them we make no scruple to use Eusebius his words who saith it is a remembrance instead of a sacrifice a L. 1. Demons Evang. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in another place We sacrifice a remembrance of the great sacrifice b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so every Christian is a Priest or a Sacrifice when he comes to the table of the Lord. For as our Lord saith to his Apostles Luke 22.19 Do this in remembrance of me so he saith to every private Christian the same words 1 Cor. 11.24 onely there is this difference that Do this c. in St. Luke doth manifestly referre to those words before To take bread give thanks and give to others which is only the Ministers work but in St. Paul Do this c. referres to Take eat which immediately precedes and this is to be done by all So that both the one and the other in their several kinds do commemorate Christ and represent him to the Father And that it is onely a memorial of a Sacrifice and not a Propitiatory Sacrifice the Arguments of a Divine in the Council of Trent will prove Hist Cone Trent in spite of all opposers Our Saviour saith he did not offer sacrifice when he instituted this Sacrament for then the oblation of the Cross would have been superfluous because mankind would have been redeemed by that of the Supper which went before Besides saith he the Sacrament of the Altar as he calls it was instituted by Christ for a memorial of that which he offered on the Cross now there cannot be a memorial but of a thing past therefore the Eucharist could not be a sacrifice before the oblation of Christ on the Cross but shewed what we were afterward to do From hence we argue That if it was not so then neither is it so now We do nothing but what Christ then did and therefore if he offered no sacrifice neither do we but onely commemorate that sacrifice which he was then about to offer Therefore a Portugal Divine in that Assembly made a speech to prove that it could not be demonstrated out of the Scripture Georg. de Ataide that this Sacrament is a sacrifice but onely out of the ancient Fathers and he answered all the arguments to the contrary so strongly and the Protestants arguments afterwards so weakly that the most intelligent were of opinion that he did not satisfie himself But of this perhaps too much unless the state of things among us plead my excuse I will add but this one thing more and so put an end to this Chapter That it may be called a Sacrifice because with the Action we do offer Prayers to God for all good things Epist 59. ad Paulinum And so St. Augustin expounds that place in 1 Tim. 2.1 concerning the Petitions put up at the Lords Supper By Supplications he understands the Petitions put up before the bread and wine be blessed By Prayers he understands those whereby they are blessed and sanctified and made ready to be given to the people By Intercessions he understands the prayers made for the people when they do partake for then the Minister as if he were a kind of Advocate doth offer them to God and commit them to his hand after which follow the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giveings of thanks which are made by all for that and all other mercies that the good God bestoweth on us Whatsoever becomes of this interpretation we need not fear to call the whole action by the name of a Sacrifice seeing part of it is an Oblation to God of hearty prayers and it is not unusual for that to be said of a whole that is exactly true but of one part But methinks it much unbecomes Christians to quarrel about Names especially about the name of that which should end all quarrels and therefore I only intended to shew how this word may be used if we please without danger and how the ancient Church did understand it CHAP. II. THis holy action is to be next of all considered as a remembrance or commemoration with thanksgiving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thence it is called by the name of Eucharist i. e. Thanksgiving according to the phrase of Ancient times Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. For as the bread and wine the breaking and pouring out are representations so our takeing eating and drinking express our hearty resentments This good cheer cannot but breed a certain cheerfulness This Divine Food cannot but fill us with gladness After we have swallowed the sweetness of Heaven and Earth after we have tasted of that which Angels desire to feed but their eyes withall how can it choose but breed a spiritual joy in our souls and make our mouthes break forth into singing If there be any wine that makes glad the heart of man this sure is it which is pressed as it were out of the Coelestial Vine and tasts not of the blood of the Grape but of the Blood of God This should send up our souls in songs of praise to Heaven this should make us wish that we could evaporate our spirits in flames of love and that our souls were nothing but a harmony and consent that we might alwayes be tuned to his praises And though the Angels have many strains of Praise that we are unacquainted withall yet this is a note that they cannot sing Rev. 1.5 6. Unto him that hath loved us and washed us from our sinnes in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and his Father to him be glory and dominion for ever Now for the fuller understanding of this I take these six things to be considerable I. That as it is a Feast it betokens joy and all joy at such times is expressed by songs If we will beleeve the wiser sort of Heathens they lookt upon their publick Feasts not only as times of ease and outward mirth but as instruments to raise their thoughts to spiritual things and fill them with an inward joy So Proclus doth apply their customs in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to intellectual things which he saith lay hid under such Ceremonies Lib. 1. in Timaeum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And among other matters he saith That their Feasts on the first day of those Solemnities were an embleme of the perpetual quiet and tranquillity we should labour for in the World knowing that if we be filled with God he brings in with him a never ceasing feast Do I hear a Heathen speak Dropt these words from the pen of a Pagan O my soul that readest this blush to think that thou shouldest celebrate a Divine Feast without a Feast and come to the Table of God empty and void of God For if they laboured to see something Divine under I know not what strange rites how can we chuse but be fill'd with God and Festival joys when we sit with him at a Heavenly Banquet And if we be then there will
of a thousand Masters which will teach us all decent carriage and beseeming expressions to the person whom we love You need not tell one that is in Love what he shall say or how he shall make his Addresses c. but Love it self is his Tutor which is full of wit and invention which forms it self into apt expressions and puts on becomeing gestures and turns it self into all arts of insinuation I have read in an Anonymous Author That he knew some Religious persons who all the while they were at this feast did nothing else but only cry with heart and tongue I love thee O my Jesus truly I love thee O my Jesus reiterating this above an hundred times and professing that they found a singular comfort and consolation in these throbs and beatings of love in their heart unto him It seems their love taught them that their Lord would be best pleased if they threw themselves into his arms as it were and told him that they were so full of love that they could not hold and yet were so inebriated that they could not tell what to say but only that they loved him But he saith he knew others that would say nothing but endeavoured to keep their soul from all thoughts whatsoever that they might hear the voice of Christ within them when all their affections were husht and still It should seem that their Love taught them that it would be best to be so modest as to let their Lord speak first or rather speak all and they sit and hearken to his sweet voice within them alluring them to himself Thus Love guides every man according to the temper and complexion of his soul to make his Addresses in that manner which will be most pleasing to his Saviour and breed most contentment to himself But this very love that is thus quick and sharp and knows how to tell its mind and obtain its end is of that nature that it will enquire of others if they can afford it any assistance that may polish and refine it to a higher degree of purity And as you have seen in the former discourse That holiness consists of several actions of our life very different and various so it is here to be considered that love delights to break forth in several acts and the soul finds vent for it self in divers manners according as the objects