to receive it that is so to apply it to us as that can be applyed it brings it to our spirit it propounds it to our faith it represents it as the matter of Eucharist it gives it as meat and drink to our souls and rejoyces in it in that very formality in which it does receive it viz as broken for as shed for the remission of our sins Now then what can any man suppose a Sacrament to be and what can be meant by sacramental participation for unless the Sacraments do communicate what they relate to they are no communion or communication at all for it is true that our mouth eats the material signs but at the same time faith eats too and therefore must eat that is must partake of the thing signified faith is not maintained by ceremonies the body receives the body of the mystery we eat and drink the symbols with our mouths but faith is not corporeal but feeds upon the mystery it self it entertains the grace and enters into that secret which the spirit of God conveyes under the signature Now since the mystery is perfectly and openly expressed to be the remission of sins if the soul does the work of the soul as the body the work of the body the soul receives remission of sins as the body does the symbols of it and the Sacrament But we must be infinitely careful to remember that even the death of Christ brings no pardon to the impenitent persevering sinner but to him that repents truely so does the Sacrament of Christs death this can do no more than that and therefore let no man come with his guilt about him and in the heat and in the affections of his sin and hope to find his pardon by this ministery He that thinks so will but deceive wil but ruine himself They are excellent but very severe words which God spake to the Jews and which are a prophetical reproof of all unworthy Communicants in these divine mysteries What hath my beloved to do in my house seeing she hath wrought lâ—wdness with many The holy flesh hath passed from thee when thou doest evil that is this holy sacrifice the flesh and blood of thy Lord shall slip from thee without doing thee any good if thou hast not ceased from doing evil But the vulgar Latin reads these words much more emphatically to our purpose Shall the holy flesh take from thee thy wickedness in which thou rejoycest Deceive not thy self thou hast no part nor portion in this matter For the holy Sacrament operates indeed and consigns our pardon but not alone but in conjunction with all that Christ requires as conditions of pardon but when the conditions are present the Sacrament ministers pardon as pardon is ministred in this world that is by parts and in order to several purposes and with power of revocation by suspending the Divine wrath by procuring more graces by obtaining time of repentance and powers and possibilities of working out our salvation and by setting forward the method and Oeconomy of our salvation For in the usual methods of God pardon of sins is proportionable to our repentance which because it is all that state of Piety we have in this whole life after our first sin pardon of sins is all that effect of grace which is consequent to that repentance and the worthy receiving of the holy Communion is but one conjugation of holy actions and parts of repentance but indeed it is the best and the noblest and such in which man does best cooperate towards pardon and the grace of God does the most illustriously consign it But of these particulars I shall give full account when I shall discourse of the preparations of repentance 4. It is the greatest solemnity of prayer the most powerful Liturgy and means of impetration in this world For when Christ was consecrated on the crosse and became our High Priest having reconciled us to God by the death of the crosse he became infinitely gracious in the eyes of God and was admitted to the celestial and eternal Priesthood in heaven where in the vertue of the crosse he intercedes for us and represents an eternal sacrifice in the heavens on our behalf That he is a Priest in heaven appears in the large discourses and direct affirmatives of St. Paul that there is no other sacrifice to be offered but that on the crosse it is evident because he hath but once appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of
or to speak nothing but what is pertinent for a day or for a day not to be angry and then sometimes for two daies and so diet your weak soul with little portions of food till it be able to take in and digest a full meal Or 6. Meditate often every day of death or the day of judgment By these and the like instruments it will happen to the remains of sin as it did to the Aegyptians what is left by the Hail the Catterpiller will destroy and what the Catterpiller leaves the Locusts will eat These instruments will eat up the remains of sin as the poor gather up the gleanings after the Carts in harvest 9. But if at any Communion and in the use of these advices you do not perceive any sensible progression in the spirit of mortification or devotion then be sure to be ashamed and to be humbled for thy indisposition and slow progression in the discipline of Christ and if thou beest humbled truly for thy want of improvement it is certain thou hast improved And if you come with fear and trembling it is very probable you will come in the spirit of repentance and devotion These exercises and measures will not seem many long and tedious as the rules of art if we consider that all are not to be used at all times nor by every person but are instruments fitted to several necessities and useful when they can do good and to be used no longer â—or he that uses these or any the like advices by way of solemnity and in periodical returns will still think fit to use them at every Communion as long as he lives but he that uses them as he should that is to effect the work of reformation upon his soul may lay them all aside according to his work is done But if we would every day do something of this if we would every day prepare for the day of death or which is of a like consideration for the day of our Communion if we would every night examine our passed day and set our things in order if we would have a perpetual entercourse and conversation with God or which is better than all examinations in the world if we would actually attend to what we do and consider every action and speak so little that we might consider it we should find that upon the day of our Communion we should have nothing to do but the third particular that is the offices of Prayer and Eucharist and to renew our graces by prayer and exercises of devotion SECT IV. Devotions to be used upon the morning of the Communion 1. O Blessed Lord our gracious Saviour and Redeemer Jesus King of Kings and Lord of Lords thou art fairer than the children of men upon thee the Angels look and behold and wonder what am I O Lord that thou who fillest heaven and earth shouldst descend and desire to dwell with me who am nothing but folly and infirmity misery and sin shame and death 2. I confess O God that when I consider thy greatness and my nothing thy purity and my uncleanness thy glory and my shame I see it to be infinitely unreasonable and presumptuous that I should approach to thy sacred presence and desire to partake of thy Sacraments and to enter into thy grace and to hope for a part of thy glory But when I consider thy mercy and thy wisdome thy bounty and thy goodness thy readiness to forgive and thy desires to impart thy self unto thy servants then I am lifted up with hope then I come with boldness to the throne of grace Even so O Lord because thou hast commanded it and because thou lovest it should be so 3. It was never heard O Lord from the beginning of the world that thou didst ever despise him that called upon thee or â—orsake any man that abides in thy fear or that any person who trusted in the Lord was ever confounded But if I come to thee I bring an unworthy person to be united unto thee if I come not I shall remain unworthy for ever If I stay away I fear to lose thee If I come I fear to offend thee and that will lose thee more and my self too at last I know O God I know my sins have separated between me and my God but thy love and thy passion thy holiness and thy obedience hath reconciled us and though my sins deter me yet they make it necessary for me to come and though thy greatness amazes me yet it is so full of goodness that it invites me 4. O therefore blessed Saviour who didst for our sakes take upon thee our passions and sensibilities our weaknesses and our sufferings who wert hungry after the temptation of the Devil weary and thirsty in thy discourse with the woman of Samaria who didst weep over Lazarus wert afflicted in the garden whipt in the Consistory nail'd on the Cross pierc'd with a spear wrapp'd in liâ—nen laid in the grave and so art become a 〈◊〉 High Priest and pitiful to our infiâ—â—â—â—ieâ— be pleased to receive a weary sinner 〈◊〉 overburdâ—neâ—â—â—nscience an afflicted polluted soul iâ—to thy câ—re and conduct into thy custody and â—â—re I know that a thousand years of tears and sorrow the purity of Angels the love of Saints and the humiliation of the greatest penitent is not sufficient to make we worthy to dwell with thee to be united to thy infinity to be fed with thy body and refreshed with thy purest bloud to become bone of thy bone and flesh of thy flesh and spirit of thy spirit 5. But what I cannot be of my self let me be made by thee I come to thee wounded and bruised and bleeding for thou art my Physician arise then with healing in thy wings I am thirsty and faint as the Hart longeth after the water brooks so longeth my soul after thee O God thou art the eternal fountain from whence spring the waters of comfort and salvation I am hungry and empty and weak and I come running after thee because thou hast the words of eternal life O send me not away empty for I shall faint and die I cannot live without thee O let vertue go forth from thee and heal all my sickness do thou appear to my soul in these mysteries heal my sores purifie my stains enlighten my darkness turn me from all vain imaginations and illusions of the enemy all perverseness of will all violence and inordination of passions sensual desires and devillish angers lust and malice gluttony and pride the spirit of envy and the spirit of detraction let not sin reign in my members nor the Devil lead my will captive nor the world abuse my understanding and debauch my conversation 6. O Jesus be a Jesus unto me and let this Sacrament be a savour of life and thy holy body the bread of life and thy precious bloud the purifier of my sinful life Grant I may receive these Divine mysteries for the amendment of my
