THE Constant Communicant A DIATRIBE Proving that Constancy in Receiving THE Lords Supper Is the Indispensible Duty of Every Christian By AR. BURY D. D. Rector of Exon. Coll. in Oxford Canon Apostol IX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whoever of the Faithful enter and hear the Scriptures but stay not out prayers and Communion ought to be Excommunicated as disturbers of the Church Socrates Hist Lib. V. Ca. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whereas All Churches through the world on the Sabbath day in every revolution of the week celebrate the mysteries they of Alexandria and they of Rome upon a certain ancient Tradition have refused so to do OXFORD Printed by LEON LICHFIELD Printer to the University for STEPHEN BOLTON 1631. TO The Most Reverend Father in God WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan And one of His Majesties most Honorable PRIVY COUNCIL c. May it please your Grace MANY great miracles do the Romanists pretend to be frequently wrought By the Holy Sacrament of the Altar but none so admirable as what their ancestors wrought Upon it For what more wonderful than This that a particular Church by colour of a Tradition should prevail with All other Churches throughout the whole Christian world to reneg That Constancy which was universally practised as indispensible for more than 400 years That from Dispensing they should proceed to Discouraging and therein so prevail that those who have freed themselvs from their many other gross abuses cannot from This but still believ our Lord more honored by Forbearing his Table than by Frequenting it In opposition to this Vulgar error I have in my narrow Sphaere used all other endeavors but with so litle fruit that I must either sit down in despair or fly to the last remedy Writeing which beside the advantage of fastening conviction better upon those few that ly under My inspection may extend it to as many others as shall bring my papers under Theirs But here also I meet great discoragements I see that many worthy persons have of late be'n as careful to exhort to the Performance of the Duty as to Worthiness in it but with no better success than those first messengers who 's kind Invitations brought nothing to the Lord of the Fest but variety of excuses If therefor I would conform either to the Parable or to Reason I must proceed to rougher means compell by force of irrefragable arguments the unwilling and resisting world and by all cogent proofs assert a Truth which by Many ages was never Doubted by More generally Denyed by Ours somtimes Affirmed but never that I know clearly proved viz. that it is every Christians duty to be a Constant Communicant And this I have do'n with Such evidence that I fear not any mans confutation yet with litl hope to see the Table furnished with guests For alas what can a poor Enchiridion do toward subduing such an error double armed with Prejudice in the Vnderstanding and Partiality in the Affections fortified with long Possession defended by the Priests and beloved by the Peopl I must therefor be unfaithful both to the service I have undertaken and to Your Grace's right should I either expose it naked and unsheltered to a Cold Advers world or seek any other Patron than your Grace For as this Sacrament hath a double aspect so hath your Grace a double right to it's protection As it is the greatest exercise of Love and duty to our Lord by your Eminence in Piety As it is the Principal office of Church-worship by your eminence in Power Ecclesiastical By the former every good christian may claim common with your Grace in most of the following pages but by the Later your Grace hath a peculiar jurisdiction over some particularly a PART III. Chap. 1. Sect. 4. those wherein I have justified the Constitutions of our Church as doing what in such unhappy circumstances is possible for retriving Primitive Constancy Could I say as much for the Practice But be it never so defective it cannot hinder us from justifying our Church as well as St. Paul himself For his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no less generally mistaken for a derogation from That very obligation to constancy which he employed it to prove indispensible than is the three times in every year which our Church defines as the Least that she can tolerate in the Peopl for the most that she expecteth from the Priests who therefor think themselvs exactly conformable if they minister it just so often and no more though without any care either Before-hand to exhort the people to Receve it or Afterward to reprove them if they Neglect it which yet they cannot avoid seeing them generally do being so taught and accustomed during our confusions and still biased by their sloth or worse What may be allowed for the untractableness of the people under our present Distractions is not for Me to determin But that those very Distractions which now toss us between two such parties whereof the One first robbed the Sacrament of Constancy and the Other strippeth it stark naked of All Performance ly on us as a just punishment for our compliance with them is plainly enough to be discovered without any rude intrusion into God's secrets For Constancy in This Office is apparently the most effectual means to unite us as being both by it's own nature most serviceable thereto and by its singular interest in our Lord's Person singularly intitled to his Blessing I therefor conceve it no impertinent disturbance of those great cares wherewith your Grace is too much molested if as a kind of Church-warden-general I make humble presentment of that defect in Parochial Churches especially which your residence in Cathedrals hath hindered you from discovering bicause those Officers who ought to be eyes to your Grace and our other Fathers in God are themselves blinded with the vulgar error Whereof we saw a pernicious experiment in the days of your Grace's immediate predecessor when a General enquiry made upon these Questions 1. How many inhabitants in your Parish 2. How many refuse to join in Communion with the Church proved abortive bicause those who refused to communicate in This Principal office were not noted as refusing to join in Communion with the Church which had they ben the necessity of compulsory means would have appeared so evident that we had not now be'n in danger to have our nineteenth Article urged against us to disprove our being a True Church I know my self chargeable with a double great boldness first in fronting these Papers with your Grace's name and then in the account I make for it But when I first engaged in the work I resolved not to do it by halvs and I think I might better have omitted the better half than This way of advantageing the whole And since your Grace is so well known eminent for zeal in redressing whatever you shall find to need it I have
Proposition ver 26. is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup. The Praedicate is utterly useles and wors toward such a design VI. 2. Positively The Proposition pointeth at som Determinate Bread and Cup. The Argument reduced to a Syllogism CHAP. II. Concerning the Clause AS OFTEN AS Pag. 70. I. The unhappiness of this Clause II. The true sons of the words mesured by parallel precepts III. Serviceable remarks 1. With what care the Apostl recordeth this Claus IV. 2. With partiality he treateth the Cup. V. The justice he doth the Bread joining it with the Cup in his deductions VI. The Conclusion with an Objection answered CHAP. III. Concerning the Vulgar interpretation of as often as pag. 85. I. The Distinction between Suppositive and Absolute stated because made the mesure of obligation II. The words of the Author set forth and III. Examined IV. The merely suppositive sens enervates our Lords Command And V. The Apostl's own Argument VI. The two senses ballanced in order to Conscience CHAP. IV. Objections answered pag. 100. I. The First Objection That the Tradition may be novel answered 1. By mater of Fact II. By passing judgment upon it 2. No necessity of difference in point of frequency between the breaking of bread before meat and Grace-cup after it 2. If the Jews Antiquities be against us we may reject their authority III. 3. Seeing a party of them are on our side we may well prefer that party above the opposite So great an agreement as is between them could not be 1. From Chance IV. 2. Nor the Jews conforming their custom to Christs Institution bicause it is incredible they should have such 1. care 2. or wit V. Another Objection That we must have Fests or no Sacrament adjourned VI. A third Objection That the Jews used their Grace-cup in their Houses not their Synagogs Answered by six steps VII The last Objection The universal silence of all Ages Answered 1. By shewing reason why both Primitive and Later ages should be silent and 2. by shewing that the best critiks have observed it CHAP. V. Mater of Fact recorded in Scripture pag. 117. I. A transition to Mater of Fact Not so easily understood as might have be'n expected Two things considerable 1. The Backwardness of the Apostl's in Understanding our Lords mind 2. The means which our Lord used to recommend it unprosperos The night of Institution by its terrors II. Our Lord's conversation with the two Disciples in the way and at Emaus so ordered as to discover the meaning of his Institution as well as the truth of his Resurrection ineffectual upon a contrary reason Their ignorance 'till the coming of the Holy Ghost III. The second observable Their diligence in obeying our Lord's will when discovered That by their breaking of Bread must be meant the Lord's Supper appears by 1. The exercises accompanying it 2. The Phrase expressing it IV. 3. The Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie the Meeting house where the first Christians held their Conventicles for fear of the Jews V. 4. The time The Apostl's a d Brethren at Hire daily The Remote Churches on the Lo d's day VI. The first day of the week consecrated to this office and for that reason stiled the Lords day dishonored by derivation from the Fourth Commandment cannot be worse profaned than by neglect of this office to which it oweth its sacredness CHAP. VI. The Practice of Antiquity pag. 131. I. The constant Practice of Christ's Church in it's best ages proved by one evidence of each kind viz. 1. Canon the 9th Apostolik II. 2. One Father Justin Martyr 3. One Historian Socrates The Church of Rome under pretence of tradition innovated against the Church Universal III. 4. Enemies of each kind 1. Protestants IV. 2. Papists V. 3. Junior Fathers particularly St. Augustin whose words are recited wherein we must distinguish between Father and Doctor As Father he stateth the question The question and the practice of the Church both in Doctrine and Discipline very different between St. Augustin's time and Ours VI. As a Doctor he determins the question 1. His stile very diffident bicause his Opinion is opposit to all other Fathers 2. His determination reacheth not Our question Yet have later ages caght at his words and strained them beyond his intentions with unhappy success His Syncretism rectified PART III. Concerning the word DO CHAP. I. We must answer such a Command no otherwise but by Performance Pag. 149. I. The cause of our disobedience to this Command too much Fear II. We may not commute Doing for any other service III. The reason why som think best not to do this often and their appeal to the Church of England IV. The Church vindicated V. The two opposite opinions personated The Vniversity Statutes the best comment upon the Churches Rubrike The Greek Church in great Churches celebrateth the Holy Communion every Sunday and Holy day VI. Those who omit the Communion it self greater Non-conformists than those who neglect the Communion Service CHAP. II. We may not omit This duty without warrant pag. 164. I. Necessity may be complied with A doubl question II. Difference between Laws Moral and Positive The Apostl's vouching our Lords revelation a proof of the valu of the Sacrament Fear of cheapness no reason why we should make it scarce III. Omission compared with unworthiness IV. Our Warrant must be either Countermand or Dispensation V. Defect of preparation no Dispensation VI. All other Duties in the same danger CHAP. III. The Obligation ceased not upon the change of the Manner of the Festing in the Church but must be accommodated thereto pag. 174. I. The Apostle hath prevented such a consequence by saying our Lord appointed us to do this 'till he com II. The adequate mesure of our doing this is not Eating but Meeting in the Church As change of the Ceremony hindereth not Perjury from being a sin Nor doth change of the season hinder us from stiling it a Supper III. The Church careful to preserve the memory and titl of Festing VI. The Apostl's argument holdeth by vers 20. more for the Thing than for the Manner wherein we cannot now be guilty as the Corinthians were V. The Equitable and Moral sens of the Argument accommodate to the present manner of Church-meetings VI. Distinguish between yielding and justifying PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian pag. 183. I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proportion This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. This wors in
Country accordingly His General design we cannot mistake Nothing can be plainer than This that it is to convince the Corinthians of their guilt in profaning the Lords Supper but the Medium whereby he prosecutes this charge is both Generally and Grosly mistaken and since this is the Mother error whence all our Neglects on One hand and all our Earnestness on the Other and all our Disputes on All hands proceed it cannot be too plainly exposed and thogh it be troublesom yet must we crave the Reader to undergo a labor so necessary that without it he cannot understand what the Apostle meaneth throughout his discourse We too hastily believe that he endeavoreth to prove no more but this that our Lords Person was concerned in all the abuses of his Supper taking it for granted that they knew how his Supper was concerned in Those Meetings which he reproved Whereas the more we consider it the plainer we shall find that his Direct and Immediate endeavor is to prove the Later supposing the Former as self-evident upon the first notice of our Lords Institution So the case of the Corinthians toward the Lords Supper was much like the Apostles Own toward the High Priest Acts 23.4 5. They that stood by said Revilest thou Gods high priest Then said Paul I wist not brethren that he was the high priest For it is written Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people He reproveth the Corinthians as the By-standers reproved Him Profane you the Lords Holy Supper And supposing them likewise to excuse themselves in the same manner by saying We wist not that it was the Lords Holy Supper for we cannot but know That must be celebrated with reverence he argueth in such manner as to convince them of what they seemed either not to Understand or not to Own II. THE understanding of This will give us great light towards discovery of every step and that this is true we may the better perceve if we proceed by these Enquiries 1. Whether this might not be the Corinthians case 2. What might become the Apostle to do in such a case 3. How doth the Apostles procedure suit with such a Supposal 1. This might very well be the Corinthians case For 1. Possibly they might suppose that our Lord pointed at the Bread as Paschal not as Festival and consequently preferred not Every Fest but only the Passover to this honor and for This there are appearances of reason not contemtibl 1. He chose the Passover for the Season of his Institution and embraced it with such expressions of Affection as seemed Proper to That Particular solennity saying With a desire have I desired to eat not this Supper but this Passover 2. This above All other Fests best Prefigured his death while Future and was therefor most fit to Commemorate it when Past 3. The Jews said of the Lamb This is the BODY of the Passover and our Lord seemeth to allude to it saying This is my BODY 4. The Jews distributing the Paschal Cake said THIS IS the Bread of affliction c. and our Lord distributing the Bread said THIS IS my Body c. And at That time having newly filled their minds with phrases proper to the Season it is very probable that they might receve our Lords words in such a sens 2. And probably such an error might proceed from want of a proper form of Words to accompany the celebration One of the best Doctors our Church can bost of authoriseth me to say That such a Form of words however Useful is not indispensibly Necessary Our Lord enjoined none and we find not that his Apostles either Practised or Taught their Disciples any and it was prone for the Corinthians to slide into an error concerning That cup which carried no Inscription to declare its contents Certainly from hence came that which Tertullian complains of in his days That Fests of Charity were celebrated in the Church without the Lords Supper and from hence came our loss of the meaning which is the Soul of our Grace-cup And on the contrary the Jews with the Mater retene also the meaning of their Tradition because both the Bread and Cup are accompanied with such a Form of words as will not suffer it to be lost 3. And possibly they might look upon the Whole as a mere outward Performance For knowing how litle fondness our Lord had toward Such exercises they might thence infer that he left it in Their choice to Perform or Omit it as Themselves should judge convenient and their Partiality to their beloved riot might incline them both to Entertene such an opinion and Improve it Our Lords Supper must strike some Aw into their unwilling minds Commanding not only Sobriety but Devotion And how unwelcom such a check must be to the Corinthian humor and consequently how willing they must be to free themselfs from it if we know not already we shall anon Thus far we have considered Probabilities we come now to Certainty 4. Whatever they Really believed it is Certain they might Pretend that they believed our Lords Supper unconcerned in Those Fests which the Apostle thus reproved and the very Possibility of such a Pretence no less required a confutation than a Real profession of such a Belief which requireth us to consider as our next step III. VVHat might become the Apostle to do in such a case If it were but Possibl for them to believ so Himself hath taught us that he ought to suppose they Did For Charity thinketh no evil but hopeth All things believeth All things Since therefor This was much better than Knowingly and Willingly to affront our Lord in his Representative This must in Charity be supposed And Prudence agreed with Charity rather to seek out Excuses for them than to expose them to the Vttermost He was to deal as Sweetly and Obligingly as possibl so to endear Himself and the Gospel to them Praise them as much as possibly he might Reprove them no more than Needs he must and Excuse them when he could not Justifie them And this as it sweetened the Reproof in appearance so did it more bitterly aggravate the Crime if their own consciences upbraided them as uncapabl of such an excuse Since the Guilt must needs be Great which to the Reprover appeared Incredibl Nor could any Inconvenience on the Other side dissuade such a procedure This way he might meet with them at All turns If they wer Really mistaken he might Rectifie their Judgments if they wer not he might Baffl their Pretences and Both waies Reprove their Misdemeanors rescuing our Lords Supper from Profanation if they intended to celebrate it and his Commands from Neglect if they intended it not and Himself from any appearance either of Severity towards Them or Coldness towards our Lords Supper IV. 3. HOW doth his Procedure suit with such Supposals If we carefully observe we find that the former part agreeth very well with them and the later part will agree with
but adaequately for this Duties sake which gave it both Holiness and Name nor as Successor but Superior to the Sabbath And this is worthy our consideration not only for the Sacrament's sake but the Day 's too VI. FOR to derive the LORDS DAY from the fourth Commandment as it is Inconvenient upon other accounts so is it Mischievous upon This that it looseneth its relation to This office for who 's sake alone it was dignified as with the assemblies of the Saints so with it's title of the Lord's day Nor is such an opinion consistent with the practice of the Primitive Church which for several ages celebrated Both the One for the Jews sake the Other for the Sacraments which therefor we ought to celebrate as constantly at least as we do That day which cannot be duly bicause it needs not all be sanctified without it Were this as carefully heeded as in Scripture it is plainly declared in Reason duly accounted for and in the Primitive times publikly practised both the Lords Day and His Supper would have escaped Those Losses which Both of them suffer by their separation the One rob'd of it's greatest Honor the Other of its very Being For as it is higher Honor to the Day to be acknowledged an Evangelical Substance than a Legal Shadow and to be celebrated with this office than without it so is it not only Less Honorable but More Destructive to this Holy office to be spoiled both of the acknowledgement due to it from the Day so preferred by it's interest and of Safety from that Neglect which could never have befallen it while the Day it self is sanctified if that Sanctification were acknowledged to relate to this Performance Those therefor who ar zelos for the honor of the Day are for it's sake obliged to consider whether any Sport or any Lrbor can be so pernicious a desecration of it as the Omission of this Sacrament who 's celebration was the sole reason of the sacredness both of the Day it self and of its Eve which of the two hath the greater interest in the Fourth Commandment as being the same Seventh day which Gods peopl celebrated as thereby consecrated yet had not retained any difference under the Gospel from common days but in order to the better preparation for the Sacrament to be receved the Lords day following and upon That account differenced not by Festing but by Fasting And since necessity may drive to Mean condescensions I beg now not only for the Lord's sake but for the Lord's day's sake for That day's sake in who 's behalf so many complaints ar made not only To our Governors but Against them I beg that those who ar so zelous to have the Day restored to its due honor would do their part to restore this Sacrament to its due celebration whereby the Lord's Day with his Person would be better righted than by Sabbatizing with Rigot more than Jewish but with Worship less than Christian Let us now spell all together The Exercises accompanying this constant breaking of Bread Were they not Holy The Phrase expressing This exercise Is it not proper The Place Was it not consecrated before The Time Was it not consecrated purposely What then can be answered to the Apostls demand The bread which they brake was it not the Communion of the body of Christ Or to Our inference that they were as constant in the Holy Communion as in Common Prayer CHAP. VI. The Practice of Antiquity I. The constant Practice of Christ's Church in it's best ages proved by one evidence of each kind viz. 1. Canon the 9th Apostolik II. 2. One Father Justin Martyr 3. One Historian Socrates The Church of Rome under pretence of Tradition innovated against the Church Universal III. 4. Enemies of each kind 1. Protestants IV. 2. Papists V. 3. Junior Fathers particularly St. Augustin whose words are recited wherein we must distinguish between Father and Doctor As Father he stateth the question The question and the practice of the Church both in Doctrine and Discipline very different beeween St. Augustin's time and Ours VI. As a Doctor he determins the question 1. His stile very different bicause his Opinion is opposit to all other Fathers 2. His determination reacheth not Our question Yet have later ages caght at his wonds and strained them beyond his intentions with unhappy success His Syncretism rectified FROM Scripture I am now to descend to Humane Writers to examin whether by Them we find the Practice of the Primitive Churches agreeable to That of the Apostls I. AND now I feel somthing like a Tentation to imploy my Servitor to collect what the Fathers the Eldest especially have writen on This subject and then stifling my Reader with a multitude of Quotations purchase my self at Both their costs the name of Well read in the Fathers and Councils c. But corage Reader I have no more such a Design than my Subject such Need Where none contradicts One competent witness of Each kind may very well claim the belief of any indifferent person and with More I will not troubl you I shall therefor produce but One ancient Canon One Father One Historian and One Enemy of each party 1. Of CANONS I account Those most Ancient which have usurped the title of Apostolical thogh many of them bewray themselves unworthy of it We have reasons more than enough to decline their Authority but None to except against Their Testimony concerning Mater of Fact such as is the Publik practice of the Visibl Church at the Time of their Date which is Therefor certainly Ancient bicause not certainly known since having no Councel to father them they must needs be elder than Any Of Those Canons the 9th thus briefly and plainly delivereth the opinion we ar pleading for All the faithful which enter the Church and hear the Scriptures but do not stay out the Prayers nor receve the Holy Communion ought to be excommunicate as disturbers of the Church To This so clear evidence I know nothing capabl of being opposed unless perhaps the word faithful be supposed to exclude All but such as deserv the highest sens of That title But it is sufficiently know'n that That comprehensive word conteineth All but Catechumens and Penitens All others as visibl Members of Christs Body being in Those days honored with That stile And that it signifies no otherwise Here the words themselvs sufficiently evince For This title is allowed to Those very Persons who at the same time ar censured as worthy of Excommunication Nor can the Last clause be taken so copulatively as if Those passed uncensured who stayed out Prayers thogh they receved not the Holy Communion For This was lookt upon as the greater crime of the Two The Councils of Antioch and Bracara required that such should be driven out of the Church and St. Chrysostom bitterly chides them saying If thou stand by and dost not Communicate thou art wicked thou art shameless thou art impudent And we shall presently
be a Communion what do we more plainly than condemn the Private ones as carrying a Contradiction in the very Terms and the Publik ones as carrying One or More in their Performance For they plainly contradict both the word Communion when there are no Communicants and our Lords Command while in One Element they Dispense and in the Other Prohibit what He commanded Yet still they do well in the Thing thogh ill in the Manner in this very particular deserving to be owned a true thogh corrupt Church V. 3. AND what if we now reckon the Junior Fathers among our Adversaries yea Those very Fathers by name whom we but now found vouched as telling us That the custom of daily Communions continued in some Churches until their days What such Fathers or other credible Writers say of the Doctrines or Customs of the Churches of Christ in their own days we think our selves obliged to believe upon their credit And upon that account we doubt not but This custom of daily Communicating who 's foot-steps remained in Those times wherein they wrote was derived as Catholik from the preceding and if themselves Depart or Detract from what they have so witnessed to be Catholik what can we do better than distinguish the Doctor from the Father and judge his Opinion by his Testimony Whether St. Augustin have so do'n and consequently how far his authority is to sway us in the present Question we cannot take a better way to find than by transcribing his own words the consequences whereof were he alive to see he would doubtless lament His Discours is in his 118th Epistle in these words among others Som will say that the Eucharist is not to be receved every day If you ask why he tells you bicause som days ar to be chosen in which a man may live more purely and continently that so he may com to so great a Sacrament more worthily bicause he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself On the other side another says If thou hast received so great a wound and contracted so violent a disease that such remedies ar to be deferr'd every such man ought by the Authority of the Bishop to be removed from the Altar and put to penance and by the same authority be reconciled For this is to receve unworthily Then to receve 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 daily Medicine of the Lords Body Between those 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 piosly believes ought to be do'n For neither of them dishonors the Body and Blood of the Lord if they in their several ways contend who shall most honor the most holy Sacrament For Zacheus and the Centurion did not prefer themselves before one another when one receved Christ into his house and the other said he was not worthy to receve him under his roof That by this Discourse we may undarstand what was St. Augustin's Opinion and how far we are to be determined by it it will be requisite that we consider 1. The State of the Question And 2ly His Determination of it 1. In Stating the Question we ar to observ 1. The Question it self And secondly The Practice of the Church at That time 1. The Question it self is extremely different from Ours So different that we may very well subscribe to the Fathers determination It is Whether the Eucharist be to be receved EVERY DAY or some days to be chosen wherein a man may live more purely c. Now we pretend not to EVERY DAY But believ that the Lords day was purposely consecrate and afterward other holy days were added and that every such day hath its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set aside to the purpose expressed by St. Augustine That a man may therein live more purely and continently that so he may come more worthily to so great a Sacrament If therefor This great Fathers Arbitration which was bounded to Every day be stretched to the modern Question which exceedeth All bounds nothing will be so questionable as This Whether the injury we do the Fathers Discurs or That we do our Lord's Institution be the greater of the two 2. The Practice of the Church for which the Question was calculated was extremely different from Ours and That in two respects 1. In point of Worship For at Thar time the Holy Communion was daily administred by the Priests at least in great Cities and daily received by the devouter part of the peopl Som saith St. Augustine himself Daily communicate in the body and blood of the Lord some receve upon certain days in some places it is offered every day without intermission in som only upon the Sabbath and the Lords day in some upon the Lord's day only 2. In the point of Discipline which in Those days excluded the most scandalous both from the Communion and publik Prayers but This by the sentence of the Bishop This as it is plainly intimated in St. Augustin's above-recited words so is it more plainly expressed by St. Chrysostom in These words Art thou not worthy of the Sacrament nor Communion thou art not then worthy of Prayer Thou hearest the officer standing and proclaiming Whoever of you are in Penance be go'n If thou be one of those that are in Penance thou must not communicate For he that doth not communicate is in Penance Why then doth he say Be go'n you that cannot pray and thou impudently standest by and art not such but one of them that can communicate In which words of St. Chrysostom two things appear very considerable 1. That those who were excluded from the Holy Communion were no less so from publik Prayer which by the above-recited account of Justin Martyr began at the Communion Service 2. That it was not left to every mans private Caprice or Conscience to Com or Forbear But every one must com if he were not under Penance by the Bishops sentence VI. HITHERTO we have heard St. Augustin as a Father discursing in the Early stile a uestion suitable to his own time We ar now to hear him as a Doctor determining the Question by his own Reason And we are to observ 1. The stile he speaketh in And 2. The Determination he giveth 1. His stile is not definitive Doth not give his Sentence but his Opinion yea not his setled Opinion but his staggering unfledged Sentiments Doth not Impose upon our Belief but Propose to our Examination Between these saith he possibly a man determine i. e. No man hath yet so determined nor can I say that any man may but I offer it to consideration In This he speaketh most like a Father that he confesseth himself Not
