be all the usual attendants and companions of such seasons Luk. 15.25 the soul will begin to leap and dance for joy it will awake Psaltery and Harp and all the Instruments of Praise And so the Apostle speaking I suppose of the Christian Feasts and Entertainments bids them not be drunk with wine Ephes 5.18 19. wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord. These two things did commonly finish the Heathen Meetings After they were well liquored with Wine they used to sing and roar the Hymns of Bacchus The Apostle therefore opposes two sorts of heavenly pleasure unto that madness bidding them not to gorge themselves with Wine but to crave larger Draughts of the Spirit not to fill the air with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Bacchus as the manner was but with Hallelujahs unto God Drunk they might be so it were with the Holy Ghost And chaunt they might so it were Psalms and Thanksgivings to the Lord. Psal 36.8 Inebriabuntur ubertate c. Vulg. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thine house saith the Psalmist and thou shalt make them to drink of the River of thy pleasure Even a heathen could say Pramium virtutis esse perpetuam ebrtetatem That the reward of virtue is a perpetual drunkenness But then we must distinguish of drunkenness as Ficinius doth who hath well noted That there is one Earthly and Mundane v. Argumentum dialogi 2. de Justo when the soul drinks of Lethe's Cup and is beside her self and unmindfull of all divine things This is it the Apostle speaks against in the beginning of those verses as a heathenish crime But there is another coelestial drunkenness when the soul tasts of Heavenly Nectar and is indeed out of it self because above it self When it forgets these mortal things and is elevated to those which are divine feeling it self by a supernatural heat to be changed from its former habit and state This is it which the Apostle exhorts unto this is it which we must long for when we are at the Supper of the Lord. This is that which the Spouse means according to some ancient Expositors when she saith He hath brought me into his banquetting-house or Wine-Cellars and his banner or covering * For they feasted upon beds Cant. 2.4 over me was Love The Septuagint make it a prayer and render it thus Bring me into his wine-cellar place love in order over me Which may be conceived saith one as the voice of the Church to the Apostles or Ministers Polychronius Prepare for me the Supper of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set me down orderly at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the feast of love There is nothing that holy souls can more desire then to be so satisfied with him that their mouthes may praise him with joyfull lips This is the fruit of the spiritual inebriation that the soul meditate spiritual songs and hymns to God And indeed the better sort of Heathens did in their feasts sing the praises of famous men which good Criticks make the true original of the word Encomium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so the Apostle exhorts the Christians that they would break forth into their praises of God and Christ who were most worthy of all their hymns Before I end this let me observe That every one may sing such Hymns as the Apostle calls for and indite them in his own heart unto God because a Hymn is not as we ordinarily think onely praise in verse and metre but any words of Thanksgiving that set forth the merits of him that we extoll So a Heathen will teach us if we be still to learn it When a man saith Libanius hath any gift given him by God 〈◊〉 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he should by way of thankfulness return something unto God and some give one thing some another The Shepherd offers a Pipe the Huntsman a Stags head the Poet a Hymn in metre the Orator a Hymn without metre and in my judgment saith he a Hymn is more valuable with God then Gold and far to be preferr'd before it Now Love will make any one eloquent if our hearts be full of God they will run over Thanksgiving and Praise is the natural language of a pious heart and there is no such copious subject whereon to spend them as the Lord Christ and in the knowledg of Christ nothing so admirable as his death and therefore when we commemorate that the high praises of God must be in our mouths II. The Jewish Feasts upon their Sactifices do more plainly instruct us in this matter They that offered peace-offerings unto God were admitted to eat some part of them after they were presented to God and some pieces of them burnt upon the Altar And this is called partaking of the Altar which was God's Table 1 Cor. 10.18 Ezek. 41.22 Mal. 1.7 where they did rejoyce before him as those that were suffered to eat and drink with him So I observe That where there is mention made of their eating before the Lord which can signifie nothing else but their partaking of the Altar and feasting at his table they are said likewise to rejoyce before him Deut. 12.7 18. Deut. 16.11 in the later of which places after he had given command concerning the three great Feasts he adds ver 14. Thou shalt rejoyce in thy feasts And in the later end of King David's Reign when Solomon was crowned there was sacrifices offered in abundance for all Israel as you may read 1 Chron. 29.21 22. and the people are said to eat and drink before the Lord on that day with great gladness But the Psalmists words are most to be observed to this purpose Psal 116.12 13. where to the question What shall I return to the Lord for all his benefits towards me he returns this answer I will take the cup of salvation c. i. e. when I offer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacrifices for salvation or deliverance that God hath granted me out of trouble I will remember the mercy of God with all thankfulness as I feast upon the remains of that sacrifice For it was the manner that the Master of the sacrifice should begin a cup of Thanksgiving to all the guests that he invited that they might all praise God together for that salvation in consideration of which he paid these vowes unto him And in those words the Ancients thought they tasted the cup of salvation which we now drink in the Supper of the Lord expounding them in the anagogical sence to signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Psal 116. the participation of the Christian mysteries For in them we are to lift up songs of praise to Heaven as we feast upon the Sacrifice of Christ and we are to laud his Name who hath done such great
our company So handsomely do our deceitfull hearts teach us to cover our own nakedness by calling all that superstition which creates any trouble to us and crying out upon that as a spice of Will-Worship which doth not sort with our humour For it too plainly appears that if a Child of our own brain do please us well we are as fond of it as any of our Neighbours can be thought to be of their conceptions and would have the world embrace it as a divine Ordinance formed in Heaven The very truth is Men lend to God and their Devotion only such Offices as flatter their passions There is much of pleasure in having the ears tickled with a Sermon and it makes a great noise among our Neighbours to keep dayes of Fasting and Prayer and therefore these are accepted with a greater applause than the sad Meditations of Christs death and the frequent remembrance of the Wounds of a Crucified Saviour which prick too deep and make too wide gashes in our hearts Though this be more expresly commanded than many other things that men perform with a great noise and spend much zealous breath upon yet they cast but a cold and heavy aspect on it because it humours not their ease and speaks not kindly to their covetousness but makes too busie and narrow a search into their souls And really I doubt that mens endeavours to be removed as far as they can from Rome have done our Religion a great deal of harm They still retain the custome of celebrating every day but the Priest doth it alone and they make it a Sacrifice for the quick and dead Now some men so that this false notion was destroyed and private Masses abolished did not care though the frequent Communions were destroyed also together with them and it is our manner to pay this honour to Christ but twice or thrice in a year And so because they speak of Justification differently from us men are apt to live as though good works were a piece of Popery and as if Alms-deeds and Charity to the Poor were a scandalous thing in Religion Though men Communicate very seldome yet their Offerings are as sparing as if they Communicated every week and so their souls and the Poor are both defrauded and starved together Idleness and covetousness are mens darlings they are the brats of all new devices in Religion and these two are nursed up and dandled on the knees of this trifling conceit that zealous devout Christians do bear too great a reverence to this Sacrament and hope to go to Heaven by their charitable deeds Well! let sloth and avarice pride themselves a while it will not be long before God take down their Plumes and make it manifest that it was not superstition which prickt forward the first Christians to such frequent Communion nor vain-glory which made them so prodigal as the modern stile is in their liberality Methinks I see how the lazy and worldly Christians do thrust themselves into the Arms of Christ and do even melt and dissolve into his bosome in raptures of love their mouthes can relish nothing but Christ and his Name is so sweet that it is ingraven upon their lips they court him as if they would ravish his heart and they exceed the strains of all Romantick lovers If he will not bestow himself upon them they cannot imagine who should be taken into his heart They cannot believe but he will take it very ill if they will not trust him for their salvation without troubling themselves whom he is so tender of that he would have them void of all care and thoughtfulness It is a piece of self think such men to be so strict and curious Alas poor ignorant souls men would fain be doing something to procure salvation they would purchase Heaven and give something to attain it but we will give Christ the honour of doing all and only cast our selves upon him that he may save us You cannot imagine now how these mens hearts are tickled and ravished with these Liquorish thoughts and the pleasure of them doth but make them believe that they are in greater favour In this transport of fancy they do verily conceive that they have the testimony of the holy Ghost bearing witness to them that they are the Sons of God But how fearfully these persons will one day fall is a great deal further from all our conceits The Lord will shake off all these men with a great deal of disdain who offer but to touch the very skirts of his Garments O you vile and adulterous souls will he say who think that I am altogether such an one as your selves depart from me for I know you not ye workers of iniquity Down you arrogant spirits that thought to build your nests on high and by the wings of fancy to flie up unto Heaven I have no room in my heart for such flatterers nor can my foul love such Hypocrites and Unbelievers But come you blessed of my Father you who have loved me and kept my Commandments you that did what I bid you in remembrance of me and inherit the Kingdom prepared for you Then shall there be great wailing and men shall groan for anguish of spirit Then shall the worldlings say this is he whom we had sometimes in derision and a Proverb of reproach We fools accounted his life madness and his end without honour How is he numbred among the Children of God and his lot is among the Saints I wish all men would lay it to heart betimes and not think that it is preciseness to endeavour to observe all the commands of our blessed Lord. Which if we did then this command would not be so slighted of commemorating his death in the way he hath appointed nor should men be so unmeet for it as now they seem to be For Secondly What excuses can men find to palliate the neglect of this duty but what arise from an unholy or careless life Many pretences there are I know to keep me from waiting upon our Lord and accepting of his kindness but they all grow upon this bitter root of loving the world and the lusts of it We put him off with the excuse of too much boldness and rudeness that we should be guilty of if we should give him frequent visits Truly as the case stands most men would be too full of confidence if they should approach but the only reason is because they have a mind to live as strangers to him and not to be his houshold Servants and Domesticks for then they might alway come unto him Men plead their unworthiness but it were well if they were more sensible of it for then they would not remain so unworthy They think they must not come so oft because it costs them so much time to prepare themselves once but if they would spare so much time as to lead an holy life and be at so much trouble as to please God in other things they would not
heavenly spirit We must remember Christ therefore as Nehemiah desires God to remember him by doing good or as we remember our Creator by a true subjection of all our faculties to his soveraign will Then we remember him as we ought when we get him formed in our hearts and have a more living image of him left in our minds when it stirs and is busie in our souls and awakens all other images and calls up all divine truths that are within us to send them forth upon their several imployments into our lives Now for the fuller understanding of this matter you must know that the Paschal Supper which is called by Greg. Naz. very elegantly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a more obscure type of this type was instituted for a remembrance and was a Feast of commemoration as will soon appear if you look but a while into the particulars of it And first you must observe that the very day of the Passeover was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a memorial of their miraculous deliverance out of Egypt as you may read Exod. 12.14 and therefore they are bid Exod. 13.3 to remember this day in which they came out of Egypt out of the house of bondage c. Thence it was that they were commanded to eat the Lamb with bitter herbs Exod. 12.8 for a remembrance of their hard bondage in Egypt which made their lives bitter unto them Exod. 1.14 So was the unleavened bread the bread of affliction in remembrance that they brought their bread out of Egypt unleavened Exod. 12.34 and were there in great servitude Exod. 13.3 so that their soul was even dried and parched in them The later Jews have added the charóseth which is a thick sawce in memory of the clay and morter which they wrought in and they use red wine for a remembrance that Pharaoh shed the blood of their children To which may be added that God required there should be a rehearsal to their children of what the Lord had done for them that so this feast might be for a sign upon their hand and for a memorial between their eyes to all posterity as you may see Exod. 13.8 9. And thence it is that the Jews call that section of the Law or the Lesson which they read that night the Haggádah annunciation or shewing forth because they commemorated and predicated both their hard services and Gods wonderful salvation and the praises that were due to him for so great a mercy It is easie now to apply all this to our present purpose if we do but consider that this likewise is a holy feast Whence it is called the Lords Supper not only because he appointed it 1 Cor. 11.20 but because he was the end of its celebration and an entertainment at the table of the Lord. 1 Cor. 10.21 This Feast our Saviour first keeping with his Apostles who were Jews he makes part of the Passeover-chear to be the provision of it For he takes the bread and wine which used to go about in that Supper through the whole family to signifie his broken body and his blood which was to be shed Now this was to be in commemoration of a deliverance wrought by him from a greater tyranny then the Israelites were under which made all the world to groan and was ready to thrust us all below into the Devils fiery furnace And therefore as it is said Exod. 13.8 thou shalt shew thy son in that day saying This is done c. So the Apostle in a manifest allusion to that phrase saith 1 Cer. 11.26 that when we eat this bread and drink this cup we do shew forth the Lords death until he come So that we may conclude that in this feast in honour of Christ we are to make a rehearsal of his famous acts to proclaim his mighty deeds to speak of the glorious honour of his Majesty and of his wondrous works and to indeavour that one generation may praise his works to another Psl 146.3 4 c. and declare his mighty acts that they may speak of the glory of his Kingdom and talk of his power And indeed it should seem that the memory of a thing is by nothing so sensibly preserved and so deeply ingraven in mens minds as by feasts and festival joys For it hath been the way of all the world to send to posterity the memory of their benefactors or famous persons by instituting of such solemn times wherein men did assemble together and by the joys and pleasures of them more imprint the kindnesses and noble atchievements of such Worthies in their minds So we find among the Greeks their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in honour of Aeacus their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in honour of Ajax and in latter times their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like in remembrance of the merits of such persons and how highly they deserved of the places where their feasts were celebrated In like sort the Jews had their feasts in memory of some great and rare passage of divine providence though not of any particular persons lest they should be tempted to worship them as their Saviours according as the custom of the heathen was But all worship being due to our Lord and Saviour he thought fit in like manner to appoint this feast to be as a Passeover unto us a holy solemnity that should call us together and assemble us in one body that we might be more sensibly impressed with him and that all generations might call him blessed and he might never be forgotten to the worlds end Now of two things it is a remembrance and two ways we do commemorate or remember them I. It is instituted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Dialog cum Tryph. c. for a remembrance that he was imbodied for those that believe on him and became passible for their sakes The bread and the wine are in token that he had a true body and that the word was made flesh For thence Tertullian and Irenaeus do confute Marcion who denied the truth of Christs flesh and made his body to be a phantastical thing because then real bread and wine could not be a figure of it and so Theodoret saith out of Ignatius Dialog 3. that some Simon and Menander I think did not admit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thanksgivings and offerings viz. of bread and wine in this Sacrament because they did not confess that it was the flesh of our Saviour Now with what affection we should call to mind this love that God would appear to us not by an Angel in a bright cloud not in a body of pure air but by his Son in our own flesh I leave your own hearts to tell you Methink we should wish that all the world could hear us proclaim this love and that even the fields and forests i. e. the most desolate and heathenish places might resound our joyful acclamations to him We should wish to feel something of extasie and
receive might consecrate if they thought good and use at the ministration of the Sacrament and thereby testifie their union with the rest of the body of Christ that were distant from them Aug. Epist 31. So Paulinus wrote to St. Aug. Panem unum quem unanimitatis indicio misimus charitati tuae rogamus ut accipiendo benedicas i. e. That loaf of bread which I sent to your kindness as a token of our unanimity I beseech you to receive and bless Such wayes did those holy men study and devise to engage themselves to each other and represent the brotherly kindness that was between them Beside all this the present Greek Church and I know not how ancient such a custom is do in express words when they are at the Communion profess charity to all men even to their enemies and make a solemn declaration of the love that is in their hearts before the whole Assembly of Gods people De rit Eccles Gr. cap. 24. For so Christoph Angelus relates That when they go up to the holy man for to receive they turn themselves first to the West and then to the South and next to the North and say to the brethren that stand on all sides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christians we pray you pardon us all our offences either in word or deed And they all answer again when they are thus spoken unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Brother God grant thee his pardon This Petition they make unto the Company upon their knees and seldom were any so wicked as to dismiss them unpardon-d if they did then were they themselves excluded from communion We must think then when we approach to this heavenly banquet that we are about to remember the dearest love that ever was and to engage our selves in the greatest affection and strictest friendship that can be in any hearts unto each other VVe must think that we enter into a mutual covenant with our brethren by eating of the same bread and drinking of the same cup. And we must resolve never to fall out any more much less to hate malign or do despight and injuries to one another but to live more then ever in the peace of God by a brotherly unity and affection Let us think it as unnatural after such an union to fall out as for the hands to scratch the face or any one member to beat and tear the other inpieces And if there be any thing hitherto treated of in this discourse which men cannot or will not understand to be meant by this Sacrament yet let us all apprehend that it is a bond of charity and doth engage us not to quarrel about such things For it is a great policie of the Devil to make that a bone of contention which should be the Bread of Love and Peace It was intended to be a contesseration and union of Christian Societies to God and with one another but mens evil taking of it as One well saith divides us from God and the evil understanding of it divides us one from another Thus much notwithstanding the weakest mind may conceive that it is a feast of love and it is not weakness but wilfulness nor shortness of understanding but perversness of heart that makes men senseless in this particular And therefore let us use one another as friends and think our hands and tongues and our very hearts are bound with cords of Love which we cannot break without apparent violence to our selves Remember always that a Rupture in this Sacred Bond of Brotherly Love doth disunite us likewise from our Lord himself For there are not two cups whereof we drink at his Supper the one containing the Love of Christ the other the Love of our Brethren but we drink both at one draught and engage to both at one breath So that he who unties the one knot at the same time dissolves the other according as the beloved Disciple speaks He that loves not 1 John 4.8 knows not God for God is love Conclusion WHen I consider all these admirable uses of this holy food I do not wonder if some devout persons in the elder times out of an excess of love did by their daily bread which we petition for in the Lords Prayer understand this divine bread and so out of a spiritual hunger and a forwardness of affection did eat of it every day For you see that herein we commemorate both to God and man the death of Christ we publish it to the world and plead it with God in our own behalf and others Then this we have nothing more prevalent so that our hearts begin while we are commemorating of it to burn with heavenly fires and our tongues here tast such things that make them sing the praises of Angels We seal Indentures between God and us We give entertainment to our Lord Christ and let him into our hearts yea we profess to all the world that we are of his Religion and Communion We are confirmed likewise in his favour he opens unto us his very heart he lets us into his secrets and knits us unto himself with a more inseparable affection We likewise associate our selves with the Disciples of our Lord and make a firmer League of a holy friendship with them All which may well make us say with the Disciples Lord evermore give us this bread But though it be so desirable to feed alwayes on such sweetness yet you cannot but discern that this is a business that requires the greatest intention of our mind and the strongest affections of our heart and layes the most weighty engagements upon us for our eternal good and therefore must be well understood and solemnly performed in our approaches to it For which cause before I direct your Addresses to this Table which is the next thing to be done having opened to you the secrets of it I will observe to you these two things for a conclusion of this part of my discourse The one to quicken your appetite that you may feed heartily The other to guide your minds that you may not feed upon shadows 1. This must needs be the most nourishing and strengthning food of all others that a Christian hath because there are so many ends and purposes to which it serves It feeds all our Graces at once as you shall hereafter see and it sends a nourishment and that most plentifull and copious to every part It encreases our love to God and our love to man which is the sum of all our duty It engageth us in the most sacred bands by the dying of Christ by his dearest love by all the blessings which he hath bestowed to do that duty and faithfully perform it It is a little Epitome of the whole Gospel for it shews what God will do for us and what we most do for him and it affords strength unto us for to do it And therefore it is called the New-Testament or Covenant in his blood because here the whole New Covenant