presented do open a passage and make their way into our heart Now it will be but fit that when we come to remember the great love of our Lord we should let the expressions of our love be as various as we can and suffer our souls to burst out as many wayes as there are occasions offered When there is an holy fervour inkindled in them let them exhale in sundry thoughts and divers breathings of a devout affection that they may send up a perfume of many spices unto Heaven Only if we feel our hearts exhale and evaporate in one thought or desire more than another with such a freedome and pleasure as though they had a mind to spend themselves in that alone let us not stop the passage of those sweet odours nor quench that ardency of our spirits by turning them to any other thing But rather let us help it forward till we find it grow weak and languishing and then it will be most profitable and pleasant also to open some other port at which the soul may sally forth upon a new object and be encountred with fresh delights And truly considering that I have already led you by the hand as far as the Table of the Lord methinks I might leave you there to your own Meditations upon that matter which I have prepared to your thoughts Those minds that are impregnated with good motions should be all ready methinks to teem forth themselves into most proper Meditations at the sight of their dearest Lord without any further directions But yet I consider again that the strongest Army for want of Order and good Discipline may do but little service and that a throng of thoughts if they be not well ranged and disposed may thrust themselves forward to the disturbance and hindrance of each other And therefore I shall endeavour to set those thoughts which I conceive will be in all good minds in their right place that they may issue forth and second each other to our greatest advantage and the doing of us most acceptable service CHAP. XIV IT will be well becoming Christian Piety to welcome the day that brings our Saviour so near unto us with acts of joy and thanksgiving for the approach of so great a blessing And since one night may breed too great a damp and chilness upon our spirits it will be very wholesome to renew those thoughts and affections that we left there when we went to bed and so go to the House of God in a sense of our unworthiness to entertain so glorious a Person and in a sense of sinne which is the cause of that unworthiness together with a joy in our souls and praises upon our tongues that he will forgive them humbly desiring of the Lord that he will accept of us for his habitation and that he will come and enlarge our souls by a holy love to him and longing after him that there may be room for his Sacred Majesty and a place clean and dressed for to receive him And then when the time comes that this holy service begins we must put on such affections as are most agreeable to the several parts of the action As first We must solemnly and devoutly joyn with the Minister in those Confessions Prayers and Thanksgivings which he thinks fit to use And Secondly When he invites us in Christs Name to come and receive him let us adore the goodness of God that will call us to his own Table and let us compose our selves to a thankfull reverence that we may receive this Heavenly Food And Thirdly We ought diligently to attend unto those Exhortations and Perswasions which he shall use and to endeavour that our hearts may be affected with them But these are such things as you can easily instruct your selves about and therefore I will apply my Discourse to more particular considerations I. When you see the Minister stand at the Table of the Lord to consecrate the Bread and Wine by Prayer and the words of Christs Institution then send up an act of wonder and admiration that the Son of God should become the food of souls by dying for us Then these words so anciently used Sursam Corda Lift up your hearts should sound in all our ears and our souls should spread their wings that by the divine inspirations they may be mounted unto Heaven in adoring thoughts Nothing more becomes this Sacred Mystery than such a dumb admiration and the love of our Lord is not better praised by any thing than loquacissimo illo silentio as Erasmus his phrase is by that most talkative silence When the apprehensions
under the load of sin when he beheld Christ groaning upon the Cross for it whose heart could remain unbroken when he saw his body broken for us who could withhold his eyes from tears when he saw the Wounds of Christ weeping blood for us Behold O Lord would such a mans soul answer unto him I am sorry that my sins have liv'd so long It was sore against my will that there should be any of them now to kill fain would I have had their lives but they are hitherto overstrong for me O do thou strike my soul through with a sense of thy sufferings and they will not be able to endure thy hand Do thou transfix me first with a sense of my baseness and then with a sense of thy love and sure they cannot but die when they feel thy pains I am resolved not to carry away one of them alive If they had a thousand lives they should lose them all that my soul may live to thee How it would delight our Lord to hear such language in mens hearts it is not for me to express nor can you imagine how you should please him better and draw him more powerfully into your armes then by such discourse within your selves Nor can you ever think to get the victory over your sins and bring them under your hatred and displeasure if such a sight as Christ crucified before your eyes be not able to effect it Never will they be killed if they can outlive the sight of a bleeding Saviour Never shall we get them under our power if they can escape with their lives when we remember so solemnly his accursed death III. When we see him that ministers come to give the bread unto us let us employ our selves in these three Acts of Devotion First It will well become a soul to sink into a very deep humility and to abase it self in the sense of its own unworthiness When thou seest that Christ is coming as it were towards thy house Run forth to meet him at the door before he come in and entertain him with an act of reverence worship and humble obeysance to him Say Lord I am not worthy that thou should'st come under my Roof I deserve not the crumbs that fall from thy Table Say as Ruth to Boaz Ruth 2.10 after she had bowed her self to the ground Why have I found grace in thine eyes that thou shouldst take knowledg of me seeing I am a stranger How comes it that my Lord should cast his eye upon me What am I that he should visit me and come to marry himself unto me And when thou hast depressed thy self a while at his feet Then Secondly Rise a little up again and mix some Acts of love with this humility Think of the infinite love of God that would give his own Son think of the infinite love of Christ that would so graciously come to save us and would leave us these remembrances and tokens of his love Wish that thou hadst a thousand hearts to correspond with so great a love Say within thy self Oh Lord What am I that thou shouldest command me for to love thee What compare between me and thee that thou shouldest so much desire to make me a visit and give to me an embracement Whence comes it that thou who art in Heaven among them who know so well how to love and serve thee wilt vouchsafe to descend to me who know little else but how to offend thee Is it possible O Lord that thou canst not content thy self to be without me Did thy meer love draw thee down from Heaven for my sake Dost thou still give thy self unto me as if thou couldst never be mine enough Who can abide the heat of this love Who can feel thy heart and not be burnt up There is none can dwell in such flames without being consumed No soul that can abide in the body if a great sense of this love do long abide We must therefore entreat our gracious Lord that he would stay for the full measure of our love till he hath made us able to do nothing else but love him And thirdly Let us turn our Love into desire Let us beseech him to fill us with his holy Spirit and to dwell in us by all his divine graces Say Lord since thou art pleased to come and offer thy self unto me My soul thirsteth for thee even as the thirsty Land I humbly stretch out my hands unto thee Psal 143.6 I open my mouth wide that thou mayest fill me O satisfie my soul with thy likeness O let me taste that the Lord is gracious And you may be assured that the Lord loves a soul that lies in such a posture ready to receive him that gasps and longs after him and saith in its heart Whom have I in Heaven but thee Psal 73.25 and there is none on earth besides thee Stir up thy appetite therefore and come to him as a chased Hart to the streams of water as an hungry man unto a Feast as