what excellencies he preach'd what wisdom he taught what life he liv'd what death he died what Mysteries he hath appointed by what ministeries he conveys himself to thee what rare arts he uses to save thee and after all that he intercedes for thee perpetually in heaven presenting to his heavenly Father that great Sacrifice of himself which he finished on the Cross and commands thee to imitate in this Divine and Mysterious Sacrament and in the midst of these thoughts and proportionable exercises and devotions address thy self to the solemnities and blessings of the day 5. Throw away with great diligence and severity all unholy and all earthly thoughts and think the thoughts of heaven for when Christ descends he comes attended with innumerable companies of Angels who all behold and wonder who love and worship Jesus and in this glorious imployment and society let thy thoughts be pure and thy mind celestial and thy work Angelical and thy spirit full of love and thy heart of wonder thy mouth all praises investing and incircling thy prayers as a bright cloud is adorned with fringes and margents of light 6. When thou seest the holy man minister dispute no more inquire no more doubt no more be divided no more but believe and behold with the eyes of faith and of the spirit that thou seest Christs body broken upon the Cross that thou seest him bleeding for thy sins that thou feedest upon the food of elect souls that thou puttest thy mouth to the hole of the rock that was smitten to the wound of the side of thy Lord which being pierced streamed forth Sacraments and life and holiness and pardon and purity and immortality upon thee 7. When the words of Institution are pronounced all the Christians us'd to say Amen giving their consent confesâ—ing that faith believing that word rejoicing in that Mystery which is told us when the Minister of the Sacrament in the person of Christ says This is my body This is my blood This body was broken for you and this blood was poured forth for you and all this for the remission of your sins And remember that the guilt of eternal damnation which we have all incurr'd was a great and an intolerable evil and unavoidable if such miracles of mercy had not been wrought to take it quite away and that it was a very great love which would work such glorious mercy rather than leave us in so intolerable a condition A greater love than this could not be and a less love than this could not have rescued us 8. When the holy Man reaches forth his hands upon the Symbols and prays over them and intercedes for the sins of the people and breaks the holy bread and pours forth the sacred calice place thy self by faith and meditation in heaven and see Christ doing in his glorious manner this very thing which thou seest ministred and imitated upon the Table of the Lord and then remember that it is impossible thou shouldest miss of eternal blessings which are so powerfully procur'd for thee by the Lord himself unless thou wilt despise all this and neglect so great salvation and chusest to eat with swine the dirty pleasures of the earth rather than thus to feast with Saints and Angels and to eat the body of thy Lord with a clean heart and humble affections 9. When the consecrating and ministring hand reaches forth to thee the holy Symbols say within thy heart as did the Centurion Lord I am not worthy but entertain thy Lord as the women did the news of the resurrection with fear and great joy or as the Apostles with rejoycing and singleness of heart that is clear certain and plain believing and with exultation and delight in the loving kindness of the Lord. 10. But place thy self upon thy knees in the humblest and devoutest posture of worshippers and think not much in the lowest manner to worship the King of Men and Angels the Lord of heaven and earth the great lover of souls and the Saviour of the body him whom all the Angels of God worship him whom thou confessest worthy of all and whom all the world shall adore and before whom they shall tremble at the day of judgment For if Christ be not there after a peculiar manner whom or whose body do we receive But if he be present to us not in mystery only but in blessing also why do we not worship But all the Christians always did so from time immemorial No man eats this flesh unless he first adores said S. Austin For the wise men and the Barbarians did worship this body in the manger with very much fear and reverence let us therefore who are Citizens of heaven at least not fall short of the Barbarians But thou seest him not in the Manger but on the Altar and thou beholdest him not in the Virgins arms but represented by the Priest and brought to thee in Sacrifice by the holy Spirit of God So. St. Chrysostome argues and accordingly this reverence is practised by the Churches of the East and West and South by the Christians of India by all the Greeks as appears in their answer to the Cardinal of Guise by all the Lutheran Churches by all the world saâ—es Erasmus only now of late some have excepted themselves But the Church of England chooses to follow the reason and the piety of the thing it self the example of the Primitive Church and the consenting voice of Christendome And if it be irreverent to sit in the sight and before the face of him whom you ought to revere how much more in the presence of the living God where the Angel the president of prayer does stand must it needs be a most irreligious thing to sit unless we shall upbraid to God that our prayers to him have wearied us It is the argument of Tertullian To which many of the Fathers add many other fair inducements but I think they cannot be necessary to be produced here because all Christians generally kneel when they say their prayers and when they bless God anâ— I suppose no man communicates but he does both and therefore needs no oâ—her inducement to perswade him to kneel especially since Christ himself and St. Stephen and â—he Apostle St. Paul used that posture in their devotions that or lower for St. Paul kneeled upon the shore and our Lord himself fell prostrate on the earth But to them that refuse I shall only use the words of Scripture which the Fathers of the Council of Turon applied to this particular Why art thou proud O dust and ashes And when Christ opens his heart and gives us all that we need or can desire it looks like an ill return if we shall dispute with him concerning the humility of a gesture and a circumstance 11. When thou dost receive thy Lord do thou also receive thy Brother into thy heart and into thy bowels Thy Lord relieves thee
it self indeed shall have what reward God please to apportion to it as it is obedience yet of it self it hath no other worthiness it is not so much as an argument of persuasion for the pouring forth of wine can no more prove or make faith that Christs blood was poured forth for us than the drinking the wine can effect this persuasion in us that we naturally though under a vail drink the natural blood of Christ which the Angels gathered as it ran into golden phials and Christ multiplied to a miracle like the loaves and fishes in the Gospel But because nothing that naturally remains the same in all things as it was before can do any thing that it could not do before the Bread and wine which have no natural change can effect none and therefore we are not to look for an egge where there is nothing but order and a blessing where there is nothing but an action and a real effect where there is nothing but an analogy a Sacrament a mystical representment and something fit to signify and many things past but nothing that is to come This is the sense and discourse of some persons that call for an express word or a manifest reason to the contrary or else resolve that their belief shall be as unactive as the Scriptures are silent in the effects of this mystery Only these men will allow the Sacraments to be marks of Christianity symbols of mutual Charity testimonies of a thankful mind to God allegorical admonitions of Christian mortification and spiritual alimony symbols of grace conferred before the Sacrament and rites instituted to stir up faith by way of object and representation that is occasionally and morally but neither by any Divine or physical by natural or supernatural power by the work done or by the Divine institution This indeed is something but very much too little But others go as far on the other hand and affirm that in the Blessed Sacrament we receive the body and blood of Christ we chew his flesh we drink his blood for his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed and this is the Manna which came down from heaven our bodies are nourished our souls united to Christ and the Sacrament is the infallible instrument of pardon to all persons that do not maliciously hinder it and it produces all its effects by vertue of the Sacrament it self so appointed and that the dispositions of the Communicants are only for removing obstacles and impediments but effect nothing the sumption of the Mysteries does all in a capable subject as in infants who do nothing in penitents who take away what can hinder for it is nothing but Christ himself the body that dyed upon the crosse is broken in the hand of him that ministers and by the teeth of him that communicates and when God gives us his Son in this Divine and glorious manner with heaps of miracles to verify heaps of blessings how shall not he with him give us all things else They who teach this doctrine call the holy Sacrament The host the unbloody sacrifice the flesh of God the body of Christ God himself the Mass the Sacrament of the Altar I cannot say that this is too much but that these things are not true and although all that is here said that is of any material benefit and reall blessing is true yet the blessing is not so conferred it is not so produced A third sort of Christians speak indefinitely and gloriously of this Divine mystery they speak enough but they cannot tell what they publish great and glorious effects but such which they gather by similitude and analogy such which they desire but cannot prove which indeed they feel but know not whence they do derive them they are blessings which come in company of the Sacraments but are not alwayes to be imputed to them they confound spiritual senses with mystical expressions and expound mysteries to natural significations that is they mean well but do not alwayes understand that part of Christian Philosophy which explicates the secret nature of this Divine Sacrament and the effect of it is this that they sometimes put too great confidence in the mystery and look for impresses which they find not and are sometimes troubled that their experience does not answer to their Sermons and meet with scruples instead of comforts and doubts instead of rest and anxiety of mind in the place of a serene and peaceful conscience But these men both in their right and in their wrong enumerate many glories of the holy Sacrament which they usually signifie in these excellent appellatives calling it the Supper of the Lord the bread of elect souls and the wine of Angels the Lords body the New Testament and the calice of benediction spiritual food the great Supper the Divinest and Archisymbolical feast the banquet of the Church the celestial dinner the spiritual the sacred the mystical the formidable the rational Table the supersubstantial bread the bread of God the bread of life the Lords mystery the great mystery of salvation the Lords Sacrament the Sacrament of piety the sign of unity the contesseration of the Christian communion the Divine grace the Divine making grace the holy thing the desirable the comunication of Good the perfâ—ction and consummation of a Christian the holy particles the gracious symbols the holy gifts the Sacrifice of commemoration the intellectual and mystical good the hereditary donative of the New Testament the Sacrament of the Lords body the Sacrament of the Calice the Paschal Oblation the Christian pasport the mystery of perfection the great Oblation the Worship of God the life of Souls the Sacrament of our price and our Redemption and some few others much to the same purposes all which are of great and useful signification and if the explications and consequent propositions were as justifiable as the titleâ— themselves are sober and useful they would be apt only for edification and to minister to the spirit of devotion That therefore is to be the design of the present Meditations to represent the true and proper and mysterious nature of this divine nutriment of our souls to account what are the blessings God reacheth forth to us in the Mysteries and what returns of duty he expects from all to whom he gives his most holy Son I shall only here add the names and appellatives which the Scripture gives to these Mysteries and place it as a part of the foundation of the following doctrines It is by the Spirit of God called The bread that is broken and the cup of blessing the breaking of bread the body and blood of the Lord the communication of his body and the communication of his blood the feast of charity or love the Lords Table and the Supper of the Lord. Whatsoever is consequent to these titles we can safely own and our faith may dwell securely and our devotion like a pure flame with these may feed as with