have any set quantity of time allotted wherein to make it as of a month a year or the like space but so much is necessary as will compose our souls to the image of Christ and make us fit company for so holy a God It is not the washing our cloathes a little before the sprucing up of our souls as I may say and the putting on of a fine and demure behaviour when we come thither though we be never so filthy and ragged at other times But a holy life is the true time for preparing our souls to be Gods guests Whatsoever care and exactness we use and whatsoever extraordinary ornaments we put on immediately before our approaches to him yet that a constant good behaviour towards God and man is the main thing we are to look after is the sum of what I have to say in the following particulars I. The first of which I have already begun and it is nothing but this That holiness is to be a Christians constant employment and the great business of his life It is not a quality of which we have use onely at certain times nor is it a strictness at some seasons that gets us a liberty in the rest of our lives to be loose and careless nor a solitary retiredness now and then that shall make an amends for all our wandrings But it is a walking with God a patient running of the race which he hath set us and a daily dying unto the world insomuch that the Apostle saith we must be holy in all manner of conversation 1 Pet. 1.15 We are not to put on the Lord Jesus as we do a cloak which we throw off at our pleasure and again cast about us when there is occasion but as we do our inner garment which we never go without nor lay aside no not when we have none in company but our selves Our Religion is not the feast of unleavened bread which the Jews observed but for seven days except you take the number seven to denote perfection and to be a token that they should rejoyce always in a constant course of holiness before God And in this sense I confess the Apostle is pleased to call our life a feast of unleavened bread 1 Cor. 5.7 8. which he bids us observe now that Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us but without any limitation of time because it is to last always And the reason of it is because Christians themselves are become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unleavened ver 7. i. e. they are separated by their profession from the wickedness wherein formerly they lived and therefore were to be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new mass or lump that should never admit of any of the old prophane mixtures that formerly had defiled their hearts and lives We are not onely to make a solemn stir against a Sacrament and then light candles to search for the old leaven that it may be thrown out but being by Christ become unleavened we are constantly to maintain such a light shining in our hearts that not we may live but Christ may live in us and the life that we lead may be by faith of the Son of God Before a great festival the worst of Heathens had their Votivae noctes their severe and pure nights as their Authors call them ten of which together used to precede the feast of Isis in which time as if they had imitated the command to Israel when the Law was given Exod. 19.15 they abstained from the most lawfull enjoyments and chaste embraces But what an heathenish life notwithstanding was you all know or else the Apostle will tell you 1 Pet. 4.3 They walked in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquetings abominable Idolatries And therefore their own sober Authors reproved this great folly of thinking holiness and purity to be the actions of a few days and not the course of a mans life Orat. in Timoer An illustrious place there is in Demosthenes to this purpose which I cannot but mention because it will testifie so much against the Christian world Before men come saith he to their holy offices they abstain for a certain number of days from all filthiness and vile actions whereas they who go about holy things should not onely for some space of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for their whole life have purified themselves of such kind of practices Hear O Christian what an Heathen saith and please not thy self in thy separate and strict devotion before thou comest to the Table of the Lord or against an holy time But think that every day is to be holy to the Lord though every action in the day be not equally holy Learn not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his phrase is to purifie thy self for a set number of days as if thou hadst appointed or ordered so much time to be spent in holiness and so much in sin but to behave thy self as if thou didst account thy whole life an opportunity of serving God and a season of cleansing thy self from all that filthiness which will not let thee see the face of God When I think of the Persians who they say every year had a feast wherein they destroyed all the Serpents that could be found and then let them multiply as fast as they would till the same solemnity returned again It puts me in mind of the Religion that is most in fashion among them that are named after Christ They are very angry at the Devil and all his cursed brood they are in some mood at a solemn feast mightily incensed against the old Serpent but afterwards they patiently suffer him to take his rest and his lusts increase like the spawn of fishes without any considerable distaste or opposition These men are as much mistaken in the Christian life as they that mistake a Serpent for an Eele or a stone for bread God expects and so he justly may that we should abound in all the fruits of righteousness that are by Christ Jesus to his praise and glory Phil. 1.11 and that we should pass the time of our sojourning here in fear 1 Pet. 1.17 abstaining as pilgrims and strangers from fleshly lusts that war against the soul 1 Pet. 2.11 II. The second thing that I would have observed is that this holiness consists of actions of divers sorts and is expressed in different manners It is diversified not onely by the objects about which it is imployed but the state of the subject wherein it is will not permit that all the acts of it should be of one kind and value And therefore it was that I said the Actions of a holy life are not equal in their holiness Some of them respect God others our neighbours and the rest our selves and all these we can do at some times with a better understanding and greater devotion then at other times it is possible for us to do For we begin this life of holiness
to be spent the better Meditation and retired thoughts fit us for prayer and prayer again nourisheth and feeds our meditations Both those fit us to receive holy exhortations and usefull instructions in Sermons and they again stir us up to more frequency and fervency in prayer and meditation And these together with all the former that I have mentioned prepare us for the Eucharist and the keeping the holy Feast of Christians in the Supper of the Lord. This again affords such nutriment that it makes us strong in the Grace of Christ and to perform all other duties with a greater gust and relish with more delight to God and unto our selves VII But it must also be acknowledged That there is some other preparations requisite to holy duties beside all this that I have mentioned For though fervency in any one duty of our Religion doth but fit us to be more fervent in all the rest and though the works of our employment conscientiously discharged do fit us for the duties of Religion yet to the doing of them fervently it is needfull that we lay out of our mind all other thoughts that concern not them Now the works of our ordinary employment being about a different matter from the works of devotion and the mind full of one thing not being able presently to be void for other company we must spend some time to discharge our thoughts of such objects as are alien to these holy duties we go about Constancy in our lawfull business doth hinder many indispositions and ill habits in our minds that else would grow up in us but yet they themselves may leave some little indispositions in us at least to such a fervency in devotion as we would arise unto They therefore must be turned out of doors and the thoughts of them must be laid aside that God may come in and possess himself of us The Altar of God Exod. 27.4 5. was made with a grate in the midst of it that let the ashes fall through so that the fire might burn hotter and more purely But yet for all this it is most likely that the sacrifice would need some stirring that so the ashes might be shaken off more perfectly and it more entirely consumed and therefore you read of flesh-hooks among the Utensils of the Altar wherewith the Priest ordered the flesh while it burn in the fire Just so it is with our hearts in which a continual fire ought to burn though they be like a grate or seive and let worldly thoughts pass through and run out of them which else like ashes would make the flame to be dimme and pale yet besides this care there will be need of some shaking and stirring up of our selves that we may more fully clear our hearts of all those earthly cloggs that will stick and cling unto us Now the higher that holy act of worship is which we are to perform and the seldomer it doth return to be performed and the more vehement that expression of love is which we would make in it the more solemn must be our preparation and the larger time there must be allowed for taking our minds from other things and bringing them to a serious intention upon this alone And therefore since our approaches to the Lords Table are of such moment and since they profit us not without the operation of our own mind and that benefit likewise so great when we come aright it cannot be thought but that we should use a great care and circumspection to fit our selves for such near converses especially since they are not so frequently performed as other duties And yet in this preparation there is also a latitude so that I cannot well determine how much is of absolute necessity to be done and if I should still we may go beyond those limits and perform more acceptable service unto God If you would know now after all that hath been said wherein preparation to his holy duty doth more particularly consist I may briefly resolve you about it thus We must deny to our selves lawfull things by sequestration of our selves from our ordinary business by abstinence from food and from the most chast embraces which the Apostle speaks of 1 Cor. 7.5 And this must be done for no other end but that we may more fully know the estate of our souls which I suppose we are already acquainted withall and be more deeply apprehensive of the evil of sin and more sorrowfully bewail it and more rationally resolve against it That we may pray with greater appetite and praise his Name with a more delicious relish when we distast all other things and in short that by disburdening of our bodies we may ascend up to Heaven with greater felicity in our thoughts and meditation And because preparation to the Sacrament of Christs body and blood is the prime end of this discourse I shall next descend to treat of that and in the following Chapter consider what greater degree of holiness may be conceived requisite to the right performance of that Christian duty CHAP. X. I. THat we are to lay aside some time before we come to the Lords Table all our worldly employments though never so innocent hath been already suggested We must so order our affairs that they may not hinder us in any of those acts which I am about to mention And if they prove to be of great weight then this thing must needs be premised For every act must have some time allowed wherein it is to be done and we cannot do two things at one time especially when they are of such a distant nature as spiritual an carnal things We find in our selves that when one faculty is in act we cannot intend the acts of another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr We cannot at the same time operate according to the brutal part and contemplate the things of a rational life Much less can one faculty mind two objects at once or can our mind be busied both about our earthly affairs and our spiritual concernments And besides this Seeing it is the design of a Christian in this duty to get as near to Heaven as he can it is the more necessary that he not only lay aside his business but his body too He is to endeavour to strip himself of his cloaths to put off his outward man that he may have a more naked and open sight of future glory and render his mind more sensible of God and fit to receive a deeper impression from his hand At this season we are to put forth the strongest acts of faith to excite the hottest flames of love to renew our resolutions to bind the obligations that are upon us faster about our souls which cannot be done but by a solemn heart So that this separation from our business before-hand seems to come within some degree of a necessary duty And give me leave to tell you that it would be a thing of singular advantage if those that have so
much room in their houses would set some little place apart for holy duties and let it be acquainted with no other thoughts but only of God and their own souls This would be an easie way of putting all our employments out of our thoughts which would all leave us when we came to that place where they were strangers None of them would be so bold as to tread in that place which is washt with tears they would not draw breath nor live in that place where there is no aire but Sighs and Prayers they would never abide in that room where no inhabitant is but God alone For we find that if we come to any place where something of note and concernment hath been done by us though it be slipt out of our mindes the very sight of the place revives the image of that thing and stirres it up again in our memories If therefore we had a place of privacy where we did nothing but read and pray and invite God into our company as soon as ever we did but look into it the face of God would meet us and we should be struck with a certain awe and reverence from his presence that uses to be there with us And a sweet remembrance also of what pleasure hath passed there either in joy or sorrow would by a kind of natural way be revived But if a man pray in his Counting-house the thoughts of his money will be apt to meet him as soon as he steps in at the door his bills and bonds will thrust themselves into his mind as soon as the Book of God so that he will find it more difficult to drive away such impertinent thoughts Let us therefore resolve on this as the first step to the Lords Table to separate our selves at least from all worldly employments if not from worldly places If we cannot have a little Chappel in our own houses yet let us look to that in our own heart that nothing now but God do enter into it Say thus in your own meditations Be gone you vain things for I am going to my God Yea Lord do thou bid them to be gone and not dare to appear in thy presence Welcome holy thoughts and pure desires O happy time wherein I may embrace my dearest love and solace my self in the armes of my Saviour I charge you O my companions that you haste away as fast as the Hinds or the Roes and that you stir not or disturb the beloved of my soul Come not near I charge you make no noise to displease him or to call me away from his enjoyment It is the voice of my beloved I hear him inviting of me to his house of banquets I see him coming to entertain me let all flesh therefore be silent and not be so bold as to whisper in his presence II. When you are thus at leisure set your self to consider what is the end of this Rite and what lieth hid under the Ceremony This one thing seems to me to call for some solemn thoughts beforehand because it is a piece of our Religion that is cloathed with an outward garment it hath something of a positive institution in it and retains something of the ceremony the signification of which is to be studied lest we should not discern the Lords body 1 Cor. 11.19 If we look not beyond the shadow we shall feed nothing but our body or if we draw aside the veil but half way we shall lose a great part of the food of our souls which are instructed by every part of this holy action You must therefore labour to uncover the face of this mysterious food and consider it in all those notions wherein I have laid it open before you This I judge to be the more needfull together with the rest of those directions which I have to add because now this Feast doth return more seldome then it did in ancient times and so our minds may have let slip the remembrance of many of the ends of it or at least may retain but weak and dark notions of them For those things that are not of natural light do not use to stick so close to our souls as those that are engraven upon them but by the intervening of other images they may be either blotted out or else look more pale and lose the liveliness of their colour And therefore we had need the oftner to meditate on them that so by a new impression they may keep their form and then especially when we are going so near to God lest our acquaintance with them be decayed through the multitude of other things that we have converse withall Let every man then remember himself when he intends to remember Christ and say after this sort O my soul whither are we going What is that Table which I see yonder spread for us What means that broken bread that is provided For what end did his precious blood run out of his side Do men use to drink a cup of blood O my soul let us enter into this secret and know the bottom of this mystery Let us look into his wounds with joy and gladness to see how his heart doth beat with love to us Let us open our heart to him let us shew him how sorry we are and how our heart is pierced that we have pierced him Let us lay our hearts together and tye our selves in an everlasting Covenant that he may dwell in us and we in him Such as these are most seasonable meditations to dispose our minds the better to feast with him III. And then thirdly We should consider with our selves what acts are most proper when we shall be at Gods Table We should think with our selves what hatred of sin what desire what love to God and what Charity to our brethren is then to be expressed what prayers and intercessions what praises and thanksgivings are then to be offered For we shall scarce spend our time well there unless we be provided with some matter for our thoughts and have put them into some method and order that they may not hinder one another And therefore it is good to consider with our selves what disposition of soul doth best agree with every part of this sacred action How the mind is to be affected at the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine how it is to be moved when the Minister blesses and presents them unto God and how when he gives and distributes them unto us and the rest of our brethren Sect. 3. Of which and such like things I shall treat hereafter IV. And when we have diligently pondered of this let us begin to stir up those affections beforehand which will prepare us to a more lively expression of them when we come there Begin to admire at Gods goodness that he will send an invitation to such a poor wretch as thou art Render him many thanks for that being a Lord of such Majesty he would vouchsafe
do as they resolve I think they may have a comfortable hope that there is a change wrought in them and so should approach unto it But there are others whose sins are notorious and ill favoured known to all the Neighbourhood And perhaps they have been reeking in a sin a few dayes before the holy Communion but their hearts begin now to smite them and they find such severe reproofs in their souls that prick them to some good resolutions I would wish these persons seriously to advise with themselves whether this may not be a start which comes from some sudden spurre and to make trial how they can like to travell in the wayes of God There are certain pangs of devotion that come upon men against a solemn time and when their souls are at a little leisure they speak very freely to them and their sins being great ugly and staring they may much affright them Therefore it is the safest course to stay till this fit be over and the next day to look upon them with the eye of a rational consideration and see whether they have not recovered their old complexion and begin to smile again For else we may adde one sin to another if we come to this holy duty with a relish of our sins and a likelihood to return again unto them after some little falling out which may conclude in a greater kindness It is monstrously unseemly and dangerous for a man to come from the last dayes vomit and his yesternight surfeit to sit at the Table of the Lord though he seem never so much ashamed It is that which destroyes Religion for men to think that they can leap so instantly from one state to another and change a state of fin for a state of Grace at a dayes warning Such Crimes must be purged with a great sorrow and in a deep humiliation which if it be true will make a man think himself unworthy to be presently entertained by God in so near a Communion yea to be below the least good look from his gracious eye With many tears will such a man seek but for the hope of a pardon many punishments will he inflict upon himself for such intemperance or uncleanness or covetousness or whatsoever other gross sin it be that he is guilty of and he will think it but a just punishment that though he were invited he should keep himself from the enjoying of God at his Table and from such good company of Gods People Shall I who am a Beast will such an one say go among the People of Gods Pasture A meer Wolf go and feed among the Sheep of his hands I who have wallowed in vice like a Swine in the mire go and sit me down in so holy a place I whose meat hath been ordure and filth to put the Bread of God to my lips Far be it from me let me rather eat ashes the bread of affliction and take my tears for my drink No! let my tongue rather cleave to the roof of my mouth let my lips rather be sowed together than that I should presume to drink of the Cup of Blessing who have deserved such a curse from the hand of God I sit down with God at his Table A Dunghill is a more proper place for such a bruit Come let us embrace the dust let us kiss the earth and think it is a strange mercy that we live and let us stay a while to see if the Lord will let us live and hope to live for ever Sit at the Table of the Lord Alas I am not fit to lye upon my own bed I dare not sleep for fear I die And oh that I could give no rest to my eyes nor slumber to my eye-lids till I had prepared a place for him to dwell in Oh that we were but friends though he would not use me as his friend I have but represented to you the sad and pathetick groans of a heart that knows what it is to sin It cannot tell how to move forward so boldly to God as men are apt to do it stands still or rather it lyes down and knows not what to do It wonders at the security and carelesness of offenders and if sleep come to stroak its head with the hopes of a slumber it can scarce tell how to welcome it by receiving its kindness and suffering its blanditions But then all this sadness tends to joy and is but like the Clouds which gather about the Heavens which having wept as much as they can make them look the clearer This humility and modesty doth not make a soul run from God but makes him to approach to it And when a man perceives really that he hath left his sin and is become a new Creature then let him entreat the favour of God that he who hath done him so much good would grant him the liberty to be in the number of those whom he feeds at his own Table Fifthly When thou findest that it is the sincere resolution and likewise endeavour of thy soul to please God though in some things thou shouldst break thy resolution against the very purpose of thy heart yet let not this hinder thy coming to the Supper of the Lord. When notwithstanding all our diligence we still offend it is a sign that we must use some other diligence and therefore we should be induced rather to fortifie our resolutions by so powerfull a means than to abstain from it For they that neglect it because they are weak may justly fear lest they be therefore weak because they live in neglect of a known duty Let it be the endeavour then of all those that study to live godlily though they be feeble and tottering to understand the true use and benefit of this duty and then to perform it for this end that they may be strengthened and confirmed 6. Yea sixthly If thou breakest thy resolution after thou hast received these holy Pledges and feelest but little strength yet let it not deterre thee from receiving but rather make thee frequent it the more that the repetition of this action may do that which a single act was not able to do For this Sacrament was instituted for the weak more than for the strong though it be necessary for both and it is likely men remain therefore weak because they seed so seldome and let the received strength decay before they give it a fresh repast But if they still forbear when they are sensible of a consumption what can be expected but a dangerous languishment If thou hast not got the victory by the use of this weapon thou canst not think but to be worsted and foiled by the neglect of it If thou hast received no more strength against thy lusts by this strong food how shalt thou hope by a weaker and thin diet to be able to wrestle with them Approve then thy resolutions to be smcere and stir up thy hunger more frequently awaken thy appetite that thou mayest feed
a stone and grinde them to powder seeing they would not love him as the Bread of Life bruised for them Matt. 22.44 This sad Meditation may not be unseasonable at a Feast of joy no more than a little vinegar in a mixture of many sweets And as dreadfull as it is it may bring us the more abundant comfort afterward by making us firm to God and establishing us in Faith and Obedience But whether the Reader will think fit to meditate of this matter at that time or no yet let me stay his thoughts a while now and entreat him seriously to think what the doom of all those will be who rebel against him to whom they have so often sworn subjection The love of God cannot make them love him the Bloud of Christ cannot make them bleed notwithstanding the Death of Christ they will dye and all the bands that he can lay upon them will not hold them fast O what chains of Darkness are they reserved for who break so many cords of love asunder What a sacrifice must they be to the vengeance of God whom the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross could not deliver The wrath of God will utterly consume and burn them up They shall be a whole burnt-offering to his fiery indignation they themselves shall satisfie for their fins and then he can never be satisfied These men take all the guilt of their sinnes upon their own souls and fearlesly go to Hell as though they could bear his indignation or fave themselves from the fury of his anger O let sinners consider what they do when they neglect so great salvation So farre shall they be from being Christs and Saviours to themselves that they shall be their own Devils and Tormentors Their spirits shall turn into fiends and they shall miserably rage and fame against their own selves and eternally crucifie their own hearts in vexing and racking-thoughts Their anger and displeasure shall burn against their own souls for their contempt of the Covenant of Grace the bloud of Christ will call for their bloud the pardon that was offered will plead for no pardon and all the Expence which God hath been at will be charged upon them What then will they do when they shall be rendred guilty of the bloud of the Lord when the Love of God it self will be their accuser when they shall be oppressed and cast under an infinite debt which they can never pay They must groan and sigh and cry under the burden to all eternity and the Name of Christ which is so sweet to converted sinners will be a name of death and horror unto them and the bloud of Christ which is the life of all the holy Ones of God will be like red and bloudy colours to some creatures which will make them raging mad If I could exaggerate this as it deserves methinks I could affright a soul that is in the profoundest sleep in the Devils Arms. And yet why should I think such a thought if the bloud of Christ cannot do it but men will dye in secure-sinning why should we think to prevail O think of the bloud of Christ therefore and let it not be shed in vain Think how angry he will be that his dearest heart bloud should be spilt on the ground like water to no purpose at all as to thy soul Think how it grieves him to see his love so undervalued how it pierces him to see his bloud trodden under feet into what anger his love will at last turn and this will move thee more than all that I can say If a man could speak nothing but fire and smoak and bloud if flames should come out of his mouth instead of words if he had a voice like thunder and an eye like lightning he could not represent unto you the misery of those that make no reckoning of the bloud of the Sonne of God The very Sun shall be turned into darkness saith the Apostle out of Joel Acts 2.20 and the Moon into blood before the great and notable day of the Lord viz. the day when he shall come to destroy the Enemies of his Cross And yet he seems there to speak but of one particular day of Judgement upon the Jewish Nation who crucified the Lord of Life and that was but a type and figure of the last day and came far short of the blackness and darkness of that time when the Lord will come to take vengeance on all them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus How terrible would it be to see the Heavens all covered with clouds of blood to feel drops of blood come raining down upon our heads and next showres of fire from the melting Sun come trickling upon our eyes and then sheets of flames wrapping about our bodies to hear the earth groan and the pillars of the world crack as if the whole frame of Nature were a dying and the world were tumbling into its Grave All this would be but a petty image of that dreadfull Day when the Son of righteousness shall be cloathed with clouds of wrath when his countenance shall be as flames of fire when he shall cloath himself with vengeance as a Garment when the Lamb of God himself shall roar like a Lyon and the meek and compassionate Jesus shall rend in pieces and devour There can be nothing more strange than for a Lamb to be angry for a sheep to tear and destroy If he once gird his sword upon his thigh and resolve to dip his feet in the blood of the wicked it will be a dismall a bloudy day indeed and woe be to all those on whom that dreadfull storm shall fall when the God of Heaven himself shall come in flaming fire to destroy his Adversaries For ever shall they lye wallowing in their own bloud and all their bloud shall be turned into fire and they shall bathe themselves in streams of Brimstone and roll themselves in beds of flames and their torment shall never cease Much rather would I have a Lyon satisfie his bloudy Jawes with my flesh or a cruell Tyrant rake in my bowels with the teeth of burning Irons or be prickt to death with Needles or endure all the miseries that any ingenuous witty Devil can invent than fall into the angry hands of a loving Saviour Much rather would I see the Sun scowle and all the clouds of Heaven come ratling down in a Tempest upon my head than behold the least frown in the brow of the blessed Jesus What anger must that be which shall lye in the bosome of Love What fire burns like to Jealousie Who so enraged as those whose love is abused and grosly contemned All that the Apostle can tell us in Answer to this Question is that our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.29 Our God even the God of Christians the God of St. Paul the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the God of Love and Goodness is a burning consuming Fire
