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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 change of one thing into another and Nyssen by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translation or Theophylact by his great word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transelementation For that this last word doth not amount to a change of one substance into another we may be clearly satisfied from himself who as he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread is transelementated into Christs body so likewise affirms that we are transelementated into Christ Now as by this later expression he can intend no more but our mystical incorporation with him so by the former nothing else is to be understood but the conversion of the bread to no other use so that in effect it is made the body of Christ In short he that hath the picture of a King in his Chamber hath but a bare sign which may make him think of him and no more but he that hath the Kings great Seal which confirms him in the possession of all the land he injoyes hath his picture and something else that comes along with it which instates him in a real good And though the wax affixed to the writing be the same for substance with that which is in a mans shop yet for vertue as it is made use of it is much different and far better then all the wax that a whole County can afford Even so it is in this case before us Bread broken and Wine poured out are but bare signs of Christs sufferings if we consider them nakedly in themselves but if we look on them as a foederal rite and as they are given to us and eaten and drunken by us in remembrance of the death of Christ so they are seals and further confirmations of Gods great love towards us And though they are still the same for substance with the most common Bread and Wine which we use at our Meals yet in regard of the use to which now they are converted they become Sacred and of great vertue to convey unto us the things expressed in the Covenant which are of more worth then all the World II. It is further manifest that we are hereby confirmed in the state of pardon and forgiveness because we do here put forth the most solemn act of Charity and Forgiveness to all our enemies For it is a Feast of Love as you shall see afterwards and this is the very condition upon which our forgiveness depends that we forgive others Matt. 6.14 15. and therefore when we here pray for all men and put away all enmity out of our hearts never to return any more God is engaged to express himself to us as a friend and to let fall all differences that have been between him and us I know that we are never to harbour any hatred in our hearts and that we cannot pray successfully at any time unless we lift up pure hands without wrath and I likewise wish the Doctrines of Love were most frequently and severely pressed and practised but yet there is no time when we do more narrowly search our selves to find out the reliques of that sowre leaven and when we are more powerfully moved to extinguish even the least spark or seeds of fire that are in our souls then when we consider Christs death and remember how he prayed for his Enemies upon the Cross And therefore I conceive that upon this account the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood may be a means of assuring our pardon and strengthning of our title to Forgiveness But notwithstanding I consider with my self that this duty of pardoning others is not so peculiar to this Sacrament but that it may and must be done as I said at all other times and for that cause I shall pass it by and proceed to that which I would have most of all observed for the understanding of this part of my Discourse and that is this III. This eating and drinking is a feast upon a sin-offering and therefore is a greater pledg of remission of sin That you may conceive of this aright it must be remembred That though the people of Israel used to feast upon their peace-offerings which were made at the Altar as hath been said already yet they were not admitted to eat of any else The whole Burnt-offerings indeed had Peace-offerings attending alway upon them and so they did partake of the Altar when they were offered by eating of the latter but of the former none tasted but God himself The Offerings for sinne as you have seen were the portion of the Priests and the people were excluded from them unless you will say that they eat by them as their substitutes and mediators But now you must further note That though the Priests were to eat of the sin-offering for particular persons yet of the sacrifice made for the sinne of the whole Congregation whose blood was carried into the holy place the Priests themselves might not eat and so consequently nor the people by them but they were to burn its flesh without the Camp And whether it were upon the day of general atonement Lev. 16.27 or at any other time when the whole Congregation had committed a sin through ignorance Lev. 4.13.21 Lev. 6.30 that an offering was to be made for them they were not permitted to have the least share of it Now Christ made his soul an offering for sinne Isa 53.10 and such an offering that with his blood he entred into the holy place and suffered without the Camp and therefore was most illustriously set forth by that sacrifice which was for the whole Congregation According then to the Law none was to feed upon the Sacrifice and yet our Lord hath indulged unto us the priviledg of feasting upon this great Sacrifice of Propitiation according as the very words of the Institution of this Sacrament do intimate when our Saviour saith Mark 14.24 This is the blood of the New Testament which is shed for many i. e. which is like to the Sacrifice on the great Day of Atonement which was not made for one person but for the whole Congregation and of this I give you leave to drink This was a favour never granted to the World before and besides what the Law of Moses speaks it is remarkable what is delivered by Porphyry as the sence of all the Heathen Divines in the World L. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Divines consent in this That it is not lawfull to touch so much as a bit of those Sacrifices which are for the averting of wrath Though it was never lawfull you know to eat the blood of any Sacrifice whether Peace-offering or other but it was to be poured out at the Altar and though the flesh of those that were offered for sin by the Laws of all people were not to be tasted yet we may drink the blood of the Sacrifice yea of this great Sacrifice for all the people and we may eat the flesh of it by the command of
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
love from us and he hath made our Brethren to be his proxies and receivers he hath transferred the debt that is owing him unto them that we may do them those kindnesses for his sake which we cannot do immediately unto him It is worthy our notice that the first person that ever received this holy Sacrament was in all likelihood St. John the beloved Disciple he that lay in Jesus his breast and is therefore called by some Greek Writers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he in the bosome whose heart was so full of love to the Brethren that he breathes little else in one whole discourse which he left to his little children And you may observe also that immediately after this Supper spoken of Joh. 13. our Saviour entertains his Disciples the rest of that night till he went into the garden with those heavenly discourses which you read in the 14 15 16 17 Chapters of the same Gospel A great part of which contain the Commandment of brotherly love of living in peace and being one with each other even as He and his Father are one which may well suggest to our meditations that one intent of this heavenly repast is to breed in us a kind of coelestial charity and make us all like that Disciple who first had the favour to taste of it IV. This Supper is the more significant of Christian charity and peace that is to be between all the guests because they all eat of one loaf as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 10.17 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render one bread more properly may be translated one loaf of which all the company do partake and thereby are made one body members of the same Christ and members one of another As the flour though consisting of many little parts is mingled and knealed into one loaf so are all Christians united and compacted into one body by partaking of that one and the same individual loaf And therefore we may by the way take notice that the bread provided for our Communions though never so great ought to be but one loaf and likewise that all should communicate if it may be at the same time and not one part of a Congregation to day and the other at the next meeting for this doth not so well signifie the union that is among all Christians who live together in the same society And to render this contesseration the more manifest Joseph de Vicecom L. 2. de Mâ—ssae rit cap. 10. in some ages of the Church though but in some particular places every family that did receive offered a quantity of flower with which the Communion-bread was made This mixture of one mans meal with anothers and the combination of all the particles in one paste did well denote that they were but one body of men mingled together by such a common affection that they were made one lump and did lose themselves in one another not knowing any difference between each other And indeed there never was any society of men so strongly united and kneaded together as the first body of Christians were Though their union may well be represented by the little Atomes of flower all glewed together in a loaf yet the strength of their union