contract a kindred also with all the friends of the bridegroom And love indeed is of that nature that it is not onely diffusive of it self but it runs forth with a certain pleasure and tickles our heart as it passeth from us So that no man would be excused from loving of his brethren nor willingly want that part of this Christian feast We all grant that this food would not be so full of juice and sweetness but that it tastes of the Love of our Lord nor would this cup be so pleasant but that it is the cup of Charity Now when the heart is once filled with love it wants nothing but objects whereon to empty it self and it is like new wine that is ready to burst the vessel unless it find some vent And therefore one good man is glad at such a time to ease himself into the bosome of others and to express himself to them in such charitable actions as cannot be done to God who is all sufficient of himself This adds to the grace of this entertainment that there is nothing but love to be seen in it The food is love the Master of the Feast glories in no greater name then that he is Love all the guests are Brethren they are all in their Fathers house they all receive the tokens and pledges of the Love of their Elder Brother and his love is so great that he is content to share his inheritance among them It must be therefore against nature and the course of things not to love and to let our Brethren share in our affections who have a portion in the same Saviour But to make it plainly appear that one end of the institution of this Sacrament was to advance love and kindness in our hearts to each other let these things be considered I. As it is a common feast it carries in it the notion of love and good will that is between all the guests It is well known that eating and drinking together was anciently such a sign of unity conjunction of minds and friendly society that the word Companis and Companio in old Latine is the same with Socius Our English retains them all and expresseth a more then ordinarily familiarity between persons by the names of companions company and society which are first made and afterward maintained by a friendly converse at the same table and eating of the same Bread And hence it is that all our Companies and Fraternities in Cities have their Guild-halls where they meet and their feasts likewise at certain times for the maintaining of love and amicable correspondence From which kind of meeting it is that the holy Sacrament was called Synaxis a convention or coming together in one which the Apostle expresseth when he saith 1 Cor. 11.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When you come together into one place It is a phrase for their assembling and convening at an appointed time to feast together and maintain mutual charity which Christ had commended so much unto them And this Aristotle in his Politicks makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 1. Polit. the first of all communions which is between those that live under the same roof and eat and drink at the same table as Parents and Children Brethren and Sisters from whence all other societies and communions are derived Christians are called in Scripture by the name of those near relations and therefore their love is fitly expressed and upheld by this kind of intercourse and sweet converse And the frequenter it is the more would it approach to a likeness to the most ancient and prime communion in nature For this is a maxime in that great man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lb. An every day communion doth naturally make a house We are the house of God and the first converts to the faith do seem to have maintained such a daily communion that they better deserved that name then any people that ever were and testified that they looked upon one another as Children of the same parent and were spiritual brethren and sisters in the Lord. It is so natural to give tokens of friendship by this thing In Muscovy the Bridegroom presents a loaf of bread to the Priest and he to the friends who break it and eat of it in token of fidelity and love V. Hist of Russia by G. Fletcher cap. 24. that in some places people have made their sponsalia or contracts of marriage by each persons drinking of the same cup. And perhaps for the same reason it is that in many places of England they use after marriage to break a cake over the head of the bride as she enters into the doors either shewing that they must live together in the most intimate society or that they and all their friends eating of it may signifie the great love that is between them Now the more sacred our food is whereof we partake and the body of Christ being broken before our eyes and administred unto us the more strongly are we engaged to brotherly love and the rarer friendship do we contract beyond all that the word companion can express II. The Paschal supper among the Jews was a feast of love as well as of remembrance For it was not onely celebrated between the members of the same family but by the whole Nation who came together from all parts at the same time and in one place which did intimate to them that they were but one body For this cause it is likely God ordained that they should have one whole Lamb for every family Exod. 12.46 and not divide it into portions among several companies as also he forbids that a bone of it should be broken by them It did well represent the unity that was among them seeing they all did the same thing without any division and made not the least fraction in those parts that were most compacted The bread likewise without leaven might have some such signification in it that they should not swell by the fervency of any passion nor be