art with thy Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of thy Cheese thou mayest feed on Ambrosia and instead of Milk thou mayest drink Nectar with the gods Who would long for the World any more that knows what it is to be in Heaven Who would not be unwilling to go his Earthly Affairs any more who hath once conversed with the soveraign good Instead of riches he is getting an eternal Inheritance instead of friends he is injoying God And therefore if it be not fit nor safe to return presently to our Secular business much less can it be tollerable to go to any merry Entertainments or Compotations though never so moderate and innocent We should not so soon forget these heavenly pleasures as to relish these that are earthly We must not be like the Heathen who used after their sacrifices to make merry all day and drink even to Excess Whence some long agone have thought that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be drunk took its Name from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the Ancients used to drink liberally after their sacrifices But we have not so learned Christ we must make the savour of Heavenly things sit longer upon our pallates than an hour and not wash them off with any long sensual delights We should cry out again and again Cant. 1.2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy Love is better than wine We should long as the Spouse doth to have such tasts of his love that we may rest assured of his good affection to us and may like better of it than of any thing that comes within our lips 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aâ—bil Tatius l. 2. Kisses saith a great Master of his Art who may fitly be heard in this case are the seals of Love and there the Church teacheth us to long to feel such sensible impressions of his love upon us that we may know he loves us And this saith she is better than Wine for kisses are the food of Lovers seeing they are the seales of Love and as he saith of his Leucippe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lb. so may I say of the Spouse she feeds upon the mouth of her Beloved and eats his kisses i. e. desires his love so ardently that it makes her forget all other food So incomparable should the love of our Lord seem to us that we should desire if it were possible to live upon nothing else and that our very bodies could be nourished and fed with his dear love III. Thirdly If we communicate upon the Lords day yet let us not take our thoughts off from this Action but spend as much as we can of the remaining day in such exercises as I have now named Let us entertain with the best chear we are able to make our new and beloved Guest Let us commend his beauty and praise him for his kindness and extoll his Riches and protest unto him how much we love him and crave him pardon for our follies and desire him not to be offended at the dark and nasty hole into which we have brought him and entreat him of all loves that he will not take exception at his poor entertainment and labour to charm him as it were to stay with us by all the songs of praise and thanksgiving that we can devise For to say the truth there is no exercise more meet upon the Lords Day than that of giving thanks and singing Psalms of Praise to God for all his goodness to us as we are his Creatures and as we are Christians The day it self is a type of Heaven and the Eternal Rest and therefore our work in it should better accord with what is done in Heaven where they at every thought indite a Psalm and at every breath they chant it forth and never cease day nor night from blessing God And so Justin Martyr tells Trypho the Jew That they used to thank God on their holy times for having made the world and all things in it for the use of man c. And in his second Apology he justifies the Christians against the Heathen from this thing that they consumed not Gods Creatures with fire in sacrifice but received them with Prayer and Thanksgiving for being boin for all means of health all kinds of qualities and changes of seasons and such like mercies which we should imitate not only at the Eucharist but afterward when we may more largely think how much we are beholden to him for his goodness Let us say O my Lord I have been praising of thee but alas I have not praised thee enough and therefore I cannot cease to praise thee The birds that chirp in the Air would shame me if I should not still praise thee For how long do they sing for a sip or two of Water or for a Dinner upon half a Worm and for a little house within a bush Shall not I then persist in blessing of thee for the viands of Heaven for a Feast on the Body and Bloud of thy Sonne for the joys of thine own house for a long health for a pleasant dwelling for a plentifull Table for a world of Creatures that minister every day unto me Better were it that I should be turned into one of those little chearfull Creatures and that I should take my dwelling in an hedge than that I should not have a heart to bless thee as long as I live and sing praise to thee as long as I have my being Awake awake O my sleepy soul and let this day be more than a shadow of Heaven Yea one day is too short let every day have something of this in it and be a good day unto thee And then shall Eternity be joyfull and the everlasting day shall give thee light long enough to perfect his praises IV. Fourthly As we should spend a great deal of the after-part of the day in such acts of praise so let some of it be spent in an after-examination Let us make some solemn reflections upon our behaviour when we were before the Lord and if we find our minds not to have been so seriously intended and our hearts not so deeply affected as we did desire We may cast down our selves humbly at the feet of our Lord and beg a pardon of our sweet and loving Saviour and earnestly importune him that he would help us now by an after-act that we may be able to do that which we should have done before Or else we may be excited to rejoyce the more in his goodness and to bless him for the refreshments he hath afforded us and to render him more hearty thanks that he hath satisfied us so abundantly with the fatness of his house and made us to drink of the Rivers of his pleasure But this examination of our selves being a thing that we should exercise every day and was practised even by Heathens before they went to bed I shall spare all further discourse about it V. Fifthly Let us
Melchizedeck unto Abraham as a part perhaps of the blessing of that High Priest and as a signification of that Sacrament which God would have Abrahams seed to feed upon when the true High Priest after that great mans order should come And fifthly It is not to be forgotten that they do best answer to some things whereunto Christ is compared in the holy Scriptures For he is called the Vine and every branch that is in him must bring forth fruit as he doth which may hereby be represented And he is called the Bread of life which came down from Heaven as the Manna in the Wilderness who is to support our souls as the staff of bread doth our bodies Sixthly But it is most to be remarked that these were part of the Passeover-Supper when Christ as Cyril of Alexandria speaks was typically eaten in Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For first It is acknowledged by all that the Bread was blessed and the Cup also and so went round to all the guests And the forms of Benediction are still extant in some of the Hebrew Authors And secondly The whole Feast after the Passeover-night was called the Feast of unleavened Bread And thirdly It is the opinion I observe of some that our Saviour at the time of instituting this Sacrament Grot. did eat onely the Bread and the bitter Herbs but not the Lamb of the Passeover For it is not said in the Evangelists that his Disciples killed the Passeover for him but onely that they made ready the Passeover which might be nothing else but that bread of affliction and the herbs which were attended with the cup of kindness that used to pass among them For our Saviour died at the time the Passeover-Lamb was offered being indeed the Lamb of God himself And therefore S. John saith Chap. 13.1 That the Supper was before the Feast of the Passeover and he calls it eating of the Passeover because this was a great part of it a principal portion of this Feast And this part was all that they could partake of who at any time could not come to Jerusalem where only the Lamb was to be eaten being first offered at the Temple But supposing this to be doubtful yet there is no question but that this Lamb was a Type of Christ and that Bread and Wine was a part of their Supper And upon search I believe we shall find that the Lamb of the Passeover was the only Sacrifice which the people did wholly eat its blood being poured out at the Altar and it doth the better set forth Christ who gives himself wholly to us To which fourthly may be added that as the Paschal-Lamb did represent him so the manner of its killing was very conformable to Christs death upon the Cross which may make it more reasonable to borrow from the Supper resemblances of him For they hung the Lamb upon nails much what as Butchers now do a Sheep which they have killed and then fley'd off its skin that it might be dressed While it hung in this posture it was just like the scituation of Christs body upon the Cross as Buxtorf hath observed out of the Talmud whose hands were so spread and leggs so stretched out as the Lamb was 5. Unto which I may add That the Law of Moses was not to be wholly destroyed but to be changed and altered by Christ So the Apostle teacheth us to speak in Heb. 7.12 And the malice of St. Stephen's accusers could prompt them to say no worse of him then that he preached Jesus should change the customs which Moses delivered Act. 6.14 Circumcision is commanded under the title of an everlasting Covenant and it is not so much abolished as improved into a better Sacrament and seal of greater blessings to Mankind The sabbath-Sabbath-day likewise was to be a commemoration of Gods rest from all his works on the seventh day and of his deliverance of them out of Egypt and it is not cancelled but changed into another day which contains the former and something else even a remembrance of the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead that he might enter into his rest So we may conceive that this great Feast of the Passeover was not quite done away but gave place to a better Feast which is in memory of a greater deliverance than that from the thraldom of Egypt and the iron Furnace In this the Jewish Christians might still commemorate their ancient mercies as well as if they had eaten of the flesh of their Lamb. Yea because there was in it such a clear representation of Christs sufferings especially in its first Institution when the blood was sprinkled on the door-posts part of it was thought fit still to remain viz. the Bread and Wine which they used to eat and drink in memory of that mercy with solemn forms of thanksgiving unto God And lastly The Bread and Wine was more fit then the flesh to be retained because now that Christ is come all Sacrifices are to cease and no more blood is to be shed for fin This I say may be a good reason why Bread and Wine only are used because they are unbloody things and after the killing of the Lamb of God there is to be no more life offered for our offences This Feast our Saviour did first of all celebrate with his twelve Disciples §. 3. And it was but fit that he should do so that he might the better answer to the Type in Exod. 29. where we read that Aaron the High Priest with his sons was to eat the breast and shoulder of the Ram of consecration whereby he was sanctified to officiate in the Priesthood Even so our Lord being to be offered up in Sacrifice and thereby to be consecrated an high Priest did institute this Supper that together with his Disciples he might as much as is possible feast with them upon that Sacrifice And seeing our Saviours Sacrifice answered both to the Paschal Lamb and the propitiatory Sacrifice on the day of Expiation it will be no wonder if it were so compleat as to have reference to this also The time when it was first instituted was in the night when he was betrayed for at the Even they celebrated the Passeover which makes some I suppose to keep the memory of Christs death in the close of the day But if they think that they must exactly follow that precedent they should do it after Supper And I rather think that the manner of receiving about noon is most agreeable to the true pattern For we do not remember the Supper of the Lord but his Sacrifice on the Cross And therefore as the Jews feasted at Even because they came out of Aegypt at that time so should we feast about Noon because our Lords death began between nine and twelve and ended about three of the Clock as you will clearly see by comparing the relation of S. Mark and S. John together It is said John 19.14 that it was about
Apostle speaks Heb. 13.15 16. where the serious Reader that can stay so long as to peruse those Scriptures which I cite will find both praise and likewise communication of our goods to others to be called sacrifices So that the spiritual sacrifice of our selves and the corporal sacrifice of our goods to him may teach the Papists that we are sacrificers as well as they and are made Kings and Priests unto God Yea they may know that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is an offering out of the stock of the whole Congregation to this service according as it was in the Primitive times Apolog. 2. when as Justin saith they offered bread and wine to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chief Minister of the brethren who took it and gave praise and glory to the Lord of the whole world and then made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a large and prolix thanksgiving to him that had made them worthy of such gifts We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen his phrase is a rational and unsmoaky sacrifice we offer our selves and our prayers and our praises and our goods so that if you please we may call the table of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Theodoret's stile a rational table where as God provides for us so we provide for him in those that are his members and offer upon it those sacrifices which are most befitting either him or rational creatures And that you may see we are engaged to this kind of offering it is to be observed that the eating of the Lamb was not all the solemnity of the Passeover but they sacrificed likewise offerings of thanksgivings in abundance that there might be provision for the poor You may understand this and a difficult place of Scripture both together It is said according to our translation in Dent. 16.2 Thou shalt sacrifice the Passeover unto the Lord thy God of the flock and the herd or sheep and Oxen in the place which he shall chuse c. It is well known that the sacrifice of the Passeover was to be a Lamb Exod. 12.5 taken from the sheep or goats and might not be of any other kind Therefore by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oxen or of the herd in this place Aben Ezra and others understand the Eucharisticall sacrifices which we find 2 Chron. 35.7 9. were offered in great abundance Or as Abarbanel will have it Moses speaks briefly of the Passeover as having sufficiently told them the manner of it before so that we are to understand ◠to be wanting before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. and to be wanting before of the flock and thus we read them Thou shalt sacrifice the Passeover to the Lord and sheep and oxen whichsoever way we take them they tell us thus much that they were other sacrifices to accompany the Lamb. For the Jews were bound at the three solemn feasts to be very liberal and bountifull and offer according to their abilities that so the Levites and strangers the Fatherless and Widow might feast and rejoyce together with them as you may see ver 10 11 16 17. Now Christ at this feast having nothing else to offer besides the Lamb he did offer himself which was more then if the cattel upon a thousand hills had been burnt unto God or all the world had been laid on its funeral pile In this he dealt the greatest charity to the world and by his poverty made us rich So that we are the more ingaged not onely by their example but by his to offer up something unto God beside praises that may supply the wants of those who may justly look to be refreshed by us To conclude then this Chapter We must remember always when we approach to the Table of the Lord that we are to bring hearts full of thankfulness and mouths full of praises and hands full of Almes and that we may bring all these we must bring our selves to be offered to him Our hearts must flame with love our minds must reek with holy thoughts our mouthes must breathe forth praises like clouds of incense and our hands must not be lifted up with nothing in them but we must pay such acknowledgements unto God that may really testifie that we and all ours are his We are to think that we come solemnly to bless the Lord for all his mercies and especially this great and rich one that he hath given his Son to die for us and that he hath purchased forgiveness repentance grace and salvation by his death on such desireable terms and we must think likewise that blessing of him includes in it self such good works as will provoke others for to bless him If you would briefly understand therefore what the meaning of this holy Rite is remember that it is a Commemoration of Christ and his death with hearty thanksgivings for all the benefits we receive thereby CHAP. III. THere will be no such cause of joy as the former discourse hath spoken of if we be not faithful unto God and his Son Christ And therefore we must further consider this action as a Rite whereby we enter iuto Covenant with him This is included in our taking the bread and wine as well as in our eating and drinking of them and was expressed before when I said we must offer our selves to God as the greatest act of our thanksgiving That offering of our selves is such a thing that it puts us out of our own power and besides we enter here into strict ingagements never to resume or draw back our selves again never to challenge any right to have our selves in our own disposal We make a solemn agreement with the Lord Jesus that he shall dwell in us and possess himself of all our faculties as the sole Lord and governour of our souls Though this have been done once already when we were baptized so that we cannot reverse the deed nor cancel the bond that is between us yet seeing the matter of the Covenant is alway to be performed and more than one world depends upon it God thinks fit to take new security of us and strengthen our obligations left we think of letting the debt run on unpaid one day after another till we be quite bankrupts and have nothing left whereby to discharge it We are also apt to think that we stand indebted unto God in no great sum and that though we should spend prodigally till the latter part of our life yet we should have enough to pay him and give him very good content Therefore it is but necessary that we should often be remembred of our huge engagements presently to perform our word to him and when we begin again to fail and not to keep our credit with him it is no less necessary that he should call again upon us and have us enter into more solemn bonds of a stricter performance And truly these that know what it is to enjoy God long for no better entertainment from him when they
come to his house and table then that they may be tied faster to him with new cords of his love and that it may be made more impossible for them to unloose themselves from his service What is there more in the desire of a holy soul then to cease to be its own what greater pleasure doth it feel then in parting with it self To what would it be more engaged then to the pleasing of him whom it heartily loves Let me be bound hand and foot saith such a soul that I may never stirre from him Let me seal to him a thousand Deeds to convey my self unto him If he would have me sign the Covenant with my Blood every vein in my body shall leap to do him that honour But rather let him come and seat himself in my heart and let him take my dearest life-blood if it will do him any service I accept of a suffering-Saviour I take him as he is all broken and bloody If he will have me follow him with a Cross upon my shoulder I refuse no conditions behold O Lord thy servant do with me as seems good in thy sight Thus we are to address our selves to this Feast as will be better understood if we consider these five things I. If we look upon this action onely under the general notion of a holy rite which God hath appointed as an act of his Worship yet the very using of it is an acknowledgment of him and his Religion and an engagement of our selves unto him as our God He that was circumcised was bound to observe the whole Law and so was he that offered sacrifice to the God of Israel at his Altar engaged to own him that had appointed that Worship Just so the performing but of one thing which God hath appointed as a ceremony in the Religion of Christ doth tie us to observe the whole Religion which he requires who did appoint that Rite And you may likewise observe That there being a mutual action in this Sacrament of Gods giving something and our taking it doth express that we are fast bound in that Covenant of which this action is a part So the giving and taking but of so small a thing as a straw doth bind persons firmly to that thing whereof they are agreed and which they conclude in that manner Stipulation one of the strongest words which we have to signifie the confirmation of a Bargain by was anciently made by no stronger thing as the very word doth import which carries a straw in its name And so any other thing in the World may be used to the same purpose The giving and taking of six-pence to strike up a contract doth lay as fast hold of a man as ten thousand pound in hand Much more then this solemn giving and takeing of Bread and Wine being a piece of Christ's Religion and he so represented by them doth bind us as fast to him as if we should repeat every word that he hath said and profess our consent unto it We are supposed to know the tearms of that Writing that Christ hath left us containing our duty and his promises and it is presumed we are willing to enjoy those promises and so to perform those duties this Action then doth but more solemnly conclude the agreement and we hereby stand engaged as strongly as if Covenants had been drawn between us and our hand and seal were affixed to them II. But then if we consider this Action as a coming to Gods Table and partaking of his meat we shall presently discern that thereby we prosess our selves of his Family and declare to all that we are his Followers and Retainers and that we own the Religion of the crucified Jesus I confess that coming to Christian Assemblies in the first times was an owning of Christ because it was very dangerous but this Action which was in those Assemblies performed was a more express profession of their belief in him and friendship with him For the great stumbling-block of the Jews was the Cross of Christ and it was foolishness to the Gentiles To declare therefore this death and Cross of his to eat of his dead body and drink of his blood was as much as to say I believe in this suffering-Saviour I am a Christian and will live and dye in this Religion A stranger may come unto a mans house but the friends onely are they that sit with him at his board and he that is not true to him of whose bread he eats is the worst and basest of all Enemies The Psalmist could put no worse character upon an enemy then this Psal 41.9 That he who put forth his hand to eat of his bread had lifted up his heel against him By coming then to Gods Table we profess our selves his familiar friends in whom he reposes a trust and we can put no greater scorn upon him then by being false to him that doth admit us to such a nearness You may observe therefore in Scripture these two things First That eating of bread together is spoken of as a token of friendship and agreement as these two places among others will satisfie you Job 42.11 Jer. 41.1 Bread is never wanting at any Feast and so they expressed by it a friendly entertainment Whence Pythagoras gave this Lesson to his Scholars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do not break bread i. e. ne dirimas amici iam never break friendship but let it remain inviolable And so likewise Salt being never absent from any Meal and placed upon the Table it hath been used as a symbol of friendship and to have eaten Salt with a man at this day is proverbially as much as to be well acquainted with him which was a word as usual in ancient times among other people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. l. 8. Ethic. cap. 3. according to that speech of Aristotle We cannot know one another till according to the Proverb we have eaten a quantity of Salt together The Turks * Knolles in the life of Mahâ—met 1. at this day joyn both together and to say I have eaten Bread and Salt with sueh an one is an expression of having good acquaintance with him All which I but briefly touch upon to make it more sensible to us that this participation of Gods bread is a token that we are of his acquaintance and we do tell the World hereby That we profess all love and friendship to him The second thing I would have noted is That Covenants in Scripture story are made by eating and drinking together For which I need produce no other places but those in Gen. 26.30 Gen. 31.44 46. where Isaac and Abimelech Jacob and Laban conclude their Compacts with a Feast But you may add if you please that in Josh 9.14 where it is said the people took of the victuals of the Gibeonites and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord i. e. They made a Covenant with them before they consulted with the holy Oracle
else we shall do nothing at the Lords Supper but what we might do at any other time as well If it be onely beleeving and meer spiritual eating that here is exercised then we may feed so without this food And when Christ commands so frequently Do this in remembrance of me it would be no more sence then if he had said Do this which yet you may do without doing this This eating and drinking therefore must be a profession of our faith a covenanting solemnly with God and a receiving and giving of those pledges of love which we cannot have any where else V. And indeed the old Christians did so sacredly bind themselves hereby to their Saviour that Heathens were ready to suspect them of dangerous combinations and such conspiracies as might prove mischievous to the Commonwealth From which imputation whilest Pliny doth acquit them L. 10. Epist. 97. he likewise instructs us for what end they met together at this feast They assemble themselves saith he in a Letter to Trajan the Emperor before day break and sing a Hymn to Christ as if he were God and then they do sacramento se obstringere bind themselves with a Sacrament or Oath not that they will do mischief to any but that they will not rob or steal nor commit adultery nor falsifie their words nor deny their trust c. And then after they have eat together they depart to their own homes Of more then this they protested to him he should never find them guilty and this was the crime of Christians in those first ages to engage themselves to commit no crime which they bound themselves unto by this Sacrament of Christs body and blood The Greek Christians at this day Christop Angelus rit Eccles Graec. when they take the bread or cup into their hands make this profession Lord I will not give thee a kiss like Judas but I do confess unto thee like the poor thief and beseech thee to remember me when thy Kingdom comes If we do touch the body of Christ with traitorous lips and embrace him with a false heart we stain our souls with the guilt of that blood which can onely wash them from all their other sins And therefore we must come unfeignedly to bewail our neglects and to settle our former resolutions of strict obedience It is grown even to a Proverb as Joseph Accosta relates among the poor Indians that have entertained the faith De procur Ind. Sal. L. 6. that Qui eucharistiam semel susceperit nullum amplius crimen debet committere He must never be guilty more of any crime who hath once received the Eucharist And if they chance to commit any they bewail it with such a sorrow and compunction that he saith he hath not found such faith no not in Israel But it would be very sad if we should be sent to school as far as India There are I make no doubt many pious souls among our selves that look upon it as a blessed opportunity to knit their hearts in greater love to God and that are more afflicted for an evil thought after such engagements then other are for a base and unworthy action Whensoever therefore we come to celebrate the memory of Christs death in this manner we must remember with our selves that we are assembled for to renew our baptismal vow and league and in the devoutest manner to addict our selves to a more constant love and service of the Lord Jesus We must look upon this feast to which we are admitted as a disclaiming of all enmity to him and a profession of our continuing a hearty friendship so as never to do any hostile act against him And thence indeed it is called a Sacrament according to Tertullian and others with him because we here take an Oath to continue Christs faithfull Souldiers and never to do any thing against his Crown and dignity as long as there remains any breath in our bodies We do repeat our Oath of Allegiance and swear fealty again to him or as we ordinarily speak we take the Sacrament upon it that we will be Christs faithfull servants and Souldiers against the Devil World and Flesh and never flie from his service Every act of sin then after such promises is not onely treason but perjury not onely the breaking of our faith but of our Oath yea not onely the violation of a simple Oath but of Oath upon Oath which we ought more to dread then we do to break our bones We esteem it an impiety of a high nature for a Minister to give a cup of poyson into a mans hand instead of the blood of Christ and we do deservedly abhorre that Priest that poysoned Pope Victor the 3d. Venenum sub specie sacramenti dedit vertens calicem vitae in calicem mortis with the Sacrament and him that poysoned Henry the 7th Emp. turning as Nauclerus his phrase is the cup of life into the cup of death But whilest our hearts swell in indignation at such a crime let us consider with our selves what a treasonable act it is to poyson our souls with our own hands and by a base treachery to God to swallow down curses and woes into our selves Better were it for us to be choaked with the bread of life or to feel the venome of Asps boiling in our veins after the holy cup then to take an Oath which we take small care to keep then to go on in a course of sin after such sacred professions of our duty and service unto Christ We are amazed to hear that men can touch the Gospels before a Magistrate and kiss the book or lift up their hand to Heaven and yet make good never a word that they swear We are apt to think that either these men have no souls or that they do not value them at the price of a rotten nut O let our very flesh then tremble to think that we should lay our hand upon the body of Christ and take it into our very mouths and solemnly swear unto him and yet not be faithfull in his Covenant nor heartily indeavour to perform our promises unto him For there is no forsworn person hath such a black soul as he whose soul is fouled even by the blood of Christ himself which washes the souls of others The world cannot but shrink at the thoughts of that fearful act of one of the Popes who making a League with Caesar and the French King divided the bread of the Sacrament into three parts with this saying scarce tollerable As the holy Trinity is but one God so let the union indure between us three confederates and yet he was the first that broke it and started from the agreement Far be it from us then after this action wherein we joyn our selves to God and unite our hearts to fear his Name and become as it were one with him to rescind our Covenants or stand again at tearms of defiance But let us have a care