a Bride unto her Wedding a thousand times desired Labour to feel something like to those longings that so thou mayst taste and savour his love the more and it may leave a sweeter gust and relish upon thy soul and thy mouth may praise him afterward with joyfull lips IV. When we take the Bread into our hands it is seasonable time to do that Act which I told you was one end of this Sacrament viz. Commemorate and shew forth or declare the Death of Christ unto God the Father Let us represent before him the sacrifice of atonement that Christ hath made let us commemorate the pains which he indured let us intreat him that we may enjoy all the purchase of his Blood that all people may reap the fruit of his Passion and that for the sake of his bloudy sacrifice he will turn away all his anger and displeasure and be reconciled unto us Themistocles they say not knowing how to mitigate and atone the wrath of King Admetus and avert his fury from him snatcht up the Kings Son and held him up in his armes between himself and death and so prevailed for a pardon and quenched the fire that was breaking out against him And this the Molossians of whom he was King held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Themist the most effectual way of supplication and which of all others could not be resisted or denied Of far greater prevalency is this Act the holding up as it were the Son of God in our hands and representing to the Father the broken body and the Bloud of his onely begotten Let us set this between the heat of Gods anger and our souls let us desire he would have regard to his dearly beloved and the Lord cannot turn back our Prayers that press and importune him with such a mighty argument Say therefore to him Behold O Lord the sacrifice of the everlasting Covenant behold we lay before thee the Lamb
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
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
but nothing methinks is more tempting and inviting than this heavenly Feast where pleasure is mixed with profit and physick with our food Where at once we may be both enriched and delighted both healed and nourished This Table if I may use the language of an holy Man is the very sinewes of our Soul S. Chrysost Hom. 24. in 1 Corinth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the ligament of our mindes the foundation of our confidence our hope our salvation our light our life This mystery makes the earth to be an Heaven and therefore if thou wilt come hither thou mayest open the Gate of Heaven and look down into it or rather not into Heaven but into the Heaven of Heavens For that which is the most precious of all things above I will shew thee lying upon the earth For as in Kings Palaces the chiefest and most precious things are not the fair Walls the gilded Roofs the costly Hangings but the body of the King that sits upon the Throne even so in the Heavens the most glorious thing is the Body of Christ the King of Heaven Now behold and thou shalt see it here upon the earth For I do not shew thee the Angels or the Archangels or the Heavens or the Heaven of Heavens but him that is the Lord and Master of them all and therefore must thou not needs say that thou seest that upon the Earth that is more excellent than them all yea thou not only seest but thou touchest and not only touchest but eatest also yea and carriest him home with thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. O then wipe thy soul very clean prepare thy mind to the receiving these Divine Mysteries Who would not be Religious that he may be thus happy who would not forsake all things for such a sight for such an embracement If thou mightest but have the priviledge to take up the Son of a King with his Purple and Diadem and other Ornaments into thy Arms wouldst thou not cast all other things to the ground to be so employed Tell me then why wilt thou not prepare thy self and reverently take the only begotten Son of God into thy hands Wilt thou not throw away the love of all earthly things for him Wilt thou not think thy self brave enough in the enjoying of him Dost thou still look to the earth and lovest money and admirest heaps of Gold Then what pity canst thou deserve What pardon canst thou hope for Or what excuse canst thou think of to make for thy self Thus he Homil. 27. in 1. ad Corinth When a man hath heard the sacred Hymns as he saith in another place and hath seen the spirituall Marriage and been feasted at the Royall Table and filled with the holy Ghost and hath been taken into the Quire of Seraphims and made partaker with the Heavenly Powers Who would throw away so great a Grace Who would spend so rich a Treasure Who would bring in drunkenness or the like Guest instead of such Divine Chear Drunkenness I say which is the Mother of Heaviness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the joy of none but the Devil and is big with a thousand evils What madness possesses a man that he should not rather chuse to feast with God than with the Devil If thou sayest that thou art merry and rejoycest and wonderfully pleased I answer And so I would have thee to be only let not thy laughter be like the crackling of Thornes under a Pot but a solid joy that will make thy heart to smile for ever God doth not envy to the Sonnes of men any happiness but he would have them to be sure they are happy and not please themselves in a phantasticall shadow of Happiness CHAP. XVIII BUT that I may proceed more distinctly and assault your souls with the stronger Reasons to deliver themselves up to a religious life one single piece of which hath such blessings in it I shall present you with the profit of worthy receiving in these three generall Heads which I shall borrow from a Devout Author We have most Princely Dishes saith St. Bernard served up to us in the Supper of the Lord prepared with the most curious and exquisite Art and they are Deliciosa multum ad saporem Serm. 2 de Caena Dom. very delicious and sweet to the taste solida ad nutrimentum strong and solid for our nourishment efficacia ad medicinam powerfull and working for the curing of our diseases Seeing this Sacrament is a Feast and is called the Table and the Supper of the Lord under these three heads I shall comprehend these benefits that may excite every man to the examination of himself and invite us all to this Heavenly Chear The things that are here set before us are 1. Most sweet pleasant and refreshing 2. They are solid strengthning and nourishing and 3. They are Medicinal and Healing I. First Deliciosa ad saporem To a well-prepared pallate they afford a most sweet and delightsome relish This holy Sacrament breeds a Divine pleasure an Heavenly Joy in a right tempered soul and overflowes it with sweetness more than the body is satisfied with marrow and fatness now this refreshment arises 1. From a great sense which is here given us of the love of Christ which as the song of songs saith is better than Wine Cant. 1.2 It is more chearing and exhilerating more cordial and reviveing to think of his dear love in shedding his Bloud for us than to drink the bloud of the richest Grape and therefore the Church saith ver 4. We will be glad and rejoyce in thee we will remember thy love more than Wine It is beyond a ravishment to remember that men are so beloved by the King of Heaven so embraced by the Lord of all the world and still it is the more transporting for to consider that they feed upon this Lord of Love and that he gives his very self unto them and by such secret and wonderfull wayes unites himself unto their souls And it is most of all affecting and but a little below Heaven to think that this is our Jesus and our Lord to say as the Spouse in the same Book My Beloved is mine and I am his Cant. 2.16 When God thus lifts up the light of his countenance upon a soul he puts gladness in its heart more than the joy of Harvest This is a Marriage-Feast and therefore full of pleasure Here the soul embraceth him and he folds it in his arms here they plight their truth mutually each to other here they engage themselves in unseparable unions to hold perpetuall entercourse and live eternally together in the greatest affection As the Bridegroom rejoyceth over his Bride so the Lord rejoyceth over it and he speaks not to it meerly by his servants but he kisses it with the kisses of his own mouth So one of the Greek Commentators prettily glosses upon those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let me not
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
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