sowred by any malice or ill-will to each other who eat of the same unleavened bread And so the Apostle bids us to keep the feast now that Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us not with the leaven of malice and wickedness 1 Cor. 5.7 8. but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth And it may be observed that though the stranger that was uncircumcised might not by the Law eat of the Lamb Exod. 12.43 45. yet their Masters tell us that they permitted them to eat of the unleavened bread and bitter herbs c. which was a token of some love unto them though not of such a dear affection as they had for their own Nation III. But the Lords Supper is much more a feast of love because it is a remembrance of the greatest love that ever was which our Lord shewed in dying for us This love of his must in all reason be compensated with a great
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
afford us a constant chearfulness They do not beget a pleasure that lyes only upon the pallate but they are the more pleasing when they are descended as far as the heart and there they lay the foundation of a lasting joy by turning the affections of the heart toward Christ The benefits of this food are not like a blaze of straw that warms a man for the present but soon leaves him cold nor like a flash of Lightning darting through the soul for a moment which returns presently into its darkness nor like the frisking of the spirits in our body after a draught of Wine which when the adventitious heat is over fall into sluggishness again But they are solid and substantial like to the warmths of the Sun-beams when there is no Clouds before his face nor no windes to sweep them away or rather like the pleasures of eating food which encreases our strength and fattens our bones and causes a durable chearfulness and vivacity of our spirits For Bread you know is called the staffe of Life and that which strengthens mans heart as Wine is that which glads his heart and cheareth God and Man By a right use of this holy Sacrament all the faculties and parts of the soul are nourished and augmented The understanding becomes more full and clear in its perceptions the will is made more free and chearfull in its choice of good the affections more Heavenly and Divine more forward and compliant with our wills the passions more regular and orderly under better government and command All which would admit of a large discourse but seeing I have drawn this tract already to over-great a length I will chuse to speak and that but briefly neither of what is most sensible to every good man viz. the encrease of these three great Graces Faith Hope and Charity First Faith is hereby made more solid and strong whether we consider it in its direct or reflex acts i. e. We do in this holy Feast look most seriously upon the proper object of our Faith Jesus Christ and all the truths of the Gospel We do profess with all our souls to embrace a crucified Saviour We do seal to this truth which he hath sealed by his Bloud We make a most solemn and publick confession of what we believe We do most sacredly protest that we firmly consent to live according to it and obey it And then if we would reflect and turn our eyes back into our own souls and believe something of our selves we may be able to make a better judgement concerning our selves and be more confirmed in the belief that we are real Christians seeing after serious examination and advice with our selves we find that we heartily love and obey Christs commands and seeing that in his most sacred Presence who is the searcher of the heart we dare confidently avow it that there is not any thing though never so difficult which we know to be his Will but we are resolved for to do it We are then in the right use of this Food more strengthned both in the premisses and also in the conclusion As if a man should make this Syllogism or reasoning He that heartily believes in Christ and obeys the Gospel-commands shall inherit the promises and be saved I do so heartily believe and obey Therefore I shall be saved All these three Propositions or Affirmations are by worthy receiving much strengthened in us We do heartily profess to believe the Gospel and we are more confirmed in our belief and in particular of this That he who doth believe in Christ and obey him shall be saved We see before our eyes such testimonies of Gods love that we cannot but be full of this belief which is a generall Faith and contained in the first of those now named Propositions We do likewise here renew our consent to believe and obey our Lord in every thing he hath said and this contains the second Proposition and is a particular special act of Faith Now what should hinder but that we may conclude most strongly that which is in the Third Therefore I shall be saved And then Faith is manifestly nourished in every sense that you can take it in We do directly put forth more lively acts of Faith as that implies assenting to the Gospel and consenting to obey it And why should not the consequent be That we may reflect more comfortably and solidly upon our selves that we are in a safe condition And that we may continue so there wants nothing but that we be diligent in the use of all means of which this is one To confirm and establish our faith more by often receiving the Sacred Body and Bloud of Christ 2. Our Hope is here also nourished and made more lively And indeed it must be strengthned in proportion to our Faith for hope arises out of it and hath its growth with it being but the expectation and waiting of Faith Because I believe those things that are promised in the Gospel therefore I wait for them the stronger therefore that my belief and