another likeness by the offering up of our bodies to God which is a piece of this service Rom. 12.1 2. And so some observe that all other meat is received as it is in it self and no otherwise but this meat is divers as it is received Other meat affecteth and altereth the taste but here the taste altereth the meat For if it be worthily received it is the body and blood of Christ if unworthily it is but bare bread and wine But yet this must be cautiously understood when we thus speak for his presence is with the bread though not in it Though it be onely in us yet it comes with it unto us if we will receive him because else we shall not know how unworthy persons are said to be guilty of his body and blood 1 Cor. 11.27 if he be not present with his body and blood to work in mens souls This likewise is to be further observed for the better under standing of it that the Devil who loves to imitate God that he may the better cozen and cheat doth seldom manifest his power to any great purpose but when he is called by some of his own ceremonies and sacraments that he hath appointed This doth but tell us that Christ is then most powerfully present when we use his rites which he hath instituted and hallowed as special remembrances of his love and testimonies of our love unto him So that we may come hither and expect that we shall feel more at such a time and in the use of such means then at or in others because he hath made them his body and blood in such sort as I have declared Other union then this by Christs spirit I know no use of though we should believe that which we do not understand I can conceive great things concerning the power of Christs humane nature and it is not for us to tell how far it may extend its influences through the inhabitation of the Deity That it is brighter then the Sun Saint Paul saw when the Lord appeared to him Acts 26.13 And as the Sun we see communicates his beams a vast way and twists it self about us by silver threads of light though seated in the Heavens so may we conceive that the sacred humanity of Christ doth tie us to it self by cords of love and now embrace us in its outstretched armes after a more affectionate manner when we come to remember him But to what purposes this should serve I do not well understand and without the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us the flesh can profit nothing at all though never so glorious and therefore I lay aside such thoughts and content my self to know that they that are joyned or cleave to the Lord 1 Cor. 6.17 are one spirit 5. Now from this secret union that is here made between Christ and our persons it comes to pass that this Sacrament hath been accounted an earnest and pledg of the resurrection For nothing that is made one with Christ can die and be lost but he will raise it up again at the last day His spirit can find out all their dust after a thousand changes it can gather all their dispersons and renuite their scattered crums and knead them again into a goodly body And this it will do 1 Cor. 6.19 for their very bodies are the Temples of the holy Ghost therefore he will quicken their mortal bodies Rom. 8.11 by his Spirit that dwelleth in them Hence it was that Cyril so earnestly invited guests to this feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saying Come eat the bread that renews your natures drink the wine that is the smile and cheer of immortality Eat the bread that purges away the ancient bitterness drink the wine that asswages the pain of our old sore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the very restorative of nature an healing plaister for the bitings of the Serpent a powerfull antidote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ainst all his poyson he hath infused into us And so several of the elder times speak not without reason for seeing our Lord gives to these things the name of his body and blood we need not fear to attribute to them the vertues and efficacy of his death which we know was the restorer of life We should think therefore when we go to the Table of the Lord that we go to joyn our selves more closely to our head and to unite our hearts more firmly to the fountain of our life That we go to receive of his holy Spirit which like wine running through our veins should diffuse it self into all the vital powers of our souls and make us more able and strong active and quick ready and forward in the service of our Saviour We should think that hereby we may get greater victories over our enemies if we do not betray our succours that we may more compleat our conquests if we use the power that is sent unto us We should look upon this bread as the bread of life and conceive that we take the cup of immortality into our hands and that the next draught may be in the Kingdom of God when our bodies shall be raised to feast at the eternal supper of the Lamb. For this is but a just consequence of forgiveness of sins which the former Chapter treated of that our bodies should live again which became mortal through sin And therefore as Christ here seals unto us the one so he likewise wise assures us of the other and gives unto us the earnest of the Spirit What joy then must these thoughts needs create in our souls What better chear can we desire What greater dainties would we taste then this holy feast affords or what cause would we have of thanksgiving more then hath been named If we desire a consort in our thanksgivings and to have an harmony of souls while we sing his praises if we would hear some voice besides our own that might fill up our joys and lift them to a greater height That is not wanting neither as the next Chapter shall declare For here is an union of minds begot and a sweet consent of hearts is the result of this entertainment CHAP. VI. AS this Sacrament is a means of uniting us to our Lord by faith so likewise of uniting us to our brethren by love It knits us not onely to our head but all the members also thereby are more indeared unto each other We enter here into a strict league of friendship with them as well as into a Covenant with God For all true Christians are not onely of the Family of God but his children and nearest relations so that we cannot profess any love unto the father of them all but we must at the same time embrace his whole progeny as bearing his character and having in them those very things which we love in him When we take the bridegroom we
and there embracing together did pass as it were into each others bodies As it was said of Jonathan 1 Sam. 18.1 so it might be affirmed of them their soul was knit to the souls of their brethren and they loved them as their own soul And therefore Alexander the false Prophet Lucian in Pseudomant in imitation I make no question of these holy brethren did entertain all his followers with a kiss and those that were admitted to a near communication with him were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they within the Kiss There are several places I observe in holy Writ where this kind of salutation is joined with weeping Gen. 29.11 Gen. 33.4 Gen. 45.15 whereby the Scripture expresseth such a joy at each others sight that it stopt all passages for the present but the eyes and tears told that which the mouth could not yet speak but by a kiss And in one place this salutation goes under the Name of falling on the neck Gen. 46.29 which denotes the Ardency of their embraces and that they hanged on each others lips as if they were loath to be two any more But beside all this it must be marked that the kiss was usually accompanied with some form of Benediction or Prayer for their welfare which plainly appears in the salutations of two treacherous persons Joab and Judas 2 Sam. 20.9 Matth. 26.49 the one of which saith Art thou in health my brother i. e. I pray thou mayest be as I hope thou art c. and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All hail Master From all which we may be well assured That these Christian embraces did onely melt them into tears and not inflame them into any distempered heats that they did onely shew their dear affection and heartily pray to God that all Peace might be with them i. e. that all prosperity and happiness might be their portion 2. The first Christians having the Blood of Christ as yet warm upon their hearts burnt with such Charity to each other that they instituted frequent Feasts which they kept at the same time after they had received the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood At this sacred Meal the poor were feasted together with the rich upon those offerings which the rich had made And they sate down as it hapned without any distinction either in higher or lower forms to shew that they looked on themselves as equals in Christ and fellow-heirs of the same promise These Feasts were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Feasts of Love or Charity and are mentioned in St. Jude ver 14. and by St. Peter 2 Pet. 2.13 So denominated they were as Anastasius Sinaita will have it from their end and purpose which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw all together to an unity and agreement Tertullian gives a better reason but tending to the same sence Our Supper saith he carries its reason in its Name Coena nostra de nomine rationem sui ostendit Vocatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id quod dilectio penes Graecos est Tert. in Apol. for Agapae signifies love in the Greek Language We find no Divine Institution for these Entertainments yet they have as a Learned man speaks * Montag against Sdden Divine Toleration And they had a good beginning though in process of time they nourishod disorders In the first simplicity they fed the soul as well as the body and Charity was no less nourished then their Carcasses though in after-times it must be confessed they made greater expences then formerly but did far worse employ them And therefore in Justin Martyr's dayes about the year 160 as far as one can guess by his Apology they left them off and disposed the offerings more advantagiously into a common Bank for the poor and distressed persons For they were not like men now that take away abuses and save their money but they reformed the mispence of that Charity which they still continued And therefore those Agapae which after-Authors mention were but rarely celebrated on their Birth or Marriage-dayes or at their Funeral Obsequies whence a dole is at this day used to be given to poor people But they were so approved of in the Apostles dayes that the phrase of breaking bread in the New-Testament seems to have reference to this whole Feast and not onely to receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For so the phrase is used among the Hebrews for a Feast and so in the Acts of the Apostles cap. 27.35 St. Paul is said to take bread and give thanks and break it which was not a celebration of the Eucharist but a common meal together with the passengers in the same ship And in like sence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper is to be understood 1 Cor. 11.20 for the whole Feast including both the Agape and the Eucharist also being so immediately joined together Whence it is that Ignatius speaking of this under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make an entertainment he saith they should never do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. ad Smyrn without the Bishop or Overseer of the Congregation And the reason sure was because this Sacrament was alwayes joined with that Feast and both understood by one name which Sacrament none might celebrate without the presence of him that was appointed by God to bless and sanctifie the offerings that were brought So Mr. Thorndike testifies Review of Rights of the Church That he finds in a MS. expounding divers Greek words of the Bible this glofs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords Supper is to dine in the Church This common Entertainment being made for poor and rich out of the stock of the Church from the offerings that were brought the seaven Deacons were first appointed to attend upon the making of this provision and relieving the poor otherwise which the Apostles had not leisure for to mind as you may read Acts 6.2 Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serving Tables we cannot well understand any other thing then providing for the poor this Table at the Feasts of Charity which maintained a singular love and kindness among them all So great a kindness it was that hereby was nourished that the Heathens could not but take notice of it as inviting many to be Christians You shall find In Frag. saith Julian among the Galileans by which name they called Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Feast of Love which they call Agapae their entertainment and their serving of Tables which draws many to their Religion And this is the great thing which the Apostle reproves the Corinthians for that though the Sacrament and this feast were appointed to preserve love yet they rudely abused them to the very contrary end The Gloss of Oecumenius if it be perused will make this very clear When you come together saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1 Cor. 11.20 into one place This is not to eat the Lords
Supper c. i. e. Your very coming together signifies love but it doth not work it for whereas you should have a common Table as our Lords was you make it your own pleasure and exclude the poor from it But I will tell you what the Lord delivered to me that he in the night he was betrayed entertained not onely his holy Disciples but even the Traitor Judas that wicked enemy of his at his Table and how dare you therefore refuse the poor and exclude them from your Feasts Or thus If the Lord gave both to poor and rich his Body and Blood darest thou separate any from thy table and cast a scorn upon them If he gave thanks who delivered and divided his own Body shalt not thou thankfully and with the greatest joy make the poor thy companions and guests at the things that are given from him to thee c. I tell you once more ver 27. that whosoever eats and drinks in this unworthy and base fashion contemning the poor for whose sakes you meet together he is guilty of Christs Body and Blood and doth the greatest dishonour unto them by handling them with such impure hauds And at last ver 33.34 he adviseth them that they would stay one for another and if through hunger they could not well expect long he bids them eat at home and not come together for condemnation Upon which words the same Author thus glosseth You come together to the Supper for love and if that be in your hearts you had better take a refection at home then by casting a contempt upon your brethren shew that you have no love at all It is very likely also That first from these Feasts they sent portions to those that were absent to testifie their love unto them and so afterward as is most certain the custom grew to send from the Eucharist some of the blessed bread to those that could not come unto their assemblies So Justin saith That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they carry away some part to those that are not present Which I suppose arose in imitation of the Jewwish manners who in their Feasts sent portions one to another that they might more express their friendship which they desired to continue The Heathens likewise were not strangers to this custome as one example out of many will bear sufficient witness When Agesilaus offered his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. in vita Agesilaus sacrifices for glad tydings of a victory he sent pieces of the flesh to his friends that he might make them partakers in his joyes All which I mention onely for this end that we may see how desirous they were in the beginning of our Religion to keep up a mutual charity as the greatest honour of it which made them omit no custom that had been obliging among the Jews if it might help to promote the love and unity of the Church 3. Then they had their collections for the poor which ensued their participation of Christs Body and Blood This the Apostle mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecum in loc 1 Cor. 16.1 2. when he bids them on the first day of the week when the mysteries were celebrated to lay by something for the use of distressed Christians which was the practice of other Churches And Justin Martyr's words may be a good Comment upon that Text when he saith After these things i. e. receiving the Sacrament we alway remember one another of them and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. They that have Apolog. 2. do help those that want every man giveing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according as he himself thinks fit to do And that which is gathered is laid in the hands of the President i. e. the chief Minister wherewith he helps the Orphans and Widows relieves those that are sick or in prison and those that travel and all strangers and to be short he is the Curator of all that are in need You may perceive likewise by the Apostles words that their charity was no less large then the world and that it was not impaled in a particular Church but did stretch its hands to the farthest parts by sending relief to Jerusalem from whence the Gospel came unto them But besides these there were other offerings as we call them at this day which the people brought both for the celebrating of the Eucharist and the maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospel These gifts as an Adversary confesseth were called Sacrifices Dionys Petav. diatrib in Syness cap. 3. though coming from the hands of the people Whence it is that Cyprian chides the rich people that they threw nothing into the Corban and came into Gods house sine sacrificio L. de Opere Eleemos without a sacrifice yea did eat part of that sacrifice which the poor had offered With these sacrifices the Apostle saith that God is well pleased and they that did offer them did it to testifie their love to God who had given them such good things and their love to their Brethren who they desired should share with them in Gods blessings They were both a piece off Gods worship and gave glory to him Psal 96.8 It was accounted a favour to be admitted to the offertory i. e. to have their money accepted which they gave to the poor And it was a punishment to communicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without offering as a perfect communion was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communión with offering Petavius Ib. Epist ad Diog. and likewise a piece of great charity that made others glorifie his Name By these and all other wayes they expressed such an affection that it was the talk of the Heathens and that whereby they were known by all men to be his Disciples And therefore when Diogenetus sent to Justin Martyr to know something more particularly concerning the Christian way he enquires not onely what God they trust in and how they worship him and what makes them contemn the world and despise death c. but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what was that their dear affection which they did bear unto each other This was more famed in the world then the noble band of lovers that died at each others side and were ready to receive those wounds into their own bodies which were dealt to their companions For they did not onely impart their goods but their own selves and were prepared to lay down their lives for the Brethren And if the relief they bestowed on each other were like incense and sacrifices to God Phil. 4.18 then the giving of themselves was something like the love of Christ and too great a charity to be resembled to any thing but his sacrifice 4. And there was another thing that was sometime in use which testified their love to all Christians throughout the World One Church sent a loaf of bread to another as a token of their consent in faith and their consort in affection which they that did
is represented God giveing his Son and all Blessings unto us and we giving of our selves and our best service unto him as hath been already discoursed By this God sets to his Seal that all things contained in the Covenant shall be done for us and we do set to our seal and openly profess our selves to belong to the Covenant and that we esteem and highly value all those blessings and will do any thing for to obtain them Now who would not long for such a food that will satisfie our whole desire Who would refuse an invitation to that Table where all things are in one dish if I may so speak and God and Man meet together in one Bread and one Cup But I doubt I may add Who is there that would not have all these things so that this Bread and Wine without any labour will convey them unto him And therefore I must give you another short information which was the second thing that I promised and that is this 2. This copious Food doth not nourish us without some actions of our own even such as I have already mentioned in this Discourse It doth not feed us in a natural but in a moral and spiritual manner It reiresheth us by our consideration by our faith our love our prayers our covenanting and thanksgiving But all the cunning in the world will not draw a drop of blood out of it without these no it draws out the blood of our souls and wasts our strengths by a careless and prophane eating of it The Papists talk of great things that their Priests give in this Sacrament by their power and they would make the world believe that they communicate more then we can do But we must solemnly averr That our Ministry conveighs as great things as they speak of onely men must do something more of the work themselves We pretend not indeed to send wicked men to Heaven with a word but we can help the thoughts and affections of all pious souls as much as they with all their skill and power Nay if the people do nothing we give them more then they for they feed them with hungry accidents they give them a bit of quantity and a cup of colours yea the Laity have not so much as a sip of these figures whereas the worst man among us hath at least Bread and Wine so that the best among us enjoy as much in effect and vertue as they can pretend unto and the worst by their own confession enjoy much more But the truth of it is that men have heightned these things to such incomprehensible mysteries because they would do nothing and these should do all They have advanced these sacred Rites of Christs appoinment into a degree of vertue beyond all his other commands that so by these easie and facile rites of Baptism and the Lords Supper men might go to Heaven by a compendious manner of doing little or nothing towards their salvation And they have not left these Rites as naked as Christ brought them into the world but they have changed the manner of their observance and cloathed them in a great many strange dresses lest the genuine simplicity of them should reprove their false hopes which they conceive from them They could never put men so soon into Heaven nor get so much money as they do by the bargain if they did not make men believe greater things of this Sacrament then of all the eternal Laws of Christ and they could not make men believe so much more of it if they did not transform it from its native simplicity into an uncouth mystery These two things the love of mens lusts and the love of the world have made men stretch these things so far as to defie all reason to damn all those that will not speak non-sence and to send those to hell though of never so holy lives that will not discredit their eyes and ears What strange things will men believe and do so that they can but believe contrary to the Gospel They hope to go to Heaven they know not how by the Magick of words and by the secret efficacy of a Religion that they do not understand and this makes them willing to entertain such Doctrines And then others have a respect to their own interest and having little else to support their greatness would be reverenced and esteemed for their extraordinary power in making the body of Christ and that makes them willing to maintain them So the Author of the History of the Council of Trent saith very truly L. 6. When men began to place Heaven below Earth good institutions were said to be corruptions onely tollerated by Antiquity and abuses brought in afterward were canonized for perfect corrections But we willingly acknowledg that we have no power to save men without themselves We celebrate no such Mysteries that shall convey the wicked to Heaven We cannot deliver those that are dead from their pain and torment who whilst they lived made little reckoning either of this or any other Divine Command No we proclaim to All men that this food must nourish us by our own stomachs that it affords strength by the vital operations of our own souls And if we our selves will do what God requires of us then we shall find it as full of vertue as we can desire and it will be a means to put us in Heaven while we remain here upon the earth Sometimes they will needs blame us as doing too little and denying the use of good works but this is such a falsity that we call for more of mens labour then they seem to make necessary and profess that we hope not by any power of ours to do them good without the exercise of their own powers And therefore let us put forth a lively faith let us heartily covenant with our Lord let us make a sincere profession of our Religion and exercise such other acts as I have been treating of and so will this Feast be of great force and full of efficacy to our souls health And that you may feed with an appetite and hereby get an encrease in strength it is necessary that I next of all direct your Addresses to Gods Table and shew how you should prepare your selves to be his worthy Guests and that shall be the Subject of the following Discourse Mensa Mystica SECT II. Concerning Preparation to the Table of the Lord being a Discourse upon Psal 93.5 CHAP. VII IT is a known saying of the Psalmist Holiness becomes thy House O Lord for ever The corner-stone upon which that Affirmation is built is no other but this That God is essentially holy And that is a truth which hath such a foundation in our natural understanding a notion that springs so clearly from every mans mind that all the deductions and consequents that flow from it must needs be evident and find no resistance but onely from the wills and perverse affections of men If we consider