a holy faith So that it can without difficulty be understood that as in receiving the word and the spirit illuminating us in our first conversion we do truely feed on the flesh and drink the blood of Christ who is the bread that came down from heaven so we do it also and do it much more in baptisme because in this besides all that was before there was superadded a rite of Gods appointment The difference is only this That out of the Sacrament the spirit operates with the word in the ministery of man in Baptisme the spirit operates with the word in the ministery of God For here God is the preacher the Sacrament is Gods sign and by it he ministers life to us by the flesh and blood of his Son that is by the death of Christ into which we are baptized And in the same Divine method the word and the spirit are ministred to us in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For as in Baptisme so here also there is a word proper to the ministery So often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye declare the Lords death till he come This indeed is a word of comfort Christ died for our sins that is our repentance which was consigned in baptisme shall be to purpose we shall be washed white and clean in the blood of the sacrificed Lamb. This is verbum visibile the same word read to the eye and to the ear Hear the word of God is made our food in a manner so near to our understanding that our tongues and palats feel the Metaphor and the Sacramental signification here faith is in triumph and exaltation but as in all the other ministeries Evangelical we eat Christ by faith here we have faith also by eating Christ Thus eating and drinking is faith it is faith in mystery and faith in ceremony it is faith in act and faith in habit it is exercised and it is advanced and therefore it is certain that here we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ with much eminency and advantage The sum is this Christs body his flesh and his blood are therefore called our meat and our drink because by his incarnation and manifestation in the flesh he became life unto us So that it is mysterious indeed in the expression but very proper and intelligible in the event to say that we eat his flesh and drink his blood since by these it is that we have and preserve life But because what Christ begun in his incarnation he finished in his body on the crosse and all the whole progression of mysteries in his body was still an operatory of life and spiritual being to us the Sacrament of the Lords Supper being a commemoration and exhibition of this death which was the consummation of our redemption by his body and blood does contain in it a visible word the word in symbol and visibility and special manifestation Consonant to which Docrtine the Fathers by an elegant expression call the blessed Sacrament the extension of the Incarnation So that here are two things highly to be remarked 1. That by whatsoever way Christ is taken out of the Sacrament by the same he is taken in the Sacrament and by some wayes here more than there 2. That the eating and drinking the consecrated symbols is but the body and lesser part of the Sacrament the life and the spirit is believing greatly and doing all the actions of that believing direct and consequent So that there are in this two manducations and Sacramental and the Spiritual That does but declare and exercise this and of the sacramental manducation as it is alone as it is a ceremony as it does only consigne or expresse the internal it is true to affirm that it is only an act of obedience but all the blessings and conjugations of joy which come to a worthy Communicant proceed from that spiritual eating of Christ which as it is done out of the Sacrament very well so in it and with it much better For here being as in baptisme a double significatory of the spirit a word and a sign of his own appointment it is certain he will joyn in this Ministration Here we have bread and drink flesh and blood the word and the spirit Christ in all his effects and most gracious communications This is the general account of the nature and purpose of this great mystery Christians are spiritual men faith is their mouth and wisdom is their food and believing is manducation and Christ is their life and truth is the Air they breath and their bread is the word of God and Gods spirit is their drink and righteousness is their robe and Gods laws are their light and the Apostles are their salt and Christ is to them all in all for we must put on Christ and we must eat Christ and we must drink Christ we must have him within us and we must be in him he is our vine and we are his branches he is a door and by him we must enter he is our shepherd and we his sheep Deus meus omnia he is our God and he is all things to us that is plainly he is our Redeemer and he is our Lord He is our Saviour and our Teacher by his Word and by his Spirit he brings us to God and to felicities eternal and that is the sum of all For greater things than these we can neither receive nor expect But these things are not consequent to the reception of the natural body of Christ which is now in heaven but of his Word and of his Spirit which are therefore indeed his body and his blood because by these we feed on him to life eternal Now these are indeed conveyed to us by the several ministries of the Gospel but especially in the Sacraments where the Word is preached and consigned and the Spirit is the teacher and the feeder and makes the Table full and the Cup to overflow with blessing SECT III. That in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper there are represented and exhibited many great blessings upon the special account of that sacred ministery proved in General IN explicating the Nature of this Divine mystery in general as I have manifested the nature and operations and the whole ministery to be spiritual and that not the natural body and blood of Christ is received by the mouth but the word and the spirit of Christ by faith and a spiritual hand and upon this account have discovered their mistake who think the secret lies in the outside and suppose that we tear the natural flesh of Christ with our mouthes So I have by consequent explicated the secret which others indefinitely and by conjecture and zeal do speak of and know not what to say but resolve to speak things great enough it remains now that I consider for the satisfaction of those that speak things too contemptible of these holy mysteries who say it is nothing but a commemoration of
produce you ought not to esteem it strange and impossible for how earthly and mortal things are converted into the substance of Christ ask thy self who art regenerated in Christ Not long since thou wast a stranger from life a pilgrim and wanderer from mercy and being inwardly dead thou wert banished from the way of life On a sudden being initiated in the laws of Christ and renewed by the Mysteries of Salvation thou didst passe suddenly into the body of the Church not by seeing but by believing and from a son of perdition thou hast obtained to be adopted a son of God by a secret purity remaining in a visible measure thou art invisibly made greater than thy self without any increase of quantity thou art the same thou wert and yet very much another person in the progression of Faith to the outward nothing is added but the inward is wholly changed and so a man is made the son of Christ and Christ is formed in the mind of a man As therefore suddenly without any bodily perception the former vileness being laid down on the sudden thou hast put on a new dignity and this that God hath done that he hath cured thy wounds washed off thy staines wiped away thy spots is trusted to thy discerning not thy eyes so when thou ascendest the reverend altar to be satisfied with spiritual food by faith regard honour admire the holy body of God touch it with thy mind take it with the hand of thy heart even with the draught of the whole inward man SECT V. Practical conclusions from the preceding Discourses THe first I represent in the words of St. Augustin who reduces this whole doctrine to practice in these excellent words let this whole affair thus far prevail with us that we may eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ not only in the Sacrament which many evil persons doe but let us eat and drink unto the participation of the spirit that as members we may abide in the Lords body that we may be quickened by his spirit and let us not be scandalized because many do temporally eat and drink with us who yet in the end shall find eternal torments that is let us remember that the exteriour ministery is the least part of it and externally and alone it hath in it nothing excellent as being destitute of the sanctity that God requires and the grace that he does promise and it is common to wicked men and good but when the signs and the thing signified when the prayers of the Church and the spirit of God the word and the meaning the sacrament and the grace do concur then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a venerable cup and full of power and more honourable than all our possessions it is a holy thing saith Origen and appointed for our sanctification For Christ in the Sacrament is Christ under a vail as without the hand of faith we cannot take Christ so we must be sure to look here with an eye of faith and whatsoever glorious thing is said of the holy Sacrament it must be understood of the whole Sacrament body and spirit that is the Sacramental and the spiritual Communion 2. Let no man be lesse confident in his holy faith and persuasion concerning the