of their Meeting but in That of their Festing yet his in thrice repeated charge he doth not lay his accusation against These but against Those especially vers 20. When ye com together in one place it is not to eat the Lords Supper From which words especially if helped with the now mentioned clause of ver 26. it plainly appeareth that it Then was and Ever must be the duty of All Christian Churches to celebrate the Lords Supper when ever they meet in his House Otherwise the Corinthians must be unjustly arraigned as Criminal having broken no Obligation God forbad Perjury in This stile Thou shalt not take in the Hebrew it is Thou shalt not lift up the name of the Lord thy God in vain The Phrase is bilt upon their then Custom of lifting up the hand in the name of God Our form of Swearing is not by lifting up the hand above the head but perhaps by bowing down the head to the hand yet no man pretends the power of the Law abolished with the Ceremony it seemeth bilt upon since the Obligation dependeth not upon the variable Circumstance of Swearing but the indispensibl Connexion between our Oath and Truth Just so it is here This Institution relates to Festing as That Law did to lifting up the hand This requireth that our Lords Supper should accompany All our Church-meetings as That doth that Truth should accompany All our Oaths and the Church may be as Innocent and the Obligation as Firm after the One alteration in the manner as after the Other And 't is worth our observation with what temper she hath ever proceeded that in the Great Changes she found Necessary to make the Sacrament might not lose its right It seems not an Accidental but Substantial circumstance That This should be Instituted In and After Supper and consequently that it should be Celebrated in the same Season necessary both to answer its Title the Supper of the Lord and the Tradition whence it was taken Yet to celebrate it before day appeareth by the unquestionable testimony of Pliny to have be'n the practice in Trajan's time But That Persecution which Necessitated did thereby Justifie so Great a variation They wer denyed the use of their Public Churches if they had Any their malicios enemies watched all opportunities to mingle their blood with their Sacrifices Either therefor they must do this before day or not at all This was a great Change but no Robbery for the Sacrament lost not so much as its Name by it but still continued to be caled the Lords Supper That change the Emperors Persecution made necessary and a worse Persecution made a Greater one no less so The unbridled luxury of the people turned it from the Supper of the Lord to a Fest of Bacchus and it seemed impossibl to rescu it from that wors Metamorphosis but by turning it from a Desert after Supper to a Break-fast in the Morning III. AND thogh this seemed a Greater change than the Former as taking away not only the Season of the Supper but the very Nature of a Fest yet was the Church careful to save the Institution harmless The Day first consecrate to This office still enjoyeth the title of The Lords day and of a Fest Four Councils declared it heretical to Fast and many Canons forbad to Kneel upon That day it is honored with a Preparatory Vigil and a Communion-Service and every Other Holy day if they be not expresly consecrate to Festing enjoy the same honor and title of Festivals And why I pray' now why all this care Why so great a Soloecism to Fast upon our Lords day Was he indeed as the Scribes and Pharisees charactered him a riotos person and a Wine-bibber If He were yet certainly St. Michael and all Angels ar not nor wer All the Saints so John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking St. Paul was in fastings often and many other Saints are honored for their very Abstinence How can it be congruos that the Angels should delight in That whereof they are by Nature Uncapable or the Saints in that which by Grace they Shunned But granting this Why then must their Eves be Fasting-days What strange meetings of Contradictions are these That they who in their lives loved and practiced Fasting should after their deaths delight in Festing and yet their very Festing-days be honored by a Fasting Usher Suppose This be only a Preparative To what purpose such a bedel Must we Therefor Fast upon the Eve that we may have the better stomach to the following Fest There must questionless be som Better reason and what Better can there be than what we ar now observing viz. the constant Practice of All mankind and particularly of Christians celebrating the worship of God with Festing not abrogated but thus improved that the Supper of our Lord might be it self a Spiritual Fest attended with a Corporal one and ushered with a Vigil the One proper for its genuine Celebration the Other for our Preparation to it Nor hath the Apostls argument suffered more by this change than our Lords Supper the only difference is this That before it concluded by Enthymem and now by Syllogism While the custom continued of Eating this bread and drinking this cup in Every Meeting the conclusion without more ado followed Ergo He that eateth this bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty But now it requireth the assistance of an Assumtion which Then was the Apostl supposed would Ever be self-evident viz. that as often as they met together they ate this bread and drank this cup. And thogh the 27th verse seemeth to have lost its force bicause we do not eat that bread and drink that cup as the Corinthians then did yet the 20th still retaineth its strength and we ar guilty of the same charge of so coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper thogh we are not to be convicted by the same medium IV. AND if any Claus in the Apostls whole Dissertation teach us That charge must needs do it None of the rest can teach us point blank but only compass and by Analogy with those sensual Debaucheries against which they were leveled It can not now be said one is hungry and another is drunken nor can any other of those Characters fit us by which the Apostl describeth the profaneness he impeacheth But we think our selfs obliged by Analogy to infer that as their Sensual unworthiness made them guilty where they abused a Sensual Fest so any Spiritual unworthiness will make Us so if by it we profane a Spiritual one and for this Analogical reason we must examin our selfs c Now if this seem obliging in point of Worthiness much more must it be so in the Performance it self For he disputeth for That not only by Analogy but Point blank We find no Reproof because no Mention of any but Sensual or Schismatical unworthiness in the Corinthians but Express and thrice Repeted inculcation of their Meetings as
This Sacrament When the Word hath prepared the Heart by the Ear when the Understanding is Informed and the Affections somewhat Moved with the recital of What our Lord suffered And Why Then doth the Sacrament complete the service by shewing to our very Eyes the Wounds not of his Garments but his Flesh and Those not as long since made but as now in making Represents his Sacred bloud not as dried up by time but as Now even Now streaming from his Heart It so Commemorates his passion as to Repete it and in the most inflaming manner presents to our Souls all those incentives against sin which our Lords death our Lords Present death can furnish He that considers how the little sens of Religion yet left in the world is derived from the Frequency of Preaching will find too great reason to bewail the invaluabl loss it suffers by want of so helpful an Attendant For if That maimed as it is do in Som however Littl mesure prevail by it's Singl and Deserted strength how much more might we hope from their united Forces if Jonathan secunded his Armor bearer To say that we might Then sing of them as the daghters of Israel did of their victorios Princes Preaching hath saved it's Thousands and the Sacrament it 's Ten thousands would be but a cold Eulogy We have no reason to doubt that as there is more than Ten to One difference in their Powers so would there be in their Successes Unless we will needs doubt of our Lords ordinary blessing upon his so beloved ordinance which we have far more reason to believe he would assist with the Spirit not only of a David but a Samson as being a Nazarite appropriat to himself Therfor THIRDLY I shall say but this litle to such a scruple That as it would look almost like a Miracle if an Honest Constant Communicant should miss a blessing so we may be sure that if there needed a Miraculos Power to bless such an one it would not be wanting For it is incredibl that he who promised that when ever two or three ar gathered together in his name there he will be in the mids of them should not be most Especially and most Graciosly present with those who meet not in his Name only but at his Table upon his Own kind invitation to fest not With him only but Upon him Of this I say no more bicaus Those whom I dispute with ar so far from denying our Lords especial Presence that they make it the Reason for Their Absence who most need it but how much they thereby honor our Lord and his Supper let what I have above said declare for I hasten to my third position VII 3. MY THIRD Position is that the Converting Power of the Sacrament is better Exercised and it's Honor more Advanced by Frequent than by Seldom Celebrations The question is concerning the Greater or Less probability of the Conversion of a Sinner whom we must suppose arrived to neither of the Opposit perfections neither Worthy on the One side nor Atheistical on the Other but in a Midl state sensibl of his duty both to our Lord and his Church Willing or rather Submitting to do what he shall be convinced to be required of him but Wavering between his Obedience to our Lords Command which seemeth to require Frequency at least and the Apostls indulgence backed with appearance of Reason which recommendeth Aw and Distance as necessary to preserv that Reverence which it is supposed will best advance both the Honor of the Sacrament and Benefit of the Recever For such an one may plead that if I ow any person Twenty shillings and pay him One Guinny I do better than if I paid him Twenty silver shillings So if One Solen Address be more worth then Twenty of the Constant it will be better to com One time for Twenty With such Solennity then Twenty times for One Without it And consequently our Lord will accept of That as more perfect obedience than This. At present we dispute not that in This Institution the Number of pieces is the very Essence of the Obligation but admit the supposed liberty of paying One Golden performance in lieu of Many Less valuabl and upon This Supposition require that the Pretence may be made good viz. That the One for Twenty may be Such as shall recompence by the greater Valu the defect in Number This One Solen address must have not only a plainer Stamp as every new Coin may have but purer Metal not only more Outward Solennity but more Inward Devotion For if a man bow the knee never so Solenly and give the title of King never so Formally yet if in So doing he put no better then a Dry Hollow Light Reeden Scepter into our Lords hand he acteth more like a persecuting Jew than a Loyal Disciple And in the present inquiry Those who ar to make the Address ar supposed to ly in a state of Enmity and Need of Conversion for concerning the Godly there is no doubt but the oftener the better What ever Outward deference such enemies bring if it have nothing of the power of Godliness it doth not honor our Lord with his Own Sceptre For the Sceptre of his Kingdom is a right Sceptre a love of Righteosness and hatred of iniquity What ever wanteth This wanteth That Divine life without which the most Solen worship is no better than a gay Pageant who 's Forced motions pass for Solen merely bicaus Unwieldy the Absence of inward life giving the Ly to them all That we may the better Compare them it will be requisite we bring to vieu both the Rivals And first let us bring forth that Shew wherewith our Lord is to be better Served and Pleased than with literal Obedience WHEN the Unwelcom season is now at hand which Indispensibly exacteth the painful task the Unwilling votary if he can deserv That name finding No way to escape it forceth himself to look Sadly upon his still Beloved sins Confineth himself for som tedios days to the Lothed conversation of that Troublsom stranger his Conscience wherewith he Communeth in such Awkward manner as plainly betrayeth his Unacquaintedness with it's language not to be supplied by the vainly courted assistance of those good Books which at such times only he taketh the Penance to read and after the appointed days languished away in this heartless Exercise which he calleth Preparation he receveth I say not the Lords Supper but the holy Symbols with great Solennity we grant but with as little Benefit or Relish as Appetite and goeth home with This only comfort that the Tedios work is do'n and the Stately Lifeless machin may be laid aside till the Revolution of another Solennity call it forth to stalk abroad again with the same Troubl to the same Little purpose Let our adversaries now deal freely can they suppose such Pageantry acceptabl to God can such Counters as have somthing of the due Image and Superscription but
first to the Holy Table and thence to Religion in general For it must add Shame to Grief when they see the best Arguments for Religion that present Happiness can offer retorted against it No greater joy saith Plut. than that of Religios fests wherein the Epicurean hath no part No greater nor more numeros troubles saith our experience than those which torment the Communicant wherein those who forbear have no part For the most worthy Communicant may be perplexed with fears that he is one of the unworthy against whom St. Paul's threatnings ar leveled but he that absenteth himself keepeth the same distance both from That danger and the troubl of preparation as from the Table For as is the Danger so is the Fear of it Great but Condicional Bicaus Great it falls heavy upon the Obedient bicause Condicional it cannot reach Others who 's neglect keeps them out of its sphaere of activity True upon the whole complex the Religios mans conscience is incomparably kinder even in its fears than that of the Irreligios even in his jollities but we now consider them not in relation to our Lords Throne but his Table And in This Precise respect we think it plain that as This duty is stated it must needs cause Great troubl to the One and None to the Other For the Irreligios will therefor be free from any Troubl from it if he Forbear bicause he believeth himself so from any Obligation to Com But the Religios whether he Com or Forbear will hardly escape Disquiets so much the more Grievos by how much the Duty is more Important Whether it wer not better to Level This in equal dignity with other holy offices of Gods worship which is the utmost the Apostl pleaded for than thus to Advance it above them All and for its maintenance in That height put it to exercise such unjust Tyranny over its most loving and faithful subjects no less contrary to its Own Nature than Their Happiness If it be not already plain enogh it will appear more so when we find This unhappy way of honoring it no less mischievos to the Publik peace of the Church than to the Private of the best of its members CHAP. VIII Pernicios to Charity I. Festing a bond of kindness among guests Salt an embleme of Love II. This a Fest of Charity seasoned with a kiss of Charity The highest Communion Drinking and Pledging Drinking healths The Bride-cake The Apostl's way of Arguing our Union from this Communion III. The kiss of charity translated kissing the Pax Panis benedictus a mockery The Sacrament not only disabled from advancing Love but turned to a makebate 1. by taking away the necessity of the Supper we take away its power to make us One body Our Saviors precept of being reconciled before we offer our gift miserably perverted IV. 2. By our too great aw we not only disable the Sacrament from healing the least breach but make it an instrument of the greatest 1. This multiplieth questions 2. Invenometh them 3. Maketh them incurable V. Taketh away the very subject of the question better the Sacrament had never be'n instituted than so abused THE Third good end to which the Holy Sacrament is directed is the cementing of All Christians together in Mutual Charity A Festival board is a Corporation the Communion holdeth not only between Head and Members but between Member and Member too And it is Such that our Lord reckoneth it among the Pretences that shall be made to his favor at the great day Many shall say at That day Lord Lord have we not eaten and drunk IN THY PRESENCE We see he reckoneth Eating and drinking in his Presence ' thogh not at his Own table for he made few fests but accepted of many worthy to be ranked with Prophecying and doing many wonderful works in his Name as an equal token of favor receved or deserved Salt was by Gods Law required in Every Sacrifice and is so by Universal Tradition in Every Fest We startl at the spilling of it as an unhappy omen The reason given by som is that it is the embleme of Love and it is authorised by our Lord saying Have Salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among your selvs and have Peace one with another II. THIS uniting vertu is more conspicuous in our Lords Supper than in Any Other and the Apostls seasoned it accordingly Greet one another with an holy kiss saith St. Paul with a kiss of Charity saith St. Peter And the later seemeth to fit the Salt to the Viands in Name as well as in Nature St. Jude caleth the Supper a fest of Charity The kiss therefor wherewith it must be seasoned might very properly be stiled a kiss of charity That was the strongest Engagement and This the properest Seal That the Table This the Salt The first time we find the Holy Supper celebrated we find it deserv the name which it afterward obteined Well might it be caled a Communion for it was the most perfect that ever the world admired Act. 2.44 All that believed wer together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and parâ—â—d them to all men as every man had need and continuing daily in the Templ and breaking bread in the common hous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partook the norishment with gladness and singlness of heart praising God and having favor with all the peopl And that we may not imagin those two Communions of Goods and of the Lords Supper to be fortuitosly met the Apostl expresly telleth us that the One was the caus of the Other We being Many ar One Bread and One Body For we ar all partakers of That One Bread It might upon too frequent occasions appear considerable that he putteth an emphasis upon the Universality both in the Reason and the Consequence All ar One Body bicause All ar Partakers of That One Bread I might further observ from J. Martyr's testimony how upon This account the Primitive Christians communicated even with the Absent by sending them portions of the holy Supper as symbols of their interest both in the Fest and their Love And I might hence not improbably derive our own custom of drinking to the Present and the Absent as a symbol of Love to Both A notion so much the more plausibl bicause after the Greekish mode we have made the Cup aequivalent to a whole Fest And among Us to drink to any person is so acknowledged a pledg of kindness that it passeth in Law for a Releas if pleaded to an action of Scandal or personal injury and he that drinks the so offered cup is said to PLEDGE him that began it i. e. he accepteth and reciprocateth or continueth on that Pledge of love In the Greek Church the Solemnities of Marriage ar closed with this ceremony The Priest blesseth a cup of wine and Bridegroom and Bride both drink of it And as in the Primitive Church the holy symbols were caried to the Absent so do we
care to press the almost forgotten duty Yet still so that their labors have not answered the necessity For they all write Ad populum and accommodate their Discourses not to the amplitude of the Subject but to the narrowness of their Readers capacities whereby they are obliged to shun the strongest and confine themselves to the weakest Arguments Whereas he that will stem an Error pretending both to Piety and Universality and backed with the rarely combined assistance of the Peoples inclinations and the Pastors silence yea and encouragements must consult rather the necessity of the Subject than the capacity of the vulgar whose office is not to judge of Arguments but obey Exhortations For correction of Manners indeed a plausible Rhetorical Suasory may therefore suffice because the Readers judgment is of the Authors party But for conviction of Errors where the Judgment concurs with the Affections in joint opposition there must be such greater strength as may not only fairly perswade but forcibly subdue Both. If such Elenctik Discourses be too unweildy for the weak vulgar it is to be considered that those only are able to Reform an Error who are so to Understand whatever can be said to prove it one And such though comparatively few in number are not therefore less worthy our best service For every Learned person is a Publik one and may be reckoned for as many as his Example or Discourses may influence Nor can this Holy Office ever be restored to it s long lost observance but by Their conduct who are guides to the people VI. THIS therefore is the sum of my account I see the Holy Communion ly under the unhappiness of Gideon's Fleece denyed the blessing of Restoration which all other Offices of our Worship enjoy The most Pious and Prudent complain not only in relation to the Sacrament it self but to those good ends which it was designed to serve and which wither for want of it Those who labor the Remedy do Well but not Enough I have long expected that some better hand would proportion the Remedy to the Need But finding those Hopes disappointed and the Evil unabated can no longer forbid my self to undertake a Work so necessary wherein though I be obliged to comply with every understanding yet am I rather to leave Many Vulgar Readers Ignorant than One Learned one Unconvinced and therefor must not balk any thing however difficult to be understood if it have force answerable And if I appear singular in any my Positions That also must be imputed to the singularity of my Task I must dig deeper than others have done prove what they have supposed disprove what they have connived at search the bottom of those Expressions whose Surface they have built upon and so state the whole that every Practical Question especially those necessary ones above-mentioned may be satisfied both fully and convincingly We are to travel antiquated ways over-grown not only with Weeds which hide every path but Briars and Thorns which incumber them not only with the Forgetfulness but Prejudices of Many Generations which to grub up will require both strength and labor learning and care 1. Some Learning will be requisite but not much We shall not need capt Fathers or Councils or School-men c. tumble our Books or torment our Brains to reconcile One Author with Another or the Same with Himself There is but one only Text which at all speaks to the matter and a little Logick with sufficient Care will discover its meaning 2. But as much Care as you please For I profess to fear any Learned Readers Hast more than his Rigor and therefor I intreat and provoke him to view and review examine and cross-examine sift and search every clause in this whole Dissertation and spare me not if he find any one inconsistent with any other either in This Work or the Apostles Discourse or other Scripture or with any other authentick Evidence or any other rule of Reasoning I very well know what appearances my fundamental notices will make to the first glance They will seem extravagant and perhaps ridiculously contemptible bicause not only far out of the Rode but short of those awful apprehensions that we have growen up in toward the Holy Sacrament Yet am I fully perswaded that the more strictly they are examined the more will they appear not only Suitable and Serviceable but absolutely Necessary to a clear understanding of our Lords Institution the Apostles dissertation and our own duty And were I mistaken and confuted in any collateral Position yea in almost all yet if any One evidence remain unanswered That One must not suffer for the defects of its fellows but claim such submission as is due to its however single power I therefor pray my capable Reader by all the above-mentioned and all other concerned Interests For the Lords the Churches his Own and Others Souls sakes if he values the Power of Godliness much decayed the publick Peace much endangered or this Holy Sacrament the great promoter of both much neglected By all that ought to be dear to Christians or Men I pray him to be as severe but withal as impartial in examining what is here offered as the dignity of the Subject and the neglect it suffereth both from Doctors and People require and rhen to put That sentence in execution which he so finds to be just That I may not only exhort but provoke you and withal prevent an Objection supposing it unpracticable I tell you what our Lord said in another case The very stones will cry out is in a sort verified in this When the defection of our Nation is almost as general as was that of Israel in Elijah's days and those to whom it properly belongs neglect the redress to the shame of us Priests yea of us Men but to the honor of the weaker Sex and more tempted Quality in a place promising as little as the condition of the persons as if Piety wrought by Antiperistasis a number of noble Ladies emulating the Primitive Christians as in other offices of Devotion so in This also have combined themselves with their suitably pious Ministers in a Holy Society paying our Lords day his Supper and his Poor their joint rights by celebrating the Holy Communion with its Offertory at least every Sunday Wherein probably they design not barely to Perform but to Exceed the utmost Obligations of strict Duty and by That very error so surmounted deserve the applause of doing things that are more excellent Yet leaving them the honor due to such extraordinary good Intentions I must rob them of the glory of supererogating in the performance by proving that they hardly do all that is commanded them Which since I cannot do with any reasonable hope or considerable success but by convincing the Learned nor that but by carefully tracing the Apostles discourse through its various turnings which will require more Care than learning as well in Reader as Wrirer lest those who are either