obedience is the stronger will my hope be Now he that expresses his Faith in Christ at this Sacrament and believes also that Christ is really present there and likewise that he is united to Christ through a worthy use of it He doth thereby get a greater reason to hope and wait for the other appearance and presence of Christ more visibly and openly when he shall be divested of all signs and figures and shall reveal himself with open face When we shall not know him so much as that he dyed but as he that lives and reigns and triumphs 3. Our Love hereby is manifestly enlarged and nourished partly by fulfilling one of Christs commands He that loves me keeps my Commandments saith our Lord and this is one of them Do this in remembrance of me And partly by laying new fewel upon the fire which it may feed upon New considerations I mean and experiences new arguments and incentives to obedience And partly by knitting and uniting of us in a more cordial love and affection to all our Brethren which is an expression of love to him For he hath said 1 John 4.12 If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us Now Faith Hope and Love what will not they do what cannot they overcome All the craft of the Devil is discovered all his power is broken all his temptations are bafled by this Heavenly Nourishment For if we consider the first piece of the Devils Policy which consists in magnifying and extolling the advantages of that thing to which he would tempt us it is defeated by the light of faith which this Sacrament doth make more clear and shining He uses all the Rhetorick and Sophistry that he hath to perswade us that it is a harmless or a pleasant or a profitable or a credible thing He paints sinne forth in the best colours and provides for it the most amorous dresses
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
Conclusion would be as certain as either that therefore I am pardoned But seeing the first Proposition is grounded on a fallible judgment and it is possible I may deceive my self therefore I cannot make a conclusion of equal certainty with the second proposition but That I am pardoned will be no stronger then this That I beleeve Yet notwithstanding if a man find no cause to suspect his own reality he may have a belief of his pardon free from doubting and may rest well satisfied that he is in a good estate because nothing appears to the contrary but that he sincerely doth the Will of Christ Though he attains unto this perswasion not by a direct but a reflex act of faith i. e. not meerly by a belief of Gods Word which no where saith that I am pardoned but by a serious examination of himself according to the tenor of the Word yet seeing he discerns a conformity between himself and it he may have a very good and strong though not infallible assurance that his sinnes are blotted out and shall not be imputed to him Whensoever then we approach to the Lords Table we should come with a belief that God makes over unto us the greatest blessings if we receive them as he requires Now all that he requires is That we would love and obey him as we said in the former Chapter when we heartily engage to this we have hereby a conveyance made to us of all that Heaven contains which is included in this phrase forgiveness of sinne For you may observe that in Scripture-stile the taking away of Gods Wrath is the doing of some favour His kindnesses are not meer negatives or removals of evil but when he forgives sinne and inflicts not the punishment he conferres the contrary blessing and restores us to the inheritance CHAP. V. THE distance being taken away between God and us this Sacrament must be considered as a means of our nearer union with our Lord Christ He doth not onely embrace us when we come to his Table but he likewise knits and joins us to himself He not onely ties us with Cords of Love and binds us to his service by favours and blessings conferred on us but in some sort he makes us one with him and takes us into a nearer conjunction then before we enjoyed And who would not desire to be infolded in his arms Who would not repose himself in his bosome but who durst have presumed to entertain a thought of being married unto him and becoming one with him And yet who would refuse such a favour now that it is offered to us but they that neither know him nor themselves This Covenant into which we enter is a Marriage-Covenant and our Lord promises to be as a Husband to us and we chuse him as the best beloved of our souls It is none of the common friendships which we contract with him by eating and drinking at his Table but the rarest and highest that can be imagined and we are to look upon this as a Marriage-Feast What this union then with Christ is it need not be disputed we may be sure that it is such an one as is between a man and his wise the Vine and the Branches the Head and the Members the Building and the Foundation as hereafter will more fully appear yea far beyond all sorts of union whether moral natural or artificial which the world affords example of That which I am to shew is That by these Sacramental Pledges of his Love and this communion with Christ our Lord we are faster tied unto him and the Ligaments are made more strong and indissoluble between us This will be manifest upon these considerations I. Seeing we do after a sort eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood we must needs thereby be incorporated further with him I dispute not now in what sence we eat and drink his body and blood but so far as we grant that we do that so far the other is likewise done Our union is of the same kind and degree with our communion and participation And therefore when the Apostle speaks of a communion with them 