when we are baptized into the Christian faith and take upon us those sacred ingagements to be his servants We are ever after this under a religious tie and vow and the next step which we take to the discharge of it is to be catechized and instructe in Christs Religion which is all that a child is capable of And then when we come to years of discretion we are to advance still forward to a serious profession that we stand to our first Covenant and will be true and faithfull to our Lord. Now all our life after is but an asserting of our truth and sincerity in this holy Covenant and a making good our promise and oath wherein we have bound our selves Which when we labour conscientiously to perform then do all the actions of our lives become holy And so a man may be holy in his shop by diligence and justice and at his board by temperance thankfulness and sending portions to the poor A friendly innocent and useful conversation will make him holy abroad and meditation and prayer mixed with the former will make him so at home Yea prudence and the ends of health and cheerfulness will make his sports and recreations his sleep and all such actions to be holy and not be reckoned among pastimes but the necessary seasons of doing little or nothing that afterward we may do something and be worthily employed As to the disposition then of his heart a Christian is alway alike holy because he seriously desires intends and endeavours to be undefiled in all things onely the matter about which he is necessarily employed will not bear it that all his actions should alway be alike excellent III. There is another thing likewise that must be confessed That though all actions of holiness have a regard to God as they are parts of our obedience to his commands yet some of them have a more particular respect to him and are more industriously intended to his honour Though all holy actions look towards him yet some of them are a looking him directly in the face Though we may always fit under his shadow with great delight yet sometimes we are under the light of his countenance it self his glory is to be alway our end but sometimes we are said more particularly to glorifie his Name As when we advance him highly in our own thoughts or when we proclaim his excellencies to the world When we pay our acknowledgments to him for blessings received or wait on his bounty for things that we need In brier prayer and praises meditation of him and desires after him reading and hearing of his holy Word with such like actions me of that sort wherein we behold his face and do more sensibly taste of his goodness and are both more satisfied with him as the greatest sweetness and transformed into him as the purest beanty CHAP. IX IV. NOw to draw nearer to the main scope of this discourse It must in the next place be considered that those actions which respect men or our selves and those which immediately respect God are mutual preparations each to other As an holy behaviour in the works of our calling in our converses with men and the use of Gods blessings dispose us unto prayer meditation and such like duties so prayer c. again requires them and returns the kindness upon their own heads by disposing and preparing us to such like holy deportment for the future in these matters These two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an inseparable brotherhood like Hippocrates his twins that grow or decay both together Prayer makes a Christian live holily and a holy life makes us fit to pray servently And both the one and the other are not onely parts of our duty which God commands but instruments and helps to doing our duty Such a combination there is between all the things that God requires to make them easie and familiar desirable and pleasant and to make us intire and compleat impartial and universal in our obedience to him VVe cannot do one duty that he bids us but the rest become more easie to be done nor love sincerely one command but the rest will draw us unto their love The holiness of our conversation is it self an invitation of God to our souls much more when we second it with the attractives of holy prayers and affectionate desires And both the sweetness of such converses with God and the power of his grace that is consequent upon our hearty desires will ingage and inable us to continue an holy conversation As impurity brings us into familiarity with the Devil so holiness brings us into fellowship with God and the happiness of that is so great that we shall not be tempted easily to leave it but be excited to do all we can for to maintain it Psellus I remember tells us that the mad fellows of Manes and others frantickly and diabolically acted used to eat the excrements of a man and being asked the reason of it they made no answer but this that to those that eat such things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spirits were made friendly and benevolent I am sure the Devil delights in those who feed upon the filth of the world and the very prayers of such persons are but a strange charm or spell that have a force to hold them faster in the Devils arms While men pray with any affection to sinne or with no disaffection to it they will but the more certainly continue in it and never think of forsaking that which they hope their prayers have despoiled of all power to do them any harm They think they have conjured out all the bitterness all the sting and the fire that is in sin by that holy breath and so they take the confidence to embrace and kiss it as an harmless thing But a holy man as I said is Gods delight and he takes pleasure in those that fear him And therefore all the Religious acts of a pious soul make his ordinary Employments to be religious and pleasing unto God and they again have an influence upon his acts of Worship to make them more full of devotion and true fervour As wicked actions do nourish in some most passionate prayers for forgiveness and those prayers they hope obtain leave for them to do wickedly upon no greater charge than to ask forgiveness So good actions do beget in men a greater longing after the divine grace and these desires make them still do well out of a hope to have more grace When a good man lifts up his hands to God he draws down God into his soul that he may work with his hands that which is good in his employment and he is not so busie in that employment that his hands should grow so heavy or dirty by it as to be unwilling or unfit to lift them up again to Heaven We are to look then after such a demeanour that we may be fit at all times when God shall give us an
know or ever heard of do think that nothing less than a morning and evening-Worship can denominate prayer continual or without ceasing As the Lambs that were offered every morning and every evening throughout the year were called in Moses his Law the continual burnt-offering Exod. 29.42 Numb 28.3 So the offering unto God our Morning and Evening Sacrifices even the calves of our lips for what we want and what we have received may be called our continual prayer which must be alwayes joined according to the Apostle with thanksgiving From their practise we fetch the best explication of these expressions concerning prayer that I know of and so we may of such things as I before mentioned and many others also These solemn Addresses then we may by no means omit but look upon our selves as necessarily bound unto them And as among them there were two Lambs more offered upon the Sabbath day over and above the continual Burnt-offering Numb 28.8 9. So we cannot but think our selves most strictly enjoined to enlarge our prayers and praises upon the Lords day to a greater length than at other times and to offer as many more sacrifices as other days require Several other times there were wherein God required more than the ordinary offerings of them as may be seen in the same Chapter but yet he left room for some voluntary Oblations which as I said he thought they would be so kind as to bestow upon him or else he would never have made mention of them nor given any Laws about them Even so hath God left it to our love and good will we bear to him to make choice of some seasons beside those he hath appointed wherein to pay him larger acknowledgments and testifie a more abundant affection to his service both by the fervency of our souls in what we do and by the greater proportion of time which we allow for the doing of it Pral 119.164 and in the 108 verse he prayes God to accept the Free-will-offerings of his mouth And therefore it will be highly accepted of God if sometimes we pray with David seven times in a day and make some addition to the daily sacrifice Charles the fifth though a person of a high employment as David was used to continue so long at his private devotions and was so sparing in his ordinary speech that his Courtiers were wont to say Chytreus Orat. de eo he did saepius cum Deo quam hominibus loqui speak oftner with God than he did with men The more pious sort likewise among the Jews seem to have prayed at least four times in a day twice at the Temple if they were at Hierusalem and twice in their own private houses At the third hour when the Disciples were together at the Temple it is very probable because all Nations that were at Jerusalem took notice of it the holy Ghost came down upon them Acts 2.15 which was the time of the morning sacrifice about nine of the clock according to our reckoning On the same day in all likelihood two of the Apostles went into the Temple at another hour of Prayer which was the ninth viz. three of the clock in the afternoon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the time of the evening-sacrifice as you read Acts 3.1 where the words are so placed that they intimate another hour of prayer to be usual besides that From the constant observance of these appointed times they are said in Luk. 24. ult to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 continually in the Temple blessing and praising God But beside you may find that Peter prayed at twelve of the Clock in his own private house which was the sixth hour of the day in their language Acts 10.9 and therefore it is probable that the twelfth hour or six at night was another hour for private prayer among them And if it should be said That he being not at Hierusalem but Joppa might omit the hours of prayer at the Temple that will be confuted by the practise of Cornelius in the same Chapter ver 3 30. who being at Caesarea prayed at the ninth hour and the holy Apostle cannot be thought to be less devout than him There is nothing lost by going unto God and the oftner we perswace our selves to it the better success we shall have in all other things according to a good Proverb of the Dutch I think which saith Thefts never enrich Alms never impoverish Prayer hinders no work Our Saviour hath given us an example of extraordinary devotion in his own practise Luke 6.12 where you read that he continued all night in prayer to God or as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by some rendred in one of Gods places of Prayer Thither he retired from company and passed the night in holy meditations and converses with God He did not sin when he slept other nights but this was a more illustrious act of holiness and a more fervent expression of love to his Father above that which the precept requires And concerning such devotions the Mahometans say Preces nocturnae sunt splendor dici Night-prayers are the light of the day So in Luke 22.41 we find that our Lord fell upon his knees and prayed and not long after ver 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prayed more earnestly and fervently than before He did not fail of his duty in the former prayer because it was not in such a vehement degree but in this later prayer he expressed a more excellent zeal and ardor of spirit then he was absolutely tied unto All these things are written for our instruction that we may learn to lay hold on the occasions that are presented to us of intending our spirits raising our hearts beyond their common pitch and temper I remember Strabo saith concerning the ancient Venetians that they used to sacrifice to Diomedes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a white Horse which might both signifie the purity and also the strength and speed of the service that they owed to God We must alway be holy and pure in our Addresses to the Divine Majesty but we have examples in Scripture and it will be highly pleasing unto him to put to greater strength sometimes and press forward with a greater speed to collect all the forces of our souls and strain them to the noblest degree of desire and love that we are able VI. You may likewise consider further That one act of Religion is preparative to another The daily sacrifice makes the weekly more acceptable Continual prayer makes us more fit for prayer on the Lords day The morning and evening spent well make us ready to spend a whole day better And these constant sacrifices keep the Altar warm and maintain a fire to kindle our free-will-offerings And one free-will-offering inflames our heart to a forwardness to present God with another So likewise back again these extraordinary devotions make us more solemn in our ordinary duties and the Lords day employed well makes every day
with so much charity to come and dwell in such a hole as our flesh and that he would love us better then his life and that he will not forget us now that he lives in Heaven Shew him what a pitiful poor creature thou art and crave him humble pardon that thou shouldest put him to much pains and trouble And intreat him now that he will not be offended at all the noisome smells and loathsome sights that are in a soul so sick and diseased as thine into which he is entring Declare to him freely all thy maladies and beseech him that he will not disdain thee but come and cure thee Profess to him sincerely all the love that ever thou canst and importune him of all loves that he would make thee love him more And then imagine with thy self that he is graciously come to such a nasty place as thy heart is and so begin to bless and praise his Name for so high a favour resolving likewise that thou wilt never cease to praise him as long as thou hast a day to live and that when thy tongue shall falter thou wilt think his praises These meditations and holy aspirations after him will be like to the sweet incense and odoriferous exhalations that perfume the house before the entrance of so worthy a guest Or rather they will be as the harbingers of the King of Glory that come to prepare the rooms and make them clean and sweet for his entertainment For as you see the Sun doth not onely illuminate the world when he is above the Horizon but a whole hour before his rising and as much after his setting affords his comfortable light unto us So the Son of Righteousness who is under these clouds of bread and wine doth not only irradiate our minds when we actually receive this Sacrament but doth appear before unto us if we will look toward him and makes it day in our souls by hopes and desires to receive him and again he leaves some sweet beams behind him afterward by a remembrance how kind he hath been unto us in satisfying our desires V. And then to speak more particularly every man should consider with himself how God hath prospered him in his estate and so lay aside such a portion for the poor as bears some proportion to the blessing God hath afforded upon his labours This was a great piece of this solemnity in ancient times as hath been already said from the Apostles mouth 1 Cor. 16.2 which place I heartily wish every man would more serionsly peruse This practise I know continues in the Christian Church though I fear it falls short both of the liberality and open-heartedness that was then in use as also of the gain and increase that God makes to our estates Let me therefore herein mind the pious Reader that every mite that is given to the poor is a grain of that incense that perfumes the house of God and therefore such charity is called an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing unto God Phil. 4.18 And so the Angel saith unto Cornelius that his prayers and alms were come up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a memorial before God Three remarkable forms of speech there are in those words to denote that they are a sacrifice or oblation which we make to the giver of all good especially when they are given in the hands of prayer as at the holy Eucharist they ought to be First They were for a memorial which is an expression we read in the Law of Moses Lev. 2.9 and many other places to denote that part of the meat offering that was burnt upon the Altar for a sweet savour unto the Lord. Secondly They are said to come up or ascend which was proper to the Sacrifices that were burnt on the Altar and went up to Heaven in pillars of smoak and vapour And thirdly They did come up before God which signified their acceptance and that they were a welcome sacrifice unto the Lord. From heace it was that the Ancients sometimes call the Lords Table by the name of an Altar because they laid upon it these Sacrifices or Offerings which at first were bread and wine c. and afterward changed into money part of which did furnish the Table and the rest relieve the poor and those that did minister unto the Lord. For then the custom was for Christians to make the Minister their Almoner or steward to distribute their Charity as his prudence thought most fit Now if we think it not convenient to intrust them yet we should judg it most necessary when we go to this holy feast to lay aside some considerable portion as a just expression of our great engagements unto God and the charity which he hath exercised towards us For since Almes are a sacrifice there must be some time to fit them and prepare them for the Altar and since they are so acceptable to him as to be accounted a memorial by him we should be the more liberal and consider upon some free-will offerings to be brought into his treasury And the truth is no man can be called liberal that is not so upon advice and deliberation These acts of Charity are to flow from counsel as well as any other And therefore beforehand we should determine what to give and not throw in a piece of money as it happens into the poor mans stock If we could but believe that this giving to God is a beneficial trade and that he who soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully 2 Cor. 9.6 and that the more we have in his bank the better we shall thrive then we should cast in our minds how to make an improvement this way and be desirous to have a stock going in his hands Then there would not need so much intreaty that men would cast up their accounts in some measure before they go to the Table of God and consider how God hath blessed them and encreased their estates and consult how they may further augment them in such an easie and sure way as this appears to be Sit down then I beseech you in a serious manner and look over your wealth and think with your self how much land or money you are intrusted withall Spread it before your thoughts and say All this hath God given me and long preserved it from thieves and fire and other violences he is daily adding unto this heap and giving more what therefore out of all this shall I return to him I assure you it is a piece of spiritual employment for a man to think on his baggs if it be in order to filling the poor mans box Say therefore thus to thy soul when thou art alone God hath blessed us as thou seest very fairly what canst thou find in thy heart to give to him what use shall we pay him for all that he hath lent unto us shall we not give one or two out of a hundred that he hath added to our Estate Shall men
secrets and to know the pleasures of his heart for they are so still and calm that they cannot be perceived where there is any storm And indeed there can be no thoughts more fit for our preparation then these of forgiveness because we call our selves now to account for our offences against God and alas 〈◊〉 they are so great that they may well drown the remembrance of all offences that others have given us and wash them out of our thoughts as if they had never been Seeing then you go to beg pardon of God when you remember his Sonnes blood if you have offended any man first go and lay your selves at his feet and so approach to take hold of Christ and kiss his feet in an humble acknowledgment of your offences Say to every one of your passions and corrupt affections Come forth for I am resolved you shall be slain Methinks you should begin to dye at the very thoughts of a dying Saviour Methinks you should swoon away at the very sight of yonder blood that you should not stay till you come to the Cross of Christ but give up the ghost before you see but the image of his death Do you not feel the power of his death afar off Do not his pierced sides strike to your heart before you behold them Oh you bloody things What have you done What wounds have you made in the body of my Lord Do not think to live any longer oh you bloody things Nay never struggle nor resist for I have vowed you in sacrifice unto him Lay therefore your necks quietly upon the block and prepare your selves for death which is approaching Ask your evil hearts if they be not affrighted Wonder that they should hold up their faces Tell them that these are but the Addresses to their Execution and protest folemnly That none of these vile desires shall live a day longer and then they will begin to grow pale sick and languishing before you come to the Altar and there the slaughter will be more easie In particular say to thy self O my soul wipe out the remembrance of all offences that any have done unto thee let not one tittle of them remain but be blotted out Thy fellow-servant hath affronted and contemned thee but thou hast oftner contemned thy God thy Lord and Master himself V. Ch ysoft Orat. 60. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what equality is there between a fellow-servant and thy Master Perhaps he hath been insolent towards thee once or twice when he was provoked or wronged by thee and thou behavest thy self basely towards thy Lord every day though he be so far from wronging thee that he is thy continual benefactor O my soul do but collect with thy self how oft thou offendest in one day yea but in one duty What sloth is there in thy Prayers With what strange irreverence and disregard dost thou stand before God when thou speakest to him Never did a servant speak so carelesly to his Master nor a Souldier to his Commander Yea when thou speakest to a friend thou mindest what thou sayest but when thou art treating with the Lord about so many sins and art begging of him pardon and forgiveness thou art too often like a man asleep and though thy knees be upon the ground yet thy mind is in the Market or in the Fields and thy tongue blatters thou knowest not what Away then all you angry thoughts stay not to aggravate offences Be gone as clearly out of my heart as I desire my Lord to remember my sins no more If we could bring our hearts thus bleeding to his holy Table if the execution were begun before we came to him then would our anger and malice our love of pleasures and all other worldly affections receive a deadly and incurable wound from our Saviours hand when we did receive him VII As a most necessary Instrument to all these the Apostle directs us to examine our selves This is indeed a daily duty but now should be adverted with a greater intention and ardency of affection when we are about these sacred things We should examine our selves even about our neglects in the review of our selves about the coldness of our prayers the smallness of our sorrows the weakness of our services and our daily unavoidable infirmities We should make more deep reflections into our selves now that we are at more leisure and have so solemnly designed more time from other employments we should open a greater vent for our tears and cut a larger passage for our sorrow and affect our heart more deeply with our needs and the certainty of supply and so raise our souls to a greater height of humility of desire and of confidence altogether Our Saviour seems to intimate that before our approaches to God in any holy duty it is a fit and proper time to call our selves to an account for the trespasses we are guilty of when he saith Mat. 5.23 24. If therefore thou bring the gift to the Altar and remember that thy Brother c. It should seem by this expression that this is a season of remembring and calling things to mind that are past and gone which must be done by an examination of our selves And you may consider thus much to quicken you to this duty that the better we know our selves and our own wants the more hungry we shall be and the more knowledge we have of our own sincerity with the greater comfort and sweetness shall we eat Now we know both the one and the other by self-examination For this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render examine hath two meanings which are to prove and try and to approve after trial So that in brief I may thus state the whole business of examination We are to use an every-day-oversight over our selves And this general and daily examination is nothing else but such a caution and diligence in all our actions through the whole frame of our life that our own Conscience may approve them upon examination as accordant with the will of God Or more briefly it is a Christian care to do every thing so that God and our own Conscience may allow of it And it must needs consist of two parts First A Consideration of what is our duty to do of what is lawfull and what unlawfull of what is expedient and what inconvenient Socrates used always to say to every thing that presented it self to his mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what art thou and whence comest thou or as the Watchmen use to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew me your ticket let me see your Pass that I may know you are a friend Arrian L. 3. cap. 12. or an information of our selves upon due advice and search what is incumbent upon us as our duty through our whole life Then secondly This fore-handed examination must be followed with a serious consideration of what we have done and whether we behave our selves according to the Rule which we