be all the usual attendants and companions of such seasons Luk. 15.25 the soul will begin to leap and dance for joy it will awake Psaltery and Harp and all the Instruments of Praise And so the Apostle speaking I suppose of the Christian Feasts and Entertainments bids them not be drunk with wine Ephes 5.18 19. wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord. These two things did commonly finish the Heathen Meetings After they were well liquored with Wine they used to sing and roar the Hymns of Bacchus The Apostle therefore opposes two sorts of heavenly pleasure unto that madness bidding them not to gorge themselves with Wine but to crave larger Draughts of the Spirit not to fill the air with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Bacchus as the manner was but with Hallelujahs unto God Drunk they might be so it were with the Holy Ghost And chaunt they might so it were Psalms and Thanksgivings to the Lord. Psal 36.8 Inebriabuntur ubertate c. Vulg. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thine house saith the Psalmist and thou shalt make them to drink of the River of thy pleasure Even a heathen could say Pramium virtutis esse perpetuam ebrtetatem That the reward of virtue is a perpetual drunkenness But then we must distinguish of drunkenness as Ficinius doth who hath well noted That there is one Earthly and Mundane v. Argumentum dialogi 2. de Justo when the soul drinks of Lethe's Cup and is beside her self and unmindfull of all divine things This is it the Apostle speaks against in the beginning of those verses as a heathenish crime But there is another coelestial drunkenness when the soul tasts of Heavenly Nectar and is indeed out of it self because above it self When it forgets these mortal things and is elevated to those which are divine feeling it self by a supernatural heat to be changed from its former habit and state This is it which the Apostle exhorts unto this is it which we must long for when we are at the Supper of the Lord. This is that which the Spouse means according to some ancient Expositors when she saith He hath brought me into his banquetting-house or Wine-Cellars and his banner or covering * For they feasted upon beds Cant. 2.4 over me was Love The Septuagint make it a prayer and render it thus Bring me into his wine-cellar place love in order over me Which may be conceived saith one as the voice of the Church to the Apostles or Ministers Polychronius Prepare for me the Supper of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set me down orderly at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the feast of love There is nothing that holy souls can more desire then to be so satisfied with him that their mouthes may praise him with joyfull lips This is the fruit of the spiritual inebriation that the soul meditate spiritual songs and hymns to God And indeed the better sort of Heathens did in their feasts sing the praises of famous men which good Criticks make the true original of the word Encomium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so the Apostle exhorts the Christians that they would break forth into their praises of God and Christ who were most worthy of all their hymns Before I end this let me observe That every one may sing such Hymns as the Apostle calls for and indite them in his own heart unto God because a Hymn is not as we ordinarily think onely praise in verse and metre but any words of Thanksgiving that set forth the merits of him that we extoll So a Heathen will teach us if we be still to learn it When a man saith Libanius hath any gift given him by God 〈◊〉 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he should by way of thankfulness return something unto God and some give one thing some another The Shepherd offers a Pipe the Huntsman a Stags head the Poet a Hymn in metre the Orator a Hymn without metre and in my judgment saith he a Hymn is more valuable with God then Gold and far to be preferr'd before it Now Love will make any one eloquent if our hearts be full of God they will run over Thanksgiving and Praise is the natural language of a pious heart and there is no such copious subject whereon to spend them as the Lord Christ and in the knowledg of Christ nothing so admirable as his death and therefore when we commemorate that the high praises of God must be in our mouths II. The Jewish Feasts upon their Sactifices do more plainly instruct us in this matter They that offered peace-offerings unto God were admitted to eat some part of them after they were presented to God and some pieces of them burnt upon the Altar And this is called partaking of the Altar which was God's Table 1 Cor. 10.18 Ezek. 41.22 Mal. 1.7 where they did rejoyce before him as those that were suffered to eat and drink with him So I observe That where there is mention made of their eating before the Lord which can signifie nothing else but their partaking of the Altar and feasting at his table they are said likewise to rejoyce before him Deut. 12.7 18. Deut. 16.11 in the later of which places after he had given command concerning the three great Feasts he adds ver 14. Thou shalt rejoyce in thy feasts And in the later end of King David's Reign when Solomon was crowned there was sacrifices offered in abundance for all Israel as you may read 1 Chron. 29.21 22. and the people are said to eat and drink before the Lord on that day with great gladness But the Psalmists words are most to be observed to this purpose Psal 116.12 13. where to the question What shall I return to the Lord for all his benefits towards me he returns this answer I will take the cup of salvation c. i. e. when I offer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacrifices for salvation or deliverance that God hath granted me out of trouble I will remember the mercy of God with all thankfulness as I feast upon the remains of that sacrifice For it was the manner that the Master of the sacrifice should begin a cup of Thanksgiving to all the guests that he invited that they might all praise God together for that salvation in consideration of which he paid these vowes unto him And in those words the Ancients thought they tasted the cup of salvation which we now drink in the Supper of the Lord expounding them in the anagogical sence to signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Psal 116. the participation of the Christian mysteries For in them we are to lift up songs of praise to Heaven as we feast upon the Sacrifice of Christ and we are to laud his Name who hath done such great
same Epistle acquaints us with it when he saith 1 Cor. 14. v. 16 17. When thou shalt bl-ss (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. with the spirit i. e. in an unknown tongue how shall he that is unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seeing he knows not what thou sayest From these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shalt bless and giving thanks Beza thinks that he touches upon the Lords Supper So the L. Mr. Thorndike also for they are the very same words which are used concerning that action of our Saviour when he first celebrated this feast as you may see Mat. 26.26 27. And besides the Apostle seems in that Chapter to direct the Corinthians how to handle the whole divine service so that it might be to edification Now having spoken concerning Prayer and singing of Psalms ver 14.15 and instructing them afterward concerning teaching and interpreting of Scripture ver 19 26. in all likelihood he here tells them how to behave themselves to the same profiting of others in the Supper of the Lord at which there were many rudenesses committed by the people And that which he teacheth them So Juctâ—n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to give thanks in a known tongue that so all the people when the Minister comes to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever and ever as Chrysostome speaks might assent with their wishes and say Amen From whence we may collect that giving of thanks is so considerable a part of this service that in the Apostles stile it involves the whole of it VI. It may further be observed that all Churches in the world have always used divine praises in this commemoration and if we may believe ancient Records such as are very conformable to the Jewish benedictions at the Passeover 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Blessed art thou O Lord our God the King of the world who hast produced bread out of the earth and blessed art thou c. who hast created the fruit of the vine And afterward Let us bless him wâ—o hath fed us with his own and by whose goodness we live c. For so we reade in Justin Martyr and others Apolog 2. Constit Apost that in their times the Church used to praise God for all things and particularly for those gifts of bread and wine and so for Jesus Christ his Death Passion Resurrection and Ascension beseeching the Father of the whole world to accept of the offering they made to him And in after ages Cyril of Hierusalem saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We make mention