1 Cor. 10.16 that adhaesion and cleaving to Christ signifies That in some sort we are made one with him So Chrysostome observes That the Apostle useth not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is participation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion because he would shew the near conjunction that is between us and that we are knit and united to him by this partaking of him So likewise Oecumenius upon the place observes That Christs blood uniteth us to him as our Head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by our receiving of it And indeed as it is contrary to all analogy of speech to call the Bread and Wine by the Name of Christs Body and Blood if they be not at all so in like manner it is incongruous to use the phrase of eating and drinking if there be no union between us and that which we eat and drink II. Faith and Love bearing a great part in this holy action and Christ being by them embraced it must needs be a means of our nearer union For union you know begins in our consent unto him and therefore the stronger that grows and with the greater dearness of affection that is expressed the stronger and closer our union to him becomes Now Faith and Love which are our consent receive here a great encrease of strength by the most intense operation of them which is apt to perfect and compleat them No man comes aright hither that doth not from the bottom of his heart as you have seen put himself into the will of Christ to be moved and governed at his pleasure He must run into Christs heart to have no motion but according as that beats so that his whole life should be put to a pulse answering to the heart of Christ And so Cyril brings in Christ calling upon men and saying I am the bread of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. in myst Caen. take me in as a leaven to diffuse it self through your whole mass Be you even leavened with me that every bit of you may taste of me This can be effected by nothing else but a hearty conjunction of our wills with Christs We must put our selves wholly out of our own power as the wife doth when she gives her self to her husband and the more we can get out of our selves so as to have no proper will of our own the more we become one with him When we feel not our selves to be any thing at all nor to have any interest different from that of his then we and he are made perfectly one or rather we are not but he is All. Now this abolition of propriety and self is much promoted by the remembrance of Christs death and his unvaluable love whereby we become dead and are even snatched and ravished from our selves Whatsoever other unions there may be they all wait
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
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
of the soul grow too big for the mouth when it lifts up it self in speaking-thoughts and this is their language That they are not able to understand the Miracles of this Love it shall not be long before it perceive how much God is pleased with its saying nothing Let us therefore labour at the very entrance to put our selves into some degree of wonderment to think what manner of love this is wherewith he hath loved us Wonder that he should dye for thee when he was upon the earth and that he should nourish thee with himself now that he is in the Heavens Be astonished that Heaven should so condescend to Earth and Man should be so united unto God Lose thy thoughts in contemplation of the strangeness of this kindness that God should dwell in flesh and that this flesh should be our Food Let it amaze thee that Christ can never think that he hath given himself enough to thee but as the Apostle saith he gave himself to redeem us from our sinnes and now he gives himself to be the strength and health of our souls He gave himself when he was among men he gives himself now that he is with God and as Dionysius relates the story he told a pious man in a vision That if it were necessary he would come and die again for the sons of men This would be a rarely good beginning of this holy service and we should be fitter for all following actions if we could put our hearts into a kind of extasie or admiration at the stupendious greatness of this mystery If our thoughts were once got so high we should be out of the reach of other things that are apt to thrust themselves in and interrupt us If we had once climbed above our selves and were ascended into Heaven we should not be inticed while the Solemnity lasted to come down to the World again II. When we see the Bread broken and the Wine poured out it is a fit season to entertain our selves with these three Meditations which are big with a great number of other thoughts that they will bring forth 1. Remember the pains and dolours the shame and reproach which our Lord endured For which purpose imagine as if you were in Golgotha the place where he was crucified think that you behold him stretched forth upon a Cross that you see his precious Bloud trickling down his side and that you look into his gaping wounds think that you see the pits that they digged in his hands and his feet the furrows that they made in his back and how miserably the Thorns scratched and harrowed his holy head Think that you hear his dying groans that the mocks and flouts of the Jews sound in your ears Yea think that you hear the groans of the Earth under the weight of his Cross and that you see how the Sun shrunk in his head as ashamed to look on such a spectacle and affrighted with the horror of such a sight And when you have meditated a while upon these wonders it will be greater wonder if there be no passion made in your hearts Your own thoughts will teach you such