may be better compared to the stones of a Temple so cemented that the hand of man is of no force so much as to move them And to such stones the Apostle St. Peter compares them when he saith 1 Ep. Cap. 2.5 that as lively stones they are built up a spiritual house c. Living stones they were because they were so many souls or hearts joyned together into a spiritual temple making one great heart beating with the same love and because likewise they had all drunk into the same spirit of life Act. 2.32 which was the common vinculum tie or bond that thus united them together and made this one bread to be like the strength of stones rather then bread As the little particles of meal were by the help of water wrought into one paste 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 12.13 so were all particular Christians by this spirit wherewithall they were watered formed into one spiritual body to be no more many but one V. The ancient Christians likewise had many significant customs and practises whereby they did notably express at this feast the love which was among them The most remarkable of which are these 1. There was the Holy Kiss wherewith they saluted each other as a token of the dear affection wherewith they embraced and of their desire that their souls might pass as it were into each others bodies There are many places of Scripture which mention this kiss as Rom. 16.16 1 Cor. 16.20 c. and the best Writers near the times of our Saviour tell us it was used to be given at the holy Communion as the fittest season to express such an innocent and sincere love When we have done prayers saith Justin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog. 2. c. we salute each other with a kiss and then immediately the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chief Minister takes the bread and wine from the hand of those that offer them c. At this feast then they did salute one another and when they fasted De Orat. cap. 14. it began to be a custom saith Tertullian that after prayers they should forbear the kiss of peace quod est signaculum perfectionis which is the sign or seal of perfection i.e. of love and charity I suppose he means which is called by the Apostle the bond of perfectness That it was a custom among the Jews to salute with a kiss at their prayers is the affirmation of Drusius In Generosia but a greater man then he was saith that he finds no such thing in all their writings and shews that in all likelihood he was deceived by mistaking the word Tiphluth for Tepilloth the former of which signifies foolishness and the latter prayers Buxtorf Lex Tal. in voc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so he observes that it is said in the great Bereschit upon those wvrds Gen. 29.11 every kiss is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to folly i. e. a wanton kiss except those three to which one adds a fourth First The kiss of homage such as Samuel gave to Saul 1 Sam. 10.1 and such I may add as we are bid to give to the Son of God Psal 2.12 Secondly The kiss of meeting such as Aaron gave to Moses Exod. 4.27 Thirdly The kiss of departure such as Orphah gave to her mother Ruth 1.14 And fourthly The kiss of kindred such as Jacob here gave to Rachel because she was his Cousin VVe must seek therefore for no other reason of this kiss but that it was a sign of kindness and love by the custom of all the world and therefore it is called the kiss of charity 1 Pet. 5.13 And for this cause saith Chrysostome the Apostle bids the Corinthians
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
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
with power Rom. 15.13 Fill me with all joy and peace in believing Let me abound in hope Ephes 3 17. Let me be rooted and grounded in love If I have found favour in thine eyes let me be filled with the holy Ghost How sayst thou that thou lovest me if I have no more love unto thee no more life from thee and if I be so barren and unfruitfull in good Works O my Lord I take the boldness lovingly to complain to thee and expostulate with thee Why am I so dull and cold in thy service why am I so unwilling to execute thy commands why am I so weak and unable against the enemies assaults If thou be with me who can be against me Surely the Lord God is a Sun and a Shield the Lord will give grace and glory no good thing will he withold from them that walk uprightly Psal 84.11 Through thee I shall do valiantly thou shalt tread down all my enemies Psal 60.12 Psal 57.2 It is the Lord that performeth all things for me I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me Phil. 4.13 Psal 20.5 I will rejoice in thy salvation and in the Name of my God will I set up my Banners Lord I believe Mark 9.24 help thou my unbelief When we have done these things with the best devotion we can it will be a great refreshment to the soul if we turn it a little towards those who are the friends of your Lord. And therefore VI. Sixthly When we see him give the same Bread to others let us renew Acts of Love unto our Brethren Let us think that we being many are but one body and that we are made members one of another Let us ardently therefore embrace them in our armes let us clasp about them as our friends let us love one another with a pure heart fervently If we feel not the flame hot enough let us stir up in our minds again the remembrance of the dear love of our Lord and that will make us burn in affection to each other That will utterly put out all the sparks of envy anger or malice which are already buried that they may never any more revive to glow in our souls That will teach us a perfect remedy against all such distempered motions Let us but resolve that our thoughts shall dwell in the fide of Christ and Hell can never shoot any of its fires unto us If ever any of those black and dark passions begin to reek let us but presently enter into his wounds and they will all be extinguished When we feel but the loving warmth of his heart all our anger will turn into love and all our enemies will find us friends Let us resolve therefore now that we remember his love to enemies that we will never bear any hatred more Let us resolve now that we see how he distributes himself to us all that we will never contemn nor despise the meanest Brother that the eye shall not say to the foot I have no need of thee that one member shall not strike another that we will live in all peace and love bearing one anothers infirmities kindly accepting of reproofs doing all the good we can to soul and body that all men may know us to be Christs Disciples That we may do thus let every man think as seriously as he can within himself Did Christ dye only for me Was his body broken for my sake alone Are not other persons as dear unto him as my self Have we not all eaten of the same Loaf Are we not about to drink of the same Cup How shall I hate those whom my Beloved loves How shall I envy those to whom he is so liberal How shall I offend one of these for whom Christ dyed How shall I deny my self to him to whom my Lord hath given himself O my soul hast not thou espoused the same loves with thy blessed Lord Must not all his friends and relations be thy kindred Now he is not ashamed to call them brethren And therefore let them lye in my bosome let my soul cleave unto them let us keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Such heavenly Aspirations and Affections as these would be as a sweet perfume in our souls that would make our Lord to like of his habitation the better they would be as the fragrant Oyntment poured on the head of Aaron Psal 133 2. that would invite him to more ardent embraces and give him the greater contentment in us For so you read him saying in the Cant. 4.10 How fair is thy Love my Sister my Spouse how much better is thy love than Wine and the smell of thy Oyntments than Spices She had said cap. 1.3 That his Name was an Oyntment poured forth the savour of which made all Virgin souls in love with him and now he saith the very same of her That he was much enamoured of her love yea even ravished as it is in the verse before and that nothing was so beautifull or sweet unto him as that love Now by the mention of the Oyntments to which the Psalmist compares the unity of Brethren it should seem the Bridegroom commends not only her love to him but to all his not only to the head but the whole body And therefore he compares her presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Pamph. v. 12. to a Garden because as one of the Ancients speaks she did bring forth all the fruits of the spirit which are Love Joy Peace and the rest of their kindred And to a Garden enclosed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. because guarded against the enemy by the hedge and fence of the Commandments the summe of which is love to God and to one another VII Seventhly When we receive the Cup it is fit that we should again admire the wonderfull love of God that he would purchase us to himself by his own bloud And we should consider the great and inestimable value of this bloud Acts 20.28 that could make expiation and give God full satisfaction for such a world of offences The infinite virtue likewise as well as value of this sacrifice should be taken into our thoughts which lasts for ever and is now as fresh and full of efficacy as if the blood were newly shed upon the Cross Heb. 12.10 For so the Apostle saith This man after he had once offered for sinne for ever sate down on the right hand of God And that you may wonder more at the excellency of this Offering Consider how many sinnes you have committed and then guesse how many the sinnes are which have been committed by all men that have been are and shall be in the World and yet that this one Sacrifice is sufficient in Gods account to take away all being of an everlasting force and power And the better again to conceive of this admirable thing compare it with the sacrifices of old One sacrifice could