great blessings and glorious effects which God designs to every faithful and obedient soul in the communication of these Divine mysteries by reason of any difference of judgement which is in the several Schools of Christians concerning the effects and consequent blessings of this Sacrament For all men speak honourable things of it except wicked persons and the scorners of Religion and though of several persons like the beholders of a dove walking in the sun as they stand in several aspects and distances some see red and others purple and yet some perceive nothing but green but all allow and love the beauties so do the several forms of Christians according as they are instructed by their first teachers or their own experience conducted by their fancy and proper principles look upon these glorious mysteries some as vertually containing the reward of obedience some as solemnities of thanksgiving and records of blessings some as the objective increasers of faith others as the Sacramental participations of Christ others as the acts instruments of natural union yet all affirm some great things or other of it and by their differences confesse the immensity and the glory For thus Manna represented to every man the taste that himself did like but it had in its own potentiality all those tasts and dispositions eminently and altogether those feasters could speak of great and many excellencies and all confessed it to be enough and to be the food of Angels so it is here it is that to every mans faith which his faith wisely apprehends and though there are some who are of little faith and such receive but a less proportion of nourishment yet by the very use of this Sacrament the appetite will increase and the apprehensions grow greater and the faith will be more confident and instructed and then we shall see more and feel more For this holy nutriment is not only food but physick too and although to him who believes great things of his Physitian and of his medicine it is apt to do the more advantage yet it will do its main work even when we understand it not and nothing can hinder it but direct infidelity or some of its foul and deformed ministers 3. They who receive the blessed Sacrament must not suppose that the blessings of it are effected as health is by physick or warmth by the contact and neighbourhood of fire but as musick one way affects the soul and witty discourses another and joyful tidings a way differing from both the former so the operations of the Sacrament are produced by an energy of a nature intirely differing from all things else But however it is done the thing that is done is this no grace is there improved but what we bring along with us no increases but what we exercise we must bring faith along with us and God will increase our faith we must come with charity and we shall go away with more we must come with truly penitential hearts and to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly he shall be a better penitent when he hath eaten the sacrifice that was slain for our sins and died in the body that we might live in the spirit and die no more For he is the bread from heaven he is the grain of wheat which falling into the earth unless it dies it remains alone but if it dies it brings forth fruit and brings it forth abundantly 4. Although the words the names and sayings concerning the Blessed Sacrament are mysterious and inexplicable yet they do nay therefore weare sure they signifie some great thing they are in the very expression beyond our understanding therefore much more are
reason to think your selves prepared than by all the extempore piety and solemn Religion that rises at the sound of a Bell and keeps her time by the Calendar of the Church more than by the laws of God This is not so to be understood as if it were not fit that against a solemn time and against a communion day our souls should be more adorned and our lamps better dressed and our lights snuffed and our Religion more active and the habits of grace should exercise more acts But this is meant only that though the acts of virtue are not so frequent on ordinary dayes yet there must be no act of vice upon them at all and the habits of grace must be the same and the inclinations regular and the disposition ready and the desires prest and you shall better know the estate of your soul by examining how you converse with your Merchant than by considering how cautiously you converse with your Priest He that talks to a Prince will talk as wisely as he can but if you will know what the man is inquire after him in his house and how he is with all his relations For no man stands upon his Guard alwayes as he does sometimes If therefore upon examining you would understand what you are examine your self not by your cloaths but by your body not by the extraordinaries of a solemn religion but by the ordinaries of a daily conversation These are the best Signs I can tell of but they are to be made use of with the following cautions 1. Although in trying whether your resolutions are likely to hold and your affections to sin are gone you must not rely upon words but place your self in the scene and circumstances of your temptation and try whether you be likely to hold out when sin comes with all the offers of advantage yet be carefull that this examination of your own strength against temptation become not a temptation to you and this is especially to be attended to in the matter of lust and fear For the very imaginations of a lustfull object are of themselves a direct temptation and he that dresses his fancie with remembrances of this vanitie opens a door to let the sin in Murenia's little boy being afraid of the wolf at the door opened the door to see if he were gone and let the beast in and since the fancy is the proper scene of lust he that brings the temptation there brings it where it can best prevail Therefore in our examination concerning this evil and whether we be likely to stand in this war we are to examine our selves only whether we are perfectly resolved to fly and not to fight that is whether we will secure our selves by the proper arts of the spirit of prudence for if any thing can make us come neer this Devil we are lost without remedy The temptations in the matter of fear are something like it if you will examine whether you love God so well that you would dye for him inquire as well and wisely as you can but be not too particular Satisfie your self with a general answer and rest in this if you finde that the apprehension of death is not so great as the apprehension of sin if you pray against fear and heap up arguments to confirm your courage and your hope if you finde that you despise those instances of persecution that you meet with for the rest believe in God who it may be will not give strengths before you need them and therefore be satisfied with thus much that your present strength is sufficient for any present trial and when a greater comes God hath promised to give you more strength when you shall have need of more But examine your self by what is likely to fall upon you actually It may be you have cause to fear that you shall be made poor for a good conscience or imprisoned for your duty or banished for religion consider if you love God so well that you are likely to suffer that which is likely to happen to you but do not dress your examination with rare contingencies and unlikely accidents and impossible cases Do not ask your self whether you would endure the rack for God or the application of burning Basons to your eyes or the torment of a slow fire or whether you had rather go to hell than commit a sin this is too phantastick a trial and when God it may be knowing your weakness will never put you to it really do not you tempt your self by fancy and an afflictive representment Domitian was a cruel man false and bloody and to be neer him was a perpetual danger enough to try the constancy of the bravest Roman But once that he might be wanton in his cruelty he invited the chiefest of the Patricii to Supper who coming in obedience and fear enough entred into a Court all hanged with blacks and from thence were conducted into dining rooms by the Pollinctors who used to dress the bodies unto Funerals the lights of heaven we may suppose were quite shut out by the approaching night and arts of obscurity when they were in those charnel houses for so they seemed every one was placed in order a black Pillar or Coffin set by him and in it a dim taper besmeared with brimstone that it might burn faint and blew and solemn where when they had stood a while like designed sacrifices or as if the Prince were sending them on solemn Embassie to his brother the Prince of Darkness on a sudden entred so many naked Black-Moors or Children besmear'd with the horrid juice of the sepia who having danced a little in phantastick and Devils postures retired a while and then returned serving up a banquet as at solemn funerals and Wine brought to them in Urnes instead of Goblets with deepest silence now and then interrupted with fearful groans and shriekings Here the Senators who possibly could have strugled with the abstracted thoughts of death seeing it dressed in all the fearful imagerie and Ceremonies of the grave had no powers of Philosophy or Roman courage but falling into a lipothymie or deep swooning made up this pageantry of death with a representing of it unto the life This scene of sorrows was over-acted and it was a witty cruelty to kill a wise man by making him too imaginative and phantastical It is not good to break a staffe by too much trying the strength of it or to undo a mans soul by a useless and so phantastick a temptation For he that tries himself further than he hath need of is like Palaemons shepherd who fearing the foot-bridge was not strong enough to try it loaded it so long till by his unequal trial he broke that which would have born a bigger burden than he had to carry over it Some things will better suffer a long usage than an unequal trial 2. When any man hath by the former measures examined himself how his affections do stand to sin and folly