have laid down to our selves as the guide of our life From these two arise the whole of that which is necessary to be done continually for the approbation of our selves to be such persons as have a care to please God Now this may be the prime and first sense of the Apostles words when he saith Let a man examine himself and so let him eat c. i. e. let him have a care that he lead such a Christian life that his own heart may approve of him as one of Christs Disciples This you may be best satisfied out of another place where this word is used Gal. 6.4 Let a man prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or examine his own work c. The meaning of which is Let every man make his work so approved and behave himself in that manner that both God and his own Conscience may judge it to be right and according to the Word of God That this is the sense of the phrase in that place will appear from the whole context where the Apostle speaks of bearing the infirmities of the weak and not thinking our selves to be godly because we do not fall like them by any temptation And so saith he Thou shalt have glory or rejoycing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 toward thy self and not in regard of another i. e. thou shalt take comfort simply in thy self that thou art a good man and not only be pleased with comparing thy self with others and being better then they for so thou mayest be and yet not be good From this it appears that he speaks not of something that should follow the actions of our life viz. a searching whether they be good or no but of such an institution and ordering of our lives beforehand that we may not fall into those sins which we reprehend in another nor be beholden to their sins to make us seem godly And the next words v. 5. plead for this sense For every man shall bear his own burden i. e. Thou oughtest to make thy work good and approved for every man sins at his own peril One mans sin will not excuse thee who dost not sin in that fashion but thou art to do thy own duty heartily to God according to thy Conscience or else thou shalt suffer as well as he And that the Apostle may have respect unto this examination before we come to the Sacrament in that place before-mentioned there is another phrase following v. 31. which may perswade us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if we judge our selves c. i. e. if we do discern our selves and discriminate our actions and determine our duty and live in conformity to it we should not be judged nor punished of God in this sort But whether this be the proper meaning of examining or no I shall not be overmuch solicitous seeing I have already made this good that he must be a holy person that comes to Gods Table And that there is beside this a more particular examination to be used when the time is near of communicating with our Lord I willingly grant And it consists of two parts according to the two-fold use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render examine The first is a proof trial and search into our own souls that we may know our estate and in what condition we stand before God So the word is used 1 Thess 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things i. e. make a trial of them and consider what they are and then hold fast that which you find to be good This examination considering that I suppose a pious life to precede must chiefly consist in a review of those failings or of those wants which our every-day proof of our selves doth present us withall If we should never examine our selves but when we come to the Lords Supper we should not know what we are nor what we need but in a confused heap of things many would be unobserved and yet if we should not also examine then we should not have such a lively sense of what we are to ask and for what we ought to plead the bloud of Christ But then this examination is but a serious reflection upon the Notes which we take every day of our selves Unless it be needfull that we examine our selves whether we have not forgot any of the ends for which we go to the Table of the Lord and though that be a great part of the Apostles meaning yet I have already taken notice of it In short we are to search rather in what state our Graces stands than whether we be in a state of Grace or no. Then secondly We must approve and allow of our selves and bring the trial to such an issue that we pass a verdict on our souls So the word is used Rom. 2.18 thou approvest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things that are excellent i. e. Thou professest to like and embrace them And so when the Apostle bids the Children of the light to prove what is acceptable unto God Ephes 5.8 10. He doth not mean a bare inquisition but that act which follows it which is embracing For they cannot be deemed Children of the light who do not so enquire after the pleasure of God as to pursue and practise it The meaning likewise of the Apostle Rom. 14.22 is this Happy is he that when he uses an indifferent thing doth approve himself as doing that which is lawfull and acts not against his Conscience Or this Happy is he that when he is resolved that he may do such a thing lawfully and with the approbation of his Conscience yet doth it with such a care that he hurts not others by the use of it There is one place more 2 Cor. 13.5 where you have both these parts of examination together Try your selves whether you be in the faith prove i. e. approve your selves When you know your estate by trial then pass a judgement upon your selves to be what you profess and pretend unto Now all the approbation that a good man is to give of himself before he go to the Lords Supper is this 1. He ought to judge himself to continue a friend of Christ and to remain as far as he can find in Covenant with God And 2. He ought to find that he hath used some godly care and diligence that he come not in a rude unbeseeming and drowsie manner into so holy a presence And this is plainly another part of the Apostles meaning when he saith Let a man examine himself and so eat c. i. e. Let him approve himself to come for pious and holy ends and with a due regard to the Lords most sacred body and blood Lay thy hand then Christian Reader upon thy heart before thou comest to this Table and feel how the pulse of thy soul beats mind whether it beat evenly or after a distempered sort Doth it move three times as quick when thou thinkest of the World as it doth when God is in
thy heart When art thou all in a heat When thou art in pursuit of the World or when thou followest after God Ask thy heart whom dost thou love most What is it that thou dost most constantly desire In what Company is it thy pleasure to be Dost thou love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and all thy strength Hadst thou rather dye than displease him Are thy graces not only alive but lively Come then let us go to this holy Feast and thank the Lord for this Grace and for all his other favours VIII If we find by examining that we have fallen into any sin and through neglect or ignorance broken our resolution since the last Communion Let us make most serious reflections upon it Besides all the sorrow that I must suppose it hath cost a good heart presently after its commission besides its hatred of it and affliction of it self for it with a most speedy amendment of the fault This is a fit time to bewail it over again to call our selves to a new account for it to drown it in another flood of tears more firmly to strengthen our resolutions against it and to prepare it for to receive another wound a mortal stroak from the wounds of Jesus that it may never live any more Say therefore thus to thy self when thou art in thy meditations What didst thou mean O my soul to be so treacherous unto God and to break thy resolution Was there ever a better Master Were ever any tyed to another by such sacred Bands and Oaths O perjured wretch that thou art What was in thy heart to break loose from God dost thou not blush to think of it or rather art thou not pale and wan and ready to dye to think of such a horrid thing Well I see these sins are not quite dead but still they stirre and move or though they seem to be stretched out and to have no life yet they may recover But I am resolved if Christ can kill them that they shall not live Come along with me if you dare live so long into his presence and there receive your mortal wound from his hand seeing you will not be killed by mine There shall you all be slain at his feet you shall be nailed to his Cross and I will leave you hanging there till you be asham'd to live IX But if the commission of such a sin have brought any timerousness as well it may upon the heart so that it trembles to set one foot forward unto the Lords Table and its hands shake with a paralitick fear so that it cannot stretch them to receive such Pledges of Gods Love It is most necessary that a man advise with his spiritual Pastor and Director in the way of life I wish it were better understood for what ends God hath set Pastors over the flock and that men would look upon them as a kind of Parents to whom they should go in all their needs But now the subject of my Discourse leads me to say no more but this That there are two necessary times of receiving the benefit of their counsell The one is when a mans sin oppresseth him so sorely with the sense of the guilt it hath contracted that he can receive no comfort And the other is when it oppresseth him so heavily with its strength and power that he can get no conquest over it There is a third season when it is at least convenient to repair unto them and that is when a man is in doubt whether he have passed a right judgement upon himself which should make him desirous to have the opinion of those persons that can neither be deemed to be deceived themselves through ignorance nor to be willing to deceive others through flattery and partial Judgement If any one therefore be in the perplexity of such like cases when he thinks of coming to this holy feast let him dis-imbosome his soul unto him that hath the care of it and desire him that out of the tender love a Father ought to have unto his Child he would be his guide in this Affair And so shall a man know how to use these spiritual weapons better when he is taught by a skilfull Commander and the more solid comfort shall he have when his Physician assures him that as far as he can discern he is in a state of health X. And yet when we have done all this then we should pray to God that he would prepare us better than all our preparation As when a King comes unto a City to stay there for some space he doth not expect that the Citizens if they be poor should provide all the furniture for him which is a thing above their power but he sends the Grooms of his Chamber before with such Hangings and Ornaments as may make the house they have prepared most befitting his Majesty So let us entreat the Lord that after all our endeavour to set apart our hearts for him to sweep the house as clean as we can and fit it to receive such a glorious Guest he would be pleased to send his holy Spirit that may prepare the place for him and adorn our souls with such Graces that His Sacred Majesty may not disdain to come and make his abode with us Say thus unto thy gracious God Oh Lord thou seest how much dirt I have left behind after all my diligence to cleanse and purifie my soul Alas all my thoughts of thee are but dreams all my desires but a vapour my Love is but a flash my Prayers are but a breath my Tears will scarce fill a bubble and my Sorrow is no bigger than a Sigh all that I do I am ashamed of it my self and therefore thou maist much more loath it and despise it Come thou Psal 139 23 24. O Lord therefore and search my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Do thou awaken in me most lively thoughts do thou inkindle a burning affection open thou the flood-gates of my eyes and open thou my lips that my mouth may shew orth thy praise Seeing my heart Lord is so strait and narrow that it is not fit to entertain thee do thou widen and enlarge it and then come and fill me with thy self and say Here will I dwell for I have desired it this is my rest for ever Yea O my gracious God unless thou interpose thy Power I am very much afraid I shall not keep this little goodness till the next morning which now seems to be in me These weak Thoughts these faint Desires and sickly Affections that are in my soul I doubt will not live a night unless thou find wayes for to preserve and cherish them my inveterate habits of evil will smother and choak these new Resolutions I am in fear that all these meditations will be flown away while I am asleep and my
house will be foul again before I awake unless thou keep me Ah my dear God! seeing I have bestowed some small pains upon my heart and have conceived some little hopes suffer them not to be all dashed in pieces in a night Spread the wings of thy goodness over me and maintain that which not I but thou thy self hast wrought Lord let me find when I awake that my affections and desires are grown beyond the strength of man and that thy power rests up on me Oh let me find a greater fervour than ever in thy service let that spark which I feared would go out be grown to a flame that will never expire and so shalt thou draw mine eyes towards thy self alone who workest such wonders so shall my heart be filled with nothing but thy sweetness and my lips shall overflow with thy praises Lord if I may beg this grace of thee I am verily perswaded I shall languish after none but thee and seek for no other pleasures but to please thee Therefore my good Lord I leave my self in thy hands hoping that either I am or would be such as thou wouldst have me And if I be arrived but as far as a will and desire to be what thou wouldst have me that will is thine and therefore seeing that will is mine too and we both conspire together I take the boldness to say Lord let thy will be done Oh my sweet Saviour I was going to say that I am sick of love that I cannot live unless thou love me and make me better But I correct my self and it is enough if I be sick because I cannot love thee Do thou make me sick or rather make me well with love unto thee so shall I come to thy Table with joy and gladness hoping that thou wilt kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth for thy love is better than Wine Draw me and I will run after thee yea we will run after thee for I will proclaim to others the loving-kindness of the Lord. When one bad Socrates prepare himself for his trial he answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Do not I seem then to thee through all my life to be prepared for this thing It hath been my care neither before thee nor alone to do any evil Aâ—rian lib. 2. cap. 2. CHAP. XI WHat preparation there should be besides this I do not understand it being directly contrary to the first thing that I propounded for any to imagine that we ought just before the Sacrament to have a greater care of not sinning than at other times We are alwayes pilgrims and strangers and so ought to abstain from fleshly lusts that warre against the soul These lusts are alwayes poysonous and not onely when we are going to take the Cup of the Lord into our hand And therefore it is a grand deceit to think that we and our sins must be severed only then when we more nearly embrace our Lord for holiness is our profession afterward as much as before we communicate with his Holiness Or rather all the time after one Communion being before the next which doth succeed it is the time of Preparation for it We are to keep our selves in a constant purity and to labour to keep close to the Covenant of our God only when the time doth nearly approach that we may enjoy such another repast we should excite our appetite raise our thoughts and meditations imprint the ends of the institution more fairly in our memories voluntarily offer more of our time and our thoughts to religious exercises and do all that over again with a greater zeal which we have been doing every day since we were last in his Sacred Presence You may observe that as just before this solemnity our thoughts are more deep and serious and our hearts lifted up to a greater fervour and we have stronger longings after Christ and his Blessings which prepare us for the enjoyment so the enjoyment leaves us for some time afterward in a great degree of heat in more lively apprehensions and more vigorous affections But these through multitude of business and many occasions may languish by little and little and may abate of that degree and ardour wherein they were which I look upon as the weakness rather than the sin of a good heart and therefore our work is to recover our souls before the next Communion to the same or rather an higher degree of zeal And then though afterward there may be again some abatement and fall in our affections yet it will be less and more fervency and heat will remain than would have been if we had not got up our hearts by that Preparation and that Communion to an higher pitch of spiritual love The Primitive Christians who communicated every day as some passages in the Acts of the holy Apostles would make us think or at least every Lords Day had need of less of this Preparation that I have mentioned for as soon as ever the flame began to decay there was new fewel added and that degree of warmth to which they were raised was scarce gone from their hearts before a new fire was kindled But now the custome is so that this Feast returns more seldome and we cannot say with Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Epist 2. ad Caesarcam Patritiam In the beginning of which Epistle he commends an every-day Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good and profitable We Communicate four times in a week besides all Festival dayes but it is very much if men be so devout as to Communicate once in four weeks and therefore because many things may be slipt out of our minds and former impressions may be grown weak we had need more solemnly to recollect what we have learnt to stir up our remembrance to renew a sense of the ends of its institution of our own wants of the wants of the poor and the rest of those things which I have in the former Chapter recommended to your thoughts If men understood these things they would neither wonder that the ancient Christians communicated so oft nor would they have any excuse left for their own neglect First I say they would not wonder that the fervour of those primitive souls was so great for they had a huge care to lead an holy life and that made them both fit and desirous to converse with God every day VVe judge of them perhaps by our selves and think that it was superstition rather than Religion that made them so forward to this Office and by casting a blot upon their Piety we hope in this frozen age to be accounted Pious If superstition can be believed to have grown up so early then we may be thought with less zeal to be more devout If they did only flatter Christ with such a busie devotion and frequent resort unto him we may hope to pass for better Friends that are not so forward but more discreetly reserved and sparing of
them own it in the secrets of their own soul and let them profess it unto him that God hath set over them and so desire to be admitted for to strengthen their resolution by adding a new Sacrament to the former Engagement That which they should have done at Baptism if they had been men let them do now that they understand their Baptism and enter their protestations against the lusts of the world the flesh and the Devil Secondly As they must well exmine themselves before they make such a profession so now intending to receive this holy Sacrament they should make a new search into all the parts of their soul Let such a man therefore first bring his understanding unto tryal and examine it what it apprehends concerning Christ and all his Offices What knowledge it hath of the ends of his death and the benefits that come thereby unto us as also of the nature of the new Covenant and of this Sacrament whereby we come to partake of those benefits Then secondly Call thy Judgement before the Barr of Conscience and ask it how it prizes and esteems of Christ and all his benefits and whether it count all things but dung and dross for the excellency of his knowledge and whether it value the deliverance wrought by him from the power as well as punishment of sin more than a Kingdom bigger than the world Then thirdly Take thy will under examination and ask it if it heartily consent to believe all that he saith to do all that he commands and to expect in such a way all that he promiseth Here thou must be very inquisitive lest thy heart should be divided between two Masters And it is necessary that thou represent unto thy self all the dangers thou mayest undergo and the hazards thou mayest run if thou cleave to Christ and not unto the world and then ask thy soul if it chuse Christ with disgrace if it embrace him and a stake both together and in one word if it sincerely love a crucified Saviour Fourthly Then next of all Let thy affections be called to an account which are but several motions of thy will See what sorrow what pain and grief thou hast conceived for offending of thy Lord. What hunger and thirst there is in thee after righteousness What desire after the Blood of Christ to quench the fire of Gods anger that is kindled in thy soul and to wash away all that filthiness which makes him angry See that thou be in love in charity with all men that there be no hatred nor enmity no wrath nor displeasure against any of thy Brethren See that there be such affections in thy heart as befit that duty which thou thinkest to perform ex gr Ask thy soul why did thy Saviour bleed was he a Malefactor or were thy sins the Traytors which delivered him to these horrid torments What hatred then dost thou find against them how canst thou find in thy heart to use them Ask again Was thy Saviour overcome by death or did he overcome it O think what triumph it should raise in thy soul if thou dost consent unto him and what joy it should create in thy heart that he hath destroyed sin death and the grave and opened the gates of life Ask it once more What are those glorious things that he hath purchased by his Bloud And what love dost thou feel in thy self towards him What sympathy hast thou with his dear affection and what canst thou find in thy heart to do for the Holy Jesus Fifthly And then after all this let all the actions of thy life be brought again before the same Tribunal and arraign thy self for all the villanies thou hast committed against thy Lord for all the breaches of thy faith and sacred Oath unto him Yea if there be but a little passion a rash word a vain thought whereby thou hast given him the least prick of a wound find them out as near as thou canst and let them be brought forth to be slain before him Then lastly Dive most seriously into the bottome of thy heart and fetch up all the resolutions that thou thinkest lye there set them in the very face of thy Lord and ask thy heart before him and bid it say true as it will answer it at the day of Judgement What are thy purposes for the future for what ends wouldst thou approach to the Lords Table Yea go so far as to examine thy self about thy intention in such things as thou thought'st formerly could never be done or never avoided from being done Ask thy heart about the faults of thy nature of thy temper and those which through humane weakness will occurre about thy foolish thoughts thy little passions which none discern to swell but thy self c. Art thou resolved to be more watchfull against these to use more industry to suppress them to redeem thy time to avoid all occasions of evil to guard thy self more strongly where the temptation used to come Resolve thy self and be satisfied about all these particulars and so accordingly proceed forward when thou knowest thy self and thy heart hath told the truth concerning thine estate For examination is not commanded for it self but in order to something else that is to follow after this search 3. Therefore thirdly Let every man approve himself in these particulars and judge that he is a person that means really to live godlily to forsake all other Masters and cleave to Jesus only having an understanding of the conditions of his Service Let thy soul give thee a good Answer upon the foregoing examination and then I have little more to say But be sure of this That thy judgement of thy self i. e. of thy Understanding Will Affections c. be impartial and unbiassed and do not incline to any favourable construction of thy self but let the Word of God be thy Rule and thy spiritual Pastor be thy Guide if thou doubtest that thou flatterest thy self But fourthly If thou hast lately committed some great and scandalous offence before thy heart began to be thus pricked and stimulated to ransack it self make some trial of thy self before thou comest to the Lords Table Two sorts of Converts there are Some have not behaved themselves towards God as they ought but lived carelesly without the exercise of Piety and Devotion to him yet have not committed any gross sin which might cast a blot upon the Sacredness of this Feast if they should presently come to it nor offend the flock of Christ who have Communion with them If they be touched with a sense of their private neglect if their sins against God be a burden to them though men know them not if they heartily abhor them and betake themselves to the work of godliness with all their might and do firmly determine with themselves that they will hereafter be more carefull and diligent in their duty and desire to come to the Sacrament that they may be more strongly engaged and tyed to
of a thousand Masters which will teach us all decent carriage and beseeming expressions to the person whom we love You need not tell one that is in Love what he shall say or how he shall make his Addresses c. but Love it self is his Tutor which is full of wit and invention which forms it self into apt expressions and puts on becomeing gestures and turns it self into all arts of insinuation I have read in an Anonymous Author That he knew some Religious persons who all the while they were at this feast did nothing else but only cry with heart and tongue I love thee O my Jesus truly I love thee O my Jesus reiterating this above an hundred times and professing that they found a singular comfort and consolation in these throbs and beatings of love in their heart unto him It seems their love taught them that their Lord would be best pleased if they threw themselves into his arms as it were and told him that they were so full of love that they could not hold and yet were so inebriated that they could not tell what to say but only that they loved him But he saith he knew others that would say nothing but endeavoured to keep their soul from all thoughts whatsoever that they might hear the voice of Christ within them when all their affections were husht and still It should seem that their Love taught them that it would be best to be so modest as to let their Lord speak first or rather speak all and they sit and hearken to his sweet voice within them alluring them to himself Thus Love guides every man according to the temper and complexion of his soul to make his Addresses in that manner which will be most pleasing to his Saviour and breed most contentment to himself But this very love that is thus quick and sharp and knows how to tell its mind and obtain its end is of that nature that it will enquire of others if they can afford it any assistance that may polish and refine it to a higher degree of purity And as you have seen in the former discourse That holiness consists of several actions of our life very different and various so it is here to be considered that love delights to break forth in several acts and the soul finds vent for it self in divers manners according as the objects presented do open a passage and make their way into our heart Now it will be but fit that when we come to remember the great love of our Lord we should let the expressions of our love be as various as we can and suffer our souls to burst out as many wayes as there are occasions offered When there is an holy fervour inkindled in them let them exhale in sundry thoughts and divers breathings of a devout affection that they may send up a perfume of many spices unto Heaven Only if we feel our hearts exhale and evaporate in one thought or desire more than another with such a freedome and pleasure as though they had a mind to spend themselves in that alone let us not stop the passage of those sweet odours nor quench that ardency of our spirits by turning them to any other thing But rather let us help it forward till we find it grow weak and languishing and then it will be most profitable and pleasant also to open some other port at which the soul may sally forth upon a new object and be encountred with fresh delights And truly considering that I have already led you by the hand as far as the Table of the Lord methinks I might leave you there to your own Meditations upon that matter which I have prepared to your thoughts Those minds that are impregnated with good motions should be all ready methinks to teem forth themselves into most proper Meditations at the sight of their dearest Lord without any further directions But yet I consider again that the strongest Army for want of Order and good Discipline may do but little service and that a throng of thoughts if they be not well ranged and disposed may thrust themselves forward to the disturbance and hindrance of each other And therefore I shall endeavour to set those thoughts which I conceive will be in all good minds in their right place that they may issue forth and second each other to our greatest advantage and the doing of us most acceptable service CHAP. XIV IT will be well becoming Christian Piety to welcome the day that brings our Saviour so near unto us with acts of joy and thanksgiving for the approach of so great a blessing And since one night may breed too great a damp and chilness upon our spirits it will be very wholesome to renew those thoughts and affections that we left there when we went to bed and so go to the House of God in a sense of our unworthiness to entertain so glorious a Person and in a sense of sinne which is the cause of that unworthiness together with a joy in our souls and praises upon our tongues that he will forgive them humbly desiring of the Lord that he will accept of us for his habitation and that he will come and enlarge our souls by a holy love to him and longing after him that there may be room for his Sacred Majesty and a place clean and dressed for to receive him And then when the time comes that this holy service begins we must put on such affections as are most agreeable to the several parts of the action As first We must solemnly and devoutly joyn with the Minister in those Confessions Prayers and Thanksgivings which he thinks fit to use And Secondly When he invites us in Christs Name to come and receive him let us adore the goodness of God that will call us to his own Table and let us compose our selves to a thankfull reverence that we may receive this Heavenly Food And Thirdly We ought diligently to attend unto those Exhortations and Perswasions which he shall use and to endeavour that our hearts may be affected with them But these are such things as you can easily instruct your selves about and therefore I will apply my Discourse to more particular considerations I. When you see the Minister stand at the Table of the Lord to consecrate the Bread and Wine by Prayer and the words of Christs Institution then send up an act of wonder and admiration that the Son of God should become the food of souls by dying for us Then these words so anciently used Sursam Corda Lift up your hearts should sound in all our ears and our souls should spread their wings that by the divine inspirations they may be mounted unto Heaven in adoring thoughts Nothing more becomes this Sacred Mystery than such a dumb admiration and the love of our Lord is not better praised by any thing than loquacissimo illo silentio as Erasmus his phrase is by that most talkative silence When the apprehensions