this last Opinion seemeth fairly intimated in the Berachoth it self if well interpreted For in the eighth Chapter reckoning up the differences between the houses of Shammai and Hillel they thus express the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which words may be thus translated There cometh to them Wine for the Poscaenium and there is there no other but That very Cup The house of Shammai say he blesseth first for the Wine and afterward he blesseth for the Meat But the house of Hillel say he blesseth for the Meat and afterward he blesseth for the Wine In which words is plain that all agree that there is Wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we observed them to stile that After Supper 2. That there is but one cup for the whole company and 3. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blesseth for them All. But Zohar in Exod. p. 280. speaketh full to our purpose and nameth the Cup by his proper name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cup of Blessing was not used unless when there were Three because of the mystery of the Three fathers which blessed and so there is no need of the Cup unless there be Three The Reason is most Rabbinical i. e. most ridiculous but the Authority is reputed great because most ancient and the words are most pertinent and conclusive to our purpose plainly expressing how much they stood upon the Cup of Blessing and what number it required II. UPON This account of mater of Fact it will not be hard to pass judgement which I shall come to by steps 1. WHETHER in our Saviors days they put such difference between Bread and Cup is not necessary for us to determin for the Apostl's Argument will go as strongly thogh perhaps not altogether as gracefully without it since his partiality to the Cup may otherwise be fairly accounted for 1. Because we have seen from other pens that the Greeks understood the use of the Grace-cup but we meet no such foot-steps of their Breaking of bread and it was reason the Apostl should rather bild his inferences upon a custom which they knew than upon One which they knew not 2. Because Bread was never distributed After any Other Supper but only the Paschal and was Then attended with a form of words sounding much like that which our Lord used in his Institution Since hence appeared som danger lest the Corinthians should mistake our Lords meaning it was fit the Apostl should clear it which he doth almost as plainly as if he had said You know the custom of closeing a Fest with a Cup of blessing and you may know the custom of the Jews distributing a Cake after the Passover and probably you may think our Lord intended that his Supper should be mesured not by the Cup which was used after All Fests but by the Bread which was so used only after the Passover But I tell you I have receved from the Lord himself that you must celebrate his Supper as often as you drink the Grace cup. Here is ground enogh for his Argument and all its turnings and we may safely spare the trouble either of enquiring or contending for the equal or unequal frequency of the ordinary Bread 2. WERE the Jewish Misna or Talmūd directly against us in som material particulars it were more reasonable to reject their Authority than so Necessary and so Exact a Key That we may see the reasonableness of This assertion it will be fit to ballance them 1. If the Jewish Doctrines in maters of their dearest Law be apparently changed from what they were in our Saviors days we oght to suspect their care not to have be'n greater towards a Tradition Let us then compare what our Lord said with what their Talmud now saith The Gospel informeth us Luke 14.5 that our Lord spake to the Pharisees and Lawyers saying Which of you shall have an Ox or an Ass falen into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day And they could not answer him to these things Which yet they might have do'n if their then Doctrines had be'n agreeable to those of the Talmud which forbiddeth to pull him out but alloweth to carry meat to feed him and if need be straw to support him in the place And accordingly Munster furnisheth us with a pertinent story out of the Saxon Annals A Jew saith he fallen into a Jakes on the Sabbath would not be draw'n out but have meat brought him thither which the Bishop hearing of required that the same honor should be paid to the Christian Sabbath so the poor Jew suffered two days penance for the Talmud's swerving from ancient practice I pretend not to equal any evidence with the Gospel It is sufficient that I hence infer that we may not argu from their Present customs to their Ancient so as to reject any probable light especially when so confirmed as we are by som of their own Rabbies III. 3. SEEING so great a party of them so state their Tradition as most exactly jointeth with the Apostl's discours we have great reason to believe Them to be in the right This not as an arbitrator between the dissenting Rabbins but in defence of my Hypothesis from my worthy Friends Objection I thus confirm from the exact agreement which I found between the Apostl's Argument and That Custom so stated This Argument must proceed from Chance from the Jews accommodating their Custom to our Lords Institution or from our Lords accommodating his Institution to the Jewish Custom It was not from either of the Former Therefor it was from the Last That the Division is adaequate needeth no proof For Ether it must be by Chance or it must Not since there can be no midl between the two ends of a Contradiction If it were Not by chance then ether That Custom must conform to This Institution or This to That For they cannot meet unless Mahomet go to the Mountain or the Mountain com to Mahomet The Assumtion I thus prove by parts 1. It cannot proceed from Chance Such a concurs of so many and so crooked particls can be no more imputed to undiscerning chance than can the meeting of the letters in the discurs it self Chance may do one thing well as a blind man may shoot a Hare but he cannot shoot multitudes without missing one When a FINE is levied in Court the Chirographer writeth two Copies at a competent distance in the same Parchment In the space between them he writes two or three letters then he cutteth the Parchment in the middle indenturewise so as to divide those Letters leaving either indenture som part that upon any occasion the conterparts compared together may by so many agreements vouch either for the other There happened a question between three parties concerning the conditions of a Fine levied time out of mind Two of the contenders produce for proof of their pretences common Parchments attested only by their Fathers The third produceth an Indenture of Fine transmitted to
any design in ether of the Three to honor the by Them Unregarded and to Us Insignificant Circumstance Once more We must never fly to a Miracle where we find Nature nor must we suppose our Lord to have exercised his miraculous Power without his Wisdom We have a fair smooth account one way his action suitable to his Own last Institution in circumstances exact his form of words This is my Body in the most proper manner signifying both Who he was and Why he did this must needs by natural significance open their eyes those of their Bodies to discover his Person and those of their Understandings to discover his Institution On the other side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a needless fruitless Miracle which we cannot believ without Neglecting our Lords wisdom and Renouncing our Own Yet are the Apostl's eyes holden This Season upon a contrary disorder blinding their apprehensions as the Passion-night had do'n For thogh He appeared to them whiles This very action was in relating discoursed with them shewed them his hands and his feet yet at first they believed not for Joy and Wondering Which Passions thogh they blew from a contrary point broght violence enogh to ruffle their minds into such confusion that they could not discover his very Person much less his Mind No less than forty days did their eyes continu thus holden nor were they opened 'till the miraculous illumination of the Spirit of Truth broght all our Lords sayings with their explications to mind The same St. Luke which records these appearances closeth the Gospel with this short account of their Devotions They were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God And with the same character doth he describe it in the beginning of their Acts 1.14 They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren Not a syllabl of the breaking of the Bread here or any where els during the whole forty days But immediatly upon the coming of That Spirit of Truth which according to our Lords promise led them into all Truth and brought all things to their remembrance that ever he had said unto them and not only to their Remembrance but to their Understanding Then did they both Remember and Understand All that our Lord said did and meant concerning his Supper III. AND now we are com'n to the second Observable viz How diligent they were in performing this duty when they knew it For immediatly we find This added to their other Devotions Acts 2.42 They continued in the Apostl's doctrine and communion and in breaking of bread and in prayer and in vers 46. They continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house did participate the food 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with gladness and freedom of heart And here bicause it may possibly be questioned whether our Lords Supper be meant we ought to observ 1. The Exercises accompanying it 2. The Phrase expressing it 3. The Place of celebration 4. The Time 1. The EXERGISES ACCOMPANYING it were All Holy Blessing God Supplication Prayer All Acts of Devotion What maketh Breaking of bread in such company What fellowship hath God with Epicurus 2. The PHRASE is Diverbial every one in That age understood it Eating of Bread was their idiom for a Fest and Breaking of Bread for the consecration of it by this Ceremony so that This was not only the most Proper but the Only Phrase that could have be'n used to express both That Custom and This Sacrament Why St. Luke should here give the Bread the honor to denominate when we found St. Paul so partial to the Cup we need seek for no other reason but This viz. The Jews used so to speak yet is there another Those cavilers who had so strained to impeach the Apostles as drunk with new wine would not have failed to slander their Meetings as drunken compotations if themselvs should have professed they met to drink the Cup. In This stile therefor is wisely consulted the honor of the Exercise which is hereby so far removed from any suspicion of drunkenness that is not so bad as ordinary Eating so far from Riotous that it could not be suspected to be merely Civil IV. 3. THe PLACE where this Exercise was performed seemeth to oppose it's Sacredness and therefor requireth more than superficial heed The word in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our received Translation Englisheth it from house to house some Margins at home Ether of them importing a Common Place would denote Common Bread but let us consider The Apostl's opposing the Religion legally established were necessitated to hold Conventicles for fear of the Rulers when they met to celebrate This office which by Them was abominated and would certainly be persecuted The Templ was a publik place for Jews and Gentiles It was a house of Prayer for all nations bicause Natural Universal Religion taught all Nations to pray and praise God Thus far might the Apostls communicate as well with their Enemies as Disciples and that they might so do they continued daily with one accord in the Temple But should they have presumed There to celebrate This Christian office and thereby to Upbraid their Rulers for having destroyed the Lord of life they must infallibly have drawen upon themselves not only certain Disturbance but certain Destruction It was therefor absolutely necessary to cary This office to som Other place wherein they might escape both eyes and hands of enemies And if there were Any to be found that emulated the Templ as the Tradition did the Sacrifice That above All other might best pretend to the honor Our industrious Mede and Gregory have abundantly proved that the Jews and their Proselytes in their greater houses were careful to provide a large upper room for Religious Exercises Such was That wherein our Lord instituted This Sacrament Such if not the same was That wherein the eleven continued with Mary c. in prayer and supplication to the number of 120. Such That wherein Paul preached when Eutyches fell down from the third loft c. These large Rooms were caled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bicause of their situation on the top of the house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the same reason or for the Largeness of the windows and perhaps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because their amplitude by the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the fairest pile in a City is caled the Domo It was but Rational that the Apostl's with their Disciples finding it so far from Safe that it was not Possibl to perform This office in the Temple should provide for their Quiet and Safety and but Pious that they should chuse such a Place as might com as near the Templ as possibl both in Greatness and Holiness This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we again find joined with the Templ Act. 15. The Angel of the Lord commanded the Apostl's to preach to the
people in the Templ vers 20. And in the last verse we find their obedience such that daily in the Templ and in every house if the Translation speak truth they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ But the Greek speaketh as before In conformity to the Angels command they preached to the people in the Templ that they might Convert the yet Unconverted and they did the same and more in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to confirm those that were already Discipled Thus far we have found fair Probabilities Now I add a Demonstration not heeded by the above-named Learned Authors Hitherto we have found it in the singular number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but upon cogent reason we shall find it in the plural Acts 20.20 St. Paul having convened the Disciples of Asia thus justifies himself to them I have kept back nothing from you but have preached publikly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may now be more tolerably thogh not exactly translated from house to house Now I demand any colour of reason for this change of number other than This plain one Asia was a large Province There were Therein divers Churches in divers Cities and it was proper that every City should have it's proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently the Apostle must there preach as from City to City so from Hous to Hous But Hierusalem was no more than One thogh perhaps greater than two or three Cities and required no more but One so it were a great Meeting-house and There breaking of Bread might well be celebrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one Domo As certainly therefor as the Plural number signifieth more than the Singular and a Large Provnice needeth more Meeting-houses than a City and the Apostl changeth numbers in conformity to the need so certain it is that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie such a House as is appropriate to such a Meeting and such an Exercise V. 4. THE TIME when this was do'n is severally stated one way for Hierusalem and another for remoter Churches 1. At Hierusalem the Apostles and Brethren continued Daily in breaking of bread as well as in supplication and prayers but it was not could not be so in other places Hierusalem was the Metropolis There the Apostolik College kept their constant residence they deserted their Secular calings devoting themselves entirely to the propagation of the Gospel preaching in that Mother-city and thence issuing their Emissaries and Orders to other Churches There all that believed were together and had all things common sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need Acts 2.45 and 4.35 This was no more than necessary that those who had nothing but their hands might not be compelled to imploy them with their time for their bodily maintenance and in consequence hereof when all the Believers were impoverished in Particular and their common stock spent then must they be maintained by Contribution from Other Churches whom their Emissaries had converted to the same Faith receiving Carn I things in exchange for Spiritual things 2. To These Churches therefor another life was necessary Being to minister not only to their Own necessities but to those of the now poor Saints at Hierusalem they were caled to Work as well as to Believ To his Corinthians our Apostle prescribeth that in what ever caling any man is caled he therein abide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Gods name and to the Thessalonians That if any one would not Work neither should he Eat Yet as the poor Saints must have a Portion of their Goods so must God have of their Time The Law had directed to the Seventh day Upon that day they Might and they Did join with the Jews in their Sabbath Devotions in their Synagogs as the Apostls did at Hierusalem in the Templ But for This holy Supper That Day was for the same reason no less unfit than That Templ What therefor we said of the necessity of another Place is no less true concerning another Day necessary to be consecrated to this Anti-Jewish office And what Day more proper than the Next not only nearest in Time but superior in Work On the Seventh day God rested from his work of Creation and fested Himself in the complacency he receved from the vieu of its perfection But upon the First day our Savior triumphed in the accomplishment of the to Him harder and to Us happier work of our Redemtion And as this Office was to take it's time after Reading Preaching and Prayer as we shall see more anon so was it congruos that it should succeed the Sabbath consecrate by the Law to those Offices The next day therefor as every way fittest is set apart for this Greater Mystery in memory of our Saviors Passion and Benefits This we find expresly declared Act. 20.7 Upon the First day of the week the Disciples came together to break bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for breaking breads sake And for this reason was it stiled the Lords day as appropriate to the honor of His Person Rev. 1.10 And in aftertimes the day of Bread Chrysost Hom. 5. De Resurrect And since we cannot better manifest our Love to him than by charity to his members and this Supper was both an Emblem and a Means of mutual Love therefore must it be attended with Liberality to the Poor recommended specially at this time by our Apostl to the Corinthians as before to his Galatians exhorting that Upon the First day of the week every one should lay by in store as God had prospered him 1 Corin. 16.1 2. And for this constantly attending Offertories sake no less than for the influence they had in promoting mutual love among the Communicants were these stiled Fests of charity under which character St. Jude mentions them as the ordinary exercise of all visible Members of the Church which els had not be'n so obnoxious to the Spots he complains of Yet so incorrigibl was the General sensuality that by Tertullians time they were relapsed into the same profaneness with that reproved in the Corinthians the Fests forgot their relation to the Lords Supper and a while after were banished out of his Church For som Ages did the now dead Sabbath ly in state not as still in force by vertu of the Law which it self was dead but in charity to the Jews in order to whose more probable conversion Christians complyed with them as far as lawfully and conveniently they Might and they Might so in All offices of Natural religion as in their Templ so on their Sabbath thogh the Sanctity of Both were equally abolished But with This difference that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were without any Positive Command honored by the Jews as so many Chappels of ease even while the Mother-templ stood and therefor were not by the Apostl's first consecrate to this office But the Lords day was never sanctified by the Jews nor upon any other account by the Apostls
swallowed up and our Lord's Institution be lost in a private Tradition and an unintelligibl Mass but in the Beginning it was not so 5. The result of all is That the Doctrine of liberty from obligation to constancy in the Lords Supper is Popery most properly so caled both in the Mater and the Derivation in the Mater as differing from the Church Universal in the Derivation as proceeding from no pretence of Scripture at first thogh it be otherwise now but from Tradition of their own making contrary to Tradition worthily so caled and Scripture carefully examined Whoever therefor desireth a Thorogh Reformation from Popery and Popish Superstitions let him not spend his zele about litl Ceremonies and Circumstances but imploy it in service of the most Sacred and most properly Christian office which needs be rescued from utter abolition by the Practices of Rome never more grosly superstitious than in This Subject III. 4. THE Fourth sort of Testimony is That of ENEMIES Those that appear such to the Constancy we assert may be reduced to one of these three Glasses viz. 1. Protestants 2. Papists 3. Junior Fathers Among PROTESTANTS and Abov all others I therefor apply my self to the excellent person above praised bicause I know no other that hath asserted any thing so distinctly as to be capabl of an answer This admirable Person finding the Evidence of the best Antiquity That of the Apostl's and Primitive Fathers undeniable endeavoreth ro Evade what he findeth necessary to Confess 1. Concerning the Former we have heard him say True it is the Apostls did indefinitely admit all the faithful to the Holy Communion but they were persons wholely enflamed with those Holy Fire which Jesus Christ sent from Heaven to make them burning and shining Lights c. And then he spends a whole Page in such a Character as one might think intended for the Apostls themselves did not the question necessarily cast it upon the Faithful and then too one might think that word must be taken in its most rigid sens for the Elect. But was there a Judas among the twelve chosen by our Lord himself and not One unworthy among the thousands of Disciples whom the Apostls indefinitely admitted St. Jude describeth not Such Saints sure where among other black characters he brandeth them with This that they are spots in their fests of charity and as litl doth he blame the officers of the Church for admitting them St. Paul too I take it doth not describe Saintly conversation in those Church meetings for whose debaucheries he reproveth not the Pastors for Admitting such Persons but the Peopl for Committing such Leudness yea and So reproveth them as not to Excommunicate them for their domestik riots but to require them however unworthy in their persons to come but in a manner more worthy Had the Scriptures be'n silent we must have be'n very tame if without any evidence we had believed that All Christians in that better then Golden age deserved so great an Eulogy but after such contrary Evidence we have nothing better to do than to pity such an excellent Person so enslaved and hardly used by an Opinion that putteth him to seek but alloweth him no shifts from such insupportabl Evidence Another Confession with it s annexed Evasion concerns the Ancient Fathers in these words St. Hierom and St. Augustin tells us That even until their days the custom of receving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain And all the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion But just as Physitians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and faint but the strong men and the healthy All the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion This is more than can well stand with his own positions which discorage the generality from it yet falls as much short of truth as Frequent doth of Constant for we shall presently meet som of them exhorting not only to Frequent but Daily Communions Yea so certainly did the Primitive Christians make This not only their Constant but their Principal exercise in All their meetings that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which primarily signifieth no more than a Meeting became the diverbial word for the Lords Supper in exact conformity to St. Luke's stile who saith They meet to break bread and the footsteps of the phrase remain as plain yet as much corrupted as do those of the Office among the Romanists who express their Church-meetings by Going to Mass As certainly therefor as the Papists make the Mass the Principal exercise of their Publik worship so certainly did the Primitive Christians make the Lords Supper the principal of Theirs the very phrase confirming their express testimony of this truth They exhort men he confesseth but evades the consequence by adding they do it Just as Physicians c. whereas it is undeniable that They exhorted as the Apostls admitted All Indefinitely and until we are shewen that they excepted any besides Catechumens and Excommunicates we must not clip their indefinite Exhortations with unwarrantable Limitations derived from no other reason but their serviceableness to our Hypothesis IV. ANOTHER Class of Adversaries ar the Papists who yet no less manifestly Preserv than Contradict the Primitive Practice For That very Church which obligeth not the Peopl to receve but at Easter only That very Church in whose magnified Synod at Trent a Caveat was entered not to derive even That anniversary obligation from our Lords but the Churches command That very Church to This very day so Prescribeth as to Out-do the constancy of the Primitive Som may think it too much that I have from the Acts of the holy Apostles taken the Lords Supper for the reason of the Disciples meetings the first day of the week But none sure can doubt that with the Papist to go to Church signifieth the same as to go to Mass but to go to Hear Mass is such an errand as the first ages never went upon While they admit the people only to hear or see Their Hoc est corpus meum is an egregiosly and Both words of St. Paul may be applyed to such a Mass To the people belongs This is not to eat the Lords Supper To the Priest As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you shew forth the Lords death And both the One and the Other forsake their Duty and their Patern while they pretend to stick to them Thus the ruins of a beautiful Structure may at once evidence its amplitude and confess their own rubbidge no way answerable to the beauty it formerly served We need not therefor be ashamed of this kind of proof as if we too much honored the Church of Rome in owning her Practice for an evidence of the Primitive We take it not as the Testimony of the Honorable but as a Confession of the Guilty when we make use of their Own words as an evidence against the Speakers practice When we say every Mass ought to
who com not So often At least must be punishee as Non-conformists those who com not much Oftner thogh they fall not under her Discipline do under her Reproofs as we com now from hearing We can no more infer Three times a Year sufficient for the Communion bicause the Church doth not punish those who come so often than Once in a month to be sufficient for Divine Service because the Law punisheth not those who com so often Rules of Government have mesures different from Rules of Devotion Our Church seemeth to have taken her mesures from the Council of Agatho and Eliberis which declare That those who do not communicate on the Fests of Nativity Easter and Pentecost are not to be accounted Catholik She manifestly declareth her judgment to agree with what we have all this while be'n proving Not every Sunday but almost for every other Holy day she hath appointed a preparative Vigil that we may examin our selvs with Fasting and Prayer and every Festival hath its proper Communion Service to be read at the Time and Place of the Lords Supper Just in the same circumstances as Justin Martyr hath described the practice of the Church in His days when the Reader and Preacher have do'n their offices when the Catechumens are dismissed with the Benediction of The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ c. Then doth the Priest go to the Holy Table accompanied in Collegiat Churches and Chappels with one or two assistants There to read the Communion Service every Holy day throughout the year V. LET us now suppose a Priest of ether party about to read the Communion Service at the Holy Table declaring what he believeth to be the Churches meaning in that office and it will not be hard to judge which of the two will best deserv her thanks He that will make her satisfied with his three times in a year must speak to this purpose Behold hither am I com'n in conformity to the Customs of the Primitive Church and the Constitutions of our own The first Churches celebrated the Lords Supper every Holy dry and Ours ordaineth the Communion Service to be read every such day in the same circumstances After the Benediction with an Offertory at the Holy Table Here am I and my brethren ready to assist me to communicate to you and with you If any Isaac demand Here is the fire and the wood but where is the Lamb Here are all other requisites but where is the Bread and Wine Know that our Church doth as litl intend a Communion as Isaac did to be Sacrificed She doth not indeed affront your sences by Consecrating the Elements without Communicating them as doth the Church of Rome but she is no less willing to withold them from you She is content you should communicate thrice every Year that the memory of the Institution be not quite lost but would have you mannerly and modest not constant and importure guests com by such intervals as may becom the awe due to so venerable a Mystery not with such constancy as may signifie familiarity with it For however our Lord intended and the Apostls and best ages of the Church conformed themselvs to his Intentions that his Supper should be the constant office in every Church meeting yet experience hath proved such Constancy prejudicial to its Honor and therefor our Church hath taken this midl away constantly to do somwhat in obedience to the Lords Institution yet to forbear the complete office in reverence to his body and blood that as plenty hath made it cheap so scarcity may advance its value To this purpose must such an one speak that will father such an opinion upon the Church But he that pleads for constancy may borrow a better speach from St. Chrysostom who complains Here we wait and none com or from St. Augustin who expostulates What cause is there O hearers that ye see the Table and com not to the Banquet Yea or from her Own Exhortation now mentioned which assisted with her Rubrik prescribing to the Priests once every week at the least will complain not only of deserting the Table when furnished but of Discoraging the Ministers from furnishing it as constantly with the Holy Fest as they do with the Office which supposes it For thus may such an one speak Here we attend in conformity to our Lords Institution the Practice of the Primitive Church and the Injunctions of our Own to communicate with you the Lords Supper We do not indeed bring forth the Bread and Wine bicause it is too manifest that in so doing we must either expose them to contemt by not using them at all or use them our selves alone The choice is hard and the Church of Rome hath chosen the Later but without escaping the Former For how can That be caled a Communion as by the Apostl it is where One takes all to himself or how is the holy Supper rescued from contemt when all but one are idle spectators not vouchsafing to be guests at the divine Supper Our Church hath taken the best cours that in so great a streight she could to avoid Both sides of the inconvenience That our Lords body blood may not be so exposed she forbids us to celebrate the Communion unless there be a competent number to communicate and to avoid loss of any opportunity she directs those who intend to communicate that they signifie their readiness by sending their names in convenient season to the Curate By the One she provides that the Fest be not dishonored for want of Guests and by the Other that the Desirous be not hindered for want of the Fest And lest this omission of bringing Bread and Wine should be mistaken for an intimation that it is not our duty to receve them she hath provided that upon Every Holy day we be put in mind of our Obligation Yesterday Eve was consecrate to Fasting and Prayer for This very purpose that we might thereby prepare our selvs to receve the Holy Supper this day And now that the Common Prayer is ended and the rest of the people who are not capable to communicate ar dismissed with their blessing according to the practice of Christ's Church in the best ages we com up to the holy Table in this its proper place and season to read the Communion-service that you may understand there oght to be a Communion joined with This Service if you would not be wanting to your duty in receiving it You know we dare not adventure to expose the holy Viands without giving you a weeks warning nor dare we give you such warnings as Frequently as we desire much less as Gonstantly as we ought bicause we sind you too backward to entertene even Those too rare Invitations which we give you But that you may see with what regret we submit to That necessity you thus put upon us Our Church is careful clearly to intimate how much more she Wisheth than she Dareth to Command What reason