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
observed We must strive to be of the highest by keeping our affections alive that are begotten in us p. 330. CAP. XVI Eight directions for the maintaining in our hearts those resolutions that are wrought in them and keeping our hearts in a constant good temper p. 335. SECT IV. Of the Benefits of holy Communion CAP. XVII Holy men can best tell themselves how sweet this Feast is yet for the inviting of others to this chear a Discourse is begun of the pleasures of it p. 374. CAP. XVIII Three benefits we may receive by it 1. Great pleasure which is brought to us sundry wayes 2. Great nourishment and strength as is proved by the three graces of Faith Hope Charity 3. Great cures of our sicknesses and diseases p. 382. CAP. XIX The danger of coming hither with a love to our sins opened in several particulars Yet it is a great sin not to come out of love to Christ Mens excuses shown to be frivolus p. 410. CAP. XX. The great excuse of many unmasked which is that wicked men are permitted to come thither p. 431. Mensa Mystica THe Sacraments being not unfitly called by an ancient Writer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys cop 3. Eccles hierarch The Garments that are cast about our Saviour and it being the profession of Divines to labour to see the naked face of truth it is most worthy our pains to open and reveal those secrets that lie hid and vailed under symbols and sensible things And to say the truth these Vestments are so thin and transparent that the truth doth shine through them and shew it self to well-prepared minds They are but like to those thin clouds wherein the Sun is sometimes wrapped which render its body the more visible to our weak and trembling eyes I cannot pretend to have conversed much with barefac'd truth yet having been drawn to publish a few thoughts concerning Baptism I shall now further endeavour to unfold those mysteries that lie hid under the coverings of bread broken and wine poured out in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper that men may not Ixion-like embrace a meer cloud instead of God himself My sight is not so sharp as to discern the very flesh and blood of Christ in those forms and shapes of bread and wine no more could that Eagle-eyed Author I mentioned though he thought he could see as far as the coelestial Hierarchy which will appear to any one that shall be at the pains to read him Yet I am so far from thinking that they are meer signs of what Christ did for us or onely representations of the benefits we receive by him but am perswaded that they exhibit our Lord himself unto believing minds and put them into a surer possession of him The truth commonly lies between two extreams and being a peaceable thing cannot join it self with either of the directly opposite parties And therefore I shall seek for her in a middle path not bidding such a defiance to the corporeal presence as to deny the real nor so subverting the fancy of a miraculous changed into a coelestial substance as to level these things into meer shadows CHAP. I. FIrst then this holy rite of eating bread broken and drinking wine poured out is a solemn commemoration of Christ according as he himself saith to all his Apostles Luk. 22.19 and particularly to St. Paul who twice makes mention of this command 1 Cor. 11.24 25. Do this in remembrance or for a remembrance of me His meaning is not that we should hereby call him to mind for we are never to forget him but rather that we should keep him in mind and endeavour to perpetuate his Name in the world and propagate the memory of him and his benefits to the latest posterity Now this is done by making a solemn rehearsal of his famous Acts and declaring the inestimable mable greatness of his royal love For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie barely recordatio recording or registring of his favours in our mind but commemoratio a solemn declaration that we do well bear them in our hearts and will continue the memory and spread the fame of him as far and as long as ever we are able I hope that none will conceive so little to be meant by this word remember or commemorate as a naked mention of his Name with our mouthes or a dead image of him in our minds For all these words to know believe meditate remember and the like are hearty words and full of life Though they seem to speak only actions of the mind yet in holy language they include in their comprehension the affections of the heart Cold pale thoughts which have no feeling of themselves nor leave any footsteps or memorials behind them are as good as none at all And therefore I understand hereby a very warm sence in the soul which begets and stirs up such motions in the heart as the conceived object is apt for to raise Suppose you have been in deep love with any person and have lost the half of your selves when you remember the death of that friend the image of him is ready to rob you of your lives and make all the blood retire to your heart as if death were about to surprize the main Fort of life But on the contrary if you think of that person as alive the remembrance of him makes your spirits for to dance and the blood to run into your cheeks and smiles to sit on your forehead and breeds a pleasance in your whole man Just so would our Saviour be remembred by you that the thoughts of him may even kill you with grief and transport you with love and captivate your wills and ingage all your affections that they may be at his command and issued forth at his pleasure As you think of a friend of a father of a wife or a husband or any one that hath got the possession of your heart so think of him By which examples you may see that I intend not a natural passion and a sensual commotion in the soul but a well-grounded affection When we read a true History or a Romance we are apt to side with some persons in the story and when we meet with a Duel we favour one of the Combatants and are sensible of his wounds and sorry for his fall as on the contrary we are glad he comes off a conquerour and wins the field So may a man when he thinks of Christ and his Tragedy conceive a natural hatred and indignation at the treachery of Judas and the vile malice of the Pharisees and be much moved to see him used in such an unworthy manner it may be fetch sighs from his heart and tears from his eyes and put him into such a huge passion as if he suffered with him But if all this have non effect in his life and produce no answerable fruits afterward it is no more than a natural motion and is void of the divine and
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
to go out of our selves when we think of him For II. Just Mart. Ib. It was instituted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in commemoration of his passion and sufferings for us As the bread and wine do commemorate the truth of his body so do bread broken and wine poured out commemorate the truth of his sufferings for us which those phantastical people in the first times did no less deny And the bread and wine being given to us severally not both together do clearly tell us that he was really dead his vital blood being separated from his body and his veins and heart being emptied of it This is that miracle of love which the Apostle saith we should shew forth till he come this is that famous act which never ennobled the story of any person that the Lord would purchase enemies by his own blood yea by the blood of the Cross reconcile them to himself The thoughts of this is able to wound a heart of marble with love and to turn a rock into a fountain of tears and to unloose the tongue of the dumb that they may speak the honour of his Name and shew forth his praise And therefore because this was such a singular instance of love and because it contains in it so many secrets which we should have before our eyes it is the chief thing that we are to make a remembrance of But as I said before there are two parts of this Commemoration and it cannot be contained within the bounds of this world but we must make it reach as far as Heaven For 1. We do shew it forth and declare it unto men which is sufficiently clear by all that hath been said We do publish and annunciate unto all that he is the Saviour of the world and that he hath died for us and purchased blessings thereby beyond the estimate and account of humane thought And further the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may import that we do extol praedicate magnifie and highly lift up in our praises this great benefit so that all may come to the knowledge of it as far as is in our powers to procure This commemoration the Minister chiefly makes unto the people and all the people together with him to all that are present so that all may wonder at his love When our Saviour therefore saith Do this in remembrance of me the meaning is do this in remembrance that I dwelt in flesh in memory of what I suffered in memory of the infinite price of my blood which I shed for you in memory of the victory that I have obtained by it over the enemies and tyrants of your souls in memory of the immortal glory that I have purchased for you celebrate this feast in memory of all these things and when I am dead let me alway live in your heart Tell them one to another in a solemn manner and declare them in the face of my Church Let all ages know these things as long as the world shall last that as the benefit is of infinite merit so may the acknowledgement be an eternal memorial Be so careful in doing this that when I come again I may find you so doing 2. We do shew forth the Lords death unto God and commemorate