of the Heaven the Earth the Sea and all the Creatures reasonable and unreasonable of the Angels Archangels and powers of Heaven praising God and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath c. These do very much correspond with those Hebrew formes which perhaps they were willing in part to imitate for the greater satisfaction of the Jewish Christians who constituted part of their assemblies One thing more seems to be very clear that from the Hallel of the Jews it was that some ancient Christians used in the 50 days after Easter to sing and ingemminate Hallelujahs in their assemblies ut autem Halâ—iujah per illos solos quinquaâ— ginta dies in Ecclesia cantetur non usqucquaque observatur c. Epist 120. as a remembrance of that great Hymn which the Prince of the Church and his Apostles sung after this supper This St. Aug. takes notice of but saith that in his days those Hallelujahs used to be sung at other times also From all which we may discern a farther reason why they called this Sacrament by the name of a Sacrifice Ia isto autâ—m sacrificio gratiarum â—ctio commemoâ—atio est carnis Christi quam pro 〈◊〉 obtulit Fuâ—g de side 1 Pet. 2.5 because they did offer unto God thanksgiving as the Psalmist speaks Psal 50. â—4 which is one of the spiritual sacrifices which every Christian is consecrated to bring unto him It is confessedly true that there never was any festival instituted by any people of the world but one part of it was a reverend acknowledgment of God and a thanksgiving to him for his benefits And there never was any solemn feast either among Jews Persians Greeks Aegyptians or Romans without some sacrifice to their Gods Christians therefore are not without their sacrifice also when they keep this feast and such an one as is very befitting God and which no rational man can deny to deserve the name L. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Porphyry disputing against the eating or sacrificing of beasts unto God denies that thereupon any ill consequence could be grounded as if he denied all sacrifices to him No saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we likewise sacrifice as well as others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only we will sacrifice according as is most meet And there he assigns to every Deity its proper homage and acknowledgment belonging to it saying that to the great God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He above all we sacrifice nothing but pure thoughts and speak not so much as a word of him But to those that are the off-spring of God the coelestial inhabitants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we give Hymns and praises which are the conceptions and expresses of our mind and so he proceeds to the more petty tributes paid to lesser Gods According then to this Heathen Divine the praises of God may well pass for the most proper sacrifice and he makes account that there is none better but onely silent adorations A soul breathing forth it self out of an ardent affection in holy Hymns is more acceptable to God then the richest gumms or the sweetest wood that can fume upon his Altars But a whole soul full of pure thoughts too great to come out of the mouth and more clear then to be embodied in words is transcendent to all oblations But yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the Christian thanksgiving consisted only in inward thoughts and outward words For there are Eucharistical actions also whereby we perform a most delightsome sacrifice unto God We must not when we come to God appear before him empty but we are to consecrate and offer unto him some of our temporal goods for the relief of those that are in want which may cause many thanksgivings to be sent up by them to God 2 Cor. 9.11 12. It hath been said before that our whole selves ought to be offered as an holocaust to God and our love should be so great as to spend our souls and bodies in his service now in token that we mean so to do we must give something that is ours unto him for to be imployed to his uses We are to give God an earnest of our sincere and intire devotion to him by parting with something that we call ours and transferring it to him Of this the
come to his house and table then that they may be tied faster to him with new cords of his love and that it may be made more impossible for them to unloose themselves from his service What is there more in the desire of a holy soul then to cease to be its own what greater pleasure doth it feel then in parting with it self To what would it be more engaged then to the pleasing of him whom it heartily loves Let me be bound hand and foot saith such a soul that I may never stirre from him Let me seal to him a thousand Deeds to convey my self unto him If he would have me sign the Covenant with my Blood every vein in my body shall leap to do him that honour But rather let him come and seat himself in my heart and let him take my dearest life-blood if it will do him any service I accept of a suffering-Saviour I take him as he is all broken and bloody If he will have me follow him with a Cross upon my shoulder I refuse no conditions behold O Lord thy servant do with me as seems good in thy sight Thus we are to address our selves to this Feast as will be better understood if we consider these five things I. If we look upon this action onely under the general notion of a holy rite which God hath appointed as an act of his Worship yet the very using of it is an acknowledgment of him and his Religion and an engagement of our selves unto him as our God He that was circumcised was bound to observe the whole Law and so was he that offered sacrifice to the God of Israel at his Altar engaged to own him that had appointed that Worship Just so the performing but of one thing which God hath appointed as a ceremony in the Religion of Christ doth tie us to observe the whole Religion which he requires who did appoint that Rite And you may likewise observe That there being a mutual action in this Sacrament of Gods giving something and our taking it doth express that we are fast bound in that Covenant of which this action is a part So the giving and taking but of so small a thing as a straw doth bind persons firmly to that thing whereof they are agreed and which they conclude in that manner Stipulation one of the strongest words which we have to signifie the confirmation of a Bargain by was anciently made by no stronger thing as the very word doth import which carries a straw in its name And so any other thing in the World may be used to the same purpose The giving and taking of six-pence to strike up a contract doth lay as fast hold of a man as ten thousand pound in hand Much more then this solemn giving and takeing of Bread and Wine being a piece of Christ's Religion and he so represented by them doth bind us as fast to him as if we should repeat every word that he hath said and profess our consent unto it We are supposed to know the tearms of that Writing that Christ hath left us containing our duty and his promises and it is presumed we are willing to enjoy those promises and so to perform those duties this Action then doth but more solemnly conclude the agreement and we hereby stand engaged as strongly as if Covenants had been drawn between us and our hand and seal were affixed to them II. But then if we consider this Action as a coming to Gods Table and partaking of his meat we shall presently discern that thereby we prosess our selves of his Family and declare to all that we are his Followers and Retainers and that we own the Religion of the crucified Jesus I confess that coming to Christian Assemblies in the first times was an owning of Christ because it was very dangerous but this Action which was in those Assemblies performed was a more express profession of their belief in him and friendship with him For the great stumbling-block of the Jews was the Cross of Christ and it was foolishness to the Gentiles To declare therefore this death and Cross of his to eat of his dead body and drink of his blood was as much as to say I believe in this suffering-Saviour I am a Christian and will live and dye in this Religion A stranger may come unto a mans house but the friends onely are they that sit with him at his board and he that is not true to him of whose bread he eats is the worst and basest of all Enemies The Psalmist could put no worse character upon an enemy then this Psal 41.9 That he who put forth his hand to eat of his bread had lifted up his heel against him By coming then to Gods Table we profess our selves his familiar friends in whom he reposes a trust and we can put no greater scorn upon him then by being false to him that doth admit us to such a nearness You may observe therefore in Scripture these two things First That eating of bread together is spoken