delicious because we dote upon mushromes and colliquintida But as Manna was given in the desart and it became pleasant when they had nothing else to eat So it is in â—he sweetnesses of Religion we cannot live by faith and rejoyce in the banquets of our Saviour unlesse our souls dwell in the wilderness that is where the pleasures and appetites of â—he world may not prepossesse our palates and debauch our reasonings And this was mysterioâ—sly spoken by the Psalmist The broad places of the wilderness shall wax fat and the hills shall be enâ—ircled with joy that is whatsoever â—s barren and desolate not full of the things and affections of the world shall be inebriated with the pleasures of Religion and rejoyce in Sacraments in faith and holy expectations But the love of mony and the love of pleasures are the intrigues and fetters to the understanding but he only is a faithful man who restrains his passions and despises the world and rectifies his love that he may believe a right and put that value upon Religion as that it become the satisfaction of our spirit and the great object of all our passionate desires pride and prejudice are the Parents of misbelief but humility and contempt of the world first bear faith upon their knees and then upon their hands SECT V. Of the proper and Specifick work of Faith in the reception of the holy Communion HEre I am to enquire into two practical questions 1. What stresse is to be put upon faith in this Mystery that is how much is every one bound to believe in the article of this Sacrament before he can be accounted competently prepared in his understanding and by his faith 2. What is the use of faith in the reception of the Blessed Sacrament and in what sense and to what purposes and with what truth it is said that in the holy Sacrament we receive Christ by faith How much every man is bound to believe of this mystery If I should follow the usual opinions I should say that to this preparatory faith it is necessary to believe all the niceties and mysteriousnesse of the blessed Sacrament Men have introduced new opinions and turned the key in this lock so often till it cannot be either opened or shut and they have unravel'd the clue so long till they have intangled it and not only reason is made blind by staring at what she never can perceive but the whole article of the Sacrament is made an objection and temptation even to faith it self and such things are taught by some Churches and some Schooles of learning which no Philosophy did ever teach no Religion ever did reveal no prophet ever preach and which no faith ever can receive I mean it in the prodigious article of Transubstantiation which I am not here to confute but to reprove upon practical considerations and to consider those things that may make us better and not strive to prevail in disputation That therefore we may know the proper offices of faith in the believing what relates to the holy Sacrament I shall describe it in several propositions 1. It cannot be the duty of faith to believe any thing against our sense what we see and taste to be bread what we see and taste and smell to be wine no faith can engage us to believe the contrary For by our senses Christianity it self and some of the greatest Articles of our belief were known by them who from that evidence conveyed them to us by their testimony and if the perception of sense were not finally to be relied upon Miracles could never be a demonstration nor any strange event prove an unknown proposition for the Miracle can never prove the Article unless our eyes or hands approve the miracle and the Divinity of Christs person and his mission and his power could never have been proved by the Resurrection but that the resurrection was certain and evident to the eyes and hands of so many witnesses Thus Christ to his Apostles proved himself to be no spirit by exposing his flesh and bones to be felt and he wrought faith in St. Thomas by his fingers ends the wounds that he saw and felt were the demonstrations of his faith and in the Primitive Church the Valentinians and Marcionites who said Christs body was phantastical were confused by no other argument but of sense For sense is the evidence of the simple and the confirmation of the wise it can confute all pretences and reprove all deceitful subtilties it turns opinion into knowledge and doubts into certainty it is the first endearment of love and the supply of all understanding from what we see without we know what to believe within and no demonstration in the world can be greater than the evidence of sense Our senses are the great arguments of vertue and vice and if it be not safe to rely upon that evidence we cannot tell what pleasure and pain is and a man that is born blind may as well have the true idea of colours as we could have of pain if our senses could not tell us certainly and all those arguments from heaven by which God prevails upon all the world as Oracles and Vrim and Thummim and still voices and loud thunders and the daughter of a voice and messages from above and Prophets on earth and lights and Angels all were nothing for faith could not come by hearing if our hearing might be illusion That therefore which all the world relies upon for their whole Religion that which to all the world is the great means and instrument of the glorification of God even our seeing of the works of God and eating his provisions and beholding his light that which is the great ministery of life and the conduit of good and evil to us we may rely upon for this article of the Sacrament what our faith relies upon in the whole she may not contradict in this Tertullian said that It is not only unreasonable but unlawful to contradict the testimony of our sense lest the same question be made of Christ himself lest it be suspected that he also might be deceived when he heard his Fathers voice from heaven That therefore which we see upon our Altars and Tables that which the Priest handles that which the Communicant does taste is bread and wine our senses tell us that it is so and therefore faith cannot be enjoined to believe it not to be so Faith gives a new light to the soul but it does not put our eyes out and what God hath given us in our nature could never be intended as a snare to Religion or to engage us to believe a lie Faith sees more in the Sacrament than the eye does and tastes more than the tongue does but nothing against it and as God hath not two wills contradictory to each other so neither hath he given us two notices and perceptions of objects whereof the one is affirmative and the other
and so requiring us to understand 4. And now to this spiritual food must be sitted a spiritual manner of reception and this is the work of faith that spiritual blessings may invest the spirit and be conveyed by proportioned instruments lest the Sacrament be like a treasure in a dead hand or musick in the grave But this I chuse rather to represent in the words of the Fathers of the Church than mine own We see saith St. Epiphanius what our Saviour took into his hands as the Gospel says he arose at supper and took this anâ— when he had given thanks he said This is my body and we see it is not equal nor like to it neither to the invisible Deity nor to the flesh for this is of a round form without sense but by grace he would say This is mine and every one hath faith in this saying For he that doth not believe this to be true as he hath said he is fallen from grace and salvation But that which we have heard that we believe that it is his And again The bread indeed is our food but the virtue which is in it is that which gives us life by faith and efficacy by hope and the perfection of the Mysteries and by the title of sanctification it should be made to us the perfection of salvation For these words are spirit and life and the flesh pierces not into the understanding of this depth unlesse faith come But then The bread is food the blood is life the flesh is substance the body is the Church For the body is indeed shewn it is slain and given for the nourishment of the world that it may be spiritually distributed to every one and be made to every one the conservatory of them to the resurrection of eternal life saith St. Athanasius Therefore because Christ said This is my body let us not at all doubt but believe and receive it with the eye of the soul for nothing sensible is delivered us but by sensible things he gives us insensible or spiritual so St. Chrysostom For Christ would not that they who partake of the divine Mysteries should attend to the nature of the things which are seen but let them by faith believe the change that is made by grace For according to the substance of the creatures it remains after consecration the same it did before But it is changed inwardly by the powerful vertue of the holy Spirit and faith sees it it feeds the soul and ministers the substance of eternal life for now faith sees it all whatsoever it is From these excellent words we are confirmed in these two things 1. That the divine Mysteries are of very great efficacy and benefit to our souls 2. That Faith is the great instrument in conveying these blessings to us For as St. Cyprian affirms the Sacraments of themselves cannot be without their own vertue and the divine Majesty does at no hand absent it self from the Mysteries But then unless by faith we believe all this that Christ said there is nothing remaining but the outward Symbols and the sense of flesh and blood which profits nothing But to believe in Christ is to eat the flesh of Christ. I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall not hunger that is he shall be filled with Christ and he that believeth in me shall not thirst coming to Christ and believing in him is the same thing that is he that believes Christs Words and obeys his Commandments he that owns Christ for his Law-giver and his Master for his Lord and his Redeemer he who lays down his sins in the grave of Jesus and lays down himself at the foot of the Crosse and his cares at the door of the Temple and his sorrows at the Throne of Grace he who comes to Christ to be instructed to be commanded to be relieved and to be comforted to this person Christ gives his body and blood that is food from heaven And then the bread of life and the body of Christ and eating his flesh and drinking his blood are nothing else but mysterious and Sacramental expressions of this great excellency that whoever does this shall partake of all the benefits of the Crosse of Christ where his body was broken and his blood was poured forth for the remission of our sins and the salvation of the world But still that I may use the expression of St. Ambrose Christ is handled by faith he is seen by faith he is not touched by the body he is not comprehended by the eyes 5. But all the inquiry is not yet past For thus we rightly understand the mysterious Propositions but thus we do not fully understand the mysterious Sacrament For since coming to Christ in all the addresses of Christian Religion that is in all the ministeries of faith is eating of the body and drinking the blood of Christ what does faith in the reception of the blessed Sacrament that it does not do without it Of this I have already given an account But here I am to add That in the holy Communion all the graces of a Christian all the mysteries of the Religion are summ'd up as in a divine compendium and whatsoever moral or mysterious is done without is by a worthy Communicant done more excellently in this divine Sacrament for here we continue the confession of our faith which we made in Baptism here we perform in our own persons what then was undertaken for us by another here that is made explicit which was but implicit before what then was in the root is now come to a full year what was at first done in mystery alone is now done in mystery and moral actions and vertuous excellencies together here we do not only here the words of Christ but we obey them we believe with the heart and here we confesse with the mouth and we act with the hand and incline the head and bow the knee and give our heart in sacrifice here we come to Christ and Christ comes to us here we represent the death of Christ as he would have us represent it and remember him as he commanded us to remember him here we give him thanks and here we give him our selves here we defie all the works of darknesse and hither we come to be invested with a robe of light by being joined to the Son of Righteousnesse to live in his eyes and to walk by his brightnesse and to be refreshed with his warmth and directed by his spirit and united to his glories So that if we can receive Christs body and drink his blood out of the Sacrament much more can we do it in the Sacrament For this is the chief of all the Christian Mysteries and the union of all Christian Blessings and the investiture of all Christian Rights and the exhibition of the Charter of all Christian Promises and the exercise of all Christian Duties Here is the exercise