resentments as befit so strange an object and you will begin to tremble and bleed and desire and rejoyce and be in such a mixture of passions as if you would imitate the confusion which was in the world at his Sufferings But when you have recovered your self a little think that it will be most agreeable in the second place 2. To remember with due affection the great love of our Lord in submitting himself to such pains and disgrace for our sakes Never did eyes behold such a strange thing that the only begotten of the Father should bleed like a Malefactor that the glorious King of Heaven should dye for his own Subjects Rebels I should rather call them and Traytors to their Soveraign Lord. Was there ever any kindness like to this Was there ever such a Furnace of Love burning in any heart Could he do more for us than dye for us Was there any likelihood that the remembrance of such a Love should dye That mens hearts should freeze over such a fire Lest such a thing should happen he hath left himself still among us in symboles and representations he sets before our eyes his bloody Death and Passion he makes himself present to our faith and as if he would do more than dye for us he desires to live for ever in us and be united to us How can we chuse then but fall into his arms Yea how can we withhold our selves from running into his heart Can any heart refrain it self from tears of sorrow to think of its unkindness and from tears of joy to think of his strange love how can we be but overwhelmed both with floods of grief and gladness Can we look upon him whom we have pierced and not mourn Can we see his bleeding wounds and not be troubled What heart can be so hard It cannot but pain us to think that we love him no more who put himself to such pains for us It cannot but trouble us to think that but hearts should be so cold when his was so hot with love as to send out its life bloud for our redemption And yet when we consider that in this stream of blood our souls are washed and that by his stripes we are healed who can chuse but rejoyce in his love and hope that he will accept of our poor acknowledgements And let us but look upon him again as I described him on the Cross and we shall find our love more large and vehement Think that you hear him saying to you as he hangs there Behold my friends how my flesh was torn and wounded for your sakes See how your sinnes have used me Look into my heart which was pierced first by love and then by a spear for you See how my hands and my feet were bored through look how my blood runs out to fetch you home to God Was there ever any sorrow like to my sorrow Hath any one loved you so as I have loved you Behold here I give my self unto you as once I gave my self for you By these tokens of Bread and Wine I conveigh unto you all that I have and make over to you all that Inheritance which I have purchased by my Blood My Self and all that I have I freely give unto you Need any one now that hath such Meditations be taught with what affections he should behave himself towards his Lord Needs there any piercing words of him that ministers to wound mens souls with sorrow and grief Is any artifice of speech required to wind and insinuate Christ into their hearts Is any perswasive Language necessary to make them accept of the greatest and richest Blessings that all Heaven can afford Me thinks I see the pricking and compunction that will be in a heart that thinks of these things Me thinks I see such a soul running forth to
that takes away the sins of the World Is not thy soul in him well pleased Is not his Body as really in the Heavens as the signs of it are here in our hands Hear good Lord the cry of his Wounds Let us prevail with thee through the virtue of his sacrifice Let us feel yea let all the World feel the power of his intercession Deny us not O Lord seeing we bring thy Son with us Hear thy Son O Lord though thou wilt not hear us and let us let all others know that he lives and was dead and that he is alive for evermore Amen And secondly It is a seasonable time to profess our selves Christians and that we will take up our Cross and follow after him This taking of the bread we should look upon as a receiving the yoke of Christ upon our neck and laying his Cross upon our shoulder if he think fit We embrace a crucified Jesus and we are not to expect to live in pleasures unless they be spiritual nor to rejoice with the world but to endure affliction and account it all joy when we fall into manifold temptations Protest therefore unto him that thou lovest him as thou seest him stript and naked bruised and wounded slain and dead and that thou art contented to take joyfully the spoiling of thy goods to be pleased with pains and to count death the way to life V. When we eat it is a fit season to put forth these two acts of faith 1. Let us express our hearty consent that Christ shall dwell within us that we will be ruled by his Laws and governed by his Spirit that he shall be the alone King of our souls and the Lord of all our faculties and that we will have no other Master but onely him to give commands within us Eating I told you is a foederal rite and therefore when we have swallowed this bread we should think that we have surrendred all up into his hands and put him into full power over our souls And we should think also that we have given him the possession of our souls for ever and engaged never to change our Master For eating is more receiving then taking a thing with our hands It is as it were the incorporating of the thing with the substance of our bodies and making it a part of our selves that it may last as long as we So should we meditate that we receive the Lord Jesus never to be separated