hardness of the peopl's hearts In so corrupt an age we may not stand upon our Lords In the beginning it was not so but yield to his Suffer it to be so now I therefor urge no more but this That it is the duty of every Minister to labor with his people to com constantly and to offer the Holy Communion as often as he can prevail with them to receve it Against this so complaisant Assertion bicause St. Augustin's out-running followers have not only opposed his Let every one do what he thinks best but preferred the Centurions aw before Zacheus's reception therefor must this doubl Error be encounter'd with a doubl Question 1. Whether our Lords Do this take not away our liberty to forbear it 2. Supposing we had liberty to do what we believe best whether it were not better to do it frequently than seldom 1. Our first Question must be Whether our Lords Do this leave us any liberty to forbear when we think it better In this Enquiry we must distinguish between Laws Moral and Positive II MOral Laws ar written in the fleshly tables of the heart whose yielding nature may take impression from the various occurrences of life Those Laws as they ar Dictated by Reason so must they be Interpreted by it and bend to the several requires of the subject matter For the Philosopher cannot so fix the bounds of Vertu but that in many cases the Determination of a Prudent man is necessaty to distinguish it from Vice But God wrote his Positive Laws in Tables of Stone whose rigor was uncapabl of yielding Of such Laws the Will of the Law-giver was the Only Reason and must be the Only Mesure We must do Just so no less nor no more nor no otherwise Reason hath here nothing to do but to deny it self to have the least power to Dispens or Derogate or Commute or any way Decline from the express voice of the Law Uzzah could not then plead the appearance of necessity or the evidence of his good meaning when the danger of the Law was greater one way than that of the Ark was the other way To this surpose ler us reflect upon what we have already observed that our Apostl vouched our Lord's authority that so he might assert both the Truth and Importance of what he delivered For we cannot now deny the Truth without affronting the Apostl's veracity nor the Importance without disparaging our Lord's wisdom for the One must be said to take great care for a subject of no valu or the Other report a falshood We have seen som danger that our Lord's mind might be mistaken as if he either intended to consecrate none but the Paschal Supper or valued the whole office at no higher rate than he used to do outward performances We need no other evidence that the Corinthians might probably believ This than the commonness of This belief now notwithstanding the Apostl's indeavor to confute it in both its members by This declaration which plainly discovereth how much our Lord valued this office how often we must perform it and how litl power we have to abate any thing of it For these reasons he doth not plead here as before in another case of outward decency Doth not appeal to Their Judgments nor offer his Own saith not as cap. 10. I speak as to wise men judge you what I say nor as chap. 7. I give my judgment This say I not the Lord but quite contrary This say not I but the Lord and the consequence is Neither I nor an Angel from heaven must be believed against the Revelation Neither I nor an Angel from heaven much less a mans own humor can any way relax the Obligation Grant therefore now that the Observation be as Tru as the Subject is Unhappy suppose Frequence bring danger of Cheapness must we therefor presume to make it Scarce No doubtless If we will needs hear Reason it will tell us that our Lord knew this as well as We It was so Before and In and Ever Since His days as it is in Ours How then dare any one judge That a sufficient reason to hinder him from Doing this which our Lord judged not so to hinder him from Commanding it Doth not such an one declare himself both Superior and Wiser If thou judg the Law saith S. James thou art not a Doer of the law but a Judge I may add Thou art not only a Judge but an Unjust one if thy sentence rob the law of it's due so much more so by how much greater care our Lord took to have it duly paid III. HE therefor that breaketh This which is not the Least of our Lords Commandments and teacheth men so must be weighed in others scales than those of St. Augustine Not compared with the modest Centurion or forward Zacheus but with the most Disobedient Rebel and the most Unworthy Communicant and even so will be found more inexcusable than the worst For he that Doth This however unworthily payeth Somthing of obedience owneth our Lords Authority is easily Convinced of his Crime But he that saith he needs not do it doth not only deny the Law to have power over himself but assumeth to himself power over the Law and renounceth all Need and therefor all Benefit of Repentance He that Disobeyeth the Kings Law may be a Felon but he that setteth up an Opposit Authority is a Rebel and declaring himself as all Rebels do a most Faithful Subject is thereby the more Unpardonabl He that doth this unworthily is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord he dishonoreth his Person and that in his Humanity but he that Renounceth any Obligation to do it is guilty of his Crown and Dignity Deposeth him from his Throne and affronteth the Majesty of his Divinity and his pretence of Reason for disobedience whether it be Reverence or his Teachers Authority or what ever els it be it is a Rival to obedience and it 's plausibl Pretences make it so much the more properly Rebellious This perhaps may seem too Severe I grant it nor do I believ our Lord judgeth according to such Rigid mesures but Rigid as they ar they ar Just and may be urged against the Doctrines thogh not against the Persons For if the Preformance be bound upon us by a Positive Law of Christ and Forbearance only by my Own or my Teachers Reason If I prefer This abve That and Justifie my doing so what is this but to say I will not have That but This to reign over me We may not therefor without manifest Deposing our Lord pretend any thing Equal to his Authority but if we will decline our obedience to This Command we must fetch our Warrant from That alone as dispensing with us in such cases as we oppose to our obligation IV. AND this Warrant must be as Express as his Command and it must be either a Countermand or a Dispensation 1. A Countermand may be either Express or Implicit If
of the Apostls reproof With what Colossik strides do they reach both sides of Superstition On one side they dread the Lords Supper for want of worthiness in Themselvs on the other side they fear to own any reverence toward Gods Hous for want of worthiness in It How do they rob Peter and cloath Paul make the Lords Hous Common that they may dubly Sanctify his Tabl And all the while the Apostl makes This the Corinthians crime that they discriminated not the Lords Body from Common Bread and This either another Instance or an Evidence of their Profaneness that they discriminated not his Church from their Own houses But I may not now insist upon Any other error than That of the Corinthians which the Apostl saith consisted in This That they So used our Lords Body and his Hous as if they had Both be'n Common He chargeth them not Here thogh elswhere he do with any Other crime but such as Directly and Immediately desecrate the One and the Other and that in This very exercise Taketh no notice of their Other habitual vices confineth his charge to This performance in This place Forbiddeth not to approach either the Lords Table or his Hous bicaus they ar intemperate at their Own Yea he So expresseth himself as if he would even Compound with them indulge them their Domestik debaucheries provided they would forbear them Here. Not that indeed he Justifyeth what he elswhere plainly enogh Condemneth but to aggravate This incomparably Greater wickedness whereof the Sacrilege so Exceedeth as even to Hide the Immorality The Glutton is guilty of the Flesh of his Beast and the Drunkard of the Bloud of the Grape but the Unworthy Communicant of the Body and Bloud of the Lord. To be drunk with Common Wine in a Common Hous is to abuse both Gods Benefits and ones Own Body but to Desecrate the Lords Hous into a Tavern and his Bloud into a Cup of Drunkenness to make That the Instrument and This the Scene of Leudness is a wickedness not only above Drunkenness but even above Sacrilege it self As it hath no Match so it hath no Name If therefor you will not divorce your beloved debaucheries if you will needs be eating and drinking intemperately yet know your Place do not heap Sacrilege upon Lust make not the Lords Hous yea his very Body and Bloud Servants to the leudness they would Check This is the Utmost reach of the Apostls reproof It comprehendeth indeed not only the Lords Table but his whole Hous Yet breaketh not open any Private one Judgeth no Other unworthiness but of This Performance Requireth a Difference not between one Communicant and another but between This and other Places and Suppers and Consequently Forbiddeth not Any Person to Do This which we have found All indifferently obliged to Do but forbiddeth Every one to Do It in such a Manner as shall make That Common which our Lord hath Sanctified IV. 3. THE Apostl must be mortally unfaithful to his Corinthians if upon so urgent an Occasion he did not warn them in Terms as Plain as the Crime if any must be Great I say upon so Urgent an Occasion for a most Urgent one it is Whether we look upon the 1. Lords Supper which he professedly endeavoreth to rescu from Profanation 2. the Argument whereby he laboreth to do it or 3. the Persons to whom he addresseth all 1. He professeth to rescu the Lords Tabl from Profanation and to That End to Close it with such a Rail as shall Fence it from abuse If therefor he leaves that rail so wide as to Admit Such persons as he oght to have kept out he must be dubly and inexcusably unfaithful both to the Lords tabl which he shall so have exposed to dishonor and to All those souls which finding no contrary warning may com to it with as great Sincerity as Danger If I find this the Purlieus of the Corinthians guilt that they Distinguished not the Lords Body then may I be secure of One of those Two Either he who distinguisheth the Lords Body is free from This how full soever he may be of Other Crimes Or the Apostl must be More guilty than the most Unworthy Communicant since professing to shew the True Extent of the Danger he warned them not to distinguish between Persons Worthy and Unworthy but between This and Common Bread Were his words Ambiguos yet must they here cary a sens usual in a case so Important he oght to have Explained how much they must Now signify above what at All other Times and by All Persons is ascribed to them and which can Intend No more but This That every one is obliged So to Distinguish between the Lords Supper and his Own as to shun Those indecencies which ar ordinary in Private Houses 2. He must be no less unfaithful to his Own Argument bicaus contrary to all Reason he must have neglected to strengthen it with the most Considerabl and Obvios Corroboration For if the exclusion of Unworthy Persons wer as agreeabl to our Lords Institution as the Consequence would have be'n serviceabl to his Own Purpose he Might and therefor Oght to have urged it and so put the holy Sacrament at the Greatest and Safest distance from profanation For if none must com to This Table who abuse their Own it will be out of danger of any Other abuse than Desertion If none drink This Cup who is ever drunk with Common Wine it will be secure from Promoting the Drunkenness which it cannot Tolerate If none Partake This Bread who break not Their Own to the hungry there will be no more danger that any one shall be hungry than that any other shall be drunken And since the Apostl was now obliged to speak whatever Truth would permit we ar reduced to This choice whether He wer fals to the Lords Supper his Own Argument and his Disciples souls or whether it be Not Forbidden to every Unworthy Person but enjoined to every one thogh as unworthy as wer the Corinthians to Do this 3. The Persons to whom this reproof is addressed wer such as may induce us to believ that Gods Providence concurred with the Apostl's Words to prevent any possibility of believing what we now dispute against For they wer the Corinthians a peopl of all other the most Obnoxios Proverbially Infamos for debaucheries This City vyed with Sodom as for fulness of bread so for excess of Leudness and dismalness of Destruction Yea so strangely inseparabl was Luxury from every thing of Corinth so much more incurabl than that strange Leprosy of Jewish houses that the very Burning of the City did not Purge but Propagate it The confusion of Metals melted by the raging flames from her multitude of rich Statues made That famos mixture which by the luxurios Romans was preferred above Gold it self as a more precios mater for their drinking cups and to be Supremely Luxurios something of Corinth must contribute Yet was not Leudness conveyed
Distance CHAP. VII Wors than Useless toward comforting the Godly I. The second end Comfort of the Godly This Sacrament founded upon Festing the tessera of Love II. The conscientious griped between a fear of Unworthiness on the one side and of Disobedience on the other III. Hopes mingled with Fears a snare to the Godly which the Vngodly escape IV. The Lords table more dishonored by such preparation than by None THE Secund great and good End to which the Holy Sacrament is to be serviceabl is the Joy and Comfort of the Godly and to This the modern way of honoring hath made it not only Useless but Pernicios That we may have the fuller vieu of the Former member of this position it may be fit to look a litl upon the Almost forgotten Significancy of Festing wherein this Sacrament is founded COMMUNION at Table hath ever be'n lookt upon as an Obligation of mutual kindness among the whole company but more especially between Host and Guest Such an Obligation as created a right Equal and somtimes Superior to that of Bloud it self Nether Consanguinity nor Affinity wer sufficient to Hinder or Heal a breach between Laban and Jacob thogh Unkle and Nephew by Bloud Father and Son by Mariage But when That Quarel ended in a Govenant of kindness a Fest sealed it as more obliging than Both Those Relations Yea even Paternal affection when it would exalt it self to the Highest possibl rapture caled in the assistance of This endearment Take me som venison said Isaac to his Firstborn and make me savory meat such I love that I may eat that my soul may bless thee The venison was not only to strengthen his body but heigthen his mind the Fest made a new relation Host and Guest signified somthing of addition to Father and Son and improved his title to Blessing From this Jus Hospitii was derived the Rite of Sacrifice When God accepted the Sacrifice he signified his Love to the Votary first by som Other tokens as appears by the story of Cain and Abel and then by Entertening him at his Table For God was the Hous-keeper the Altar his Table the Sacrifice his Meat and the Votary his Guest Fested with That Flesh whose propriety he had now Transferred to his God and again Receved from him in token of Communion Nothing can be plainer than this from 1 Cor. 10. The same Persons by the Same Ceremonies in the 20 vers Offer Sacrifice to Devils and in 21. drink the cup of Devils ar partakers of the table of Devils and have fellowship with Devils and all this as their Guests treated by their Gods with the Sacrifices themselvs had offered to them Upon This account have we found Plutarch in the best of his treatises prove the mirth of the Religios transcend that of the Epicurean and St. John preferr that of a Christian above that of a Heathen What behavior becoms a Guest at This table of the Lord if we understand not by what we have already said let us learn by exampl The Apostls and their fellow commoners eat it with chearfulness the next and all succeeding ages stile it the Eucharist Our Own Church saith it was ordained for a thankful remembrance of the death of Christ and of the benefits which we receve thereby How joyful an exercise Thankfulness is he that understands not may learn of David My mouth saith he shall be filled with marrow and fatness when my heart praiseth thee with joyful lips It is generally believed that the Pleasure of Drinking is greater than that of Eating and to this St. Paul inviteth us saying Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be ye filled with the Spirit singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord giving thanks c. Meat Wine Musik nothing now can be wanting but Company and that St. John promiseth Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ and these things write we unto you that your joy may be full The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth Communion and This alone of All religios exercises have we found capable of That Name and This above them All is best furnished for it Meat indeed and Drink indeed and Fellowship indeed and the most intimate Union Whether we look to the Significance of Festing in General or the Design of This in Particular Whether we regard the Exampl or Exhortations of the Apostls the Authority of the Church Vniversal or our Own in Particular which way soever we look we must expect a Desert suitabl to the other provisions The fruits of the Spirit must attend the Supper of the Lord and what Those ar the Apostl tells us The fruits of the spirit ar Love Joy Peace If therefor in stead of These we ar treated with Wildings such as in stead of setting our hearts on praising God shall set our teeth on edge whatever thanks we owe to the Lord of the Table there can be litl due to the Ministers either from Lord or Guests II. LET us then tast the Provisions wherewith our modern divines treat us and see whether they can say with St. John These things we write unto you that your Joy may be full If they can we must borrow a gloss of St. Paul who exhorteth to Rejoice in as much as ye ar partakers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communicants with Christs sufferings For they so set forth his sufferings as to repete them upon his Guests They gave me gall to eat and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegre to drink said David The Letter was verified in our Lords Personal sufferings and the Metaphor in those of his dearest friends and at his Own table We may go farther and say that as they ar partakers of Christ's sufferings so ar they of his enemies curses too For this their table is made a snare to take themselvs withall and that which should have be'n for their wealth is to them an occasion of falling which will be the more applicable to our unhappy Communicants if our excellent Dr. Hammond mistake not who interprets the Table in that place to signify the Sacrificial and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the votaries portion For how is This Beatifik Wine mingled with Vinegre This Bread with Gall How is This Joyful Table made a Snare to Catch Intangle and Gripe the most worthy guests And how doth the tenderness of conscience give deeper reception to the Snare and acuter sens to the Torment How few ar they that upon the required Examination find in themselvs a full Assurance that if they Dy at the Table they shall be Saved And how must All others however worthy be tormented between hunger and thirst after the Flesh and Bloud of Christ on the One side and fear to be poisoned by them on the Other On the One side by fear of Eating and Drinking damnation if they com in That state of doubted unworthiness and on the Other of deserving it if they omit
Faithful to the H. C. but they were persons wholely inflamed with those Fires c. and so goes on describing them in such Characters as may very well fit the Apostles themselves but how ill Some if not Most of their Communicating Disciples is too manifest in a certain reproof whereby one of the Apostles themselves charges them with such Debaucheries at the Lords Table as had been inexcusable at their own yet doth not therefor Excommunicate thogh he vehemently Reproves them As long as there was any hope to prevail his Successots labored in the same contention for This Cup of the Lord against That of Bacchus but at last dispairing of success and thinking it better to submit to an Inconvenience than a Mischief changed the Primitive manner of Church-meetings from Feasting to Fasting as upon another kind of necessity they had do'n the proper Season from Evening after Supper to Morning before Day well considering that however ill a Fasting Feast or a Morning Supper might sound yet those or any other Solaecisms were less grievous than such Profaneness as otherwise appeared equally Unavoidable and Intolerable And as they changed the Circumstances of the Celebration so did they the Stile of their Writings from exhorting to Constancy which in those days appeared unquestionable they transplanted all their endeavors into pressing Reverence which they saw too much wanting Wherein that they might answer the then urgent necessity they put all their strength to bow the stick the opposit way spake such glorious things as dazeled the understandings of the Readers and advanced the Sacrament from their Contemt first to their Admiration and thence to their Fear So that which in St. Paul's time was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Chrysostom's was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was a pretty large stride and soon followed by another For Shunning naturally follows Dreading the people quickly grew willing to avoid if possible the terrible duty which in a while they so deserted that the Priest was left alone without Communicants Nor were the People more willing to keep a distance from the dreadful Table than the Priests were to enclose it to themselves So in super-conformity to our Lord's Institution and his Churches practice the Priest celebrateth the Holy Supper in all Church-meetings and upon worse accounts often without any and in compliance with the Peoples Superstition and their own Interest they dispense with them for Communicating which was another large stride In another Age they widen the useful distance between themselves and the people with a further stride They pass from Dispensing to Forbidding not the whole indeed but a full half And thus at last taking from the people the Need to do any thing and the Power to do more than half they are gotten so far from Primitive Doctrine and Practice that they have rob'd the People of their Right The command of its Power and the Instituion not only of its Power but its Nature The Cup is metamorphosed from a Cup of Eucharist to a Cup of trembling the Performance from a Communion to a Spectacle the Institution from a Command to a Prohibition and the Bread which at first did and still ought to knead all Christs Members into one bread and one body crumbles them into almost innumerable and utterly irreconcilable divisions IV. FOR many who are willing to be freed from an Obligation are not so to be rob'd of a Right and the corruptions of Rome being now so swollen and suppurated that they could no longer hold from breaking Most if not All the Reforming Churches equalled the People with the Priests as in their Right to the Cup so in their Obligation to receive it Nor doth the Church of England put any other difference between them but only in her hopes concerning their Obedience To the Priests therefor from whom she apprehended better hopes she Enjoyneth but to the People she only Recommendeth constancy in the performance By the former keeping up her claim by the latter yielding to Necessity which yet she would not so far do as to leave even the People at liberty but enjoyneth That three times at least in every year which by her Injunctions to rhe Priests she more than intimateth desireable at least once in every week This moderation toward the People the Nonconformists heretofore complained of For Mr. Gartwright the chief opposer of the Liturgy in Q. Elizabeth's time and the Author of the Altare Damascenum the most violent censurer thereof in King James his time would have all who are in the Churches Communion forced to receive the Lords Supper condemning them who abstein out of fear as guilty of Superstition and not to be born with and had more authority for This than other of their complaints But the Melancholy proper to that Sect would neither permit them to tarry long in That Extreme nor stop till they came to the other For they now take up for Piety That fear which their predecessors condemned for intolerable Superstition While they had the Sceptre they laid aside the Holy Table as useless to any other purpose but That of bringing their people to examination when upon restitution of our Government there appeared danger of restoring this Institution to it s abolished power they moved in a publick Conference that the Rubrike which requireth every Parishioner to Communicate at least three times in every year might either be wholely left out or so curtailed as to enjoyn no more but this That the Communion should be celebrated three times in every year provided there were a competent number to receive it Which to hinder they employ their utmost diligence For even those among them who yield it lawful to conform in our other offices of Pubick Worship will by no means do it in This. V. NOR are our own Divines those of the former Age I mean altogether free of this humor Whether out of deference to the later Fathers or an opinion that the Obligation being self-evident needeth not be pressed or a conceit that Aw conduceth more to the advancement of Godliness or for whatever other reason plain it is they have been more industrious to advance the honor of this Institution by our Fear than by our Obedience For they make the Conditions of worthiness so strict and the Obligation to the performance so slack as if they designed to fright us from the one and free us from the other depending doubtless upon our Church-Rubrikes and Constant Practice for prevention of the inconvenience and not intending to deal with the Sacrament as some say our Rich the 2d was dealt with after his deposition served a la royale with store of costly Dishes his Esquire taking the Essay and all other pomps of Grandeur but not permitted to tast any thing and so destroyed with Hunger and Ceremony But to those who since the Restoration have written on this subject we must not deny our just acknowledgement that as there is greater need so have they used greater