under the load of sin when he beheld Christ groaning upon the Cross for it whose heart could remain unbroken when he saw his body broken for us who could withhold his eyes from tears when he saw the Wounds of Christ weeping blood for us Behold O Lord would such a mans soul answer unto him I am sorry that my sins have liv'd so long It was sore against my will that there should be any of them now to kill fain would I have had their lives but they are hitherto overstrong for me O do thou strike my soul through with a sense of thy sufferings and they will not be able to endure thy hand Do thou transfix me first with a sense of my baseness and then with a sense of thy love and sure they cannot but die when they feel thy pains I am resolved not to carry away one of them alive If they had a thousand lives they should lose them all that my soul may live to thee How it would delight our Lord to hear such language in mens hearts it is not for me to express nor can you imagine how you should please him better and draw him more powerfully into your armes then by such discourse within your selves Nor can you ever think to get the victory over your sins and bring them under your hatred and displeasure if such a sight as Christ crucified before your eyes be not able to effect it Never will they be killed if they can outlive the sight of a bleeding Saviour Never shall we get them under our power if they can escape with their lives when we remember so solemnly his accursed death III. When we see him that ministers come to give the bread unto us let us employ our selves in these three Acts of Devotion First It will well become a soul to sink into a very deep humility and to abase it self in the sense of its own unworthiness When thou seest that Christ is coming as it were towards thy house Run forth to meet him at the door before he come in and entertain him with an act of reverence worship and humble obeysance to him Say Lord I am not worthy that thou should'st come under my Roof I deserve not the crumbs that fall from thy Table Say as Ruth to Boaz Ruth 2.10 after she had bowed her self to the ground Why have I found grace in thine eyes that thou shouldst take knowledg of me seeing I am a stranger How comes it that my Lord should cast his eye upon me What am I that he should visit me and come to marry himself unto me And when thou hast depressed thy self a while at his feet Then Secondly Rise a little up again and mix some Acts of love with this humility Think of the infinite love of God that would give his own Son think of the infinite love of Christ that would so graciously come to save us and would leave us these remembrances and tokens of his love Wish that thou hadst a thousand hearts to correspond with so great a love Say within thy self Oh Lord What am I that thou shouldest command me for to love thee What compare between me and thee that thou shouldest so much desire to make me a visit and give to me an embracement Whence comes it that thou who art in Heaven among them who know so well how to love and serve thee wilt vouchsafe to descend to me who know little else but how to offend thee Is it possible O Lord that thou canst not content thy self to be without me Did thy meer love draw thee down from Heaven for my sake Dost thou still give thy self unto me as if thou couldst never be mine enough Who can abide the heat of this love Who can feel thy heart and not be burnt up There is none can dwell in such flames without being consumed No soul that can abide in the body if a great sense of this love do long abide We must therefore entreat our gracious Lord that he would stay for the full measure of our love till he hath made us able to do nothing else but love him And thirdly Let us turn our Love into desire Let us beseech him to fill us with his holy Spirit and to dwell in us by all his divine graces Say Lord since thou art pleased to come and offer thy self unto me My soul thirsteth for thee even as the thirsty Land I humbly stretch out my hands unto thee Psal 143.6 I open my mouth wide that thou mayest fill me O satisfie my soul with thy likeness O let me taste that the Lord is gracious And you may be assured that the Lord loves a soul that lies in such a posture ready to receive him that gasps and longs after him and saith in its heart Whom have I in Heaven but thee Psal 73.25 and there is none on earth besides thee Stir up thy appetite therefore and come to him as a chased Hart to the streams of water as an hungry man unto a Feast as a Bride unto her Wedding a thousand times desired Labour to feel something like to those longings that so thou mayst taste and savour his love the more and it may leave a sweeter gust and relish upon thy soul and thy mouth may praise him afterward with joyfull lips IV. When we take the Bread into our hands it is seasonable time to do that Act which I told you was one end of this Sacrament viz. Commemorate and shew forth or declare the Death of Christ unto God the Father Let us represent before him the sacrifice of atonement that Christ hath made let us commemorate the pains which he indured let us intreat him that we may enjoy all the purchase of his Blood that all people may reap the fruit of his Passion and that for the sake of his bloudy sacrifice he will turn away all his anger and displeasure and be reconciled unto us Themistocles they say not knowing how to mitigate and atone the wrath of King Admetus and avert his fury from him snatcht up the Kings Son and held him up in his armes between himself and death and so prevailed for a pardon and quenched the fire that was breaking out against him And this the Molossians of whom he was King held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Themist the most effectual way of supplication and which of all others could not be resisted or denied Of far greater prevalency is this Act the holding up as it were the Son of God in our hands and representing to the Father the broken body and the Bloud of his onely begotten Let us set this between the heat of Gods anger and our souls let us desire he would have regard to his dearly beloved and the Lord cannot turn back our Prayers that press and importune him with such a mighty argument Say therefore to him Behold O Lord the sacrifice of the everlasting Covenant behold we lay before thee the Lamb
the fruits of his Sons death and the earnests we have of the eternal inheritance We should begin to praise him with the Heavenly host and to joyn our hearts and voices with the celestial Quire we should wish that we could make all the world ring with his praises and that we could make all men hear from the East to the West the sound of our thanksgivings We should sing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all the Churches of Christ throughout all ages have sung saying Holy Holy Holy See the Learned Mr. Thorndike in his Relig. Assemb Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory And so we read that as soon as our Saviour had spoken those words that he would not any more drink with them till the Kingdom of his Father should come they sung an Hymne or Psalm of praise and so went forth And indeed who can sufficiently praise his divine Majesty The tongues of Angels stammer in uttering of his goodness and we become dumb the more we endeavour to speak of it The highest of our praises is humbly and affectionately to acknowledge that we cannot sufficiently praise him the greatest of our endeavours is daily to admire him the furthest we can strain our souls is to long for eternity wherein it may be our imployment to admire and praise him Call upon the Armies of Angels and wish them to praise him seeing thou canst not call upon all men and bid them praise him wish thou couldst awake all the world that all Creatures might praise him and make thine own soul hear more plainly call upon it more shrilly call upon it again and again call upon it every day to praise him Say as the Psalmist doth Psal 103. Bless the Lord ye his Angels which excell in strength that do his Commandements hearkning to the voice of his words Bless the Lord all ye hosts ye Ministers of his that do his pleasure Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion Bless the Lord O my soul Mensa Mystica The Postcaenium or of our Deportment afterward CHAP. XV. ANd now that we have had a sight of them let us remember his love more than Wine Let his name be engraven upon our hearts and his Image remain fair and lively upon our souls Let us find a kind of unwillingness to admit of any other company and say in the secrets of our mind None but Christ none but Christ Yea when we do return to converse again with other things let us still be looking back towards him as one that hath got our hearts and say Lord evermore give us this Bread Let us labour that other objects may not come near our hearts nor make any strong impressions upon us but that they may be sealed up by him and so filled with him that all things else may look upon themselves as having nothing to do there Eusebius Pamphilus hath a pretty Observation on Cant. 5.12 where the eyes of the beloved are compared to the eyes of Doves by the Rivers of water washed with Milk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Milk saith he of all other moist things hath this singular property that it will not admit of the image or picture of any thing to be reflected in it and therefore it is a fit resemblance of his eyes in which nothing vain insubsistent deceiving doth cast its shadow but they do alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behold the being that truly is Our souls should labour to imitate him as much as they can and to endeavour at least that the world may not deceive and cheat us with its shadowes and pictures of things but we may see through them all to that being which is true and substantial and on that our eyes may be fixed as our only good and happiness The Lord expects now that we should proceed to a greater strength by the higher food that he vouchsafes unto us that our knowledge should be more bright that our love should be more inflamed that by our actions we should shine like lights in the world holding forth the word of life Many of the Ancients upon those words V. Comment trium Patrum Cant. 6.10 do note that there are four degrees of Christians Some are but newly converted and they do but look forth as the morning with weak and trembling thoughts being as it were in the twilight and not far enlightned A second sort have made some progress and are fair as the Moon they are much enlightned but have abundance of spots still in them and some discernable darkness still remaining A third sort are clear as the Sun very full of light very pure unblameable and bright in their conversations The world can take notice of no common failings yet sometime there may be a partial eclipse and if they mark themselves they will observe many weaknesses as the modern Astronomers that have pried more narrowly have discerned spots in the body of the Sun A fourth sort are they that are become such strong Christians that they are as terrible as an Army with Banners and all their enemies flie before them Few temptations are able to worst them but they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the appearance of an Agnelical Host that are so strong in the Lord and in the power of his might that they overcome the world and tread Satan under their feet Now in which soever lower form and rank we be of these we should strive to advance to that which is higher and seeing we have more than Angels food we should labour to do the will of God on earth as they do in Heaven We should put on all the Armour of God and gird it closer to our loins and shew greater valour to the perfecting the conquests we have begun We should labour to be so full of Christ that the Devil may be afraid of us and run away when he sees us grown so stedfast in the faith For we must not judge of the state of our souls by our fervency in this duty but by the holiness of our lives which is the fruit and effect of it Unless our lives be better than they were before we our selves are not made better We are but like some of the Sect of Pythagoras who held that a man took a new soul when to receive Oracles he approached to the images of their Gods but it was such a new one as was lent him but for a time and then he returned to the same man he was before Such a new soul men seem to have some time when they come to the solemn duties of their Religion they are inspired with strange and unusuall affections and moved beyond themselves But it is a soul that lives but for a day and then they fall to their old dulness and as for their own soul it gives no sign of its amendment and further renewal after the Image of God It is fit therefore that I should next of all
consider what is fit to be done for the keeping alive and feeding these flames of love when they are kindled in our souls And that shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVI FIrst I conceive it will be a fit expression of our love afterward to invite the poor the next meal unto our Table or to send some portion of our good things unto them When God hath feasted us at his House it is agreeable that we should feast others at ours or relieve them more plentifully than at other times The Jews used to send portions one to another and gifts to the poor upon a good day as they call it i. e. at a festival or time of rejoycing as you may see Esth 9.22 The Portions I suppose were part of the sacrifice of Peace-offerings which they had offered and which they sent unto friends that were absent and could not be with them and gifts to the poor likewise accompanied them that they might rejoyce in God also And so you read that the first Christians Act. 2.46 47. after they had broken bread did eat their meat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr. Ham. in singleness i. e. liberality and openness of heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having favour c. i. e. doing acts of charity as an excellent Critick notes unto all the people It may be said that we make an offering at the Sacrament and so need not now renew our charity But those that think so forget that I am perswading to keep the heart from cooling by laying on new fewel And therefore as we praise God again in our private houses so it will well become us and will much assure our good disposition to us if we again express our bounty as we are able unto others For our charity is to be a running stream through our whole lives and therefore this advice is good to keep the passage open that it may not be suddenly stopped now that it hath newly found a vent for it self The Apostle bids the Christian Jews to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. 13.15 whereby in all likelihood he understands their offering of Almes instead of the fruits of their herds and flocks joyned with praises and thanksgivings to God at the Eucharist Which offerings he calls the fruits of their lips because they were such as they had vowed and consecrated to God in token of their gratitude And this place of the Apostle seems exactly answerable to that of the Psalmist 50.14 Offer unto God Thanksgiving and pay thy vowes to the Most High But then after he had given them this exhortation to perform these two duties of Thanksgiving and Almes-doing at the Sacrament he adds v. 16. But to do good and communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased i. e. Do not think it sufficient to have payed your vowes at that solemn meeting of Christians but over and above that you must be carefull to exercise continuall Charity and not to omit any season or occasion of doing others good and this is a kind of daily sacrifice wherewith God is much delighted As the Jewes had their continuall Burnt-offerings beside those extraordinary Peace-offerings when they gave thanks for some great mercy so Christians besides these offerings at the Table of the Lord must be mindfull daily to be beneficiall unto others according as they have objects presented unto them And that they may not forget it will be wisdome to keep themselves in doing and presently after this Divine Food to think of feeding others that stand in need II. Secondly Let us not presently return to our worldly Employments if it be not upon the Lords day that we receive but let us spend the after-part of the day in entertaining our Lord with acts of Love and Delight with Thanks and Praise unto him for his favours Let us admire his Perfections and Graces let us talk with him about the Affairs of our Souls let us open to him every room in the House and lead him into the most private closet of our hearts shew him all our fecrets acquaint him with all our wants and weaknesses spread before him all our desires and earnestly entreat him to stay and dwell with us Let us tell him again That all we have is his let us tye a new knot upon the band of the Covenant that is between us let us be afraid lest by going presently into the world it should be loosed and dissolved It is not fit you know that a Bride on the day she is married should go from the company of the Bridegroom to follow Houshold-business or associate her self with other persons but she delights only in the presence of her new Love Even so unseemly it is to leave the company of our Lord as soon as we have let him into our hearts and to divert to other occasions when we have newly given him our Faith and taken him as the Bridegroom of our souls We should pass that day at least in heavenly discourses with him in expressions of our love and affection toward him in acts of desire after inseparable union with him and in promises and vows that we will alwayes be faithfull and loyal unto him that so the remaining part of the day may be as a Postcaenium an lafter-Supper and second Communion like the Feast of Charity which succeeded I told you in ancient time the holy Sacrament And indeed it is not only unbecoming us but likewise very dangerous and prejudicial to our health when we are thus warm to step instantly into the cold and chilling affairs of this world Motibus oppositis nihil permitiosius is a rule among Physicians there is nothing more hurtfull to us than motions quite opposite immediately succeeding each to other and therefore as it is pernicious after exercise to go and wash in cold water so it must needs be extreamly noxious to sink our selves into Earthly Employments just after our souls have been above in the exercise of love to God It argues likewise a soul but little affected that can presently relish Worldly things after it hath had any tasts of Gods sweetness It seems to me that such a man is like to Ganymede the Shepherds Boy in Lucian who though he was beloved of Jupiter and carried up to Heaven yet could not forget the things that he had left behind but asks What now will become of my Fathers Sheep Alas whither will they wander now that I am taken from them How will my business thrive if I spend so much time in Meditation and Prayer saith a silly soul How shall I be cast behind in my work while I am thus employed But as the Dialogist handsomely brings in Jupiter giving him a check so may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. dost thou yet think of thy sheep now that thou art made immortal Doth thy mind run upon thy shop now that thou
Tatius mentions that appeared to the sight as if they were on a flame and the fire leaped out of them continually but if you came to touch them they were as cold as any Snow And neither the fire saith he was quenched by the water nor the water heated by the fire but in that Fountain you might behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an amity and reconciliation of fire and water together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just so it is with many professing people they have a seeming zeal and a flagrant devotion they have warm expressions in their mouthes and pray earnestly but if you come near to them and handle them if you grow acquainted with their converse the world lyes cold at their hearts and there is no life of God in them but they have made a syncretism between life and death a league between the god of this world and the God of Heaven The same Author tells of a River in Spain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lb. into whose whirlpits if the wind insinuate it self it strikes upon the folds of the water and plays with them as we do upon the strings of a Cittern so that a Passenger would imagine that he was entertained by some Musicians Which may aptly resemble many men in the world who when the Spirit of God breathes at some solemn time upon them or when they hear the voice of God and look a little into themselves do seem to be delightfully moved and to make a pleasant noise as though they were tuned to the praises of God but follow them home and let that sweet breath be over and you shall see they are as greedy of the world as a deep pit and their thoughts roll and turn about that they may draw all that comes near them into themselves VI. And therefore sixthly Let us labour to impress and retain an Image of Christ upon our souls whom we have seen crucified before our eyes Let us represent unto our selves what a Person Christ was and what his manner of behaviour was in the world and then let us labour to carry him before our mind and have him in our eyes that so by looking on him we may shape all our affections and all our actions after that rare pattern that he hath set us Let us endeavour to think every where that we see him hanging upon the Cross and behold him bleeding for our sins or declaring to us his mind or doing something that the Gospel speaks of so that we may lead a mortified life and be in every thing fashioned after his likeness And this we must do the rather because as I have said he is now more nearly united unto us so that when we are to do any thing we must act like him we must consider how he did or what he would do in such a case and we must so behave our selves that in a very proper sense Christ may be said to live and not we Gal. 2.20 We must do our endeavour that he may eat and drink and buy and sell c. i. e. all these things may be done as we think that Christ would do them were he in the flesh who is one with us We must become so many little Images of him in the world that they who see us may behold him And that is the meaning I suppose of another phrase of the Apostle when he bids us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 13.14 i. e. to be so transformed into him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumen that both in our outward garb and deportment and also in our inward features we may be a lively resemblance of him Now the same Apostle tells us That as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3.27 and therefore much more they who have eaten of his Body and drunk of his Blood are supposed to have put him on and to have dressed their souls compleatly after his holy Image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. They must labour to be all over godly and to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his phrase is an universal vertue that they may be holy as he is holy And for our better direction 1. Let us labour to do something worthy of the expence of Christs Bloud and to think what manner of persons they ought to be for whom the Lord of life died and who are washed in no other laver but the Bloud of the Lamb. 2. Something answerable to the dearest love of the great God of Heaven and Earth and to consider after what sort they ought to live to whom God hath given so rich a gift whom he hath honoured not only to be his Sons but to have his dearest Son for their servant 3. Something that may correspond with so many and so great means of salvation And in particular we should think what is expected from those who have now received a greater strength from Heaven Strong food must not be given to those that intend to lead a sedentary life and have not much work to do A plentifull nourishment overthrows their health instead of yielding supports unto their spirits It is the greatest folly to come for this divine nutriment if we intend to sit still or to go but a slow pace in Religion as if we were newly come out of the sickness and disease of sin and could scarce stand in the wayes of God They ought to exercise themselves in all godliness to be active and full of motion who feed so abundantly They ought to be very good Children who are fed with such food for whom God furnished such a Table with so great a cost 4. We must labour to do something that is worthy of a soul and body consigned to immortal blessedness How holy should they be who expect such great things who have received such pledges of them who wait for the Lord from Heaven to change these vile bodies into his likeness O do not unhallow and desecrate that thing which is at present the Temple of the Lord and which is sanctified for the eternal mansions Prophane not that body and soul which shall for ever live with God are already become his habitation through his holy spirit dwelling in them Now consider I beseech you do you think that he leads a life worthy of any of these who delights not to converse with God who prays never or but very seldome exceeding briefly and as if he were frozen who hears Sermons and understands them not or else forgets them as soon as they are heard who grows no wiser nor better than he was many years agone whose time runs away in eating and drinking sleeping and playing working and toyling as if these were the things we exhorted them unto who rarely takes the Bible or a good Book into his hands and when he doth throws it away again at the call of any pleasure or worldly gain who loves no body but himself and is