from his service for ever to adhere unto him as our Prince and Captain as our Head and Husband wheresoever his Commands will lead us And as we open our hearts thus to receive him so let us now fold him in our arms and embrace him with a most cordial affection Let the fire burn now and make us boyl up yea even run over with love to him Now is the time not onely to give our selves to him but to make a sacrifice of our selves as a whole burnt-offering unto God Now should we lay our selves on the Altar of the Lord to be offered up intirely to him who made his soul an offering for sin That there may not only be a representative but a real sacrifice at this Feast unto Heaven i.e. that we may not only shew forth the sacrifice of Christ and represent it before God but we our selves may offer up our souls and bodies unto him and send them up in flames of love as so many Holocausts to be consumed and spent in the service of our God Then let us wish for the flames of a Seraphim in the love of God for the cheerfulness and speed of a Cherubim in the service of God and for the voice of an Angel that we may sing the praises of God Let us like our choice so well and think that we are so beholden to him that we may give our selves to him as to begin to leap for joy that we have parted with our selves and are become his And as a token that we give our selves and all we have to God we should now think upon those offerings we intend to make for the poor members of Jesus Christ and desire the Lord to accept of our gifts which we present him withall as earnests of our selves which we have consecrated unto him And perhaps now our hearts may be stirred with so great compassion and our bowels may be so feelingly moved that our Charity may overflow the banks that we had set it and the fire that is within us may require a fatter and larger offering then we designed But howsoever we cannot but deal our bread to the hungry with a more cheerfull hand and give our Almes with a freer heart when we have received the Bread of Life into our hands and hearts and felt what the huge Charity of our Lord was toward us most miserable and wretched Creatures 2. A second Act of faith which we should now exercise is this Let us really believe that all the blessings of the New Covenant are made over to us by this giving and receiving of his sacred body Let thy soul say My beloved is mine as I am his Be confident and well assured that if thou wast hearty in the former act of saith thou shalt as certainly receive pardon and grace and strength and salvation as thy mouth thou art sure eateth the holy Bread The former Act was a receiving him as our Lord and this as our Saviour Think therefore that now Christ dwelleth in thee and thou in him that as he must be Master of the house so thou shalt partake of all his riches of all his honour and pleasure And so begin to ransack his treasures desire him to spread before thee his inestimable riches pray him to shew thee if it be but a little glimpse of the glory of the inheritance of the Saints And what joy will this create in thy soul when thou thinkest that thou and Christ are one that thou art united to his most precious Body and shall certainly receive all the benefits of his Death and Passion O what ravishment should it be unto us to believe that sin shall not have dominion over us that the Blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all unrighteousness that the flames of Hell shall never touch us that death is swallowed up in victory that the grave is buried in the Wounds of our Saviour that we are sealed with the mark of God and consigned to a blessed immortality and shall inherit the joys of our Lord With what boldness now may we renew our requests to him and importunately plead with him for a supply of all our wants We may put up stronger cries now that we conceive he is in us and intreat him since it is his pleasure to be so familiar with us that we may be filled with all the fulness of God O my Lord may a soul say if thou lovest me so much fulfill in me all the good pleasure of thy goodness 2 Thes 1.11 and the work of faith
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
only be espoused to him saith the Church by his Prophets and Embassadors but let him come himself and converse with me Rebeccah went along with Eliezer before she knew Isaac and was resolved to be his Wife before he spake with her himself but at last she beheld him to whom she travelled and came into his Arms whose love she sought and then was her joy compleated Even so the Messengers of God become Suitors to us in the Name of Christ and wooe our affections to be espoused to him giving us many tokens of his love And when we consent and resolve to be his then by their Ministry we are conducted into his arms and at this Marriage Feast we receive the fullest joyes that flow from his heart unto us 2. It flowes from a sense of the pleasures that are in the exercise of true Religion That is the greatest delight which arises from the fouls own proper acts and which it feels not only within but from it self And the more noble any of its acts are the more satisfying the objects are on which they are placed the higher will the contentment be which they afford As much therefore as acts of piety do surpass all other so much will the delight which accompanies them go beyond all other delights And as these acts of Devotion which are performed by the worthy Receiver at this holy Communion are transcendent to all other Religious Acts so will the feeling of them be transported beyond all other pleasurable motions in the soul It is a rare delight to put forth Acts of Faith and Love Thanksgiving and Rejoycing and here all these Acts are