unable or unwilling to undergo that task should by the obscurity or cragginess of the Entrance be tempted to lay aside the Whole I was willing to have taken such a method as by the planeness of the first part of the way might have invited them to hold throgh the rest however uneasie For to trace a Story is much easier and pleasanter than to trace an Argument And I thought it very probable that upon view of the Practice of Christ's Church in its best Ages every inquisitive person would be willing to understand upon what ground That Practice was built which finding to be no other but the Apostles reproof of the Corinthians he would think it worth his labor both to measure and dig that ground so to discover both how the Building was supported by it and how it self also was supported and since he could not fail to discover that the Argument was built upon our Lords mind in his Institution with manifest indications that the Institution it self was also grounded upon somthing antecedent This doubtless must invite him to dig on till he could discover That Somthing which lay at the bottom of all as the first Foundation But finding that This method however more proper to Invite the Reader was less so to Convince him I chose to proceed in the same order as the subject it self hath do'n by building upward First therefore I have opened the Ground then shewed how our Lords Institution was built upon That Ground then how the Apostles Argument was built upon That Institution and lastly how the Churches practice conformed to That Argument and so we may most clearly understand how far our selves are concerned to conform to That Practice And now to make what recompense I can for the discouragements which this procedure may cast upon the Reader I know no better way than to advertise him That if he either can not or will not take the pains to hunt after the Apostles Argument he may pass over the first and more troublesom part of this Discourse beginning at the fifth Chapter of the second Part wherein I hope he will find such satisfaction as may in a good measure deliver him from his misapprehensions and encourage as well as oblige him to the performance of his Duty which is the aim of my undertaking but not so completely attained without a full understanding both of our Lords and the Apostles measures whereon they built the one his Institution and the other his Dissertation and himself if he will do it regularly must build his knowledge and practice For without such a discovery of the first Foundation he may perhaps be sufficiently Perswaded but not fully Convinced whereof the Former may satisfie a Learner but the Later is necessary for a Teacher to which better Quality I therefore offer the following Researches because without Their conviction first and then endeavors the so General Error can never be cured PART I. Concerning the Particle THIS CHAP. I. The Scripture cleared from the scandal arising from our contentions by shewing the true cause and cure I. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper highly esteemed by our Lord and all his Churches In later Ages many differences of Opinions concerning it II. Not the number only but mater of the differenecs scandalos to the Scripture both toward Papist and Jew III. The blame removed from the Scriptures to the Doctors IV. The Papists best perhaps silenced by our claiming the literal sens in the Wine as they do in the Bread Our own Divines neglect the former part which yet is the Head of the Apostles discourse V. The regular way to understand his meaning Two Suppositions taken upon trust with engagement VI. The whole Discourse Paraphrased VII The whole Argument Analysed And reduced to Logick form The great Limbs more minutely to be dissected in four considerabl Members And all to be closed with an answer to what is said to the contrary WHOEVER shall give a clear account of our Lords mind in this Institution shall do more than one good Work For as he shall rescue the Holy Sacrament from stifling under a heap of humane Inventions so shall he the Holy Scripture from suffering under the scandal of insufficiency in a subject necessary to be known That This is such a Subject we shall find hard to deny if we observe with what Care our Lord recommended it and upon what Reasons This we shall hereafter find occasion to consider more fully At present we shall rest in the concurrent agreement of All Ages and Nations Christian But though All ages agree in This that it is to be honored with our best services yet do the Last much differ from the First in the manner of payment The Primitive so certainly made it the Principal part of All their publik Worship that they gave it the honor to denominate the Whole they consecrated a Weekly day to it bicause during the power of the Jews they could nor celebrate it on their Sabbath they imbraced it as the instrument of their Communion both with Christ and one another c. The Later departed from This constancy not out of Neglect but Reverence wherewith they have so unhappily Over-honored that thereby we have Lost both It and its Benefits Yea which is worse perverted it to a Destroyer of That Communion of Love among our selves which it promoted while constantly celebrated among better Christians For when Necessity cried to the Officers of Christs Church to rescue this Holy Supper from the Profanation it then suffered by the licentiousness of the Greeks they imployed all their powers to put it in the greatest Distance from any such contemt They thought they could not speak too much or soar too high They were not satisfied with what the Scripture hath Said nor what Reason can Apprehend but laying aside their Rule differ as much among Themselves as from It. HENCE is it that nothing hath be'n Said by any One which hath not be'n Denied with equal confidence by Others There are not so many Words in Scripture concerning it as Differences of judgment Philosophers had not so many Opinions concerning Mans chief happiness as Divines have concerning this chief office of Worship So we somtimes espy it is the conceit of an excellent person a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure when it is observed by unskilful and fantastick Travellers it looks like a Centaur to some and a Castel to others some tell that they saw an Army with banners and it signifies War but another wiser then his fellows says it looks for all the world like a flock of Sheep and foretels plenty and all the while it is nothing but a shining Cloud by its own mobility and the activity of a wind cast into a contingent and inartificial shape So it is in this great mystery of our Religion in which some espy strange things which God intended not and others see not what God hath plainly told c. And would to God it were no
18. When you come together in the Church where the more general coming together is so appropriated to the Church that the indefinite when must be equivalent to whensoever as yet more plainly appears by ver 20. When you come together into one place it is not to eat the Lords Supper This is the extract of the whole charge That when they came together into That holy place which was set apart for Gods worship they so behaved themselves that what they did could not be taken for the Lords Supper A charge which now adays we should not decline and why should the Corinthians more than we We acknowledg might they not say yea we plead it We cannot be said to Eat the Lords Supper and what then therefore we cannot be said to Profane it This might have be'n an evasion as Effectual as Obvios if the Lords Supper were not concerned in Those very same meetings which he so Described and Reproved i. e. in All. This therefore is the sum of his Charge and it must be the Design of his Reasoning to prevent any evasion not to be do'n but by proving That in All their meetings the Lords Supper was Therefore Abused because it was Concerned in them All. Let us now consider by what Media he proveth it At the 23d vers he beginneth his evidence appealing to our Lords Institution explained by a Revelation In recital whereof it is most considerable that in reporting the consecration of the Cup he addeth words not mentioned by any of the Evangelists nor by himself in That of the Bread For none of Them say that our Lord said of the Cup Do this as often as you drink it nor doth Himself say that our Lord said of the Bread Do this as often as ye eat it The Reason of this difference we shall have a fitter time to enquire hereafter At Present we must not neglect to observe That as he is very careful thus to Insert these words so is he immediatly to Resume them and settle them as the Foundation of his whole Argument For upon this Supposition that our Lord preferred This Bread and This Cup which was constantly used in All Church-meetings to such an Office that whether they Considered it or no yea whether they Would or no it must set forth his death Then and not otherwise will All his Inferences follow that the abuse of This bread and This eup reach That body and blood which they so represent And lest This should fright them not only from the Abuse but the Use too of This bread and This cup to prevent so great an inconvenience he is careful to warn them that it is no less crime to disobey our Lords Authority than to Profane his Supper They must first examin themselves to prevent the One and then Eat this bread and drink this cup to avoid the Other And having thus secured the duty both in the Thing and the Manner he binds it by Threatnings to the end of the Chapter These are the great Limbs of this Body This the Process of the Argument Thus doth it answer his own character The body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth Not one joint too little or too much not One loose Expression not One word Impertinent or Unserviceable every part hath its mutual consent with every other part and its office of Serviceableness to the whole which also is complete without any the least defect His Charge made good in its whole Latitude The Corinthians convicted All Evasions barred The Crime displayed rhe Danger discovered the Duty inforced the only Safe way set forth and the Fear of deserting it prevented And because some require not only Logik force but Logik form too This is the formal Process of the Argument Those who so come together that they cannot be said to eaet the Lords Supper com together for the worse You so com together ver 21 22. The Proposition which alone needeth it he proveth by words purposely inserted in his recital of our Lords Institution ver 25. and resumed ver 26. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death which Proposition signifieth nothing unless helped with this Assumption As often as you come together in the Church you eat this bread and drink this cup. And by assistance of this Assumption the whole is made unanswerable This fundamental Assumption then Deserveth and Requireth our utmost care I shall therefore most diligently observe it And for greater clearness shall transpose the Apostles words reading them Thus This cup as often as you drink do it in remembrance of Me. And so we find these considerables 1. A certain special cup pointed at by the Demonstrative THIS 2. This cup made a standard whereby we must measure our performance 3. The Performance which we must mesur by This standard 4. The end for which we must do it And having thus stated our obligation by examining the Apostles discourse I shall examine what is said to the contrary by our late Divines who not heeding the Standard and mesuring the duty by a good but unfit one have defeated both our Lords design and their own too CHAP. II. Of the Necessiâ—y to fit the word THIS with somâ— singular Bread and Cup. I. The difference of our Lords stile towards this Bread and Wine from That towards litl children II. This subject requireth the clearest expression III. The Particle THIS most considerable IV. Grammar and Logick In Logick it is considerable 1. As a singl word a Demonstrative must have somthing for its object praecedances Every word must be answered by som Idea V. 2. As the subject of a Proposition The meaning of the Praedicate must be mesured by the capacity of the subject Offers at the import of the word rejected 1. That Individual 2. The whole kind 3. Somthing indeterminate 4. The Action OUR Lord after his last Supper treated Bread and Wine with such kindness as at another time he did little Children He took them up laid his hands upon them and blessed them But with This great difference that of Those he favored the Whole kind Suffer said he little children to come to me Little children indefinitely i. e. Any little children whatsoever and gave a Reason comprehensive as the Precept For of such is the kingdom of heaven Whereas Here he preferreth not Bread and Wine indefinitely nor speaketh a word of their Fitness for the honor recommendeth not either of them as Such but as This i. e. Not the whole Genus nor any Other Species but only This i. e. This singularly Proper cup. So great a difference in his Expression must needs proceed from a suitable difference in his Intention In the Former case his Words plainly declare his meaning That as often as Any parents or other friends desired to bring Any Children to him for his blessing his Disciples should admit them whoever they wer And had he now meant as
this the Jews in their Passover used our Important This in such a Form as did no less plainly prefigure this Institution than the Sacrificed Lamb did the death of the Author then must it seem reasonable that he chose that Form with the same affection that he did that Season and if so then must we mesure our Lords This by that of the Jews makeing the resemblance an evidence that the One was the issue of the Other Let us therefore to the Jewish rituals The Law of Moses requireth Unleavened Bread and for That reason to This day they honor Bread with many ceremonios solennities Before In and After Supper Particularly they break a Cake into two unequal parts The greater part the Master of the Fest hideth under a cushion there to be kept safe till the end of Supper Then doth he solenly bring it forth distributing it among the guests and saying This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate in Egypt whoever is hungry let him come and eat of the Paschal Lamb. And have we not now found our so much sought for Singular bread exactly answering what This bread is more than any Other bread Do not All features exactly concur The Season the Mater the Form of words All Circumstances the same This is so plausible that to this very Day thogh not for this Reason many look upon the Passover as the Predecessor of the Lords Supper and consequently the Standard of our Performance Many think that women have no right to the Lords Supper because they had none to the Passover and which is more proper to our present purpose that we are not obliged to receve it but at Easter only because That was celebrated only at the same season And that the Corinthians were of this Later opinion the more we consider it the more probable will it appear but most manifest that the Apostle hath utterly confuted it For he first reproveth them as profaning the Lords Supper not in their Paschal only but their Ordinary meetings and then convinceth them that it is concerned in them All whereby the Former error is also destroyed unless its Patrons will exclude all women not only from the Lords Table but his House too The Paschal bread therefore ' though it exactly answer our Lords Institution yet can it by no means agree with the Apostles gloss and we must not rest till we meet an answer for All Phaenomena as well in the One as the Other YET have we not lost our labor For as the Chemist ' thogh he miss his great Secret often findeth his cost and labor well paid by some profitable Experiment so we ' thogh we meet not full Satisfaction in our main enquiry meet somthing worthy Observation 1. That since our Lord in the same Circumstances used the same Word we ought to understand him in the same Sens. And therefor This bread must be our Lords body just so and no otherwise but so as the Pascal cake celebrated to this day by the Jews is the very bread which their Fathers ate in Egypt 2. That since This in the Jewish Passover pointeth at a Singular remarkable piece of bread distinguished from All others of the Kind by its Proper circumstances wherein it is to be eaten therefore This in our Lords Institution must likewise point at some Special bread known by the Circumstance of eating it from All ordinary bread 3. Thogh we have not hereby found what are the proper Marks whereby we may know This from Common bread yet we have the Way wherein we are to seek it For since there is no other defect in the Paschal but This that it answereth not the Apostles dissertation which reproveth their Ordinary Fests it must needs concern us to enquire into the forms of their Common Fests if possibly we may therein find not only such a Special bread but such a Special cup too as may answer both our Lords design and his word This in his Institution and the Apostles explication too whereby he proveth them concerned not only in the Passover but generally in Church Fests III. 3. LET us therefore again to the Jewish Ritual Behold at the very first Step we receve such light as leaves Nothing unsatisfied but our Wonder that the Jewish Rabbins should be better Commentators upon our Lords and his Apostles words and discover more to us of the Original Nature and Design of our great Sacrament than All the Christian Doctors who so long and so much have labored to honor it with their explications Because they are short and full take the words of Leo Modena a modern Rabbin and to remove all doubt of his veracity you shall find the same said by Buxtorf in his Syn. Judaica so that you cannot doubt of matter of fact equally testified by two such witnesses as you are secure agreed not to deceve you After they are sat down they say for the most part the 23d Psalm and afterward the Master of the house taketh a loaf of bread and saith a benediction over it which having do'n he breaketh it and giveth to each person about the bigness of a great olive and afterward every one eateth as he pleaseth and so the first time that every one drinketh he saith a benediction When they have do'n eating they wash their hands and take their knives from off the table because say they the Table representeth an Altar upon which no iron tool was to come And if they be three or more that eat together then doth one of them command a glass to be washed and filling it with wine he taketh it up from off the table saying with a loud voice Sirs let us bless His name with whose good things we have be'n filled After this the master of the house blesseth it and prayeth for peace and having so do'n he giveth to each of them a little of That wine which he hath in his glass and he himself also drinketh of it and so they rise from the table The Necessity considered which lieth so hard upon us to find some Special Bread and Cup which may equally answer both our Saviors and Apostles THIS we may justly upon That single account require any Dissenter to admit of This or shew us a Better But the Resemblance considered we may challenge him not only to shew a better Tally to our Lords Institution but any Pictur better answering the life Yea upon supposition that we were allowed to Forge what we pleased we might challenge him to Invent any Hypothesis that may more exactly answer all the Phaenomena both in our Lords Institution and the Apostles Dissertation to the least tittle Mark I pray you After they are sat down the master of the house taketh a laaf of bread saith the Rabby Our Lord distributed The bread when he had given thanks saith St. Paul as they sat at meat saith St. Luke Then for the Cup. The first time any one drinketh he saith a benediction saith the Rabbi The Lord took the
killeth it out of the camp and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord blood shall be imputed to that man he hath shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people He that killed an Ox yea Goat or Lamb was if he slew a man and rob'd God if he did not expiate the destroyed life and acquire a new title to the flesh by offering it to that he might receive it from the Lord of all This was easily enough performable when the People and Tabernacle travelled and lodged together in the same Camp But when the Camp was disbanded throgh the whole Land and the Tabernacle fixed in one City then did necessity plead for a dispensation from the unpracticable duty And this necessary Dispensation we find granted Deut. 12.21 If the place which the Lord hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock which the Lord hath given thee as I have commanded thee and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after In which words God sheweth his kindness to his former Law no less plainly than to his people That must still be obeyed as far as it was practicable and what distance was too great while he did not determin but left it to the piety of the people he thereby obliged them to enlarge it as much as possible AND THEY in thankfulness for the favor thoght no distance great enogh But if the remoteness of their dwellings permitted them not to bring their Meat to the Altar found a way to bring the Altar to their Meat Not really indeed for That the Law forbad but the Representation and more taking for a rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quod Altare expiat hoc Mensa expiat They gave their domestick Tables the title of Altars and their Meat they stiled Offering Salt they therefor made necessary for the one bicause Gods Law had made it so for the other When they came to That Office for whose sake the Allegory became reasonable the Benediction they removed their Knives upon This express reason because the Law forbad any Iron tool to come upon Gods Altar And by many other Ceremonies indeavored to make the Succedaneum answer the Principal II. TO THIS probably certainly to no better sens must those frequent Expressions of our Christian Fathers be reduced When they speak of the Sacrament of the Altar they use the same Allegory but mean thus much more than the Jewish Doctors that the Holy Fest is not only a Representative Sacrifice as were the Jewish but a Commemorative Doth not set forth what our selves would do if we had opportunity but what our Lord hath actually suffered And if the Jews thoght it sufficient reason to call their own Table an Altar bicause they did what themselves thoght fit to make it Represent one much more may we call That holy Table an Altar and That Holy Meat a Sacrament which not by our own voluntary Act but by our Lords express Command doth not barely Represent but Exhibit his flesh and blood Nor is it sufficient reason that because som strain the Allegory too far we should therefor abhor any use of it Why should it be Unlawful or Unfit yea why should it not be most Proper for Us to borrow the Allegory from the Same Tradition from which our Lord borrowed the Institution Had it be'n Sacrilegios in the Jews to stile their Table by That sacred title our Lord doubtless would not so have justified them by honoring the Tradition Why then should we not think it Equally lawful since it is More proper to give This much Holier Table the same title wherewith the Jews honored their domestick ones without any such warrant WOULD to God we would so imitate the Jews that not only the Lords but Our own tables might some way answer That name For it is to be considered to Our shame but to the honor both of That people and This their Tradition and consequently to the silencing of the Objection we are now answering That the same Piety which induced them so to Consecrate their tables conciliated such Reverence toward them as represented what is due to the Altar it self Philo and Josephus of Old and their Modern Rabins to This day bost of their Sobriety as beyond that of any other people which if true may very reasonably be imputed to the Piety wherewith they thus begin and end their freest intertenements We are apt to mesure others by our selves and because we see too many of our great Tables so unlike Altars that they shun or run down all appearance of Religion bicause we Sit down and Rise like Quakers Riot like Corinthians and Talk like Atheists without any blessing before or after Meat or any mention of Piety but to bafâ—le it while we are eating bicause we have degenerated not only from Primitive Christianity but from the litl Piety practised so lately even by our selvs who a few years since would have be'n ashamed of a Grace-less meat we are therefore apt to believe the Jews as bad as our Selves or our Neighbors and consequently that there could be nothing in their Fests capable of our Lords approbation because there is not in our own But if we remember that our Lord blessed his loaves before he distributed them we must needs think This example better worth our imitation than that of the French and if we believe he did therein comply with the Customs of his Nation and that Those Customs were such as their Rabbins describe we may reasonably both admit that to be true which their Writers bost concerning their Sobriety and impute That Sobriety to those Customs and then we may well believe that the Tradition which made the Table emulate an Altar was so far from Unworthy that it was most Fit to be adopted into the Gospel and dignified with an immortal relation to our Lords Person Our Key therefor is of the most noble metal possible Had it be'n immediatly injoyned by any positive law of God it must have be'n Destroyed Not Perpetuated by the coming of that Body which Abolished such Shadows Yet doth it cary such legible Intimations ever from that very â—â—w and such fair Characters of Natural Religion and that in its prime immortal Article Thankfulness that it may plead as fair for such Preferment as any Custom could possibly do So that we are so far from any need to be ashamed that we may well glory in the Mater of the Key as no way Unworthy its office III. YEA from this discovery of suitableness in point of Worthiness we may derive another in point of Fitness It will invite us to compare our Lords Form of Consecration with som of their Sacrificial as we have do'n his Mater with their Festival and so doing we shall find as great a resemblance between Those
more evident when we consider that he is no less careful to speak of the Bread in the same Jewish stile caling that also by its traditional â—lame For the Jews throughout their Misna and Talmud call this part of their Tradition by the same Name as doth the Apostle in this place and whereby it is still knowen in the New Testament They call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phrase cannot be more exactly translated than by The breaking of the Bread Yea this is so expressive with them that it is diverbial to stile the head of the family from this office and the whole performance by one word This you may plainly discover by what the lerned and laborios Doctor Castel in his Heptaglot Lexicon saith upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabb Fractor Sic dicitur Pater familias q. in convivio primus frangit panem s cibum illumque benedicit distribuit convivis sec illud 1 Sam. 19.13 Hinc Phrasis illa in N. T. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 III. LEt us now observ how the Apostle treateth these parts of the Lords Supper under these their Proper names and we shall find still more proof of his respecting This tradition He caleth That the cup of Blessing but he doth not call This the bread of Blessing and why not Two Evangelists more expresly note that our Lord blessed it and the third agreeth with our Apostle that he gave thanks before he brake it On the other side he caleth This the bread which we break but doth not stile That the cup which we distribute yet doth our Lord speak it more plainly of the Cup than of the Bread Take This and divide it among your selves Other reason for this duble difference of stiles we cannot Find and Better we cannot Desire than This that as our Lord borrowed both Parts of his Institution from the Jewish tradition so did the Apostle both their Names Again the Apostle keepeth to the Jewish stile in the Cup saying You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils but in the other part he quitteth the name of Bread changing it for Table and saying You cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the Table of devils And for this he had sufficient reason if the Greeks did not what we find no reason to believ they did consecrate Bread as they did Wine in All yea or Any of their Fests but if we quit This reason we shall hardly find another Yet again The Bread had the First Place both in the Jewish Tradition and the Lords Institution yet ver 16. he giveth the Cup precedence Why doth he thus cross his hands as old Jacob did preferring the Cadet before the First born What 's the reason were his eyes dim or his choice irrespective By no means For we shall again find him in the same partiality and upon the same reason because the Cup was more serviceable to his Argument than the Bread In This place it better demonstrates the inconsistency between the Church of Christ which blessed it and an Idols Temple which did not and in That it better distinguisheth a Fest which requireth the Lords Supper from a common Supper which doth not Yet must not the Bread be so deposed from its primogeniture as to be left without its blessing Thogh the Greeks custom had no rival for it yet our Lords Supper hath need of it and must not be maimed of the one half equally necessary to His Table thogh not to the Apostles argument Thogh therefor he cannot now as in the Cup oppose Name to Name yet he doth Thing to Thing Table to Table and under that stile payeth the Bread the same Justice thogh not the same Deference as he doth the Cup. Look we now which way we will we meet clear evidence Direct in the so careful caling each Element by its proper Name and Collateral in the no less careful Transplaceing them suitably to the aspect they had upon his Design yet doing right to the Institution and Tradition by mentioning the Bread as necessary to These thogh not to That IV. WHat more can be Expected yea What more can be Desired must we prove not only that here are the same Names but the same Person too This is do'n 8.15 16. I speak as to the wise men judge ye what I say The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ Can now any thing be plaine could any Lawyer or Grammarian more clearly and properly have expressed that the same bread and cup whose names he had thus translated from Hebrew to Greek were by our Lord translated from the Jewish Tradition to his Own Institution Are not Those the same with These I cannot pretend any stronger Proof but I shall endeavor to Illustrate it by a Custom of our own in our accademical Fests hitherto unaccounted V. OUr predecessors have no less exactly translated the name of the Jewish cup into English than hath the Apostle into Greek What They caled Blessing the Table We call Saying Grace and This answereth That in Both senses Praying or Praising Imploring a Blessing upon the Meat before we eat or returning Thanks for it after we have eaten Our Grace-cup therefore deriveth its Proper Name from St. Pauls Cup of Blessing by exact translation of the word And this same Cup hath a Sirname derived from the Same original by another Apostle In Acts 20. we find the Primitive Churches met every first day of the week to break bread And 1 Cor. 16.1 Upon this day they made their contributions to the poor so joining their Charity to the Lords Mystical Body with their Honor to his Natural which St. Jude so highly approveth as to denominat those meetings Fests of charity J whence our Ancestors have given this Grace-cup its Surname the Cup of Charity as used in those Fests of Charity I wish they had be'n as careful to preserve the significance as the ceremony and the duble name But if from These we may learn That we find Characters legible enogh to inform us The Cup of Blessing and our Grace-cup have Both the same Name the same Mater the same Circumstances after Grace after Washing in such order that not one of the Guests can be past by It 's the Last action before rising requireth the same Number three at least We find that however the remoter Churches met the First day of the week to break bread yet the Apostles at Jerusalem did it daily and Religios Fraternities think themselves obliged rather to take their paterns from the Apostolic College than the Graecian Churches as our Church requireth more constancy in Collegiate and Cathedral Fraternities than Parochial When the Governors of the Church upon urgent nenessity changed the Season for the people who were not to be trusted after Supper