before him the great things he hath done for us We keep it as it were in his memory and plead before him the Sacrifice of his Son which we shew unto him humbly requiring that grace and pardon with all other benefits of it may be bestowed on us And as the Minister doth most powerfully pray in the virtue of Christs sacrifice when he represents it unto God so do the people also when they shew unto him what his Son hath suffered Every man may say Behold O Lord the bleeding wounds of thy own Son remember how his body was broken for us think upon his precious blood which was shed in our behalf Let us die if he have not made a full satisfaction We desire not to be pardoned if he have not paid our debt But canst thou behold him and not be well pleased with us Canst thou look on his body and blood which we represent to thee and turn thy face from us Hast thou not set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood O Lord then suffer us sinful creatures to plead with thee Let us prevail in the virtue of his sacrifice for the graces and blessings that we need and hide not thy self from us unless thou canst hide thy self from thy Son too whom we bring with us unto thee In this sort may we take the boldness to speak to God and together with a representation of Christ we may represent our own wants and we may be confident that when God sees his Son when we hold up him as it were between his anger and our souls he will take some pity and have mercy upon us Just as a poor man pleading with a King commemorates to him the worthy deeds of some of his Ancestors or makes mention of the name of some high Favourite for whose sake he desires his Petition may be granted So it is with us when we come before God to request mercy of him we can hope to prevail for nothing but through the Name of our Lord whom we can never mention with so much advantage as when we solemnly commemorate his sufferings and deservings For then we pray and do something else also which God hath commanded so that there is the united force of many acceptable things to make us prevalent And hence I suppose it is that Isid Pelus calls the Sacramental bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 1. Epist. 123. the shew-bread as we render it which we set before God as that stood alway before his face in the time of the Law that God looking upon it might remember his people Israel for good It will not be unprofitable to add That this was one reason why the Ancients called this action a Sacrifice which the Romanists now so much urge because it doth represent the Sacrifice which Christ once offered It is a figure of his death which we commemorate unto which the Apostle Paul as a Learned man conceives hath a reference L'Emptreur when he saith to the Galatians Gal. 3.1 That Jesus Christ was set forth evidently before their eyes crucified among them They saw as it were his Sacrifice on the Cross it was so lively figured in this Sacrament And it is very plain that Chrysostome understood no more Hom. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c when as he thus speaks upon the Epistle to the Hebrews What then do not we offer every day yet we offer by making a commemoration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his death And we do not make another sacrifice every day but alway the same or rather a remembrance of a sacrifice Such an unbloody Sacrifice which is only rememorative and in representation we all acknowledge And if that would content
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
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
to observe this Vow far more religiously then we do an Oath to any mortal man which yet no person of credit and conscience would break for all the world CHAP. IV. TO all those that are thus faithfully in Covenant with him this Sacrament is a further sign and seal of remission of sin For the Law of Covenants doth require that where one party doth profess friendship and ingage to fidelity the other person in the agreement should make assurance of his love and confirm his promises And therefore when we come with hearts full of love to renew our friendship with God we may beleeve that he doth embrace us also with the dearest affection and giveth us greater testimonies that he hath cancelled all the bonds wherein we stood indebted to him Bonds able to break the whole world if payment were exacted Debts which all men and Angels cannot possibly discharge which yet he is so willing to acquit us of that he hath appointed this holy action for that end that we may have more pledges of his love and more assurance that we are not bound over to eternal punishment Well may we run into the armes of Christ where we expect to receive such favours It is no wonder if we be forward to tye our selves fast to God as I said in the last Chapter when he binds himself as fast to us We need not stand so much upon it to promise even to die for him when it is but the way to life We may be glad to lie in the wounds of Christ when we find a cure there for our sins A crucified Saviour should be most dear unto us and we should most joyfully kiss his cross seeing we hope thereby to have our iniquities crossed out and stand no longer upon our account Methinks all that hear of such a Covenant of Grace should be desirous to enter into it and so they would if they had not as trifling conceits of the evil of sin as they have of the worth of their souls And all that are in that Covenant should be glad of an opportunity to reiterate it that they may have stronger grounds whereon to hope for pardon And it is to be acknowledged to the singular mercy of God that we can never come to profess any love to him but he will return back a great deal more to us and that when we give thanks to him he will give us more cause to thank him Now for the full clearing of this thing I shall propound but these three considerations I. That our Saviour in the institution of this Sacrament doth tell us what was a great end of it when he saith Mâ—th 26.28 Luk 22.20 This cup is the new Testament in my blood or this is my blood of the new Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins In which speech you must note that the word This doth stand for the action of giving and receiving not for that which is given and received in and by it For the Cup or the Blood cannot be a Testament or Covenant but the giving and receiving of the cup or blood is and therefore by This is the new Testament c. must be meant this action is a Covenant between you and me made in the blood of the Lamb for the forgiveness of your sins The Doing of this doth necessarily presuppose a Covenant of Grace which God hath made and which we own in Christs blood but besides it doth import a profession both on Gods part and on ours who do receive of performing and making good that which we are respectively bound unto so that God doth there tender all that which he promiseth in the Gospel comwe by receiving do bind our selves as you have seen to all the Gospel and mands Now this is the great thing that God promiseth in his Covenant I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more This Action therefore is appointed by him not onely to be a symbol of his sufferings which did ratifie the Covenant of forgiveness but to be an exhibition of himself for to put us in possession of the great thing purchased by his blood which was pardon to all penitent sinners The blood of the Paschal Lamb as Chrysostom observes was shed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Matth. 26. for the saving of the first-born of Israel but Christs blood who is our Passeover was shed for the remission of the sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the whole world Now though the shedding of the blood and sprinkling of it on the door posts were the cause of the deliverance yet their eating of the Lamb was that which did entitle them to it and gave them a right to that salvation So though the blood of Jesus shed upon the tree be that which procures the pardon and be the price of our redemption yet that remission is solemnly exhibited and given unto us or as we speak applied to our persons by the eating of this bread and drinking of this cup which are as effectual as Deed or Instrument for the conveying of this mercy unto us We may see this well explained to our hands by an ancient Author The Sacrament saith Bernard is a sacred sign or secret Serm. de Coena as may be illustrated by a common example If I give a Ring to a friend it hath no other significancy but that I love him but if I give him a Ring ad investiendum de haereditate aliqua thereby to invest him in the right of some inheritance then it is both a Ring and a sign also In like manner though Bread and Wine set before us do denote nothing more then the kindness of a friend that would refresh us yet given and taken as a religious rite and in token of a Covenant they are turned into another thing and are both Bread and Wine and likewise the instrument of a conveyance And this is the change which the Ancients mention of the Bread and Wine into the body and blood of Christ a change not in the substance but in the accidents not in their nature but in their use not in any natural quality but in their significancy application and divine efficacy As when the wax is imprinted and made a seal or silver stamped and made a coin they remain the same in substance and yet are changed in regard of their use and value also So it is with the bread and wine when they are offered unto God and delivered by him again to us and received as a representation of the Lord Jesus they continue what they were if we look onely at their matter but are changed by Gods appointment into divine things if we respect the end to which they are applied which is to make over to us the blessing of the Covenant viz. remission of sins This is all that Theodoret means by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or transmutation and Cyril by his 〈◊〉