Soter exhorted all persons to receive upon the day of the Institution or the vespers of the Passion he excepted those who were forbidden because they had committed any grievous sin But what was the Doctrine and what were the usages of the Primitive Church in the ministery of the Blessed Sacrament appears plainly in the two Epistles of St. Basil to Amphilochius in the Canons of Ancyra those of Peter of Alexandria Gregory Thaumaturgus and Nyssâ—en which make up the Penitential of the Greek Church and are explicated by Balsamo in which we find sometimes the penance of two years imposed for a single theft four years and seven years for an act of uncleannesse eleven years for perjury fifteen years for adultery and incest that is such persons were for so many years sepâ—rate from the Communion and by a holy life and strict observances of penitential impositions were to give testimony of their contrition and amends The like to which are to be seen in the Penitentials of the Western Church that of Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury that of venerable Bede the old Roman and that of Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz The reason of which severity we find thus accounted in St. Basil All this is done that they may try the fruits of their repentance For we do not judge of these things by the time but by the manner of their repentance For the Bishop had power to shorten the days of their separation and abstention and he that was an excellent penitent was much sooner admitted but by the injunction of so long a trial they declar'd that much purification was necessary for such an address And if after or in these penitential years of abstention they did not mend their lives though they did perform their penances they were not admitted These were but the Churches signs by other accidents and manifestations if it hapned that a great contrition was signified or a secret incorrigibility became publick the Church would admit the first sooner and the latter not at all For it was purity and holinesse that the Church required of all her Communicants and what measure of it she required we find thus testified The faithful which hath been regenerated by baptism ought to be nourished by the participation of the divine Mysteries and being cloathed with Jesus Christ and having the quality of a child of God he ought to receive the nutriment of life eternal which the Son of God himself hath given us and this nutriment is obedience to the word of God and execution of his will of which Jesus Christ hath said Man lives not by bread alone but my meat is to do my Fathers will and a little after he affirms that whereas St. Paul saith that Jesus Christ hath appointed us to eat his body in memory of his death the true remembrance which we ought to have of his death is to place before our eyes that which the Apostle saith that we were wholly dead and Jesus Christ died for us to the end that we should no more live unto our selves but to him alone and that so we should do him honour and give him thanks for his death by the purity of our life without which we engage our selves in a terrible damnation if we receive the Eucharist And again He that not having this charity which presses us and causes us to live for him who died for us dares approach to the Eucharist grieves the holy Spirit For it is necessary that he who comes to the memorial of Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us should not only be clean from all impurity of flesh and spirit but that he should demonstrate the death of him who died and rose for us by being dead unto sin to the world and to himself and that he lives no more but only to God through Jesus Christ. And therefore St. Cyprian complains as of a new and worse persecution that lapsed persons are admitted to the Communion before they have brought forth fruits of a worthy repentance and affirms that such an admission of sinners is to them as hail to the young fruits as a blasting wind to the trees as the murren to the cattel as a tempest to the ships The ships are overturned and broken the fruits fall the trees are blasted the cattel die and the poor sinner by being admitted too soon to the ministeries of eternal life falls into eternall death And if we put together some words of Sâ— Ambrose they clearly declare this Doctrine and are an excellent Sermon Thou comest to the Altar the Lord Jesus calls thee he sees thee to be clean from all sin because thy sins are wash'd away therefore he judges thee worthy of the câ—lestial Sacraments and therefore he invites thee to the heavenly banquet Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth But some desire to be admitted to penance that presently they may receive the Communion These men do not so much desire themselves to be absolved as that the Priest be bound for they do not put off their own evil conscience But I would that the guilty man should hope for pardon let him require it with tears seek it with sighs beg to obtain it by the weepings of all the people and if he be denied the Communion again and again let him consider that his prayer was not sufficiently earnest let him weep more and pray more To which I shall add some like words of St. Austin Therefore my dearest Brethren let every one consider his conscience and when he finds himself wounded with any crime first let him take care with prayers and fastings and alms to cleanse his conscience and so let him receive the Eucharist .... for he that knowing his guilt shall humbly remove himself from the Altar for the amendment of his life shall not fear to be wholly ex-communicate from that eternal and celestial banquet For this Divine Sacrament is not to be eaten with confidence and boldnesse but with fear and all manner of purity saith St. Chrysostome for impudence in these approaches will certainly slay the souls For thâ—s is the body whither none but Eagles are to gather because they ought to be sublime and elevated souls such which have nothing of earthliness in them that do not sit and prey upon the ground that are not immerg'd in the love of Creatures but such whose flight is towards heaven whose spirit does behold the Sun of Righteousnesse with a penetrating contemplation and piercing eyes for this is the Table of Eagles and not of Owls And therefore this Saint complains of some who did approach to the Eucharist as it were by chance or rather by custom and constraint of Laws rather than by argument and choice In whatsoever estate their souls are they will partake of these Mysteries because it is Lent or because it iâ— the feast of the Epiphany but certain it is that it is not the time which puts us into
live with him and converse with him for ever It is good to be with Christ and S. Hierom said I would to God that we could alwayes receive with a pure conscience and without self-condemnation It is without dispute that it is better to be with Christ in all the wayes of being with him than to be away from him one hour this therefore ought to be no part of the question But because there is more required to the receiving Christ than eating the Symbols and a man may eat to his condemnation and increase his sins and swell his sad accounts and be guilty of Christs body and blood if he does not take heed therefore first men must be prepar'd and be in the state of holiness or else they may not receive at all and they that are so may receive it frequently the oftner the better So Hierom and St. Austin tell that even till their dayes the cuâ—tome of receiving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain and all the Ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent communion but just as Physicians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and the infant but the strong man and the healthful And this we find thus determined by S. Chrysostom There are some living in desarts who receive but once in a year or it may be once in two years what then whom shall we account best of them that receive but once or that receive but seldome or that receive frequently Neither one nor the other But them that communicate with a sincere conscience with a pure heart and an unreprovable life They that are such let them alwayes communicate and they that are not so let them not approach so much as once because they do nothing but draw upon themselves the judgements of God and make themselves worthy of condemnation To which if we add the excellent discourse of S. Austin in this question the consequents of it may suffice to determine the whole inquiry Some will say that the Eucharist is not to be receiv'd every day If you ask why he tels you because some dayes are to be chosen in which a man may live more purely and continently that so he may come to so great a Sacrament more worthily because he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself On the other side another sayes if thou hast received so great a wound and contracted so violent a disease that such remedies are to be deferr'd every such man ought by the authority of the Bishop to be remov'd fâ—om the Altar and put to penance and by the same authority be reconcil'd For this is to receive unworthily then to receive when a man should be doing penance and not according to his own pleasure offer himself to or withdraw himself from the Communion But if his sins be not so great as to deserve excommunication he ought not to separate himself from the dayly medicine of the Lords Body Between these possibly a man may determine the question better if he admonishes that men should abide in the peace of Christ. But let every one do what according to his faith he piously believes ought to be done For neither of them dishonours the body and blood of the Lord if they in their several wayes contend who shall most honour the most holy Sacrament For Zachaeus and the Centurion did not prefer themselves before one another when the one received Christ into his house and the other said he was not worthy to receive him under his roof both of them honouring our Blessed Saviour by a divers and almost a contrary way both of them were miserable by sins and both of them obtain'd mercy Now from the words of these two Saints put together we may collect these resolutions 1. The question does no way concern evil men desperately or greatly wicked for they so remaining or committing such sins quae non committit omnis bonae fidei speique Christianus which exclude men from the Kingdom of heaven and cannot stand with the hopes of a good man are separate