no other That he designed to treat them as Kindly as possibl we may see in his entrance upon This Chapter Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them unto you And again in his entrance upon this very Reproof vers 17 Now in This that I declare unto you I praise you not that you com together not for the better but for the wors And again by his close upon his description of their miscarriages vers 22. What shall I say to you Shall I praise you in This I praise you not How Unwillingly How Gently and if his thoughts wer like ours how Coldly doth he put in this calm exception against his late General Praise He had in a case far less scandalos said Now therefor there is utterly a falt among you And speaking of those Divisions which are here also objected as the first instance of their unworthy coming together saith I could not speak unto you as unto Spiritual but as unto Carnal Yet here when Divisions of the Rich among Themselves and their joint contemts of the Poor their Shismatical and Uncharitabl separations eating every one his Own supper and destroying the very Nature of a Communion and their Intemperance in Those Suppers affronting not only our Lords Doctrine but his very Person when such abuses of his very Body and Bloud in his Own Hous in the face of his Own Church cryed to his utmost zele and eloquence for a Reproof loud as the Crime in so clamoros a provocation what do we meet but a cold Negative much short of Eli's however condemned reproof Not so much as his This is no good report You make the peopl to abhorr the table of the Lord but only I praise you not We shall indeed hereafter find him lift up his now calm voice and loudly thunder both Reproofs and Threats vers 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body But this in consequence of Conviction which by That time he supposeth his argument to have wrought in them After which if they should Willingly and Knowingly profane This Bread and This Cup now proved to be the Lords Body and Bloud their Crime would be uncapable not only of Praise but of Excuse The Gentl language therefore that Ushereth in the Argument compared with the Severe which Followeth it doth more than intimate a supposal that they knew not what they did and therefor were first to be Convinced of their Error by good Evidence and then Frighted with Threatnings lest they should continu in the now inexcusabl wickedness And we may perhaps yet better understand his judgment of their Disease by the Medicine he useth for its Cure which is no other but a re-minding them of what he had before Declared to them and they perhaps misunderstood in This subject wherin he seemeth thus to bespak them I am loth to believ you guilty of so horrid a contemt of our Lords Person as to drink his very Bloud in a manner so shameful as looketh more like the mockery of a contumelios Jew than the devotion of a faithful Disciple No I rather impute this to your Forgetfulness or Misunderstanding of what I declared unto you concerning this most holy Ordinance which therfor I now repete to you Then doth he proceed to recite the whole Institution so Particularly as at That time he might very well think Sufficient throghly to convince them in what he Supposed or would seem to Suppose them Mistaken I say it was at That time sufficient For it is most necessary that we distinguish between That time and Our own The Tradition where on we suppose our Lords Supper founded was Then not only in Memory but in Practice The Demonstrative had its Object not only Intelligibl but Visibl they did not more plainly Hear the Word than See what it pointed at and therfor our Lord might well think it superfluos to express How Often they wer to do This in remembrance of himself since the Tradition which That very Institution commended sufficiently declared it Do This said he This which you see Me do This which your Whole Nation in such circumstances constantly do in conformity to the Tradition Do This with the same Matter Bread and Wine In the same Order First Bread and Then Wine at the same Season After Supper and is it not equally plain with the same Frequency when Three or More fest together This mesure of Frequency might our Lord well suppose at That time in Those circumstances sufficiently plain by that known rule Exceptio firmat legem in non exceptis But it seems the Disciples wer either less Able or less Willing to understand than He had reason to expect And how the Corinthians might mistake we have made not improbable conjectures The Apostl therefor to Clear what now appeared to Need it telleth them plainly that what our Lord at the time of institution did Not Express he had since Reveled to be his meaning viz. That as often as they drank That Cup which he then consecrated after Supper they must do it in remembrance of himself Since therfor they closed or ought to close All their fests with the Same Cup his Bloud was concerned in them All. WHAT fairer account can possibly be desired of this Former part of the Apostles Process Of the Lenity of his Reproof of his Method in convincing them first of their Error and then of their Gvilt Of his Reciteing the Lords institution so to vindicate his Supper from Cheapness of his inserting the omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to assert the Interest that his Supper had in Their publick meetings and of his authorizing this insertion so to avoid the objection that might be raised from our Saviors not useing it proved by the joint testimony of the three Evangelists WHAT need the Apostl do More than baffle All their Pretences and rectifie All their Mistakes and what could he do Less than prevent that most obvios Evasion whereby they might have pleaded for Those Meetings as unconcerned in the Lords Supper If any one of a contrary judgment can give a fairer account of this Former part of the Apostl's discours he will do a Great work but he will have a Greater yet to do For the Later part wherein the Apostl draweth his Inferences will not only Offer this as the Fairest but Urge it as the Only sens of his argument V. LET us now therefor carefully examin HOW and WHAT he bildeth upon his so solen recital of our Lords Institution He beginneth his deductions at the 26th verse wherein he resumeth the Last as the most Important clause laying it down as the Sum of our Lords mind in his Institution and the Foundation of all his own intended Inferences therefrom that As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye shew forth our Lords death By This Proposition therefor must we mesur his
any be will pass from the obediently negligent Subject to the impertinently busie Law-maker who having not Required but Supposed the Action neither Found nor Made any ground for the Supposition It forbids the benevolence it begs For thogh it threaten No guilt of disobedience to the Omission it doth to the Performance While we may ly safe in our Neglect we run a great risk in our Officiosness For he that Omitteth the Performance disobeyeth no command therefor cannot incur any guilt nor deserv any punishment but he that upon such terms approacheth the Holy Table is already gilty of contemt towards the threatnings denounced against Unworthy recevers bicause he needlesly exposeth himself to them and to com safely off had need of more Piety in the Performance than we can Yet discover of Wisdom in the adventure V. IF WE can suppose the Apost'l so regardless of our Saviors command yet sure he had more kindness for his OWN ARGUMENT than to use such solicitos endeavors to destroy it and for his own Credit than to furnish the Corinthians with a Plea whereby they might non-suit his Charge He was sure a better Disciple both to Gamaliel and our Lord than to use such endeavors as by the ordinary rules of reasoning must depose both his own Discours and our Lords Command from all power But such is the unavoidable consequence of the merely Suppositive sens of those important words For it is obvious that the Corinthians Might and therefor supposable that they Would plead thus for themselves We are sufficiently sensible that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup we shew forth the Lords death and consequently that whoever eateth This bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But in these our ordinary Fests which thou so severely reprovest we have nothing to do with This bread nor This cup. We Fest indeed as often as we meet in the Church but without any Intent and we conceve without any Need to eat This bread or drink This cup. We intend to do what all Nations agree to be the proper manner of worshipping God This is the Vniversal notion of mankind in that so common Rite of Sacrificing The Votary therefor offereth his beast that he may become a guest to his God thereby at once Receiving and Expressing a confidence that he is propitious to him And thogh our Lords great Sacrifice of himself have made it needless to shed any more blood by way of atonement yet is that so far from any reason that we should lay aside Festing with Sacrificing that it is a very good one why we should take it up if it had never be'n used before since now we have much greater reason to rejoice in the Communion to which God inviteth us But that in all our Fests we should be obliged to celebrate the Lords Supper since himself hath not expressed it we understand not For either he intended we should receive it only at the same Fest whereat he Instituted it which was the Passover or els he left it wholely to our discretion to receve it as often as we should think convenient Now that we intend not to do it in our ordinary meetings thy self seemest to understand For thou declarest when ye come together it is not to eat the Lords Supper Is it not we own it we plead it It is not to eat the Supper and how do we Profane it when we do not eat it When we do Eat it if our behavior be irreverent we must confess our selves guilty for we submit to thy rule As often as we Eat This bread and Drink this cup unworthily we are guilty but it thence followeth not that we are so as often as we Fest together in the Church It is hard to say whether such a plea were more obvios to the Apostl's Observation or Destructive to his Argument It was therefor infinitely necessary he should answer it and we find no other Answer to it but in these words nor any other Use of Those words but for such an Answer This is sufficient to perswade us so to interpret them that the Argument be not Defective nor Themselves Impertinent But to fasten such a Gloss upon them as shall make them not only Useless but Pernicios and the Argument not only naked of so necessary a defence but irrefragably retorted against the Author is perhaps a greater abuse to Them than the Corinthians profaneness was to the Lords Supper VI. FOR a close of this troublesom dispute let us impartially ballance the rival senses upon This enquiry which of all others is most important viz. which of them affordeth better satisfaction to a pious soul conscientiously enquiting how often he is obliged to receve the Holy Communion A question wherein there are many things doubtful but none more than This Whether it more Deserve or Need to be answered 1 The One sens offereth full satisfaction by shewing us a Certain Mesure to which we must conform And though the change long since made in the Manner of celebrating Church Festivals seem to have confounded it yet if we once know what it was at the time of the Institution we may and must so accommodate the never decaying Reason to the Change as still to answer the first Intention For if the Corinthians were therefor obliged to Eat the Lords Supper in All their Church meetings bicause they Fested in them All in One manner so are we bicause we also Fest in them All in Another manner Since the Manner of Publik worship the Church upon competent reasons may alter but the Institution of our Lord indispensibly closing All Church Fests with his own Supper No human power may abolish at least not in point of the Obligation though possibly invincible necessity may dispense with Actual performance at som times So by This account the clear answer will be That the Church must offer the Holy Sacrament as often as she can persuade the peopl to receve it and every person is so often obliged to receve it as the Church Officers shall offer it and Both the Church and every person oght to come as neer as possible to doing it every Lords day and every Holy day i. e. All days of Church Fests 2. But the other Sens for want of a Standard will pack us off with an answer more Delusory than the Collier's If we ask How often must I do this in remembrance of Christ it will answer As often as you eat This bread and drink This cup If we then ask How often must I eat This bread and drink This cup it will answer As often as you do it in remembrance of Christ This I say is more delusory than the Collier in two respects 1. Bicause it was possible to know what the Church believed Publik Confessions Canons of Councils c. All of them independent upon the Collier or his Faith and all know'n to the Catechist But Here we have No
bent their endeavors to advance the honor of the Sacrament to the highest pitch of veneration and might well suspect lest such a discovery should depress its esteem They saw how short the Greek Fests fell not only of Jewish Piety but Ordinary Sobriety and thought so base a descent too great a disparagement to so venerable a Mystery which they therefor thoght might lose much of its honor if its pedigree were not cast into the den of time to be there devoured And who can secure us that upon This very reason we may not have lost som of the Primitive Writers informations in This particular We know the labors of Earlier ages lay at the mercy of the Later to be ether preserved or suppressed as they should judge most suitable to their own conceptions we know how industrious they have be'n to strain their inventions for dignifying the Sacrament with such mysteries as may dazel our understandings and it is hard to imagin they should be very careful to preserve any such Papers as must bring light to confute their dearest Opinions Yet hath the Last inquisitive Age in victory over the dubl hindrance Expresly discovered the One and Virtually the Other half of the lost Hypothesis Whether our Lord in his Institution adopted som Jewish Tradition is at least half the question And this is affirmed by several of the most celebrated Critiks of this Century Our admirable Dr. Hammond in his excellent Annotations hath said enough to justifie me from affectation of novelty in That Half which relates to our Lords Institution thogh without any eye to the Apostl's Argument and our Duty On Matth. 26.26 He hath this Paraphrase And whilest Judas was there before any of them was risen from the Table Jesus in imitation of the Jews custom after Supper of distributing Bread and Wine about the Table as an argument of charity instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist as a contesseration of charity among all Christians telling them that this taking and eating was now instituted by him as an holy rite c. And Luke 22.20 he thus Paraphraseth In like manner after they had do'n eating he took the cup of charity usual among the Jews and said This cup is at this time c. It is true in both these places and in his note upon 1 Cor. 10.16 He referreth the Institution to the Paschal Supper which seemeth better to fit our Lords Institution but coming to the words I have so much insisted on 1 Cor. 11.26 he found himself necessitated to enlarge the mesure for thus he Paraphraseth those words And do ye in all your sacred Festivals thus show forth c. Munster likewise upon Matth. 26.21 Caeterum quando in textu subditur Dominum accepisse panem benedixisse atque fregisse sciendum quod is mos olim celebris fuit inter Judaeos multaque scripta habent de Fractione panis Benedictione calicis The same saith Cameron on the same Text. The same and more hath Grotius who further proveth That the Greeks as well as the Jews closed their Fests with a cup of Wine solenly consecrated And this Virtually discovereth the Other Half which so naturally followeth that it is strange how One could be admitted without the Other That the Primitive ages should wholely omit any mention of our Lords regard to the Jewish Customs upon supposition that it was sufficiently evident That the Midages should industriosly hide it upon fear of prejudice to their admirable Mysteries That the Last age should retrive it in their search of Antiquities Nothing of all This is so wonderful as it is that those who had the skill and happiness to discover These Indies should not care to inrich themselves with such Treasures as without digging offered themselves especially the wind blowing so hard as almost to compel them to Land For since we derive all our practical Doctrines concerning This duty from the Apostl's discourse to the Corinthians and That discourse appealeth to This Institution it is manifest we oght not to sit down by any such Customs as can only answer That Institution as abstracted from This Argument and not consist with This Argument so built upon That institution Nor is it less manifest that the Paschal Customs however large enogh for That were too narrow for This. Dr. Hammond could not Paraphrase the 26th vers without extending it to All Festival meetings If then there were two sorts of Customs Som only Annual Others ordinarily Festival Those agreeing with our Lords Institution but destroying our Apostl's Argument and These exactly agreeing with Both it cannot be very disputable which of the two we are to receve for our standard Whatever weight therefor might have be'n in the Objection upon supposal of such an Universal silence the same must be in our Answer or rather our Plea For the authority of such eminent persons will bear me out in my fundamental Hypothesis viz. that our Lords Institution was derived from a Jewish Custom and plain Reason will bear me out in what I further add viz. that it must be Such a Custom as may agree not only with our Lords Text but the Apostl's Gloss too So the wise master-bilders have laid the foundation and I have taken such care how I bild thereupon that I hope my good Reader will find no cause to complain otherwise than our Modern bilders do of ancient Houses that they are Stronger and Darker with Thicker Walls and Less Windows than needed To the Former part of such an Objection I answer that Thickness of Walls may be a falt in a dwelling House but not in a Castel which must expect to be battered and stormed by the whole Country To the Later part That if I cannot be justified by the necessity which obliged me to dispute in such manner as the Subject mater required yet I hope I shall be Pardoned upon amendment in the remaining part of my Work to which upon That hope I now apply my self CHAP. V. Mater of Fact recorded in Scripture I. A transition to Mater of Fact Not so easily understood as might have be'n expected Two things considerable 1. The Backwardness of the Apostl's in Understanding our Lords mind 2. The means which our Lord used to recommend it unprosperos The night of Institution by its Terrors II. Our Lord's conversation with the two Disciples in the way and at Emaus so ordered as to discover the meaning of his Institution as well as the truth of his Resurrection ineffectual upon a contrary reason Their ignorance 'till the coming of the Holy Ghost III. The second observable Their diligence in obeying our Lord's will when discovered That by their breaking of Bread must be meant the Lord's Supper appears by 1. The Exercises accompanying it 2. The Phrase expressing it IV. 3. The Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signify the meeting-house where the first Christians held their Conventicles for fear of the Jews V. 4. The time The Apostl's and Brethren at Hier daily The
Remote Churches on the Lords day VI. The first Day of the Week consecrated to This office and for That reason stiled the Lords day dishonored by derivation from the 4th Commandment cannot be worse profaned than by neglect of This office to which it oweth it's sacreduess HITHERTO I have labored to serve the Learned and the Inquisitive the Able and the Willing to search both the ground of our Lords Institution and the Apostl's discourse concerning it which reciprocate such light to one another that I hope every such Reader is fully satisfied both in Conscience and Curiosity But there ar many other who ether understand not such work or will not suffer the fatigue whom I shall now endeavor to fit with less troublsom Discourses It is much easier both to Understand and to Attend the the process of an History than that of an Argument and the sens of Mater of Fact as it is more Obvious so is it generally more Potent than That of Mater of Right What therefor I have hitherto be'n proving to have be'n our Lord's and Apostl's mind concerning our obligation to constancy I shall now authorise by the suitable Practice of All the Apostl's and Primitive Churches In This Chapter I shall search the Scripture for the Former and in the following I shall look into humane Writers for the Later In This Chapter let us vieu the Scripture and see the strange unhappiness of This Subject We might well hope to ' scape all disputes concerning Mater of Fact when the witness is infallibl what can we need more but to hear him Yes we need understand him too and as in the Apostl's argument we have found difficulty bicause those expressions which were familiar to His age are worn out in Ours So the same difficulty still pursueth us in the very History We must not only vieu what is written but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search and Examin and that carefully too what is meant when report is made even of Mater of Fact But we have This comfort that as the troubl will be now less so will our discoveries be more various and at every step we shall meet somthing worth the no great labor of the inquiry Two things will be worth our observation 1. How careful our Lord was to recommend his Institution and how backward the Apostls were in Apprehending his meaning 2. How diligent the Apostl's were in Obeying his will when well informed concerning it 1. It is worth observing be it but for our own justification that notwithstanding our Lords care to instruct them the Apostl's themselves were as hardly broght to understand his mind in his Institution as we ar now And it is more particularly observable that Those endeavors which he used to recommend it to their affections met the same success as we have seen follow those very words of the Apostl whereby he endeavored to prove the necessity of constancy Our Lord's care to recommend it appeareth especially by two Actions 1. His timeing the Institution Secondly His care to mind them of it while fresh in memory 1. He chose the fittest Time for the Institution The Apostl observed it and we shall anon find another occasion more fully to consider how observable it is that it was the Last night and That wherein he was betrayed and the Evangelist is careful to commemorate with what affection he embraced That Passover for This very reason bicause it was the most proper for This Institution But That dismal night however seasonable to endear it to Future times was least so for it's publication to the Present It was natural that the dreadful Tragedy then impending should so confound both their Apprehensions and Memories as utterly to rob them of all other consideration but of their Lord's and their Own dangers leaving them no power to regard the at-such-a-time-scarce-considerable action To cure This inconvenience he applyeth a contrary remedy and that speedily II. HIS Resurrection was matter of as great Joy as his Passion was of Grief or Fear and he makes That an opportunity to remedy the Other After his Death they met together not to Fest but Fast bicause the Bridegroom was taken from them the news of his Resurrection must give them the garments of gladness for the spirit of heaviness and invite them both to turn their Fasting to Festing and to close their Fests with his Supper as he had both very Carefully and very Lately commanded He therefor contriveth a way whereby he may at once assure them of the truth of his Resurrection and the meaning of his Institution The story we meet in Luke 24.13 which bicause we as litle heed now as the Apostl's did then will require som Animadversion Finding Two Disciples traveling together to complete the necessary number himself makes a Third He joins himself to them discourses with them gives them sufficient opportunity and occasion to observ his countenance his voice his meen and whatever els he might be know'n by But these it seems were Disciples in extraordinary not such as ordinarily conversed with him and they knew him not so perfectly as to discover him in such circumstances He suppeth with them and having by his discourses manifested himself a Rabbin takes the office of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breaker and performs it not in the Accustomed but his Own New form points not so much to the Bread as to his own Body and thereby so manifested his Person that immediatly they knew him This gives us an Hypothesis suitable to all the Phaenomena of the story otherwise unaccountable and if our eyes be withholden that we no more know his Meaning now than the Disciples did his Person by the way let us look how we shall answer these questions How came their eyes to be opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by the breaking of the Bread more than by all his other appearances You say he might discover himself When and How he pleased True but the question concerneth not his Power but his Will which governs that Power and is it self governed by his Wisdom We therefor further demand Why he that Could do it in what circumstances he pleased should Chuse to do it in These rather than any Other This say you is a saucy question we are not to call our Lord to account for his actions But may we not be bolder with his servants his Disciples and Evangelist Let us then inquire concerning them Why were the Disciples so careful to report This very Circumstance Why the Evangelist so punctual to record that they reported not only the Thing but the Manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How or in what manner he was knowen to them by the breaking of the Bread Here meet an unaccountabl Will of our Lord choosing This very Manner of discovering himself the no less unaccountabl Care of the Disciples reporting This Manner and of the Evangelist recording both the One and the Other Must All this be imputed to a fortuit concurs without
see that none could stay out the Prayers but they must be at least by-standers at the Communion Or if any thoght to avoid them Both they were not thereby excused as appears in the case of the Alexandrians for when many of them after reading of the Gospel went away John surnamed the Alms-giver then Patriarch followed them out of the Church sharply reproving them telling them He came to administer the Eucharist to them and never giving over his importunity till he brought them back to the Holy Table Even those who were go'n out of the Church as resolved not to Communicate and therefor certainly both Unprepared and Unworthy did he promiscuously even compel And This zele of so Eminent a Prelate might I vouch as my second Topik since he cannot be denied the title of a Father of the Church But I urge not This however Venerable Authority further than as Expositor of the true meaning of the now mentioned Canon since by the shifts the People made to avoid the Letter by not staying out Prayers and the importunity the good Prelate used to recal them both to Prayers and Communion we may best Avoid any Evasions that our Modern Teachers may use who in Reverence to the Sacrament fright the vulgar from it and Justify my self in my professed endeavor to compel them to it And from the first Testimony thus cleared I com to II. 2. ANcient FATHERS among whom Justin Martyr shineth with great lustre He florished in the midl of the Second Century and is so Clear and so Particular that his words may serv as well to Describe as to Prove the Practice of Those days consonant to the Apostls This excellent Father having before described the other Sacrament and to its Description added what the Church constantly did to its Celebration That of the Lords Supper proceeding afterward to giv a Several account of This he thus reporteth its Constant Revolution And That day which is caled Sunday there is a meeting of all that dwell in Town and Country and the Reader having do'n his office the President makes an Oration wherein he exhorteth the people to imitate such goodly things Then we all rise and pray and as I have said at the end of prayers Bread Wine and Water are brought forth and the Prefect again poureth out with all his might Prayers and Praises and the people answereth aloud Amen And there is a distribution and communication made of those things over which thanks have be'n given to every one that is present but to the absent it is sent by the Deacons But those that are wealthy and willing contribute what they see good c. These words do so exactly suit the Practice of the Church to her above-recited Censure that I know not what Light can be Added or what Evasion Pretended if we consider how expresly they declare 1. That this was Every Sundays exercise And that it was not confined to the Sunday appeareth by what he had said before in the description of the Other Sacrament whereof he made This a certain attendant without declaring that it was do'n only upon Sundays 2. Every Christian was thoght obliged to Communicate every Sunday at least bicause the Church-officers were appointed to cary the Holy Supper even to the Absent 3. They mingled Water with the Wine This we may very reasonably believ to have be'n do'n in Conformity to the Jewish Tradition which forbiddeth the Cup of blessing to be otherwise celebrated For so the Misna in Berachoth endeth the 7th Chap. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They bless not for the Wine until Water be put to it This Action they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mingling of the Cup as they do the other the Breaking of the Bread 3. The third sort of testimony promised was an HISTORIAN I might plead performance of That promise by the now recited words of Justin reporting Mater of Fact But that you may see this was no short lived practice I shall further offer you the testimony of a profess'd Historian that wrote about the midl of the fifth Century Socrates in lib. 5. cap. 21. describing the differences between several Churches in their Rites thus speaketh concerning the Subject now in question Althogh All Churches All the world over in every week on the Sabbath day celebrate the Communion yet the Alexandrians and Romans upon an ancient Tradition refuse so to do But the Egyptians which dwell near Alexandria and in Thebais celebrate also the Communion on the Sabbath but receve it not after the manner of other Christians for after they have Fested and filled themselves with sundry meats in the Evening making the Offering they Communicate in the Mysteries Behold here a Testimony as full and as clear as can be expected from an Historian yea from a Witness for he nether speaketh by hear-say nor transcribeth other mens Writings of former ages but reporteth what himself certainly knew of the Universal practice of the whole Christian World at the time of his Writing And for our better satisfaction let us consider 1. That He should say the Sabbath was the day of Celebration whereas Justin Martyr puts it upon the Sunday can make no objection The analogy between them having given the One the name of the Other in our own days 2. Whereas the Egyptians Fested first and Communicated in the Evening after they had Fested themselves this may well be taken for a continuation of the Primitive practice in their Fests of Charity banished at That time out of other Churches bicause of rhe abuses they suffered from the Intemperance of the Peopl 3. Concerning the singularity of the Roman Church 1. It is not hard to reconcile Socrates with St. Hierom who saith That in His days there remained plain foot-steps of daily Communions in That Church which also continueth true in Our days without any contradiction to our Historian She hath still evident Foot-steps of more than Daily Communions yet no Face of so much as Weekly It seems that even in Socrates's days they had put it in Maskerade 2. We see what right That Church hath to ingross the title of Catholik It is one contradiction to confine so large a Word to any One part of the World and it is a Greater to confine it to That part which was singular as differing from All besides the Alexandrian Church 3. We find what pretence that Church hath to equal her Traditions with the Scripture since Universality is essential to a Tradition and here she pretendeth One unknown to the whole Christian World But most pertinently to our present purpose 4. We see whence we are to derive the neglect of Weekly Communions When the Roman Church got the Power to impose her own Singularities upon All other the Ambition to usurp the title of Catholik as if she were not only the Head but the Whole and the Confidence to set up her Inventions as authentik Traditions then must the Universal Practice of All the Christian World be