and attend upon this which lays the foundation of them Yea by this faith and love our hearts are more inlarged the vessels of our souls are rendred more capable and the Temple of Christ is much more amplified to receive more of Gods presence And that is the next thing III. The holy Spirit is here conferred on us in larger measures which is the very bond and ligament that ties us to him For this union is not onely such a moral union as is between husband and wife which is made by love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a natural union as is between head and members the vine and branches which is made by one spirit or life dwelling in the whole For the understanding of this which I shall insist on longer then therest you must consider these things 1. That our union with Christ is set forth by many things in Scripture or in St. Chrysostom's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He unites us to himself after many patterns I think there is not a better collection of them then we meet with in him He is the head faith he we are the body Hom. 8. in 1. ad Cor. He is the foundation we are the building He is the vine we are the branches He is the bridegroom we are the bride He is the sheepherd we are the sheep He is the way we are the travellers We are the Temple and he is the inhabitant He is the first-born we his brethren He is the Heir we the coheirs He is the life we are the living c. all these thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do shew an union and such an one that will not admit the least thing to come between them 2. Observe that the highest and closest union is that which is made by one spirit and life moving in the whole And therefore I take notice that the Scripture delights most frequently to use the two first examples of a body and a building and those that are nearest to these Now because a building hath no life but yet by its firmness and strength doth notably set forth the firmness of the union that is between Christ and his people therefore the Apostle puts both these together and calls Christ a living stone and those that come to him lively or living stones which are built up a spiritual house or temple where they offer spiritual sacrifices unto God 1 Pet. 2.4 5. That union therefore is most perfect which is made by life though others may be of great est strength and therefore the Apostle applies it even to things without life that he might the better shew that the union between Christ and his members by one life is in strength more like the solidness of a Temple then any other thing whose parts are so cemented as that they would last as long as the world 3. We must observe That things at the greatest distance may be united by one spirit of life actuating them both and so may Christ and we though we enjoy not his bodily presence It is truly noted by a most Rev. A. usher Person that the formal reason of the union that is made between the parts of our body consists not in their continuity and touching of each other but in the animation of them by one and the same spirit which ties them all together If the spirit withdraw it self from any part so that it be mortified it presently remains as if it were not of the body though its parts still touch the next member to it And so we see in trees if any branch be deprived of the vegetative spirit it drops from the tree as now no more belonging to it On the other side you see the toes have an union with the head though at a distance not onely by the intervening of many parts that reach from them unto it but by the soul that is present in the farthest member and gives the head as speedy notice of what is done in the remotest part as if it were the next door to the brain And this it doth without the assistance of the neighbouring parts that should whisper the grief of the toes from one to the other till the head hear but without the least trouble to any of them which do not feel their pain If you should suppose therefore our body to be as high as the Heavens and the head of it to touch the throne of God and the feet to stand upon his footstool the earth no sooner could the head think of moving a toe but presently it would stir and no sooner could any pain befall the most distant part then the head would be advised of it Which must be by vertue of that spirit which is conceived alike present to every part and therefore that must be taken likewise to be the reason of that union which is among them all Just so may you apprehend the union to be between Christ our head and us his members Although in regard of his corporal presence he be in the Heavens which must receive him untill the time of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 yet he is here with us always even to the end of the world Mat. 28.20 in regard of his holy Spirit working in us By this he is sensible of all our needs and by the vital influences of it in every part he joyns the whole body fitly together so that he and it make one Christ according as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 12.12 As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of tha◠one body being many are one body so also is Christ And that this union is wrought by the Spirit which every true Christian hath dwelling in him Cor. 6. 7. Rom. 8.9 the next verse ver 13. will tell you we are all baptized into one body by one spirit c. Which will lead me to the fourth thing for which all this was said 4. We receive of this Spirit when we worthily communicate at the Supper of the Lord according as the Apostle in that 13th verse is thought to say We have been all made to drink into one spirit i. e. we have all reason to agree well together for there is but one spirit that animates the whole body of us which we receive at the Table of the Lord when we drink the cup of blessing One Christian doth not drink out of the same cup a spirit of peace and another Christian a spirit of contention but as Chrysostome expounds it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We all come to be initiated in the same secrets we all enjoy the same Table and though he doth not say as it follows in him that we eat the same body and drink the same blood yet since he makes mention of the spirit he saith both For in both we are watered with one and the same spirit even as trees saith he are watered out of one and the same fountain V.
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
in the place forecited to salute each other with an holy kiss 1 Cor. 16.20 because there was such vehement contentions and great differences among them For one said I am of Paul another said I am of Apollo another called himself after Peter and another after Christ One was drunken at their sacred feast and another hungry they went to Law with one another and there was a great deal of pride and envy and confusion about their spiritual gifts And therefore having exhorted them ver 14. to let all things be done in love he now commands them to be joyned together also by the holy kiss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this unites and begets one body And so likewise he observes that the kiss doth not onely unite those that are divided but it likewise makes an equality between those that are unequal which is a necessary thing to all friendship By this peace saith he in Rom. 16.16 the Apostle takes away all that disquieted them and makes that the great will not despise the less 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor the less will not envy the great but both pride and envy will be cast out this kiss being of that nature that it sweetens smoothes and equals all things And I may observe also that the very next words of the Apostle ver 17. are an entreaty to mark all them who cause division among them As if he should have said Salute one another and so embrace that he may be looked upon as no Christian that causes divisions and offences among you And so in another Sermon he most admirably discourses of this Christian Charity which is signified by the kiss Do not say saith he that such an one hath done me harm Homil. 21. in Epist ad Rom. and no man can put up the wrong but think with thy self what Christ saith to him that betrayed him with a kiss to the death of the Cross and minde how notably he reproves him Luk. 22.48 Judas betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss Who would not be softned with these words What heart would not such a Voice bow and encline unto it What wild Beast what Adamant is there that would not be moved Do not say unto me hereafter Such an one is a Murderer or the like and I cannot abide him I tell thee if he be ready to thrust his Dagger into thee and to baptize his right hand in thy throat kiss that right hand of his for Christ kissed the very mouth of his Murderer Thou art the servant of him I say that kissed the Traitor for I will not cease to repeat it again and again of him that spake words to him softer than a kiss For mark it he doth not say O thou villain thou traitor dost thou make me this requital for all my kindness but he onely saith Judas calling him by his proper name canst thou find in thy heart to betray me on this fashion Yea I may observe that he calls him Eriend Matth. 