of as a token of friendship and agreement as these two places among others will satisfie you Job 42.11 Jer. 41.1 Bread is never wanting at any Feast and so they expressed by it a friendly entertainment Whence Pythagoras gave this Lesson to his Scholars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do not break bread i. e. ne dirimas amici iam never break friendship but let it remain inviolable And so likewise Salt being never absent from any Meal and placed upon the Table it hath been used as a symbol of friendship and to have eaten Salt with a man at this day is proverbially as much as to be well acquainted with him which was a word as usual in ancient times among other people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. l. 8. Ethic. cap. 3. according to that speech of Aristotle We cannot know one another till according to the Proverb we have eaten a quantity of Salt together The Turks * Knolles in the life of Mahâ—met 1. at this day joyn both together and to say I have eaten Bread and Salt with sueh an one is an expression of having good acquaintance with him All which I but briefly touch upon to make it more sensible to us that this participation of Gods bread is a token that we are of his acquaintance and we do tell the World hereby That we profess all love and friendship to him The second thing I would have noted is That Covenants in Scripture story are made by eating and drinking together For which I need produce no other places but those in Gen. 26.30 Gen. 31.44 46. where Isaac and Abimelech Jacob and Laban conclude their Compacts with a Feast But you may add if you please that in Josh 9.14 where it is said the people took of the victuals of the Gibeonites and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord i. e. They made a Covenant with them before they consulted with the holy Oracle
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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.
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
and there embracing together did pass as it were into each others bodies As it was said of Jonathan 1 Sam. 18.1 so it might be affirmed of them their soul was knit to the souls of their brethren and they loved them as their own soul And therefore Alexander the false Prophet Lucian in Pseudomant in imitation I make no question of these holy brethren did entertain all his followers with a kiss and those that were admitted to a near communication with him were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they within the Kiss There are several places I observe in holy Writ where this kind of salutation is joined with weeping Gen. 29.11 Gen. 33.4 Gen. 45.15 whereby the Scripture expresseth such a joy at each others sight that it stopt all passages for the present but the eyes and tears told that which the mouth could not yet speak but by a kiss And in one place this salutation goes under the Name of falling on the neck Gen. 46.29 which denotes the Ardency of their embraces and that they hanged on each others lips as if they were loath to be two any more But beside all this it must be marked that the kiss was usually accompanied with some form of Benediction or Prayer for their welfare which plainly appears in the salutations of two treacherous persons Joab and Judas 2 Sam. 20.9 Matth. 26.49 the one of which saith Art thou in health my brother i. e. I pray thou mayest be as I hope thou art c. and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All hail Master From all which we may be well assured That these Christian embraces did onely melt them into tears and not inflame them into any distempered heats that they did onely shew their dear affection and heartily pray to God that all Peace might be with them i. e. that all prosperity and happiness might be their portion 2. The first Christians having the Blood of Christ as yet warm upon their hearts burnt with such Charity to each other that they instituted frequent Feasts which they kept at the same time after they had received the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood At this sacred Meal the poor were feasted together with the rich upon those offerings which the rich had made And they sate down as it hapned without any distinction either in higher or lower forms to shew that they looked on themselves as equals in Christ and fellow-heirs of the same promise These Feasts were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Feasts of Love or Charity and are mentioned in St. Jude ver 14. and by St. Peter 2 Pet. 2.13 So denominated they were as Anastasius Sinaita will have it from their end and purpose which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw all together to an unity and agreement Tertullian gives a better reason but tending to the same sence Our Supper saith he carries its reason in its Name Coena nostra de nomine rationem sui ostendit Vocatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id quod dilectio penes Graecos est Tert. in Apol. for Agapae signifies love in the Greek Language We find no Divine Institution for these Entertainments yet they have as a Learned man speaks * Montag against Sdden Divine Toleration And they had a good beginning though in process of time they nourishod disorders In the first simplicity they fed the soul as well as the body and Charity was no less nourished then their Carcasses though in after-times it must be confessed they made greater expences then formerly but did far worse employ them And therefore in Justin Martyr's dayes about the year 160 as far as one can guess by his Apology they left them off and disposed the offerings more advantagiously into a common Bank for the poor and distressed persons For they were not like men now that take away abuses and save their money but they reformed the mispence of that Charity which they still continued And therefore those Agapae which after-Authors mention were but rarely celebrated on their Birth or Marriage-dayes or at their Funeral Obsequies whence a dole is at this day used to be given to poor people But they were so approved of in the Apostles dayes that the phrase of breaking bread in the New-Testament seems to have reference to this whole Feast and not onely to receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For so the phrase is used among the Hebrews for a Feast and so in the Acts of the Apostles cap. 27.35 St. Paul is said to take bread and give thanks and break it which was not a celebration of the Eucharist but a common meal together with the passengers in the same ship And in like sence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper is to be understood 1 Cor. 11.20 for the whole Feast including both the Agape and the Eucharist also being so immediately joined together Whence it is that Ignatius speaking of this under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make an entertainment he saith they should never do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. ad Smyrn without the Bishop or Overseer of the Congregation And the reason sure was because this Sacrament was alwayes joined with that Feast and both understood by one name which Sacrament none might celebrate without the presence of him that was appointed by God to bless and sanctifie the offerings that were brought So Mr. Thorndike testifies Review of Rights of the Church That he finds in a MS. expounding divers Greek words of the Bible this glofs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords Supper is to dine in the Church This common Entertainment being made for poor and rich out of the stock of the Church from the offerings that were brought the seaven Deacons were first appointed to attend upon the making of this provision and relieving the poor otherwise which the Apostles had not leisure for to mind as you may read Acts 6.2 Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serving Tables we cannot well understand any other thing then providing for the poor this Table at the Feasts of Charity which maintained a singular love and kindness among them all So great a kindness it was that hereby was nourished that the Heathens could not but take notice of it as inviting many to be Christians You shall find In Frag. saith Julian among the Galileans by which name they called Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Feast of Love which they call Agapae their entertainment and their serving of Tables which draws many to their Religion And this is the great thing which the Apostle reproves the Corinthians for that though the Sacrament and this feast were appointed to preserve love yet they rudely abused them to the very contrary end The Gloss of Oecumenius if it be perused will make this very clear When you come together saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1 Cor. 11.20 into one place This is not to eat the Lords