dishonoring the Lords Supper by their necessary connexion Either therefor we ar quite out of the reach of his Threats bicause we are free from the Character he Reproves or if we ar Not then are we most exposed to That now mentioned bent against their So Coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper since That and only That can literally be charged upon us And since his Cautionary precepts were also levelled against the Sin Reproved they must needs strike more directly upon That Omission wherein we are equally gilty than upon the Unworthiness wherein we cannot be so And that inseparabl connexion between the Churches meetings and the Lords Supper which he so industriosly proveth must needs concern us more than any such kind of unworthiness as he mentioneth Not since That is to continu till the end of the World by our Lords own Institution and This is not condemned but by Our own Reason in consequence of the Apostls reproving another kind of gilt whereof we are uncapabl V. IF therefor we must accommodate the Apostls Dissertation to the change so as to shun the Unworthiness Not expresly forbidden much more must we do so in the Constancy so Expresly and Industriosly enjoyned So that our concern must needs be this As often as the Corinthians ate that bread and drank that cup which our Lord had adopted to represent his body and blood so often they shewed forth his death and therefor whoever did unworthily celebrate That were gilty of profaning This The connexion between their Meetings and their Fests the Apostl did not bicause he needed not mention but That between Them and the Lords Supper he proved inseparabl both as to Intermission and Abolition The former connexion the Church hath changed the later she may not in either of its members We ar therefor and till the Lord com ever must be obliged in All our Church meetings to celebrate the Lords Supper and That in such manner as becometh his body and blood THIS is the Equitabl and Moral sens of the Apostls words which was so Long and Universally paid them by all Ages and Churches preceding and following the change as might create a right even by Prescription but on the other side it hath be'n lost so many Ages that the Contrary Sens pleads Contrary Prescription It is now no less impossibl to reduce the people to Constancy than it was in the time of the Laodicean Council to reduce them to Sobriety and therefor the Officers of the Church now find it necessary to yield to the hardness of hearts callos by time VI. BUT here we must carefully distinguish between Yielding and Justifying Our Church speaketh not one syllabl to Dispens with the strictest Constancy but on the contrary still recommendeth it as often as she can without exposing her Own Injunctions to the Same Contemt from which she endeavoreth to rescu our Lords She doth indeed forbid the celebration if there be not a competent number to communicate bicause if the Holy Table must needs be deserted it is less dishonorable that it be so Without the Supper than With it She therefore leaveth it to the Ministers Discretion how often it shall be offered but she intrusteth their Piety to exhort the peopl to com as often as possibl She is Both ways careful that neither the Willing may want a Communion nor the Unwilling an Exhortation She therefor complieth with the peopl's Neglect no otherwise than did the equally valiant and indulgent Captain with his Armies cowardize he Commanded he Intreated he Exhorted he Reproved but when he could by no means prevail to stop their flight he put himself in their head that they might seem rather to Follow their Leader than Flee their Enemy But as this compliance of the Captain did not justify his Disobedient Troops so neither do the Churches Rubriks justify either Ministers or Peopl that are wanting to the Constancy so plainly Urged by the Apostl Practiced by the Best ages and Recommended by her Self The Sum of all is this Since the Church had no Authority nor no Intention to slacken the Power either of our Lords Command or the Apostls Argument we must therefor still own them to have the same Power now as ever and must accommodate them to our Present meetings as if they still were Festivals not only in Name or Spiritually as we acknowlege them still to be but in Reality and Sensually as at the time of his Writing they were and in the Recess the Obligation is no less indissolubl against the teeth of time and the constitutions of Governments than against any evasions of singl persons But All this the More it Obligeth the Less it Persuadeth It may perhaps Compel us to submit to the Duty but cannot Invite us to Embrace the Favor And our Lord doth not use to Drive us like Beasts we know not Why nor Whither But to Lead us with the cords of a Man with bonds of Love with strong Reason and sweet Allurements the savor of his sweet ointments which so draw loving souls as to make them not only Follow but Run after him And This duty above All others is That way most attractive The Command made Reasonabl by a good End and the End made Amiabl by Relation to our Lord 's own Person as we now com to see in the remaining words In remembrance of me PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proper rite This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as ar the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. 'T is wors in a Christian upon several accounts 1. The Law-giver 2. The Rites VI. 3. The Obligation HITHERTO we have seen nothing but Dry Law the rough Issu of Authority and Will haling us to the unrecommended performance by chains of Compulsion without any gentler Attractives that may Invite our Affections or Persuade our Reason And as the Country hath be'n dry and barren so have the Ways be'n craggy Troublesom to the Best and Unpassable to the Most understandings The Reader must understand the Rules of Reasoning and must be ar no litle pains to mesure the Apostl's discurs by Those Rules We now com to a pleasanter Country and smoother ways From the Apostl's Argument to our Lords which is full of endearments to our Affections and free from difficulties to our Understandings thogh we never sate at the feet of Gamaliel or any other Tutor but Love For whoever loveth our Lord's person can no sooner hear that He is concerned but he findeth abundant
obligation and can easily supersede all others That we may take the clearer vieu of this new Suasory we shall distinctly consider 1. This is the Adequate Rite of Worship whereby we own our crucified Lord. 2. As it is the Monument so it is the Effigies of his Death and its Benefits 3. It is not so appropriate to our Lords Own interest as to forget Ours for even to us it is 1. Easy 2. Pleasant 3. Beneficial I. THIS is the Adequate Rite of Worship whereby we own our crucified Lord. The Critical Tessera The Badge The Livree whereby a Christian is distinguished from Jew Turk Heathen and Atheist All of All other Religions agree in All other offices of Devotion Prayer Thanksgiving Fasting Preaching are All of them Holy exercises but of Natural Religion common to All mankind Only by This ar we distinguished from them All as by our proper Livree given us by our Lord for This very End that we may be known to be His. 'T is true we differ from Jews c. in this that we pray in the Name of the Lord Jesus c. But we are not thereby distinguishable to any but such as Hear and Understand our words This Sacrament is the Universal Character whereby we are known and read of All men whatsoever even Strangers and Deaf thogh the one cannot hear nor the other understand our words by seeing this Action apprehend our Profession That we may the more fully understand the importance which this oght to cary to our care Three Considerations will be useful 1. Nature hath taght all mankind and God himself hath confirmed it That every Religion should have som solen Rite whereby it may be known to the very ey from all Other Religions 2. Those Critical Rites however slight in the Mater are yet to be highly esteemed bicause of That office 3. To this General Reason our Lord hath added Particular marks of his favor towards this Institution 1. Nature hath taught all mankind that Every Religion should be known from every Other by Proper Rites Nature and Reason dictated that Law to the Romans Sacerdotes quae quoque divo decorae grataeque sint hostiae providento They and all other Heathen multiplied Rites as they did Gods so that those who were skilful needed not any further information what was the God than the knowlege of what was the Sacrifice and what the solennities Jupiter's Rites wer different from Pluto's What was thoght acceptable to Venus was odios to Diana Nor would Paâ— be pleased with the Rites of Bacchus And for This Reason was it required as a necessary qualification in a Jewish Ruler who was to receve and judge of an accusation concerning Idolatry that he should be skilful in the Rites of Heathen worship lest he should sentence any one to death who had not worshiped the fals God in his Proper maner For saith Maimonides If any one worshiped Pehor in a manner proper to Mercury or Mercury in a manner proper to Pehor he was guiltâ—â—s But if any one say that as wer the Gods of the Heathen so wer their Rites mere Creatures of human folly and that This concept of the Jewish Doctors was never authorised by any Law of God we cannot but acknowledge that thus much of it God hath authorised That it is fit Every Religion should be known by its proper Rites For He was careful so to distinguish his Own Peopl and Worship Circumcision the Pass-over Sabbath c. are all marked with This Asterisk It shall be a sign between me and you And to This Reason are reduced by the now-named son of Maimon Most if not All the Negative Ceremonials as well as the Positive Many indifferent things wer therefor forbidden to Gods peopl bicause practised by the neighbor Idolaters For how could it beseem the Majesty of a Divine Law to forbid a Barber to round the head or mar the corners of a beard or the Plow-man to sow his land with divers seed or the Weaver to weave a garment of linnen and woolen or the Cook to seeth the Kid in the dams milk or the Gardener to graff upon a strange stock c. Doth God take care for Beards Garments c No doubtless but under those small maters great were hidden Those were Rites of Zabius superstition and God would have His peopl forbear their Ways as well as their Daughters that they might be know'n from Idolaters as well by Negative as Positive distinctions II. NOW whatever is Rational in the Old Law is to be Reteined in the New but Accommodated to the change This therefor hath its distinguishing Rites too yet no more than may consist with the generos liberty to which we ar thereby caled To which purpose St. Augustine speaketh very well upon another occasion Primum itaque tenere te volo quod est hujus disputationis caput Dominum nostrum Josum Christum sicut ipse in Evangelio loquitur leui jugo nos subdidisse sâ—rcina 〈◊〉 Unde Sacramentis numero paucissimus observatione facillimis significatione praestantissimis societatem novi populi colligavit All the multitude of intolerable Ceremonies ar reduced to two the smalest number possibl always practised as necessary in all honorable Fraternities For as in all such Orders the Knight is Once publikly Instaled and ever after weareth som Badge of his Order so hath our Lord ordained concerning the Members of his Church By one Sacrament they are admitted once for All by the Other they ever after Appear his Disciples Of the Former our Lords conference with Nicodemus well understood discovereth both the Meaning and the Necessity And well understood it cannot be without a praevios knowledge of the Practice and Doctrine of the Jews in Baptism But whoever knoweth that they receved Proselytes into Covenant by Baptism and believed that thereby the Heathen soul was taken away and a New one put in his place that in conformity to this Belief the man was said to be New-born a New ceature a New man c. and This so properly that he lost All Relation to his former kinred so as to be thereby free to marry his Mother Sister or Daughter He who considereth this and only He easily understandeth the Reasonableness of our Lords discourse For Nicodemus convinced that our Lord was a teacher com'n from God bicause none could do the wonders that He did except God were with him Yet ashamed to confess this openly bicause of his Fellow-rulers makes his address by Night but This our Lord in the stile familiar to the Doctors telleth him is not sufficient for he must openly take upon himself Baptism the badge of a Disciple Nicodemus not heeding the Rabinical sons of Regeneration wonders at the strange and impossibl necessity of entering again into the mothers womb and our Lord no less wonders at his wonder that being a master in Israel understood not a Precept so familiar and thence taketh occasion to tell him that his Disciples must believe much
greater Mysteries If saith he I tell you Earthly things and ye believe not how will ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things Meaning by Earthly and Heavenly as St. Paul afterward did Phil. 2.10 and in several other places by the Former the Jewish by the Later the Christian Mysteries whereof he giveth a Specimen in his coming from Heaven his returning Thither and his being There and his crucifixion for the salvation of the world That which we mention This for is to shew that our Lord manifestly adopted the Jewish Tradition of Baptism into the Gospel making it then a necessary badge of a Disciple as he also afterward did when he returned to Heaven requiring his Apostles to go and Disciple all nations Baptising them for this reason bicause whoever believeth and is Baptised i. e. publikely professeth his Discipleship shall be saved By all which it is apparent that our Lord appointed this as a Livree whereby his servants must profess to own Him for their Master if they should by him be own'd and saved III. YET is not this the Adaequate nay nor the Principal badge of a Christian For we receve This but Once and that without our own consent As were we when this Seal was put upon us so was its Impression when we came to age we wer at liberty to Own or Reneg it and whether we do This or That appears by no other visibl mark but only our Receving or Neglecting This more Critical Sacrament in due season appointed by our Lord as a more Lasting and Alway Visible cognisance I say our Lord appointed this Other Sacrament in Due season For had he do'n it sooner his Disciples would have forgotten his Command before they understood it yet could he not forbear to Prophecy of it saying He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life But since his Death must needs be understood when he had suffered it even by Those who before knew not what it meant he therefor took the time when it was in a manner Present as fittest for the Institution which was both to Commemorate it and Distinguish his Disciples by such constant Repetitions whereof Baptism was incapable Those who are honored with the Noble Order of the Garter as they are solenly Installed so ar they Obliged ever after to wear the George and the Star as permanent badges of the Honor and Vow they have receved and if Any person however solenly Installed shall afterward lay his Habit aside he doth not only Offend against the Law of the Order but Disclaim his Interest in it as refusing to be esteemed a Brother of that Royal Fraternity This Sacrament is our George and our Star This if we constantly wear not we tacitly renounce our Christianity Those very Persons who perhaps will not Admit certainly do not sufficiently Press this for a Necessary Duty abundantly urge it to other purposes When they are required to assign the marks of a true Church they name Administration of the Sacraments for One and it will troubl any reasonabl man to deny that if the Administration be the mark of a True Church the Reception must be so of a True Member of the Church And som Ultramarine Churches have found it necessary to declare as the Council of Agatha did of old that those who receve not the Sacraments oght not to be reputed as Christians For which censure thogh we have already seen Reason sufficient yet perhaps we may see more IV. 2. THOSE Rites whereby One Religion is Crititically distinguished from Another however slight the Mater may seem ar highly to be esteemed for That office Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing said the Apostl yet was the One mortal in the Old Testament and the Other in the New and Both upon the same Reason He that was circumcised was a debtor unto the whole Law To eat an Apple or any other Fruit of a Tree is a small matter but when the forbearance was made a Sacrament i. e. a Specimen of the new made Creatures owning the dominion of the Creator Then Eating was condemned not only as an act of Misdemeanor but Rebellion and the Smith which thoght it too much that God should be so severe for an Apple might be answered that it was not for the Apple but for the experiment he thereby gave of his disowning Gods authority over him And for This reason did God make Those offences Capital which had otherwise be'n Venial He that was uncircumcised He that kept not the Passover He that brake the Sabbath c. That soul must be cut off from his people bicause God had said of every one of those otherwise slight performances This shall be a sign between Me and You. This dubl care of God as well in Negative as Positive Ceremonies taught his peopl to infer That if a Jew must forbear the Rites of Gentilism then must the Gentile as for the same Reason so upon the same Penalty forbear those of Judaism Since the One no less than the Other was necessary to the Discriminarive which was the Adaequate vertu of the Law As God therefor made it mortal to the Jew to Neglect such Rites so did the Jews make it to a Gentile to Usurp them as thereby robbing them of their proper vertu since by being common to Both they wer disabled to distinguish the One from the Other The Gentile saith the Gemera Babylonica which observed the Law of Moses was guilty of death How so bicause it is said Moses commanded us a Law for an Inheritance It is an Inheritancs to Us not to the Gentile Yea their most Learned Maimonides saith that if a Gentile celebrated a Sabbath thogh he mistook the day yet if he did it with intention to keep the Sabbath he was guilty of death They did not indeed inflict death on such offenders but stripes only yet not without admonition that he was guilty of death thogh not punished with it Since therefor our Lord left us This Law as Moses did His Ceremonial for an Inheritance the Reason being the Same in the Law the Crime must be the Same in the Disobedience V. THE Same in its Reason but incomparably Greater in Haynosness For by how much the Covenant is Better the Law-giver Greater the Redemtion more costly c. by so much more criminal must it be to omit This than any Mosaical Rite And how much That is if we enquire we must do it in the stile of the Author to the Hebrews not to seek satisfaction but to express amazement He that despised Moses 's Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath do'n despight to the Spirit of Grace I grant that This dreadful Thunder is not leveled against the neglect of This Institution as
Endeareth all other Lawes by new obligations proper to the Nature of a Man II. 2. Is it self a New Law upon a New account III. It is not only a Monument proper to our Lords memory but a Statu lively representing him IV. Our Lord expressed his esteem by his care in recommending it in the most advantageos circumstances 1. It was the Last night in his Life 2. The night in which he was and knew he should be bebetrayed V. The pervers returns many make to This care 1. The Profane make it their Last act as if it wer to shew forth their own death 2. Som make it their Last care by preferring every other before it Business unpreparednes uncharitablenes VI. The Scrupulos refuseing to receve bicause hindered by impossibl conditions blemish our Lords wisdom and goodness THIS and This Only is Appropriate to our Lords Person and Humane Nature and hath thereby a dubl singularity of power 1. It addeth a New inforcement to former Laws upon their Old account 2. It is it self a New Law upon a New account I. IT endeareth all Former Laws upon their Common account which well cast up amounteth to this End Total They promote Our happiness and that in all Kinds and Capacities Private and Publick Inward and Outward Temporal and Eternal They exalt us above the Troubles by putting us above the Cares and Pollutions of this world make us both Useful and Amiable in our generations Spiritual in our affections Godlike in our conversation Perfect as our heavenly father is perfect as much in Happiness as Goodness they promote not any other interest of God but his delight in our felicity And This is a great argument to invite our obedience twisted of Interest and Gratitude And the bonds of Gratitude which oblige us to obey God for Kindness of his Commands ar dubled by That of his Promises He imputeth it as a Service and promiseth Rewards infinitely greater than the best Service could pretend to if we will accept of the happiness he offereth us And what can Love do more Yes our Lord hath do'n yet More Infinitely More for us He hath not only taken Care but Paid for our happiness and the Price was great as the Love that paid it and the Obligation thence derived greater than Both the Other For his Laws and Promises shewed the Love indeed but mingled with the Authority of a Father His Power was thereby Governed but not Weakned they provide for Our happiness without robbing Him of any part of his own What the Psalmist says of his Works we may apply to his Laws and Promises He spake and it was do'n he commanded and they were created But rhe work our Redemtion cost him not onely a word speaking but strong cries and tears whereby he purchased to himself Another Right so much more Obliging to Us by how much more Costly to Himself than that of a Creator That our great Lawgiver should take upon himself the form of a servant and become Obedient yea that of a Malefactor and becom obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross That he should with his Own bloud purchase us a Pardon for breaking his Own so gracios Laws and Himself a peculiar peopl zelos of good works and thereby capabl of his so Promised Rewards leaving us an exampl that we should follow his steps which it is no less Shameful to Desert than Impossibl to Ourgo either in Active or Passive obedience This is indeed a most Admirabl and no less Powerful charm to constrain us to follow such a Captain These Things for their admirable Loveliness the Angels desire to look into and by such cords of Love Humanity must needs be Attracted No voice therefor of this Captain of our Salvation caled more loud upon Us to Follow Him than That whereby he caled upon God as forsaking him Never more a King than when Crowned with thorns Anointed with sweat and bloud and Enthroned on his Cross There There was he exalted on the throne of Love There did he stretch out his inviting Arms There did he open not his Arms only but his Heart who 's wide door let out his Bloud to make room for Us. This doth himself cal his Exaltation I when I am exalted will draw All men unto me All Men of All Humours and Complexions All Nations and Ages The stubbornest metal that will not be Broken by his Authority will be Melted by his Love which cannot be better Kindled or Fueled in our hearts than by the wood of the Cross Nor can That be better ordered than by This Sacrament which was appointed for That very End By This he is still set forth Crucified among Us as heretofore among the Galations however remote in time or place By this he is still Exalted to his Cross By This doth his Heart still open it self to send forth fresh bloud and his Mouth to utter new cries But oh those Cryes must be New indeed and to New but Sad purposes On his Cross he cried upward to his seemingly deserting Father My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me But at his Table he cryeth downward to his too really deserting disciples My friends My friends why do you forsake me Is it nothing to You Oh all you that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow which is do'n unto Me wherewith the Lord Once afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger for your sakes and which you still repete by your unkind neglects of the salvation I then so dearly purchased and now so lovingly offer Whether his Bloud by speaking more Sweetly do not also speak more Powerfully than his Commands yea or Promises can do I neither Dare nor Need to determin All that I pretend to I hope is plain viz. That This Sacrament by shewing forth his Death draweth us with a New attractive and bindeth us with New obligations to obey such a Lord so purchasing and so offering salvation II. 2. THIS doth not only add New Obligations to former Laws upon their Old account but is it self a New Law upon a New account This is therefor the Cord of a Man bicause it draweth and bindeth us to our Lords humanity He that said If you Love me keep my Commandments recommendeth them after the same proportion as they have interest in his Person to which therefor since This hath greatest Relation it must also have greatest Claim to our Obedience If you love me you will keep all my Commandments bicause they are Mine but This above All bicause it is not only My Commandment but My Monument It s Relation is so singular to our Lords Person that it is Incommunicable even to one part of his Nature In all the Rest the whole Trinity is concerned bicause they serv the whole Divine Nature In keeping them we obey the Father also from whom he professeth to have receved them If we partake his spirit the Holy Ghost is honored but Spirits have not Flesh and