26.50 which are words of great sweetness to such an unworthy person And after this he doth not say Why dost thou betray thy Teacher thy Master thy Benefactor but why betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss If he was not thy Master yet wilt thou betray an ordinary man who deals so courteously with thee and vouchsafes to kiss thee even when thou betrayest him with that kiss O blessed Lord what an example hast thou given us of humility and forgiveness And how kindly and graciously he treats likewise those that came to take him you may see if you read what follows which will make any man ashamed to be cruel to his Brethren What though they be guilty of a thousand faults They cannot be greater then this of Judas to our Saviour Wilt thou not kiss him when our Saviour kissed and embraced the Traitor How canst thou receive the holy offering if thy tongue be red with the blood of men How canst thou give the Peace he means the kiss which was accompanied with good wishes if thy mouth be full of War Thus that excellent man from whose mouth I desire my Reader to learn if not from mine And therefore he expounds this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy to signifie O Cum. Theophylact that the kiss should be sincere and without all hypocrisie or falseness of heart in which he is followed by other ancient Expositors But it may likewise signifie the purity of it and that it should be onely out of Christian love and not with any other baser passion And it was a thing so constantly used that it is likely indeed the Heathens did hence reproach the Christian meetings as if they did burn with some filthy fires But the true Christians could not be impeached of any such Crime Their flames were so pure and bright that they left no foot nor blackness at all in the soul behind them There were indeed some base pretenders the impure followers of Simon Magus 2 Pet. 2.14 whose eyes were full of Adultery and whose lips gave strange kisses but they were abominable in their Doctrines too and separated themselves from the Flock of Christ Jude 19. being sensual and having not the spirit These men bragging that they were the onely spiritual men and calling all others meer animals might give occasion to the Heathens and the Enemies of our Religion to say that Christians assembled for such actions as they practised but are not to be named But the sound professors did wipe off all these calumnies that were cast upon the whole Religion for the fault of some Apostates not onely by their most excellent Writings but likewise by their pure lives and cautious converses Achill Tatius L. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The kiss of those that are in love saith one that well knew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unlimited unsatiable and alway renewed To shew therefore that their kiss was a token onely of coelestial Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athenagoras tells us that it was unlawfull for them to kiss any one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second time to please themselves And the Constitutions ascribed to Clemens tell us also That the men saluted men and the women those of their own sex that so they might avoid all danger and take off all offence These kisses were as pure and innocent as the snow they were no other then had been long used in the World among familiar friends but onely that they were a token of a diviner love and denoted a more sacred affection being used in their solemn congresses with the Divine Majesty Cyril Hierosol Mystag 5. So Cyril saith excellently This kiss is not barely such an one as is given among familiar acquaintance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they meet in the streets but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. they mingle souls together and promise an utter oblivion of all offences Christian souls did sit upon their lips
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
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
occasion to wait upon him our life must be so framed that one piece of them may well fit and fall in with another And as it is with a Table or some such thing that is taken in pieces and disjointed upon occasion but may presently be set together and all the parts will come into their proper places without much noise and trouble So it should be with our lives though one piece of them be distant from another by reason of our various businesses yet when our necessities do require we should be able without much labour to join the most different parts together with the rest and not be forced to spend our time to plain and smooth and knock as I may speak our hearts together when we should be in a holy frame and be spending our time in the enjoyment of our greatest good I mean by all this that our worldly employments must not hinder our Religion but rather be a means to further and promote it so that where they end it may take its place and fall in as if that room were prepared for it V. It is to be acknowledged that even of those holy actions which respect God some are necessary and some voluntary i. e. some are of that nature that unless we do them we cannot be Christians but others of them will make us excellent Some are so necessary that we cannot be saved unless we do them others are aspirations after a greater glory Those that are under an express command are indispensibly necessary to our happiness and those actions of piety that are free and uncommanded I look upon as securing our happiness and without which we may be much in danger to neglect the most necessary By these Acts which are voluntary that I may avoid all quarrel I understand only the higher degrees of those acts which are necessary unto which I imagine that no man will take himself to be at all times absolutely engaged And yet if at some seasons they be not performed it may hazard our estate though not certainly expose it to ruine Such Free-will-offerings there were among the Jews which were onely larger expressions of their gratitude in the same things wherein at other times they did use to manifest it And that they were a piece of Gods Worship and Service though not particularly commanded by him is apparent from the direction that God gives about them when they should be brought unto him But these Laws that God makes for their right and acceptable performance do again show that he expected them from his friends though he did not absolutely enjoin them To pray then or to meditate and give praise to God are things of an unavoidable concernment But by longer study and pains to raise our hearts to a greater intention of mind to greater expressions of love to higher and more sublime admirations c. is that which I call free but yet fit at some seasons As it is in Almes-giving so it is in these other holy duties There seems to be a certain portion which we are bound to give to poor people or else we defraud them of their due but it is fit also that we should enlarge our Charity beyond the bounds of meer necessity lest by being Niggards at last we become Thieves and by doing no more than is due we be tempted sometimes to do less And so the Jews distinguished Charity into two sorts one of which they called Righteousness which was exactly according to the Law of Moses and the other they called Mercy or Bounty being above the proportion the Law required According to which notion he that performed the first sort was named a Just Man and he that performed the later was named Good The Priests lived upon Gods Almes and he assigned unto them a great part of that Maintenance which the Jews brought to him and though I might give other instances of Charity yet I shall chuse to instance in one that concerned them because less observed The Law required that they should give the first-fruits of their Land unto the Priest as his receiver Numb 18.12 Deut. 38.4 Though the quantity of them be not there determined yet because Ezekiel saith Ezek. 45.13 that they should offer the sixth part of an Ephah of an Homer their wise men have resolved that they were bound to bring at least a sixtieth part to God for his Ministers for an Ephah is the tenth part of an Homer V. Seld. Hist of Tythes cap. 2. Ainsw in Numb 18.12 But notwithstanding this they account him but a covetous man that brought no more and they called this a Terumah or Heave-offering of an evil eye For thus Maimon writes A good eye i. e. a liberal person brings one part of forty a mean eye i. e. a man that hath some goodness one of fifty and an evil eye i. e. a niggard one of sixty less than which it was not lawfull for him to give Therefore the Son of Syrach thus exhorts Give the Lord his honour with a good eye Eccles 35.8 and diminish not the first fruits of thy hand i. e. do not stint thy self to a meer Legal righteousness in giving God his first fruits however grudge not to give him so much as the Law requires This Doctrine of theirs is a good rule for us to square such actions by We must do what Justice reduires and give so much as we in conscience think God absolutely exacts of us but we should sometimes extend our hand beyond that which the Scripture calls righteousness and by liberality come up to the degree of good men V. D. Ham. Sermon of Poor mans Tything Now we cannot well think that God requires a less portion of us then he did of the Jews who once in three years gave a tythe to the poor and therefore if any one will bind himself to a thirtieth part of his yearly encrease which is the same with a triennial tythe yet it will be fit that he make some free-will offerings and not confine himself to such a scantling which he hath tied his hands unto lest he should fall short of them through his carelesness And the one of these he looks upon as necessary because else he may be worse than a Jew yea than a Jew of an evil eye and the other as a voluntary oblation to the honour of God who doth for us not onely more than we deserve but more than we desire Now Prayer and such like duties may be drawn within the compass of the same reason Acts 10.2 So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by continual Rom. 9.2 And fince the Scripture tells us that we should pray alway Luke 18.1 and that we should pray continually or without ceasing 1 Thes 5.17 it is most necessary that there should be some considerable portions of our time allotted to it And though it be not said in the Bible how often in the day we should be upon our knees yet all good men that I