in their top and height and the soul exerts its greatest force and strains it self to do its best Yea here must needs be the greatest sweetness and delight because part of our duty is joy and gladness and we do very ill if then we do not rejoyce And there is none knows but he that feels it how pleasant it is likewise to mourn for sinne and to be wounded with a sense of our ingratitude as well as of his love There is sweetness in those tears which drop from a heart full of love that sorrow is delightfull which springs from the sense of a kindness Here holy souls begin to feel the truth of what our Saviour hath said Matth 5.3 Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted It is part of their comfort that they can mourn and shed a tear over a sick soul and a bleeding Saviour What comfort then is there think you in the sense of a pardon if there be such comfort in mourning for the offence If tears be such pleasant food then what are songs and praises 3. From the hope of Heaven and the expectation of the eternal Supper to which this is but a preparatory Entertainment This is some fore-tast to stay our longings and yet to excite our desires after the Heavenly Feast above Here we break our fast as I may say but are made thereby very hungry till that great Supper come Here we have but a praelibation a little short antepast of some rare things to come yet seeing it is an earnest of those things it creates in a holy soul a wonderfull contentment both from its own sweetness and the hopes wherewith it feeds us It nourishes I say in us most delicious longings it makes the soul even swell with comfortable expectations and we receive it not only as a remembrance of what was done but as a pledge of what shall be We taste not only what he is to our souls at present but what he will be for ever And indeed it is a great part of the pleasure of this food that it hath so many tasts and affords us such various relishes In it we taste his love in dying his love now that he is in the Heavens and his love when he shall appear in his glory We taste of the fruit of his death and of the fruit of his Resurrection also yea and of his coming again to raise us from the dead too We feel what he did upon the Cross and that which was bitter to him is sweet to us We feel what he doth for us now in the holy Sacrament and his Spirit makes us taste the pleasures of Devotion in our hearts And we begin likewise to feel what he will do for us when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe And how pleasant must it be to a soul to have all this Cheer how delightfull to think that Christ dwells in us and we in him John 6.65 How sweet to read that we shall have eternal life by union with him v. 55. And how joyfull must they be who carry about with them continually this hope of Heaven 4. From a sense how well pleased our Saviour is with the love of holy souls He not only communicates himself to us in this Sacrament but hath also a kind of Communion with us He delights to behold our gratefull and gladsome remembrance of him to behold our love to him and our love to each other It pleases him to see his people flock together with a greediness to receive him and forwardness to tye themselves more dearly to him And therefore he is pleased to use such words to his Spouse as she doth to him She had said Cant. 1.2 Thy love is better than Wine And he saith the same only with a greater extasie of Affection cap. 4.10 How much better is thy love than Wine And this Book holy men the Fathers of the Church have interpreted of the spiritual Marriage between Christ and his Church which is in this Sacrament both represented and confirmed Now what pleasure hence arises to the soul when it thinks that its Beloved is pleased and that it rejoyces the heart of Christ every one may know that can love another It is the contentment of their love that it is accepted and a great recompense that it is kindly entertained Here is enough though briefly said to invite any Voluptuary to become a spirituall man He must have a great deal of the Swine in him that cannot be tempted by the delights of this Heavenly Food which offers it self to his taste Here a man shall be satisfied with the love of Christ with the pleasures of all Religious acts with the hope of Heaven which is the Celestiall Manna with a sense of the joy in Heaven on our behalf He hath forgotten sure the pleasures of a man whose soul is not greedy to be filled with these things It is part of the punishment of wickedness to lose the rarest delights here as well as to suffer eternal pains hereafter II. Secondly Sâ—lida ad nutrimentum But that you may not imagine there is nothing to be had here but what doth delight for the present instant of receiving you must consider likewise that these holy Mysteries yeild a solid nourishment and thereby
more heartily and so come with hopes through the Grace of God thou mayest get further ground of them and give them at least a deeper wound though they may not presently be trodden under thy feet But if still thou findest no encrease of strength nor their prevalency abate I dare not advise thee that thou shouldst stay away but search thy heart more narrowly if thou wast not too sleight in thy former resolution and bearest not some secret favour to thy sinne and hast not some latent unwillingness that they should be slain And be assured that if thou constantly use the means that God hath appointed of Prayer and Watchfulness calling him in daily to thy assistance thou shalt at last get the better For nothing can mortifie us if the death of Christ cannot and never is the power of his death more felt than when we thus solemnly remember it Therefore do not imagine that thou