is represented God giveing his Son and all Blessings unto us and we giving of our selves and our best service unto him as hath been already discoursed By this God sets to his Seal that all things contained in the Covenant shall be done for us and we do set to our seal and openly profess our selves to belong to the Covenant and that we esteem and highly value all those blessings and will do any thing for to obtain them Now who would not long for such a food that will satisfie our whole desire Who would refuse an invitation to that Table where all things are in one dish if I may so speak and God and Man meet together in one Bread and one Cup But I doubt I may add Who is there that would not have all these things so that this Bread and Wine without any labour will convey them unto him And therefore I must give you another short information which was the second thing that I promised and that is this 2. This copious Food doth not nourish us without some actions of our own even such as I have already mentioned in this Discourse It doth not feed us in a natural but in a moral and spiritual manner It reiresheth us by our consideration by our faith our love our prayers our covenanting and thanksgiving But all the cunning in the world will not draw a drop of blood out of it without these no it draws out the blood of our souls and wasts our strengths by a careless and prophane eating of it The Papists talk of great things that their Priests give in this Sacrament by their power and they would make the world believe that they communicate more then we can do But we must solemnly averr That our Ministry conveighs as great things as they speak of onely men must do something more of the work themselves We pretend not indeed to send wicked men to Heaven with a word but we can help the thoughts and affections of all pious souls as much as they with all their skill and power Nay if the people do nothing we give them more then they for they feed them with hungry accidents they give them a bit of quantity and a cup of colours yea the Laity have not so much as a sip of these figures whereas the worst man among us hath at least Bread and Wine so that the best among us enjoy as much in effect and vertue as they can pretend unto and the worst by their own confession enjoy much more But the truth of it is that men have heightned these things to such incomprehensible mysteries because they would do nothing and these should do all They have advanced these sacred Rites of Christs appoinment into a degree of vertue beyond all his other commands that so by these easie and facile rites of Baptism and the Lords Supper men might go to Heaven by a compendious manner of doing little or nothing towards their salvation And they have not left these Rites as naked as Christ brought them into the world but they have changed the manner of their observance and cloathed them in a great many strange dresses lest the genuine simplicity of them should reprove their false hopes which they conceive from them They could never put men so soon into Heaven nor get so much money as they do by the bargain if they did not make men believe greater things of this Sacrament then of all the eternal Laws of Christ and they could not make men believe so much more of it if they did not transform it from its native simplicity into an uncouth mystery These two things the love of mens lusts and the love of the world have made men stretch these things so far as to defie all reason to damn all those that will not speak non-sence and to send those to hell though of never so holy lives that will not discredit their eyes and ears What strange things will men believe and do so that they can but believe contrary to the Gospel They hope to go to Heaven they know not how by the Magick of words and by the secret efficacy of a Religion that they do not understand and this makes them willing to entertain such Doctrines And then others have a respect to their own interest and having little else to support their greatness would be reverenced and esteemed for their extraordinary power in making the body of Christ and that makes them willing to maintain them So the Author of the History of the Council of Trent saith very truly L. 6. When men began to place Heaven below Earth good institutions were said to be corruptions onely tollerated by Antiquity and abuses brought in afterward were canonized for perfect corrections But we willingly acknowledg that we have no power to save men without themselves We celebrate no such Mysteries that shall convey the wicked to Heaven We cannot deliver those that are dead from their pain and torment who whilst they lived made little reckoning either of this or any other Divine Command No we proclaim to All men that this food must nourish us by our own stomachs that it affords strength by the vital operations of our own souls And if we our selves will do what God requires of us then we shall find it as full of vertue as we can desire and it will be a means to put us in Heaven while we remain here upon the earth Sometimes they will needs blame us as doing too little and denying the use of good works but this is such a falsity that we call for more of mens labour then they seem to make necessary and profess that we hope not by any power of ours to do them good without the exercise of their own powers And therefore let us put forth a lively faith let us heartily covenant with our Lord let us make a sincere profession of our Religion and exercise such other acts as I have been treating of and so will this Feast be of great force and full of efficacy to our souls health And that you may feed with an appetite and hereby get an encrease in strength it is necessary that I next of all direct your Addresses to Gods Table and shew how you should prepare your selves to be his worthy Guests and that shall be the Subject of the following Discourse Mensa Mystica SECT II. Concerning Preparation to the Table of the Lord being a Discourse upon Psal 93.5 CHAP. VII IT is a known saying of the Psalmist Holiness becomes thy House O Lord for ever The corner-stone upon which that Affirmation is built is no other but this That God is essentially holy And that is a truth which hath such a foundation in our natural understanding a notion that springs so clearly from every mans mind that all the deductions and consequents that flow from it must needs be evident and find no resistance but onely from the wills and perverse affections of men If we consider
when we are baptized into the Christian faith and take upon us those sacred ingagements to be his servants We are ever after this under a religious tie and vow and the next step which we take to the discharge of it is to be catechized and instructe in Christs Religion which is all that a child is capable of And then when we come to years of discretion we are to advance still forward to a serious profession that we stand to our first Covenant and will be true and faithfull to our Lord. Now all our life after is but an asserting of our truth and sincerity in this holy Covenant and a making good our promise and oath wherein we have bound our selves Which when we labour conscientiously to perform then do all the actions of our lives become holy And so a man may be holy in his shop by diligence and justice and at his board by temperance thankfulness and sending portions to the poor A friendly innocent and useful conversation will make him holy abroad and meditation and prayer mixed with the former will make him so at home Yea prudence and the ends of health and cheerfulness will make his sports and recreations his sleep and all such actions to be holy and not be reckoned among pastimes but the necessary seasons of doing little or nothing that afterward we may do something and be worthily employed As to the disposition then of his heart a Christian is alway alike holy because he seriously desires intends and endeavours to be undefiled in all things onely the matter about which he is necessarily employed will not bear it that all his actions should alway be alike excellent III. There is another thing likewise that must be confessed That though all actions of holiness have a regard to God as they are parts of our obedience to his commands yet some of them have a more particular respect to him and are more industriously intended to his honour Though all holy actions look towards him yet some of them are a looking him directly in the face Though we may always fit under his shadow with great delight yet sometimes we are under the light of his countenance it self his glory is to be alway our end but sometimes we are said more particularly to glorifie his Name As when we advance him highly in our own thoughts or when we proclaim his excellencies to the world When we pay our acknowledgments to him