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
demand more of us then we will give of our own good will unto our God Shall not love engage us faster then any other bands Hath not God given unto us the principal and requires nothing back again but a little small pittance for his poor Alas my soul we are too much behind-hand with him already and have run too far in arrears For how many years have we lived in the world and given nothing considerable unto his uses we are so much indebted that way that we had need now to be more open-handed and make satisfaction for our unjustice But then what shall we give him for himself and for his Son if we be so much bound unto him for these temporal things O my soul once more consider what gift we shall present our Lord withall Are not thy first thoughts below the proportion of his love Is it not too little that thou hast consecrated to his service Come my Soul and open thy heart it is to a good friend even unto thy God never stand upon it but double the summe and for every peny thou first thought of write down two for God hath prospered us beyond all our thoughts Or if we have not thriven perhaps it is because we gave no more Let us try therefore this way of thriving by offering liberally unto God and see how he will improve our goods for us And I wish heartily that men would try not onely for their souls sake but for the good of their bodies and the welfare that I wish unto their posterities For there is no such sure way of enlarging or preserving an estate as doing good with it and giving out of it to those that need By this means we do not so much leave God in trust for our children as make him become their debtor who will pay them back again with large use and advantage I would not have writ so many lines of this subject if I did not fear that mens Charity comes from them by drops and those drops likewise are expressed by accident and chance rather then by any advised thoughts And therefore I desire that this part of our Religion may be made more serious and have a deeper foundation in our hearts so that we should study what sum of money God may justly expect from us to whom he hath given so much Now a fitter time there cannot be to meditate of this then before our approaches to the solemn remembrance of Gods bounty and liberality towards us VI. We are likewise to endeavour that all the passions and affections of our souls may be quieted and stilled We must take some pains with them that they may be so mortified and deadned to the world that then they may not be too quick and lively and hinder our Meditations of heavenly things For this as you have seen is a spiritual banquet and the food gives no nourishment but what we receive by meditation by serious thoughts and affections which can find no place but onely in still and quiet souls When the body feasts a great part of the good Cheer is pleasant discourse and innocent mirth and there is no welcome unless there be some noise But the soul feasts in silence it eats its morsels in a deep and calm thought its pleasure is in conference with its self and God and all the sound is onely the voice of thanksgiving in hymns or Psalms of Praises to God into which at last it breaks and utters its self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dost not thou know saith Chrysostome that thy soul ought to be big with a calm at that season when thou goest so near unto God There is need of a great deal of peace and tranquility and there should be no tumults of anger and such like passions since thou thinkest of the God of Love The Sun of Righteousness shines so hot upon thee that thou shouldest be as smooth and fair as the face of the water in the brightest day Thou shouldest labour that there may not be a wrinkle upon thy brow that all thy storms may be so husht and lay'd as if thou heard'st thy Saviours voice saying Peace be still And therefore all holy men have taken an especial care when they were going to the Table of the Lord to renew their acts of forgiveness and passing by all injuries and offences to reconcile themselves perfectly to their Brethren and repair any wrong that they could possibly conceive themselves to have done to others which before they had not observed I have in the beginning of this Discourse prevented all mistakes so that none can reasonably think that he may harbour malice in his heart and bear a grudge in his mind unto his neighbour with sufficient safety at other times so he do but discharge all these black passions when he approaches unto God And my meaning now is That seeing we come to this Feast that we may more encrease our love we ought to search if there be but any spark of anger that lies buried in our souls and take care that it be perfectly quenched And seeing there will be many occasions of differences among Neighbours that we ought now to consider if there were any heats in the management of them and if any seeds of fire yet remain that they may utterly be extinguished and never break forth again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Orat. 60. ad Pop. Antioch Vid. etiam Hom. 3. in Epist ad Ephes Dare a man touch this holy Sacrifice with unwashen hands How dare he then approach with an unwashed and polluted soul Now there is nothing that doth more soot and black a soul then an abideing anger which causeth the holy Spirit to flie away and as I may say driveth it out of its lodging as fire doth us to seek some other habitation Valerius Maximus tell us Cui praeter cognatus affines nemo interponebatur L. 2. c. 1. Sect. 8. that there was a solemn Feast appointed by their Ancestors which they called Charistia to which none but those that were of kin or had some affinity were permitted to approach I am sure to the Eucharistia the Sacrament of Love and Peace none shall be welcome but those that are the friends and kindred of Christ and are allied to each other in a brotherly affection We must all as you have seen already come hither as children to feast with our Father and if there be any displeasure in our hearts to one another he cannot be well pleased nor give us such an entertainment as we expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Procâ—â—s in Hesiod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 5. which Heiasius saith is in some editions of the LXX in Isa 24.16 Remember that then which Clemens Alex. saith he found in some Gospel My mysteries or secrets are to me and the children of my Family Unless you be the children of Peace think not to penetrate into his
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
as dear to him as his life Now whose heart would not faint and swound to think of being guilty of his most sacred blood There is no such load to the Conscience as to shed innocent blood Who then can have a heart strong enough to bear him up of being guilty of the body and blood of the Son of God 4. And that is the fourth thing I would have such persons to consider that they eat and drink damnation to themselves in a more spiritual sense than the Corinthians did that is they make themselves liable not onely to the plagues of God in this life but to his everlasting anger in the world to come You have seen already that in this Sacrament we make a solemn profession of our selves to be Christs Disciples we vow our selves to his service what doth he then but call for all the curses of God upon his head who takes no care to keep those engagements We here profess to believe the Gospel and to submit our selves to it now the threatnings of Christ are a part of his Gospel which we chuse here to fall under if we do not obey his commands We here receive Christ who is represented to us by the signs of Bread and Wine He therefore who embraces him with a dead faith which works not by love what doth he else but damn himself He professes Christ as solemnly as any Creature can do but he lives not according to him His own faith then and belief will condemn him And let that man think that he departs from the Lords Table exposed to all the mischiefs in the world that can fall upon a man unprotected from above The shadow of the Lord is departed from his head and he lies open to all the Thunderbolts of Heaven And beside he consigns himself over to eternal death he binds himself to endure the torments of Hell fire When a man can think of Christ of his death of his love and yet love his sin and keep the traytor in his brest it will at last prove a traytor to him and hale him to the most fear-full execution The flames of Hell will be the hotter because the blood of Christ will not quench them The Anger of God will be more incensed because men blew it up by their sins notwithstanding the stream of Blood which flowed from the side of his Son to slake it And you will see that he is in greater danger of Hell fire then other men and that he drinks damnation if you consider that which follows 5. Such a prophane person doth by this act more harden his heart in his sin and makes it more obdurate against all the methods of God It may be in the heart of some to say that there is no such danger of damnation for a man may repent and though he do not now leave his sin yet hereafter he may be out of love with it But this imagination will soon fly away if you set but the light of this truth and those that follow against it That a mans heart becomes more obstinate and unmalleable who is not softned by Christs Bloud and goes on in sin though he then perhaps entertained some resolutions against it