must wait till by some other means thou canst effect that thing which is to be done chiefly by those means which thou art afraid of To conclude then this Discourse Let me entreat all serious Christians that they would more attentively heed their own encrease in Grace by this food that so they may encourage the weaker sort to make use of it when by their own experience they can tell them what Life and Spirit it doth communicate And what the heed and care is which you should take I have already told you The summe of which is this Excite your hunger quicken your thirst and sharpen your appetite after righteousness and all the benefits that are to be enjoyed by Christ Labour to remove all obstructions and stoppings that may hinder the free distribution of the nourishment into all the parts Sound men may sometimes be so clog'd with colds and distempers which they have caught that their meat may do them little good but only engender more rhumes and oppilations and make them more indisposed And therefore some Physick will do well to prepare and cleanse the wayes for their food that it may freely pass and disperse it self through the body Even so may good man happen to be so loaded with some Worldly Business and his thoughts may be so mixed with some Affairs that a damp may be cast upon his affections and his spirits may move but sluggishly and at that time be may perceive but little relish in any Heavenly Food And therefore he must take some time to remove these impediments and cast off these weights He must blot these worldly Images as much as he can out of his fancy and discharge himself of his earthly thoughts and cares And then having emptied himself of those ill humours that he had insensibly contracted he may with the greater clearness of soul and more profit to himself partake of this spiritual nutriment We may compare the best of men to a Clock which though it commonly go true and be constantly wound up and lookt after yet must sometimes be more exactly cleansed and new oyled or else it will begin to move more slowly and not to keep time so evenly and moist seasons you know and bad weather are apt to foul it and to clog the wheels in their motion There will be dust falling upon our heart which we must often be brushing off rust will be growing while we are exposed to such variety of seasons and occasions in the world and examination with an application of severe truths to our hearts will be as a file to brighten them and furbish them again without which they will be unfit for the use and service of our Master and unprepared for any duty that we are to go about But to keep more close to the Metaphor of Eating and Drinking you know that the strongest and most healthy person that is had need sometimes to have the natural heat excited the vital spirits rouzed and awakened by exercise and stirring else he loseth his appetite and his meat makes him but more sluggish by oppressing those spirits more heavily which before were too much burdened Even so before we come to this Table of the Lord though we be sound in his wayes and upright before him yet we must by the exercises of examination meditation and prayer by the discussion of our Consciences and by the stirring up the Graces of God that are in us put our selves into a meet temper for to eat and by quickening of our hunger receive the more nourishment and get the greater strength by this food of our souls For this you must remember that as this food nourished the soul only by its own actions and as it nourisheth only the new man which can put forth proper actions so it is not likely to yeild any considerable strength to that without some fore-going motion and good exercises Mensa Mystica SECT III. Concerning the Deportment of a Soul at the holy Table and afterward when the Solemnity is past CHAP. XIII A Devout person being once demanded What was the most forcible means that by long Experience he had proved to help a man to pray well and fervently He answered An holy life And to their Enquiry What he found available next to that He still returned the same Answer An holy life which is both second third and all means else of praying devoutly The like I have said concerning Preparation to the Supper of the Lord By a constant exercise of piety we shall be more fit without other labour to attend upon our Lord than he that is at the pains of a Muscovite Christian if he do not live holily It is reported of them That eight dayes before the receiving of the Sacrament they drink nothing but water and eat nothing but bread as dry as a bone But if any of us could find in our hearts in this delicate Age to use our selves with the like rigour such abstinence would not make us so hungry and vehemently desirous of this Heavenly Food as a daily abstinence from all forbidden things and a care to perform such holy duties as will maintain a lively sense of God in our souls Our aptness to heavenly converses confists not in some austerities and sowre devotions before we come to receive this sweet food but in a daily mortification and severity towards our selves and in a strict watch over our own hearts Such persons hearts are like to dry wood and they can soon stir up the Grace of God that lodges there and with one blast as it were kindle the flame of Love Whereas the hearts of other men having been soaking in the World are like green sticks that with all their puffing blowing and prayers will scarce catch any fire If any now should make a demand of the nature with that I mentioned and enquire concerning the next thing that is to be treated of How a good man should order his behaviour and deportment at Gods Table I might answer in one word Love Do but love and that affection is instead