Church exercising Punctual Obedience to such a sens We have found our Own Church laboring what she can to retrive the same From Obligations of Obedience we proceeded to the cords of a man Reason we find requireth that the Badge of our profession should be constantly worn and Kindness obligeth us to embrace an office so Endeared as we find This by all incentivs of Love In the whole journy we have not found the least Inconsistence or Impertinence of any One syllabl but every Word and every Order yea every Disorder of words combine to declare This the true Key to Our Lords and his Apostls meaning And I may Boldly Challenge any one of a differing judgment to match This so punctual Dissection with any other that may suit his own Hypothesis with equal exactness but whether they make the least pretence to it or no will clearly appear by the examination of what they pretend the Apostl to have said to the contrary PART V. Answers to the Vulgar opinion CHAP. I. Deference paid to the Former age and to the Sacrament I. Former ages excused for advanceing Reverence when there was no other danger but of Irreverence and stateing preparation in such manner as might best serv Piety Reason to believ that were they now living they would press the Performance as earnestly as they have do'n Preparation II. A Second Protest against robbing the Sacrament III. The Adversaries opinion set forth in his own words whereby almost all the World must be prohibited IV. A Warrant demanded A confession that a good Consequence is Warrant sufficient SINCE it will be very hard if not utterly impossibl to dispute against Doctrines without boldness toward their Authors or to plead against One extreme without seeming to abett the Other before I proceed to the ill-lookt work I think it necessary to enter a dubl Protestation against Irreverence either toward the worthy Persons whom I am to treat as Adversaries or the H. C. which I am to render less Dreadful 1. Concerning the Pios Learned Persons whom I am to oppose thogh Truth will not permit us to embrace their Errors Justice will require us to excuse them bicause they Yielded to the then present Necessity at a time when there was no appearance of danger on the other hand When a City is Inaccesibl on the One side and Assalted on the Other the defendants think themselvs concerned to leav That side which seemeth safe and run to This which needeth their help and thogh many an otherwise impregnabl place have This way be'n lost yet still have the inhabitants be'n rather pitied as unfortunate than blamed as unfaithful The Antient Fathers saw No danger of loseing Gonstancy in this duty but Much of loseing Reverence and ar therefor to be Justified bicause they applied their labors to what appeared most Necessary But the Later Fathers broght That into Question which their predecessors thoght above Any Constancy first was ballanced against Reverence and then made to Yield to it St. Augustin first put the question Whether it wer better to Communicate every day or omit som days that we might do it better upon som Others This question when it first appeared in the World was no bigger than a mans hand thogh now it have overspread the whole face of the sky It grew from days to weeks from weeks to month's and the Church of Rome claims thanks for having made it necessary Once in a Year This abuse was so gross that the Reformers could not but correct but they did it with such aw both toward the Later Fathers and toward the Sacrament it self that they seem to have be'n more careful to speak what they thoght Best than what they thoght Truest To preserv the Sacrament from being swallowed up by the incorrigibl luxury of Their times the Fathers by way of necessary defence asserted the Reverence due to it as the Body and Bloud of Christ and our Pios divines endevor to advance it to a Power suitabl to That Honor a Power of exalting the Spirit of Christ by help of such Examination as must in all reason be That way most serviceable Sure enough our Lord can not but be well pleased that This Representative of his Death should second it in That great and good design for which he suffered it Thogh therefor they saw nothing in Scripture nothing in Tradition yet seeing in Reason great hopes of advantage they thoght best to lay hold on an expression or two of the Apostl's which however otherwise intended might be made of excellent use This way He had spoken of the Danger of Unworthiness and the necessity of Self-examination for avoiding that danger These two well twisted together and well bound on may be of excellent use to draw men to repentance so much the more speedy by how much neerer the time appears of approaching the dread Table And how can this be better do'n than by persuading men that no man is fit to Communicate who is not fit to dye What injury to the Apostl if useful words be not Confined to his Particular intention in that One place but Extended to a greater serviceablness to the General design of All his Labors or what to the Sacrament if it be so Rescued from Danger as to be made Victorios not only over That Intemperance which it suffered at Corinth but all other Sins of what kind so ever Or what to our Lord if the Representative of his Death be made to promote the good ends for which he suffered it This could not seem more Rational than Safe The Commands of the Church made it Criminal Universal Practice made it Scandalous to fail of appearing at the holy Table at least three times in the year and in all appearance the condicions of Preparation might be strained to Any height with as great Safety as Rigor Our Gratios Lord justified Moses for compliance with the hardness of the peopl's hearts in a case which in the beginning was not so The Pios Fathers in former ages had cast Festing out of the Church thogh This Supper wer by our Lords Institution appendant to it and they had removed the Season from Evening to Morning thogh the very title of Supper contradicted And why should not such apparent Advantages on one side yoked with such Security from any Damage on the other make it reasonabl to press Preparation in such manner that those who wer not prevailed on with Other reasons might be awakened by the approach of the Sacrament to betake themselvs to That work which otherwise they would delay till the approach of death When therefor we read what was written twenty or more years since when the Church had not yet lost her Power nor the Peopl their Shame when neither Atheism nor Schism had taught it needless to Obey our Lords last command when that neglect was thoght Incredibl which we now find incurabl let us consider as well the Reasons as the Words of those pios Authors and we
sum of all is This He that is not freed from the dominion of sin he that is not really a subject of the kingdom of grace he in who 's mortal body sin do's reign and the Spirit of God do's not reign must at no hand present himself before the holy Table of the Lord bicaus what ever dispositions or alterations he may begin to have in order to pardon and holiness he as yet hath neither but is Gods enemy and therefor cannot receve his holy Son In These words and indeed in the Whole Book the excellent Person endevored to make the Same mesures of Repentance necessary for a Communicant as in another very Pios and Learned Treatise he had proved necessary for Salvation And thogh he Express it not yea ' thogh he Intend it not he must Imply such a Faith also necessary for This Supper of our Lord which every where els he denieth to be so for That in heaven viz. An Assurance that he is in God's favor For since upon these grounds no man can Otherwise be Assured of the Lawfulnes of this action and whatever is not so of faith is sin the want of such Assurance must be as strong a bar against the performance as want of Worthiness So Those Few only Those very Few who ar not only in Gods favor but Above all Doubt of their being so must presume to approach his Table Yea if we will follow the conduct of the Position as far as it will lead us we shall com to believ it less sinful to Dy in such an estate than to Communicate Bicause Death is Unavoidabl and however it be damnabl to Live in a state of Impenitency it is no New sin to Dy so But here we ar told that we may avoid the Lords Table without sin and therefor must incur a Distinct guilt by Coming and that not only if we be Really Unworthy but if we Doubt whether we ar so or no. And what a singularity it here In every other controversie the Rival Positions use to oppose one another as Positive and Negative in the same Question Our present question is Whether our Lords Do this amount to a Command We might in cours expect no wors than a Denial And That very Denial too we might hope so Tempered as to leav Something Answerable in Som sort tho not fully Equal to the usual import of the word An Encouragement or Recommendation an Invitation or Intimation Somthing of som savor as Fit if not Necessary At worst if it do no way Oblige us if neither Duty nor Kindness bind us yet at least we should be at full Liberty to do it if we please But behold We now find it a Command but a Negative one For every one is bound to Forbear it upon Such Suppositions as shall lay hold upon the far greatest part of mankind And if a Law be made for the Collective body then must This needs be a Negative one bicaus not one of a thousand can escape the Prohibition If it be said That This Prohibition is but Suppositive and between two such Propositions there is no Inconsistence That it may very well be tru that If we be not worthy we must not do it I confess it nor do I accuse this admirable person of Inconsistency with Himself but his two Suppositive Propositions of Conspiracy against our Lords Command Bicaus the Former if it pretend to contein the whole Command Derogateth from it and the Later plainly Countermandeth it That disableth it from Obligeing Any to Do this And This maketh it Oblige almost All men to Forbear it The One falleth unreasonably Short of our Lords Command and the Other more unreasonably Contradicts it IV. WE cannot now avoid the rudeness to demand a sight of the Warrant which may authorise any one not onely thus to Limit but Countermand our Lords Laws It is an undoubted rule Ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum And Those words which ar accused of it we have sufficiently cleared from any such Crime But to Countermand a Law is much more than to Limit it and for This we have not yet seen the least Appearance of a Warrant much less so Clear so Imperative so Express an one as may outvoice both our Lord and his Apostl Our Lords Command is Universal Drink ye all of this This Apostl's injunction is equivalently indefinite Let a man eat this bread c. It is probabl our Lord admitted certain he Forbad not Judas himself And it is plain the Apostl Prohibited not but Commanded the Corinthians themselvs bad thogh they wer And if Either of them did at any Other time either Repeal such unlimited Commands or Prohibit their performance to Any kind of Persons when we see it we shall submit Yea though we have no such Commission we will take the boldness to conform not only to an Explicit Prohibition peremtorily saying Do Not this but any such word as by Clear and Necessary Consequence must Infer it If I say either our Lord or This or any Other Apostl ever drop't a syllabl which is capable of being made a Medium to forbid not onely the Most but any One member of his Church to do this thogh I shall think it as great a Miracle as Either of them ever wroght yet I shall Admire onely not Oppose the Conviction But there is No such danger the wonder bloweth from another point even from the slightness of the Evidences shall I call them which ar brought against the whole weight of the Apostl's argument Two loos words cut off from their fellow members and miserably rack't that they may confess something against His or our Lords designe a few precarios Allegories and som shews of Probability that our Lords Supper would be more honored and his Service more promoted another way These are the whole force we ar to contend with and shall do it in the order now set down beginning with that which alone is worth regarding Scripture And here I deny not the truth of the Supposition if the Apostl hath said any thing which by necessary inference will forbid any one to Do this it is as much as if he had said in express terms Do it not But then the Inference must be Unavoidabl and the saying whereon it is grounded Uncapabl of any such sens as may Comply with That Command which it shall pretend to Weaken If once more we look upon the Apostl's dissertation we shall find it to consist of Two main limbs Positions and Deductions which Depending upon These Positions must by no means Contradict them The Positions we have found aim all at This That Our Lord hath so inseparably inlayed His Supper upon all Church-meetings that as we May not so if we would we Cannot part them The Inferences ar Two 1. From Constancy in the One he inferreth Constancy in the Other Bicaus in All your meetings you eat This Bread and drink This Cup therefor in All your meetings you
nothing of the due Metal not only pass for Current in the Kingdom of God but bear a greater Valu than such pieces as com out of his own Royal Mint can God be pleased with such performances as please not the Votary himself can he be so much Better pleased with them that One of them shall be reputed payment for Multiplied omissions of Duty Or which is more pertinent to our present enquiry can such an exercise destroy the kingdom of the Devil in the unwilling Soul c. I grant Somthing hath be'n do'n toward it The man hath be'n put in mind of his need of Christs bloud and the Love that first Spilt it and now Offered it and This hath somwhat awakened the sens of the Obligation he hath to Lov and Serv him which cannot but make som impression upon his mind which for som time and in som mesure may check his lusts and quicken his care All this I hope and for This very reason complain that the good sparks should dy away which by Repetition of the same exercise might be blowen up to such a vigoros Flame as might wholly Destroy those lusts which ar now a littl Disordered but not Subdued For the Litl that this hath do'n is a sufficient evidence how much More might be do'n if so hopeful an exercise were duly Prosecuted with such Constancy as we have found required by our Lord and comes now to be considered by Reason in counterballance to its rival Solennity and this we do by steps 1. Multiplied repetitions one time or other will probably hit the mark He who is missed by Many a Sermon and Many a Communion may happily be struck to the heart by the Next There was a time when One Sermon converted Thousands but miracles ar ceased and now Many perhaps Thousands of Sermons ar necessary to convert One Yet can we not charge God as wanting to Necessary means since the Miraculos efficacy is supplied by the Moral power of multiplied Repetition Too many of those who Separate These ordinances in their Practice do them the right to Join them in their Discourses pleading the same color of reason against frequency in Preachings and Communions and those who do Not but will have These rare for reverence sake and Those frequent for their effects sake need no other evidence of the Weakness of their Objection against Frequence in the Communion than it s too great Strength whereby it will cast down what they would keep up so that they ar reduced to This choice either that Preaching must be Less frequent for fear of the Objection or the Objection renegued lest Preaching should be rob'd of Frequency for preservation of Reverence And as the Objection is equally Deficient so is Frequency equally Useful to Both. Who knoweth but That Sermon or That Communion which he is forsaking may be the critical One which is to convert him When an Affliction hath bruised or a Blessing melted the heart When the man hath Lost a friend or Escaped a danger when a Neighbors unexpected death hath warned him of his Own frailty or a good Angel hath unaccountably stirred the pool and he is by som secret disposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set in due order and almost perswaded to be a Christian then the Sermon or Communion coming upon him in his soreness prevaileth by nicking the critical Opportunity We know not the secret walks of Gods providence nor the advantages of Som seasons above Others by influences imperceptibl that therefor we may not miss the Proper but Vnknowen one it will concern Every man to say of Every one This is the day of the Lord This is That singular hour wherein I am to receve That flesh and bloud of Christ which must save me He that truly considers the valu of Salvation and his own need of it will not think much to ly in the way that Jesus of Nazareth Passeth by or rather wherein he Cometh on purpose to heal and save 2. Repetition both Preserveth the otherwise decaying Power of former acts and addeth new of its own The sturdiest oak is felled by Many of those stroaks whereof every particular one was inconsiderabl but if they com at such distance that the scratch rather than wound which the first made be healed up before it be secunded the tree may be a litl moved but not at all weakened If a man be but Litl yet if he be At all affected if he do but consider What he Doth or Oght to do if he think on the Death of Christ and it's Reason if he indevor to commemorate it in due manner or but consider that he oght so to do These Acts of Consideration and Reflection however weakly performed contribute their litl proportion toward the great work as every stroke of the oar doth to a long voyage but will soon be caried away by the contrary stream if it be not quickly renewed For as in Bodies so in Souls there is continual Deperdition and there needeth continual Reparation The Symbols do as truly represent Our Need as their Principals Vertu This Flesh is meat indeed and This bloud is drink indeed as in their Cherishing and Strengthening Vertu so in the Constancy wherewith they ar to be receved and Those who ar so easily satisfied with far Distant Communions seems to Betray the Weakness of their spiritual Life by That of their Appetite 3. Repetition will improve the power of Every Singl Act by making the Agent more expert No Tutor like Exercise It teaches us to do those things both Easily and Perfectly which to the inexpert appear not only Difficult but Impossibl And upon this account is Frequency so far from a hinderance that it is of all moral means most Proper to bring us to Worthiness That Self-examination which all Christians confess necessary before we com to the Lords table is by the best Philosophers prescribed before we go to sleep and Seneca incorageth his Lucilius to the practice upon This consideration that Exercise will make it as Easy yea as Pleasant as Profitabl For the same reason it is adviseable that we stablish several Periods the end of every Week for the past Week of every Moneth for the past Moneth of every Year for the past Year and every eve of the Communion for the Interval from the Last which Intervals were they left to our discretion we oght to shorten as much as possibl even for This very Reason that by Frequence we may learn to examin our selvs still Better so that if we have no other Obligation nor no other Design but to com as Worthily we must com as Frequently as Possibl So in the Result Worthiness must not be Opposed to Frequency as it's Rival but Proposed as it 's Encoragement For whether we ey the Honor of the Sacrament in the Abstract or the Vertu of it in Reference to the Salvation of mankind They ar Both promoted more by the Constancy of our Approaches than by the Awfulness of our
a Duty I say a Duty and every true Lover of our Lord saith the same For whatever Latitude the disputed words may be stretch'd to they know our Lord did not So Institute and Recommend his Supper only to be Neglected But if he required Constancy then is every Omission a Sin by Disobedience to his Law If Not then it is if possibl a greater one against Greater obligations of love For to a Loving Generous Soul a Trust is a Greater Obligation than a Command and Thankfulness will pay More than is Due And then further considering the work it self and it's fruits they conclude Constancy to be Due if not to our Lords Institution yet to their own Interests which Interests reciprocally comprehend our Lords honor since they cannot neglect his Blessings offered in This Sacrament without contemt to That bloud which Once so dearly Purchased and Still so kindly Offers them In these things no Divine is silent All Concurr in setting forth the Blessings and by Encoraging Oblige every one that loveth our Lords Person or desireth his Grace to lay hold upon Every opportunity to Worship the One and Enjoy the Other III. BUT when on the Other side we ar told that the Lord is no less present as a Judge than as an Host no less ready to Condemn the Unworthy than to Bless the Worthy And that Those ar Unworthy who com in any other state of Soul than they may safely dy in They now need be not only very Good but very Bold that shall dare to com upon such Dangeros terms For if the Person be never so Worthy never so Safe yet unless his Salvation be as Certain to Himself as it is with God he may not presume to com bicaus he cannot bring with him a full assurance and every Distrust will put him at the same distance as real Unworthiness YET seeing such persons have Hopes mingled with Fears thogh they have no full Assurance that they ar Worthy they have a good mesur of Hope that they may be so These very Hopes beget Fears that if they should Forbear the Lords supper they should disobey his commands Bicause they have Doubts of their Worthiness they dare not Com lest they should com unworthily and bicaus they have Hopes they dare not Forbear lest they should omit a Duty by forbearing causlesly So they see danger on ether hand they dare nether Com nor Forbear lest they should do ether the One or the Other unworthily So their very piety and hopes of Salvation thereupon bilt which should be their greatest joy is to Them an occasion of falling into a most griping Snare which hath no hold upon such as have nether hopes nor fears Let us now consider by what motives the Generality ar Led shall I say no it is the Goodness of God that Leadeth but Haled to repentance even by chains of fear forged in Hell fire Since those who ar most Religios upon fear of damnation must needs be most timoros where can we hope to find I say not That Family or City but That Kingdom that can shew us the scant number Three which we have found Necessary to make up a Communion who can com with Confidence And what then shall That rare Phoenix do which wanting neither Worthiness nor Confidence must want Company I plead not now the danger of Solitude to the Table but That of Torment to the Communicant God be blessed som ar so Heroically pios as to trust their Saviors Goodness notwithstanding their Teachers Rigors or their Own Fears hoping their good intentions shall be Accepted and their unworthiness pardoned if they com with Honest thogh Unworthy hearts But upon every turn of the Wind what Storms ar such good souls tossed with When they look backward how do they fear lest they may have receved unworthily When they look forward how do they fear lest they should do so again if they com or as bad if they forbear How earnestly do they Labor both for such Worthiness as they ar told is Necessary to avoid guilt and for such Assurance of it as may make them no less Quiet than Safe How often doth the very earnestness of the later hinder them from obteining it And how much still do their flutterings intangle them How often doth this wrestling with the heart inrage the spleen how often is the bloud sharpened by this contending against it's cooruptions How often doth earnestness after Assurance kindl earnestness in Others passions and then how rigidly is This very effect of laboring for worthiness censured as a symptom of unworthiness I know an excellent Lady troubled upon this very account that none of the meanest of our Divines to say no more now prescribed This as One rule of preparatory examination that we examin the irregularity of our passions dissuading us from the Next communion if we find not our selvs to have gotten ground of them since the Last And doth not the Snare finely encircle us Our very Indeavors after worthiness the more Eagre they ar the more they sharpen our Bloud and consequently our Passions and make us more Unworthy and This sens of Unworthiness obligeth us to Contend with all possibl Earnestness to master those Passions which by That very Contention ar Strengthened We now need no less help of the Physician to sweeten our Bloud than of the Divine to comfort our Conscience and if the goodness of God help us not more than Both we must either live Excommunicate from the Lords table or Indanger our souls by approaching it And Either way must be Griped with endless fears as having either Omitted the greatest duty of Love or Performed it Unworthily But all this is so inconsistent with the very nature of a Suprer so contrary to the gracios purposes of our Lord and sentiments of best Christians that I am almost persuaded to say that Such preparation dishonoreth the Holy table as much as None The Mourning weed sure is no less unfit for a Wedding garment than the Souldiers Buff or the Laborers Russet It is tru our Lord will never interrogate such guests as did the King in the parable Friend how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment Himself knoweth that the very Uneasiness of the garment is abundant evidence that their Affections ar as Honest as Unsuitabl and their welcom shall be suited to their Intentions But whatever Reward they shall receve hereafter it is manifest that at Present they suffer More and more Grievos perplexities from This which oght to be the most pleasant than from All other the most mortifying duties For in those the greatest austerities ar sweetened by the pleasures of the spirit festing their consciences with this satisfaction that they ar doing Gods work whereas in This they ar not only rob'd of That Satisfaction which is More properly due to it but griped with Anxieties as intolerable as undue Which yet to Souls as considerative as pios is less Afflictive than the Scandal thence arising
but what love shall prescribe and the Performance drest up in such frightful manner as is more apt to produce Dread than Love what other fruit can reasonably be hoped for than what we see that the generality should rather exercise their Aw by Shunning than their Lov by Frequenting it This was to som degree prevented by the Rubrikes of our Church 'till they wer deposed from their Authority by a sort of men who making distance from Rome their mesure of truth must by That rule have restored the Constancy which to banish was the proper act of Popery But Antipodes while they stand in greatest Opposition dwell in the same Latitude and so do these men with the Church of Rome in som of her worst Doctrines For as they also call it the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom to advance the Ecclesiastical Power above the Temporal so do they endeavor to make this Sacrament an instrument to subject the People to the Minister When they hoped to ' stablish their Discipline how briskly did they summon the People to the Communion How insolently did they depose them All even such as were every way better than themselvs to the state of Catechumens not admitting them to the Lords Table 'till they had undergo'n Their examination But when they found that they could not prevail ether with the People voluntarily to submit themselvs or with the Governors to compel them to it How quickly did they take pet How sullenly did they cast away the Sacrament as Useless to Any good purpose since it was So to their Own My banishment from the University cast me into a corner where the Dispute was publikly managed by word and writing from the Pulpit and from the Press whether the Lord's Supper wer to be celebrated in an unpresbyterated Church and the Negative so generally prevailed throghout the Land that during their whole reign in som places the very Table it self and in most others the Use of it was quite cast out of the Church When the Church of England was about to be restored and their Representatives wer desired to make their Proposals that they might ether hide or justify so great a neglect they moved to be freed from That Rubrike which obligeth the peopl to communicate at least three times in every year And to This day they make it a distinct cause of separation so that som who join with us in other offices dare not do it in This And their greatest Champion thogh he have his proper Congregation bosteth that he hath not ' ministered it these eighteen years with no less Non-conformity to his own pretences than to the stablished government 1. One pretence is that nothing must be do'n in the Publik worship of God without express warrant in his word Then certainly much less must any thing be omitted which his Command hath made necessary For the general Precept for Decency may virtually contein such Particulars as our Governors shall judge Decent but nothing less than a Particular and Express warrant can free us from a Particular Institution not only Expresly enjoyned but several ways Inculcated 2. Another pretence is that our Church is not rightly constituted according to the mind of Christ And we have discovered by the Nature of the thing by the language of the Apostls and by the unanimos consent of all the Christian world that the Sacraments ar indispensibl marks of a Christian Church which since his Congregation wants by his own principless he must abandon it 3. A Third great pretence is that We have too much Popery in our Worship And we have found that robbing the Publik worship of This Sacrament is the very Soul and Body of Popery but with This difference that the Popish Doctors intended to make it bleed away somthing of Constancy and Non-conformists bleed it to death WE see whence our neglect of the Sacrament took it's first Birth and whence it's Nourishment Popery gave it the one and Schism the other Yet how many among our selvs cherish it that renounce both Parent and Nurse Glad of the liberty which right or wrong they enjoyed during our confusions and loth to return to the troubl they suffered from such a curb to their dear lusts and ease They find that divines require no less for a worthy Communion than for a saving Repentance Repentance they press as absolutely Necessary but the Communion they think not so Who then can be so sottish as to delay his Repentance without giving the Sacrament as long a day Every mans Reason must needs concurr with his Sloth to persuade him that if it be a damnable Sin to com Unworthy but None to Forbear then must it needs be his wisest cours to avoid a task dubly prejudical first to his Ease and then to his Salvation When our Lord commanded us to pluck out our eys and cut off our hands he enforced it with a Reason as cogent as the Command could be rigid For it is better to enter into life with One ey foot or hand than to be cast into Hell-fire with two But so to state this duty as to say If you will do This you must quit your beloved lusts but if you will not do it you miss som benefits but incurr no danger how few such a declaration will persuade rather to renounce their lusts and ease than This Duty shall I call it no but Burthen Reason might have taght our ancestors to Conjectur and Experience compelleth us to bewail Experience which many call the fools mistress bicause those who apprehend not other evidence cannot avoid This Experience which is many times the Severest and alway the Best instructor doth so plainly and sadly reprove us that however excusable Other ages may have be'n who thoght themselvs secure from the ill consequences our Own and Future times cannot be so if we be not convinced by them We somtimes see men encumber their lands when they intend to grace them with Fair but Fruitless bildings and then sell houses land and all to pay the so contracted debt But we never see any so fond of such bildings as to sell the Land for their preservation if by pulling them down they can pay the debt with the materials Let us be as wise in our generation our ' forefathers thoght as such bilders usually do that the Sacrament could well bear and be improved by the cost they put it to that it would be more advanced both in honor and power than prejudiced by abatement of constancy but never thoght of staking its very Being against any hopes whatever That they thoght secured by the Laws of the Church and the unfailing practice of it's very worst members who for shame of their neighbors or fear of their governors durst not neglect it at any of the appointed seasons But now that the late Schism hath out-mischiefed all their fears it is not to be doubted but those very writers who heretofore discoraged the performance by their rigors wer they now