from the Spirit of the Lord and ought not to touch the body of our Lord. 2. Neither does it concern such imperfect persons and half Christians who endeavour to accord the rules of the Gospel with their irregular and ruling passions who would enter into heaven and yet keep their affections for earth and earthly interests who part stakes between God and the world and resolve to serve two Masters who commit oftentimes deliberate and great sins and repent and yet sin again when the temptation comes for they are yet very far from the Kingdom of God and therefore ought not to be admitted to the portion of sons and the bread of children 3. It concerns only such whose life does not dishonour their profession who pretend to be servants of Christ and indeed are so in great truth whose faith is strengthned with hope and their hope animated with charity who cannot pretend to be more perfect than men yet really contend to avoid all sin like the children of God who have right to be nourished by the body of the Lord Corpus Christi quod ipsi sunt because they are indeed members of his body and joyned in the same Spirit The question is not between the Publican and the Pharisee but between the converted Publican and the proselyte Centurion between two persons who are both true honour ours of Christ. and penitent sinners and humbled persons and have no affection for sin remaining the question then is which is more to be commended he that out of love receives Christ or he who out of humility and reverence abstains because he thinks himself not worthy enough To this St. Chrysostome answers 4. They that are such have a right to receive every day and because they are rightly disposed it is certain that a frequent Communion is of great advantage to them and therefore they that frequent it not are like to be losers For this is the daily bread the heavenly supersubstantial bread by which our souls are nourished to life eternal This is the medicine against our daily imperfections and intrudings of lesser crimes and sudden emigration of passions it is the great consignation of pardon and St. Ambrose argues well If Christs bloud is powred forth for the remission of sins then I ought as often as I can receive it when it is poured forth to me that because I sin often I may perpetually have my remedy Which discourse of his is only to be understood of those imperfections of our life which perpetually haunt those good men who are growing in grace untill they come to perfection and consummation in grace 5. They that in conscience of their past sins and apprehension of their repentance do abstain for fear of irreverence and the sentence of condemnation do very well as long as they find that their sin returns often or tempts strongly
to a man had in reputation for wisdom is as a fly in a box of oyntment not only uselesse but mischievous And S. Bernard commends S. Malachie because he reprov'd a Deacon for attending at the Altar the day after he had suffered an illusion in the night It had been better he had abstain'd from the Altar one day and by that intermediate expiation and humility have the next day return'd to a more worthy ministery 4. One degree of curious caution I find beyond all this in an instance of St. Gregory the Great in whose life we find that he abstain'd some days from the holy Communion because there was found in a Village neer to Rome a poor man dead no man could tell how but because the good Bishop fear'd he might have been starv'd and that he died for want of provision he supposing it might reflect upon him as a defect in his Government or of his personal Charity thought it fit to deplore the accident and to abstain from the Communion till he might hope for pardon in case he had done amiss If these things proceed from the sincerity of a well disposed spirit that can suffer any trouble rather than that of sin the product is well enough and in all likelihood would always be well if the case were conducted by a prudent spiritual guide for then it would not change into scruples and superstition But these are but the fears and cautions and securities of a tender spirit but are not an answer to the Question Whether it be lawful for such persons to Communicate For certainly they may if all things else be right and they may be right in the midst of such little accidents But these belong to the questions of perfection and excellencies of grace these are the extraordinaries of them who never think they do well enough and therefore they extended no further than to a single abstention or some little proportionable retirement and may be useful when they are in the hands of prudent and excellent persons SECT V. What significations of Repentance are to be accepted by the Church in admission of Penitents to the Communion THis inquiry will quickly be answered when we consider that the end why the Church enjoyns publick or private amends respectively to any convict or confessed Criminal she only does it as a Mother and a Physician to souls and a Minister of the Divine Pardon and the Conductress of penitential Processes she does it that the man may be recovered from the snare of the enemy that she may destroy the work of the Devil that the sinner may become a good Christian and therefore the Church when she conducts any mans repentance is bound to enjoyn so many external Ministeries that if they be really joyned with the external contrition and reformation will do the work of reconcilement in the Court of heaven The Church can exact none but what she can see or some way take external notice of but by these externals intends to minister to the internal repentance which when it is sufficiently signified by any ways that she may prudently rely upon as testimonies and ministeries of a sufficient internal contrition and real amends she can require no more and she ought not to be content with lesse It is therefore infinitely unsafe and imprudent to receive the Confessions of Criminals and after the injunction of certain cursory penances to admit them to the Blessed Sacrament without any further emendation without any trial of the sincerity of their conversion before it is probable that God hath pardon'd them before their affections to sin are dead before the spirit of mortification is entred before any vice is exterminated or any vertue acquired Such a loosnesse of discipline is but the image of repentance whether we look upon it as it is described in Scripture or as it was practised by the Primitive Church which at least is a whole change of life a conversion of the whole man to God And it is as bad when a notorious criminal is put to shame one day for such a sin which could not have obtain'd the peace of the Church under the severity and strictness of fifteen years amongst the holy Primitives Such publick Ecclesiastical penances may suffice to remove the scandal from the Church when the Church will be content upon so easie terms for she only can tell what will please her self But then such discipline must not be esteem'd a sufficient ministery of repentance nor a just disposition to pardon For the Church ought not to give pardon or to promise the peace of God upon terms easier than God himself requires and therefore when repentance comes to be conducted by her she must require so much as will extinguish the sin and reform the man and make him and represent him good All the liberty that the Church hath in this is what is given her by the latitude of the judgment of charity and yet oftentimes a too easie judgment is the greatest uncharitableness in the world and makes men confident and careless and deceiv'd and therefore although gentle sentences are useful when there is danger of dispair or contumacy yet that is rather a palliation of a disease than a cure and therefore the method must be chang'd as soon as it can and the severe and true Sermons of the Gospel must be either proclaimed aloud or insinuated prudently and secretly and men be taught to rely upon them and their consequents and upon nothing else for they will not deceive us But the corrupt manners of men and the corrupt doctrines of some Schools have made it almost impossible to govern souls as they need to be governed The Church may indeed chuse whether she will impose on Criminals any exterior significations of repentance but accept them to the Communion upon their own accounts of a sincere conversion and inward contrition but then she ought to do this upon such accounts as are indeed real and sufficient and effective and allowed that is when she can understand that such an emendation is made and the man is really reformed she can pronounce him pardoned or which is all one she may communicate him And farther yet she can by Sermons declare all the necessary parts of repentance and the conditions of pardon and can pronounce limited and hypothetical or conditional pardons concerning which the penitent must take care that they do belong to him But if she does undertake to conduct any repentances exteriously it is to very little purpose to do it any way that is not commensurate to that true internal repentance which is effective of pardon Indeed every single act of penance does something towards it but why something should be enjoyned that is not sufficient and that falls infinitely short of the end of its designation though the Church may use her liberty yet it is not easie to understand the reason But I leave this to the consideration of those who are concerned
and ambitious desires were the thorns that pricked thy sacred head my vanity was the knee that mocked thee my lusts disrobed thee and made thee naked to shame and cruel scourgings my anger and malice my peevishness and revenge were the bitter gall which thou didâ—t taste my bitter words and cursed speaking were the vinegar which thou didst drink and my scarlet sins made for thee a purple robe of mockery and derision and where shall I vile wretch appear who have put my Lord to death and expos'd him to an open shame and crucified the Lord of Life 8. Where should I appear but before my Saviour who died for them that have murdered him who hath lov'd them that hated him who is the Saviour of his enemies and the life of the dead and the redemption of captives and the advocate for sinners and all that we do need and all that we can desire 9. Grant that in thy wounds I may finde my safety in thy stripes my cure in thy pain my peace in thy cross my victory in thy resurrection my triumph and a crown of righteousness in the glories of thy eternal Kingdom Amen Amen S. Austins penitential Prayer Before thy eyes O gracious Lord we bring our crimes before thee we expose the wounds of our bleeding souls That which we suffer is but little but that which we deserve is intolerable We fear the punishment of our sins but cease not pertinaciously to proceed in sinning Our weakness is sometimes smitten with thy rod but our iniquity is not changed our grieved mind is troubled but our stiff neck is not bended with the flexures of a holy obedience our life spends in vanity and trouble but amends it self in nothing When thou smitest us then we confess our sin but when thy visitation is past then we forget that we have wept When thou stretchest forth thy