This Bread will turn into a stone in such a mans heart and it will become as hard as the nether Milstone He that can sin though he remember often such a love that is in Christ and so great evil as is in sin and though he come and make engagements and professions of love to him must needs be very stupid and senseless And God withdrawing his Grace Christ departing away from such an unhallowed and impudent Creature must needs make his heart more seared and his condition more dangerous When he approaches to a soul and finds it a nest of unclean Birds he will take the wings of a Dove and flie away to a cleaner and whiter habitation Or rather if we refuse to hear his Law and obey his Word which is preached to us he will not come to us when we are so bold as to take this Covenant into our mouths and yet hate to be reformed And if he will not come to us what can follow but coldness and hardness by reason of his absence 6. The Devil enters into that heart which Christ leaves If the Lord can find no room in us we become fit for seven more foul spirits than dwelt in us before God leaves men more to the power of Satan when they offer such contempt unto his Son The powers of darkness rush with greater fury and with a greater throng upon such a person that loves to be in darkness in the midst of such Heavenly light The Serpent may infuse his venome more into their spirits as well as sting their bodies and he gets a stronger title to them after they have offered such an affront and mockery to the Son of God 7. It must needs be hard for such a person to get a pardon because he sins even against that Bloud by which the pardon is to be obtained Upon what score can he sue for forgiveness who made so light of the Covenant of forgiveness What will he plead for himself who makes so little Conscience of keeping Christ commands that he breaks them all at once for he that doth not receive Christ when he is so tendered and submits not himself to him he refuses all the Gospel and rejects all that he says I tell you it will cost a man many a tear and a very sad repentance before he obtain the mercy to wipe off those stains which the Blood of Christ leaves upon the Soul He must be washed in that very blood which he uses so irreverently and which he can sin against so boldly and what a strong faith must he have that can think this so easily to be obtained Let no man then approach hither that is in love with any sin whose heart is not so broken for his Rebellions that he verily thinks in his Conscience he shall leave them Let him bring nothing into the presence of Christ which his Soul hates unless he intend to be worse then a Jew who did not own him to be the Christ And if any man do find upon good consideration that he and his sins are so saln out that they shall never agree again and therefore desires here to make an open defiance of them and joyn himself most solemnly in a friendship with Christ let him be infinitely careful afterward that he do not return with a Dog to his vomit after he hath eaten this sacred food But let me add this that I do not say all this of the danger that is in this thing that you may not come as St. Chrysostome speaks but that you may not meerly come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hom. 24. in 1 ad Corinth For as to come on any fashion is very dangerous so not to come at all is certain famine and death As he may surfeit and kill
meet and embrace its gracious Lord. Me thinks I behold it preparing a gift of its whole self to offer unto him and such flames of Love seem to be kindling as if it would flye up to Heaven But stay it must first cast one look downward towards its sinfull self before it can think of getting up so high and of being a gift acceptable to God It could not indeed but think of giving the best it had to him who gave all himself to it But alas the time of Sacrifice is not yet come and it is not good enough for to begiven to him It will try if it can make it self a little better though never good enough before it offer up it self by making its sinnes feel the weight and sharpness of Christs Cross that they may all dye It will make a slaughter of them and then a sacrifice of it self which is the third Meditation I have to recommend to your thoughts 3. Consider how odious vile and intollerable every sin is that brought our Lord to such miseries and required such a Blood to expiate it This hatred of sinne proceeds from great Love and the viler we see it is the more will our love encrease to him that will pardon such a shamefull act Think therefore what is that which makes God so angry What bloudy thing is it which drinks the Bloud of Christ himself What hideous Monster that could not be satisfied with the flesh of all the World What cursed thing that the Son of God became a curse for it The thoughts of Christs Cross is enough to affright a man out of the very Arms and pleasant Embraces of a Lust it is enough to rescue a soul that is in the mouth of Hell and ready to go down the throat of the bottomless pit If it can but find any place to take hold of it can drag a man out of the very Jaws of the Monster and it can Arm the revenge of the veriest doting Lover that ever courted sinne and turn his wrath against it But. then how amiable doth the goodness of God appear that he would pass by so many offences and require no satisfaction from us for such insufferable wrongs How great was his love that he would transferre the punishment from us unto his Son and how great was his Sonnes Love that he would bear our iniquities that by his stripes we might be healed Nay none can tell nor think how great the love was but the more hainous and grievous our offences seem the more gloriously will it shine in our eyes and again the more lovely God appears the more shall we hate sin that does any injury to so good a God Let us therefore stay our thoughts here a while and think we hear Christ say to us You have lookt into my wounds and have seen into my very heart if you have any eyes sure you cannot but discern what hath put me into this gore Do you not see how sinne raked in my sides and tare my very heart Do you not see how greedily it suckt my bloud Behold the very print of its nails see here the very place where it hath thrust its Spear You say you are my friends will you not take my part against your sins Have not all these Wounds mouthes enough to entreat you to fall out with sin Would you have me used thus again Could you find in your heart to see me once more upon a Gibbet Why then can you not be perswaded by the remembrance of my sufferings for you Why do you not spit in the face of your sinnes Why do you not buffet and beat them and do all the despight you can unto them yea why do you not revenge me perfectly upon them and cry crucifie them crucifie them not these but Christ only Why do I not see them here nailed to my Cross never to be taken down till they be quite dead If you would have me embrace you say None but Christ none but Christ Christ and Wounds Christ and a Cross Christ and Death if he will shall be our portion What I beseech you would our hearts eccho back again if we thought that we heard him groaning such words from the Cross unto us What a fury and a rage would it put us into against these bloody sinnes With what a forwardness should we arm our selves against them With what a revenge should we flye upon them We could not but with all speed drag them to the Cross and torture them to death We could not but pass sentence and do the severest execution upon them Though they begg'd never so much for life the voice of Christ would drown their cryes Though all their friends familiars entreated for them their Petitions would be cast out Though our eyes should pity them and beseech that they might be spared though our Tongues and Pallates should plead for their life though all our senses though every part of our flesh should solicite in their behalf yet we should never endure that our Lord should be disgusted and affronted any more by them When Caesar was slain by Brutus and his Complices Anthony took his Bloudy Garments and spread them before the eyes of the people as if every hole which their Daggers had made would speak an Oration unto them Behold said he the Bloud of your Emperor see here the wounds they have given unto him Can you love these Paracides that have stickt him like a Beast Can you look with patience upon the Butchery they have committed Can you look through these Clothes without fire in your eyes And immediately he so moved the multitude by that artifice and the vehemency of his Oration that they run upon the houses of the murtherers as Tygers or Wolves upon their Prey and would as certainly have torn them in pieces as a Lion doth a Kid in the heat of his anger but that they were before fled from the danger Cannot then the representation not of the rent Garments of our Saviour but of his very broken Body more move a considerate heart against sin which was the slaughterer Cannot the very sign of his sacred Blood pierce with greater Rhetorick into his soul Think that thou hearest Christ himself say Behold my Wounds See here the breaches in my Body Look upon me whom they have pierced Read in me the cruelty of thy sins Canst thou hug and imbrace these bloody Parricides Canst thou shew any kindness to so vile an enemy Hast thou the patience to hear me ask any more Questions and reason with thee any further Surely in the middle of such thoughts as these the heart of a man could not but take fire and be so incensed and provoked against all his sins that he would leave them all dead at the foot of Christ Not one of them could escape but every mans hand would be against his particular lust and there they should lie bleeding as so many sacrifices at the Altar of the Lord. For who could lie