of the divine Commandments which was among the Primitive Saints their despising of all worldly things their great charity and love may be thought to have flowed in great part from this spring that they received so frequently the Body and Blood of our Lord. Hence we may derive their strength activeness and zeal because they were so often refreshed with this Wine This gave them boldness against their adversaries this made them run so forwardly into flames because they were constantly heated with divine fires From this Table they went away with the courage of Lions and were terrible even to that great roaring Lion which devours so many careless souls He could not make such an easie prey of them as he doth of us because they did daily renew their strength by this food and became as bold as a Lion after he hath eaten flesh and drunken blood And if we did more frequently Communicate it would be a means to bring us to a greater resemblance of our Lord which was the thing that I last pressed who you know overcame the evil one and trod him under his feet As the Leverets saith the forementioned Author in the Mountains of Helvetia become all white because they neither see nor eat any thing but driven Snow so by often adorning and eating beauty goodness and purity it self in this divine Sacrament we should become altogether vertuous pure and beautifull And I am of the mind of another excellent Writer Dr. J. Taylor who judges it very probable That the Warres of Kingdomes the contentions in Families the infinite multitude of Law suits the personal hatreds and the universal want of charity which hath made the world so miserable and wicked may in a great degree be attributed to the neglect of this great Symbole and instrument of charity And that is the last thing that I shall commend unto you VIII Eighthly Let us be sure to live in charity with our Brethren to which we are in a special manner engaged by this Sacrament and of which we make a most solemn profession Let us behave our selves as Servants in the same family as sons of the same father as those who have eaten of the same bread Let us be very carefull that we do not cover the coals of anger and contention under the ashes for a night and then blow them up again the next morning but let us quite extinguish them and utterly put them out Let not your jealousies your hard thoughts your uncharitable and rash censurings your differences and enmities ever return again but let that sentence run in your minds 1 John 4.11 Beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another If he have given his Son if he still give him to us if we feed and live upon him then let us love as Brethren and not fall out in our way to Heaven And if we find our love to grow sick and weak and to be fallen to decay then let us come hither on purpose for to revive it and raise it up again If the Lamp begin to burn dim and to cast a very weak light let us pour in more Oyl that it may not go out If our love begin to be chill and cold let us put this fire the oftner under it that it may be kept in a flame For assure your selves that they who take up their differences and enmities again did never truly lay them aside they did but mock God when they came to this holy Communion with a pretence of Love and Charity their hearts not being throughly resolved to forget all in juries and offences Or if they did seriously labour to put to death all hatreds one great reason why they are not throughly mortified is because they use so rarely this powerfull means of suppressing them and keeping them in their graves Men do one with another Plutarch alij as the Thespienses with married persons who once in five years space kept a Feast called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Cupids honour for the reconciling of all differences that had happened between Man and Wife Such a small Festivity do men make of this Sacrament of the Lords Supper to which they come perhaps with an intention to bury all differences but then they give them a whole twelve moneths time if not more to revive and gather strength again Hence it is that the temper of the Christian World is as much different from the Spirit of the elder times as heat is from cold or life from death They held such frequent Communions that their love was so flagrant as to make them dye for one another and we hold them so seldome that the heat of our unmortified passions makes us wound and kill each other So that I make account there is but a little difference between doing this seldome and not doing it at all yea those enmities will be more fierce and untractable which even the Bloud of Jesus hath not quenched To put a conclusion then to this Discourse let me advise you when you come from the Table of the Lord thus to meditate within your selves I have received fresh Pledges of the love of my Lord and I have made new professions of my own What now doth the Lord require of me What have I that I can render back to him Alas I have nothing to give him but only my love nothing but my love did I say Oh how great a thing is love how much is inclosed in the bosome of love It is no such trifle as I imagine Love brought God down to us and love will carry us up to God Love made God like to man and love will make men like to God Love made him dye for us and love will make us lay down our lives for the Brethren O the power of Heavenly Love How shall I get thee planted in my heart Who can bring thee into my soul but only love Love begets love and the frequent Meditation of this love of God and of his Son will inflame thy heart in love to them Oh let a sense of this love lye perpetually in my breast that may change me into love Let me burn and languish in the Armes of Jesus Let me long for nothing but him let him be all my talk all my joy the Crown of my delight Let me never forget how gracious he is let the taste of his incomparable sweetness be never out of my mouth let me never rellish any thing but what hath some savour of him O my foul what should we wish for but to feast again with him What should we desire but to be satisfied with him Psal 27.4 This one thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the House of my Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple What friend is there to whom we have been endeared that we can forget Do we use to throw the
tokens of love whereby he would be remembred into a forsaken hole where they shall never be seen But how strangely are we affected to the Reliques that a dying friend commends unto us And how much more should we be moved if a friend should dye for us and should leave us a remembrance that he saved us from death Could we ever let him go out of our minds Should we not be in danger to think upon him over-much Could we endure that the remembrance he left us should be long out of our eye O my soul let us not deal then more unkindly with our blessed Saviour who humbled himself to the death even the death of the Cross that we might not eternally dye Who was made sinne for us that we might be made the righteousness of God through him Sure he never thought when he went to Heaven that we would remember his love so seldome and so coldly Did he think that those whom he loves so much would need so much entreaty to have Communion with him Is it not a grief unto him now if he be capable of any to see that he hath so few Lovers Doth it not trouble him that they who profess love to him testifie it so poorly and rarely Nay rather O my soul he is troubled that we love our selves no better and therefore both for the love of him and the love of our selves let us carefully observe his commands of which this is one Do this in remembrance of me For this is the love of God that we keep his Commandements And this Commandement we have from him that he who loveth God love his Brother also Mensa Mystica SECT IV. The Benefits of Holy Communion CHAP. XVII SUch is the nature of all bodies that the nearer they approach to their proper place and Center the more they accelerate their motion and with the greater speed they run as if they desired to be at their beloved rest from whence they are loath to be removed And such is the temper of all holy hearts when they run towards God the most natural place of their rest the very Center of their quiet and peace the nearer they come to him the faster they move they rather flye than run and use their Wings rather than their feet out of a vehement longing to be embraced by him We cannot but think then that they who draw nigh to God in this near way of Communion and are entertained by him at his own Table do flye up even unto Heaven and get into his very bosome as those that suffer more strong and powerful attractions from his mighty Goodness And there my Discourse may well leave them reposing themselves in his Arms and taking their rest in his love from whence they will not easily endure a divulsion by the force of any other thing But as a stone is unwilling to stir from the rest that it enjoyes in the bosome of the earth so hard will it be to draw such souls by the love of other things from their own Center where they feel so much quiet and tranquillity Such persons I might well leave to tell themselves and others if they can what joy they find in God what sweetness grows on this Tree of Life and what pleasures he hath welcomed them withall at this holy Feast Have you seen the Sun and the Moon in their full stand one against the other Have you beheld a River running with a mighty stream into the Ocean Or can you think that you see the fire falling from Heaven as it did in Elias his time to consume a sacrifice These are but little resemblances of that light wherewith their souls are filled when they look upon him of that fulness of joy wherein they are absorpt when their affections run to him of the testimonies that he gives of his acceptance when they offer themselves to his service And they themselves as I said can best tell into what a Paradise of pleasure he leads them when he comes into his Garden and beholds there all pleasant fruits But yet for the sake of those who are strangers to the Divine Life and are loath to leave their sinnes though it be to have Communion with God I shall labour briefly to declare the benefits of this holy Sacrament that so I may invite them for to lay aside their sinnes and exchange them for better pleasures And I hope I may provoke some to hunger after the House of God and especially after his Table where he seeds the hungry with rare delights where he cures the wounded comforts the weak enlightens the blind revives the dead pardons the sinner and strengthens him against his sinne Where he dignifies our souls and deifies as it were all our faculties where he unites us to himself and joyns us in friendship with our Brethren where he sprinkles our hearts with his Bloud replenisheth them with his Grace refresheth them with his Love encourageth them in his wayes inebriates them with his sweetness and gives them to drink of the Wine of the Kingdome and sowes in them the seed of immortality One would think there should not be a man of ordinary discretion that would refuse to be amended and so much bettered in his condition by conversing with God For you see men tip up the bowels of the earth and torment her to make her confess her Treasures they digg even into the heart of craggy Rocks and take incredible pains for Silver and Gold they will break their sweetest sleep to accomplish an ambitious desire they will spend their Patrimony their Credit their Bodies and their very Souls for a drop of drunken pleasure or carnal delight What is the matter then that men cannot be content to spend a few earnest thoughts to use a little serious diligence for the purchase of the riches of Heaven and Earth for the promises of this life and that which is to come for the glory of God for a Dignity not inferior to Angels for a Sea of delights and pleasures that ravish the heart of God Poor souls they are ignorant sure of the happiness that our Lord calls them unto they imagine there is nothing better than to eat and drink and satiate the body with that which tickleth its senses they are sunk into a sad puddle of filthy imaginations let us see if we can lift up their heads let us try to open their eyes let us endeavour to perswade that there are diviner delights that there is a bread infinitely more delicious and a Cup flowing with far more sweetness than that which the World bewitches and inchants her followers withall Psal 34.8 O come taste and see that the Lord is good as the Psalmist speaks Blessed is the man whom he chuseth Psal 65.4 and causeth to approach unto him that he may dwell in his Courts He shall be satisfied with the goodness of his House even of his holy Temple Many rare things there are which the Gospel presents us withall
full Atonement being made because it is onely bread and onely Wine These things then having such a special reference to Christs Death the worthy receiving of them must needs be of great force 1. As an Antidote to take away the poyson and killing-power of sin The Blood of Christ doth wash away our guilt and takes off all obligation unto punishment and the consideration that Christ hath died for us expels the poyson from the heart which would make us faint and die It heals the wounds that sin hath made and takes away the anger of the sore it asswages the rage and heat of that sting which the fiery Serpent had sent unto us and suffers not the venome to undo us The pardon indeed is granted to us by vertue of the Covenant of grace when we unfeignedly repent and believe i. e. when we are converted unto God but now likewise it is further sealed to such persons That which was confirmed before by the Blood of Christ is now in a sensible manner applied to us and ratified by the representations of that Blood In the use of these things likewise we receive an increase of Piety and get more full victories over our sins and thereby feel more the virtue of the Antidote and have a sense of our pardon made as lively as if there was a new act of grace passed to settle it more surely upon us 2. It is of a Cathartical virtue also and hath in it a force to purge and cleanse our souls from their impurities As it takes away the killing-power of sin against us so it kills sin in us By our abiding in the Wounds of Christ sin is wounded and slain If any of you saith St. Bernard do not feel so frequently the sharp motions of anger envy or luxury c Gratias agat corpori saâ—guini Domini c. Let him give thanks to the body and blood of our Lord and let him praise the power of this Sacrament The blood of Christ quenches the fire of anger the heart-burnings of malice and envy the feavourish heats of lust the raging thirst after sensual pleasures Consider what thou art Dost thou delight in drink Here is a draught to quench thy thirst Art thou a glutton Here is a morfel that will make thee say Lord evermore give us this Bread Art thou worldly-minded Here is Christ dying to the world and leaving the world who will carry thee away with him in his armes Art thou fearfull to suffer any thing for Christ Drink the Cup of the blood of Christ that thou mayst be able to shed thy own bloud for Christ Calicem sanguinis Christi bibas ut possis propter Christum sanguinem sundere Cypt. Give saith Cyprian the Cup of Christ to those who are to drink of the Cup of Martyrdome Art thou affraid of the power of the Devil Christ O man comes here to take possession of thee And as he upon the Cross spoiled principalities and powers triumphing over them so mayst thou do also in this Sacrament of the Cross Art thou affraid of growing cold and dead in good duties Thou drinkest of Jesus that is full of spirit and will warm and enliven thy heart Whatsoever sin thou hast unmortified bring it hither and nail it unto the Cross of Christ till it be stark dead And unto whatsoever good thou wouldst be animated shew thy Lord thy desire to it and shew him his bloud to move him to bestow it Onely remember that it works not as Physick doth in a natural but in a spiritual manner It works as a Sacrament and requires thy inward rational and spiritual operations and then thou wilt find the profit of it to be greater then all that I have said Some of the old Heathen represented plenty and worldly happiness by a man with bread in one hand and a Cup in the other and a Crown of Poppy about his head which signified sleep and emptiness of care and trouble in the midst of abundance That man thou maist be for by this bread and Wine is exhibited to thee all plenty of grace and blessing of peace and comfort Thou maist lay down thy self in peace and sleep quietly not in the lap of the world and carnal security but in the bosome of our Lord folacing thy self in his love and saying Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their Corn and Wine encreased Psal 4.7 Let me say therefore to every holy and well-disposed Soul in the words of St. Ambrose Venias venias ad cibum Christi adcibum c. Come come to the food of Christ to the food of the Lords Body to the banquet of the Sacrament to the Cup wherewith the affections of the faithfull are inebriated and made drunken That thou maist put off the cares of the world the snares of the Devil and the fears of Death and that thou maist put on the comforts of God the delights of Peace the joys of Pardon more sweet than all the Pleasures of a Paradise And thou O Lord our God who dost provide food for all Creatures and hast given all Creatures to be food for Man and feedest not onely his body but his soul also and givest him for his soul not onely the holy Word but the blessed Body and Blood of thy Son Do thou cause all our hearts to burn with desires after thee who art so full of love to us Make every Christian soul to rellish and savour the things of God Prepare every one by a full digestion of thy Heavenly Word to receive likewise this divine nourishment of their Souls Stir up all their hunger after this Feast Excite all their longing-appetites after this Heavenly Manna And let this be the voice and hearty language of every one that reads this Book Give us good Lord Give us evermore this food Amen most gracious God for Jesus Christ his sake Amen CHAP. XIX AS the Sun and the showres make those Plants more tall and beautifull which have any living roots in the earth but on the contrary do putrifie and dry up those whose roots are dead So it is with this Sacrament which renders their souls more fair and flourishing who receive it rooted in love but those are more dried and hardned by it and tend more to corruption who have no life at all in them whereby to convert it into their nourishment Or as you see it is in corporal nutriment those meats which give a plentifull increase to sound bodies do more weaken and infeeble those whose stomacks are corrupt and the higher and fuller the nutriment is the more corruption doth it breed in those that are infirm and not apt to receive it So it is in this sacred spiritual repast the greater and more large stock of spirits and strength it is apt to afford to a soul that fits it self to receive it the more distempers and weaknesses doth it leave in the spirit of him that cares not what he does
so he may but have it Let me wish therefore every man to approve himself to be a sincere Christian and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup for as the benefits are great if we use it aright so are the dangers great if we mind not what we do Presume not to draw nigh hither in your dirty garments Let not your souls stand in Gods presence all nasty and filthy Lay not unwashen hands upon his Table and let not your feet tread in his holy place unless they walk in the ways of his Commandments Let not him whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness of blasphemies and revilings of corrupt and rotten Communication dare to put this bread into his mouth Let not him that sits with the drunkard and delights in strong drink be so bold as to take this Cup into his hand Let not the covetous Miser that huggs his Mammon be so fearless as to come to the Feast of charity Let not the heart that is filled with wrath and hatred and uncharitableness presume to sit down at this Feast of love Let not that hand stretch forth it self to receive the Body and Bloud of Christ which is dipt in Blood or defiled with unlawfull gain Let every man that works iniquity and lives in the neglect of any-known duty or is not carefull to know it fear and stand in awe and keep at a distance and instantly flie from his sin which must thus make him avoid the presence of the Lord and the society of the faithfull Yea let not the most holy person dare to draw near to God in this duty till he hath trimmed and dressed up his Soul till he hath snuffed his Lamp and made it burn more clearly till he hath excited those affections in his heart which are most proper to this action till he hath considered what he is about to do and hath put himself in a meet disposition to be so familiar with God For 1. Though he hath some goodness in him that comes unprepared to the Lords Table yet he is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. So the Apostle saith the Corinthians were 1 Cor. 11.27 29. who professed the faith of Christ because cause they did not discern the Lords Body nor minded for what ends they did communicate He offers a great disrespect to the body and bloud of Christ and is guilty of irreverence to it who makes not solemn and serious addresses to him and comes with no mote purity and cleanness into the presence of the King then he would take care of in the presence of an ordinary man He makes as if Christ was his fellow and that a man may come as rudely into his company as if he was coming into his own house and sitting at his own board 2. A good man that eats unpreparedly and without foregoing consideration may eat and drink damnation to himself 1 Cor. 11.29 i. e. he may bring upon himself bodily judgments when he minds not seriously the religious ends of this eating and drinking For so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be understood as it relates to the believing Corinthians as is manifest from v. 30. For this cause many were weak and others sick and others were dead The cause he speaks of was their unworthy eating and drinking i. e. their maintaining pride and contempt of their poor brethren their uncharitableness and want of love even when they were doing this sacred action This caused God to scourge them and inflict some punishments upon their bodies that he might awaken and save their souls Every sin may be the cause of diseases but this in particular is noted as the Author of those diseases that rage amongo Christians Take heed then how thou comest void of humility or brotherly kindness or not attendingl what thou art there to do He that drinks thus unworthily may have a poison run through his veins The Wine may breed the Stone in his kidneys or bladder and the Gout in his joynts An Ague or Feaver may have commission to invade his Bloudd Or if none of these fall upon him it may bring a curfe upon his goods or relations or good name Every time thou receivest and art not a man that examines thy self for any thing thou canst tell thou killests a Child or beast thou blastest thy Corn or callest for Worms and Catterpillars upon thy fruit And if we go on and will not amend in this thing whereas God doth now plague us with many sicknesses he may in a short time send the Pestilence and sweep us away with the besome of destruction he may depopulate our Parishes and leave but a few Concommicants 3. As for a wicked prophane person that approaches hither with some slight intentions to leave his sin in which perhaps he the last week lived He is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord in another sense He is a kind of murtherer of the Lord of life He makes his Wounds bleed afresh and he pierces his sides with a greater cruelty then the Roman Souldier he grieves and wounds him more then the Jems that wrung his bloud out of his sacred Body For he brings that before him which he hates more then he did death more then the Nails and the Cross He pricks him with that which is sorer to him then the Spear which was thrust into his side He knows he should do better when they did they knew not what O how doth it trouble the heart of our Lord to see men lay that in their bosome and cherish its life which was the cause of his death Yea how grievous must it be unto him to see them do this even when they come to commemorate his Death This sin of unworthy receiving doth strike above the rest to his heart seeing all his pains cannot make them leave their sins It is as if a Child should kiss the bloody knife which killed his Father When he comes to make a solemn declamation against the Authors of his Death and pretends to take vengeance upon them as villains for such an unpardonable fact As if a Roman should have run into the enemies Camp having made a large commendation of that act of Decius in dying for his Countrey And there is one sin that seems more manifestly than others to open the closed Wounds of Christ that is hatred and enmity in our hearts which I doubt few of the common fort are free of He that comes with his heart full of passion and anger and rage against his Brother what doth he but rend and tear the body of Christ in pieces He separates and divides as much as he can one part of it from another and in a most formal manner kills him afresh in his members who are called his Body Whosoever hates his brother is a murtherer whosoever divides one man from another he doth what he can to rend the body of Christ and to destroy that which is
himself that is a glutton so it is most certain that he perishes who fasts and never eats at all If it be a duty to do this then there is a punishment annexed to the neglect as well as to the ill-performance of it There is a danger in not coming as well as in coming unworthily God is angry at one sin as well as at another and if he shall be condemned that doth this ignorantly or in love to his sins or in a half hatred of them so shall he be that stays away and will not get knowledge nor leave his sins He that eats irreverently is guilty by prophaning of Christs Body and so is he that eats not at all by despising of it and preferring his lusts before him As the one eats damnation to himself so doth the other by not eating judge himself to be in a damnable condition For if we cannot partake of his Supper here how can we think our selves fit to feast with him hereafter Many think that they are safe if they venture not upon these holy things and it disquiets them to come in their fins but it never troubles them that they stay away and continue in their sins These mens Consciences are but half informed and I seriously wish them not to endure in that condition wherein they judge themselves unmeet society for Christ and the faithfull Remember that you not onely live in sin but add this sin to all the rest that you do not come to remember Christ and shew forth his Death He that breaks one of the least of his Commandments and lives in the known neglect of it shall be called least in the Kingdome of Heaven i. e. shall be deemed not to belong to it Away then with this supine negligence James 4.8 Cleanse your hearts ye sinners and purifie your hearts ye double minded Purge your souls by hearty sorrow by humble confession by great contrition by a professed hatred and detestation of all your sins Col. 3.5 8 12 13. Mortifie your members that are on the earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness Put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy Communication out of your mouth Lye not one unto another But put on as the Elect of God bowels of mercy kindness humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye c. And come hither to strengthen your resolutions and to confirm your purposes Come and renew your vows of holy living and protest in the sight of God and his holy Angels and before his faithfull people that you will be the followers of the Lord Jesus Do not weep and mourn and afflict your Souls for a day do not banish your sins for a little time that you may entertain them afterward with a greater kindness but give them an eternal divorce and bid them never return again Do not go a little back from your sins that you may take your rise and leap into them with a greater violence but fly from them as from the Devil and the mouth of the pit resolving never to cast a friendly look upon them any more And then come to Christ and cause joy in Heaven at the return of a repenting sinner And if thou takest upon thee his yoke why should there not be joy on earth too why shouldst thou not come and praise the Lord for his goodness to thee and make the faithfull rejoyce with thee that they have got more company at this holy Feast But I am very ignorant will some say and I dare not come for fear I understand not these mysteries I answer That it is very well if thou art sensible of thy ignorance for then there is hope thou wilt labour after knowledge And it is not hard to understand the meaning of these things but very easie for our Lord hath made his sufferings sensible to us in these signs that we might more easily remember them and be more quickly moved by them to due affections to him But I am affraid my heart is not right saith another and that I am cheated with the shadows of Faith and Repentance Let that man who speaks thus tell himself what he means by true faith which he would find in himself Is it a perswasion that God loves thee Is it a resting on Christ for salvation A thousand to one this is the mistake which troubles many But that Faith is another thing which the Gospel speaks of which will be soon understood if thou understandest what the Gospel is which thou art to believe The Gospel is to be considered either as a Narrative relation and report of what Christ Jesus was upon earth and of what he hath done and suffered of what he taught and what he now is in the Heavens It is an History of his Life and Death Resurrection and Ascention into Heaven there to sit at Gods right hand and it is a Sermon concerning Christs Doctrines of his commands promises and threatnings Or secondly it is to be considered as it is a call or proclamation an offer or tender of pardon grace and salvation to all that will accept of them on the conditions that they are propounded Now Faith is first an assent of the mind and heart to that report a firm perswasion that all is true that is said in the Gospel and secondly It is a consent to that offer an acceptance of that invitation an embracement of all that is there tendred by yielding up of our selves to obey the Lord Jesus in all things This is receiving of Christ this is believing in the Son of God And there are many acts of faith to be in thy heart before thou canst lay hold of the mercy of God And proportionably to thy sincere and hearty consent to obey him will be thy perswasion of an interest in that mercy If thy confident relying on him for salvation exceed other acts of a lively faith it is to be suspected of too sudden a growth and thou hadst best fear that it starts up too high But consider with thy self doest thou believe the Gospel doth thy heart submit to that way of salvation there proposed art thou devoted to the service of Jesus Then be of good comfort if not confident come and strengthen thy faith that thou maist still do as thou hast resolved This is one of the commands of the Gospel that thou dost believe and therefore if thy faith be true obey it But a third saith That he hath so much business that he cannot prepare himself But consider I pray you in the fear of God what greater business can there be than to work out our salvation Had not they business as they pretended of great import to whom the Lord said you shall not taste of my Supper Consider whether thou canst not bring thy business into a less compass or may it not be let