hand then we promise to do our duty but when thou takest off thy hand we perform no promises If thou strikest we cry to thee to spare us but when thou sparest we again provoke thee to strike us Thus O God the guilty confess before thee and unless thou givest us pardon it is but just that we perish But O Almighty God our Father grant to us what we ask even though we deserve it not for thou madest us out of nothing else we had not any power to ask Pardon us O gracious Father and take away all our sin and destroy the work of the Devil and let the enemy have no part nor portion in us but acknowledg the work of thy own hands the price of thy own blood the sheep of thy own fold the members of thy own body the purchase of thine own inheritance and make us to be what thou hast commanded give unto us what thou hast designed for us enable us for the work thou hast injoin'd us and bring us to the place which thou hast prepared for us by the blood of the everlasting Covenant and by the pains of the Cross and the glories of thy Resurrection O blessed and most glorious Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Amen CHAP. IV. Of our Actual and Ornamental Preparation to the Reception of the Blessed Sacrament SECT I. HE that is dressed by the former measures is always worthy to communicate but he that is always well vested will against a wedding day be more adorn'd and the five wise Virgins that stood ready for the coming of the Bridegroom with oyl in their lamps and fire on their oyl yet at the notice of his coming trimm'd their lamps and made them to burn brighter The receiving of the Blessed Sacrament is a receiving of Christ and here the soul is united to her Lord and this Feast is the Supper of the Lamb and the Lamb is the Bridegroom and every faithful soul is the Bride and all this is but the image of the state of blessednesse in heaven where we shall see him without a vail whom here we receive under the vail of Sacraments and there we shall live upon him without a figure to whom we are now brought by significations and representments corporal But then as we here receive the same thing as there though after a less perfect manner it is also very fit we should have here the same that is a heavenly conversation though after the manner of men living upon the earth It is true that the blessed souls receive Christ always and they live accordingly in perpetual uninterrupted glorifications of his name and conformities to his excellencies Here we receive him at certain times and at such times we should make our conversation coelestial and our holiness actual when our addresses are so so that in our actual addresses to the reception of these divine Mysteries there is nothing else to be done but that what in our whole life is done habiâ—ually at that time be done actually No man is fit to die but he who is safe if he dies suddenly and yet he that is so fitted if he hears the noise of the Bridegrooms coming will snuff his lamp and stir up the fire and apply the oyl and so must he that hath warning of his Communion He that communicates every day must live a life of a continual Religion and so must he who in any sense communicates frequently if he does it at all worthily but he that lives carelesly and dresses his soul with the beginnings of vertues against a Communion day is like him that repents not till the day of his death if it succeeds well it is happy for him but if it does not he may blame himself for being confident without a promise Every worthy Communicant must prepare himself by a holy life by mortification of all his sins by the acquisition of all Christian graces and this is not the work of a day or a week but by how much the more these things are done by so much the better we are prepar'd So that the actual addresse and proper preparation to the Blessed Sacrament is indeed an inquiry whether we are habitually prepar'd that is whether we be in the state of grace whether we belong to Christ whether we have faith and charity whether we have repented truly If we be to communicate next week or it may be to morrow these things cannot be gotten to day and therefore we must stay till we be ready And if by our want of preparation we be compelled for the sâ—ving of our souls and lest we die to abstain from this holy feast let us consider what our case would be if this should be the last coming of the Bridegâ—oom This is but the warning of that this is but his last coming a little antedated and God graciously calls us now to be prepared here that we may not be unprepared then but it is a formidable thing to be thrust out when we see others enter And therefore when the Masters of spiritual life call upon us to set apart a day or two or three
of thy Cross reconcile me to thy eternal Father and bring to me peace of Conscience let the victory of thy Cross mortifie all my evil and corrupt affections let the triumph of thy Cross lead me on to a state of holiness that I may sin no more but in all things please thee and in all things serve thee and in all things glorifie thee 7. Great and infinite are thy glories infinite and glorious are thy mercies who is like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on high and yet humbleth himself to behold the things that are in Heaven and earth Heaven it self does wholly minister to our salvation God takes care of us God loves us first God will not suffer us to perish but imployes all his attributes for our good The Son of God dies for us the holy Spirit descends upon us and teaches us the Angels minister to us the Sacrament is our food Christ is married to our souls and heaven it self is offered to us for our portion 8. O God my God assist me now and ever graciously and greatly Grant that I may not receive bread alone for man cannot live by that but that I may eat Christ that I may not search into the secret of nature but inquire after the miracles of grace I do admire I worship and I love Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome Ride on triumphantly because of thy words of truth and peace load my soul in this triumph as thy own purchase thy love hath conquer'd and I am thy servant for ever 9. Thou wilt not dwell in a polluted house make my soul clean and do thou consecrate it into a Temple O thou great Bishop of our souls by the inhabitation of thy holy spirit of purity Let not these teeth that break the bread of Angels ever grind the face of the poor let not the hand of Judas be with thee in the dish let not the eyes which see the Lord any more behold vanity let not the members of Christ ever become the members of a harlot or the ministers of unrighteousness 10. I am nothing I have nothing I desire nothing but Jesus and to be in Jerusalem the holy City from above Make haste O Lord Behold my heart is ready my heart is ready Come Lord Jesus come quickly When the holy Man that Ministers reaches the consecrated Bread suppose thy Lord entring into his Courts and say Lord I am not worthy thou shouldest come under my roof but speak the word Lord and thy servant shall be whole After receiving of the Bread pray thus Blessed be the Name of our gracious God Hosannah to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord. Hosannah in the highest Thou O blessed Saviour Jesus hast given me thy precious body to be the food of my soul and now O God I humbly present to thee my body and soul every member and every faculty every action and every passion Do thou make them fit for thy service Give me an understanding to know thee and wisdom like as thou didst to thy Apostles ingenuity and simplicity of heart like to that of Nathanael zeal and perfect repentance like the return of Zacheus Give me eyes to see thee as thy Martyr Stephen had an ear to hear thee as Mary a hand to touch thee as Thomas a mouth with Peter to confess thee an arm with Simeon to embrace thee feet to follow thee with thy Disciples an heart open like Lydia to entertain thee that as I have given my members to sin and to uncleanness so I may henceforth walk in righteousness and holiness before thee all the days of my life Amen Amen If there be any time more between the receiving the holy Body and the blessed Chalice then add O immense goodness unspeakable mercy delightful refection blessed peace-offering effectual medicine of our souls Holy Jesus the food of elect souls coelestial Manna the bread that came down from heaven sweetest Saviour grant that my soul may relish this divine Nutriment with spiritual ravishments and love great as the flames of Cherubims and grant that what thou hast given me for the remission of my sins may not â—y my fault become the increase of them Grant that in my heart I may so digest thee by a holy faith so convert thee into the unity of my spirit by a holy love that being conformed to the likeness of thy death and resurrection by the crucifying of the old man and the newness of a spiritual and a holy life I may be incorporated as a sound and living member into the body of thy holy Church a member of that body whereof thou art head that I mâ—y abide in thee and bring forth fruit in thee and in the resurrection of the Just my body of infirmity being reformed by thy power may be configured to the similitude of thy glorious body and my soul received into a participation of the eternal Supper of the Lamb that where thou art there I may be also beholding thy face in glory O blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Amen When the holy Chalice is offered attend devoutly to the blessing and joyn in heart with the words of the Minister saying Amen I will receive the Cup of salvation and call upon the Name of our Lord. After receiving of the holy Cup pray thus It is finished Blessed be the name of our gracious God Blessing glory praise and honour love and obedience dominion and thanksgiving be to him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever I bless and praise thy Name O eternal Father most merciful God that thou hast vouchsafed to admit me to a participation of these dreadful and desirable mysteries unworthy though I am yet thy love never fails and though I too often have repented of my repentances and fallen back into sin yet thou never repentest of thy loving kindness Be pleased therefore now in this day of mercy when thou openest the treasures of heaven and rainest Manna upon our souls to refresh them when they are weary of thy infinite goodness to grant that this holy Communion may not be to me unto judgment and condemnation but it may be sweetness to my soul health and safety in every temptation joy and peace in every trouble ligâ—t and strength in every word and work comfort and defence in the hour of my death against all the oppositions of the spirits of darkness and grant that no unclean thing may be in me who have received thee into my heart and soul. II. Thou dwellest in every sanctified soul she is the habitation of Sion and thou taâ—est it for thine own and thou hast consecrated it to thy self by the operation of glorious mysteries within her O be pleased to receive my soul presented to thee in this holy Communion for thy dwelling place make it a house of prayer and holy meditations the seat of thy Spirit the repository of graces reveal to me