for blessings received or wait on his bounty for things that we need In brier prayer and praises meditation of him and desires after him reading and hearing of his holy Word with such like actions me of that sort wherein we behold his face and do more sensibly taste of his goodness and are both more satisfied with him as the greatest sweetness and transformed into him as the purest beanty CHAP. IX IV. NOw to draw nearer to the main scope of this discourse It must in the next place be considered that those actions which respect men or our selves and those which immediately respect God are mutual preparations each to other As an holy behaviour in the works of our calling in our converses with men and the use of Gods blessings dispose us unto prayer meditation and such like duties so prayer c. again requires them and returns the kindness upon their own heads by disposing and preparing us to such like holy deportment for the future in these matters These two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an inseparable brotherhood like Hippocrates his twins that grow or decay both together Prayer makes a Christian live holily and a holy life makes us fit to pray servently And both the one and the other are not onely parts of our duty which God commands but instruments and helps to doing our duty Such a combination there is between all the things that God requires to make them easie and familiar desirable and pleasant and to make us intire and compleat impartial and universal in our obedience to him VVe cannot do one duty that he bids us but the rest become more easie to be done nor love sincerely one command but the rest will draw us unto their love The holiness of our conversation is it self an invitation of God to our souls much more when we second it with the attractives of holy prayers and affectionate desires And both the sweetness of such converses with God and the power of his grace that is consequent upon our hearty desires will ingage and inable us to continue an holy conversation As impurity brings us into familiarity with the Devil so holiness brings us into fellowship with God and the happiness of that is so great that we shall not be tempted easily to leave it but be excited to do all we can for to maintain it Psellus I remember tells us that the mad fellows of Manes and others frantickly and diabolically acted used to eat the excrements of a man and being asked the reason of it they made no answer but this that to those that eat such things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spirits were made friendly and benevolent I am sure the Devil delights in those who feed upon the filth of the world and the very prayers of such persons are but a strange charm or spell that have a force to hold them faster in the Devils arms While men pray with any affection to sinne or with no disaffection to it they will but the more certainly continue in it and never think of forsaking that which they hope their prayers have despoiled of all power to do them any harm They think they have conjured out all the bitterness all the sting and the fire that is in sin by that holy breath and so they take the confidence to embrace and kiss it as an harmless thing But a holy man as I said is Gods delight and he takes pleasure in those that fear him And therefore all the Religious acts of a pious soul make his ordinary Employments to be religious and pleasing unto God and they again have an influence upon his acts of Worship to make them more full of devotion and true fervour As wicked actions do nourish in some most passionate prayers for forgiveness and those prayers they hope obtain leave for them to do wickedly upon no greater charge than to ask forgiveness So good actions do beget in men a greater longing after the divine grace and these desires make them still do well out of a hope to have more grace When a good man lifts up his hands to God he draws down God into his soul that he may work with his hands that which is good in his employment and he is not so busie in that employment that his hands should grow so heavy or dirty by it as to be unwilling or unfit to lift them up again to Heaven We are to look then after such a demeanour that we may be fit at all times when God shall give us an
know or ever heard of do think that nothing less than a morning and evening-Worship can denominate prayer continual or without ceasing As the Lambs that were offered every morning and every evening throughout the year were called in Moses his Law the continual burnt-offering Exod. 29.42 Numb 28.3 So the offering unto God our Morning and Evening Sacrifices even the calves of our lips for what we want and what we have received may be called our continual prayer which must be alwayes joined according to the Apostle with thanksgiving From their practise we fetch the best explication of these expressions concerning prayer that I know of and so we may of such things as I before mentioned and many others also These solemn Addresses then we may by no means omit but look upon our selves as necessarily bound unto them And as among them there were two Lambs more offered upon the Sabbath day over and above the continual Burnt-offering Numb 28.8 9. So we cannot but think our selves most strictly enjoined to enlarge our prayers and praises upon the Lords day to a greater length than at other times and to offer as many more sacrifices as other days require Several other times there were wherein God required more than the ordinary offerings of them as may be seen in the same Chapter but yet he left room for some voluntary Oblations which as I said he thought they would be so kind as to bestow upon him or else he would never have made mention of them nor given any Laws about them Even so hath God left it to our love and good will we bear to him to make choice of some seasons beside those he hath appointed wherein to pay him larger acknowledgments and testifie a more abundant affection to his service both by the fervency of our souls in what we do and by the greater proportion of time which we allow for the doing of it Pral 119.164 and in the 108 verse he prayes God to accept the Free-will-offerings of his mouth And therefore it will be highly accepted of God if sometimes we pray with David seven times in a day and make some addition to the daily sacrifice Charles the fifth though a person of a high employment as David was used to continue so long at his private devotions and was so sparing in his ordinary speech that his Courtiers were wont to say Chytreus Orat. de eo he did saepius cum Deo quam hominibus loqui speak oftner with God than he did with men The more pious sort likewise among the Jews seem to have prayed at least four times in a day twice at the Temple if they were at Hierusalem and twice in their own private houses At the third hour when the Disciples were together at the Temple it is very probable because all Nations that were at Jerusalem took notice of it the holy Ghost came down upon them Acts 2.15 which was the time of the morning sacrifice about nine of the clock according to our reckoning On the same day in all likelihood two of the Apostles went into the Temple at another hour of Prayer which was the ninth viz. three of the clock in the afternoon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the time of the evening-sacrifice as you read Acts 3.1 where the words are so placed that they intimate another hour of prayer to be usual besides that From the constant observance of these appointed times they are said in Luk. 24. ult to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 continually in the Temple blessing and praising God But beside you may find that Peter prayed at twelve of the Clock in his own private house which was the sixth hour of the day in their language Acts 10.9 and therefore it is probable that the twelfth hour or six at night was another hour for private prayer among them And if it should be said That he being not at Hierusalem but Joppa might omit the hours of prayer at the Temple that will be confuted by the practise of Cornelius in the same Chapter ver 3 30. who being at Caesarea prayed at the ninth hour and the holy Apostle cannot be thought to be less devout than him There is nothing lost by going unto God and the oftner we perswace our selves to it the better success we shall have in all other things according to a good Proverb of the Dutch I think which saith Thefts never enrich Alms never impoverish Prayer hinders no work Our Saviour hath given us an example of extraordinary devotion in his own practise Luke 6.12 where you read that he continued all night in prayer to God or as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by some rendred in one of Gods places of Prayer Thither he retired from company and passed the night in holy meditations and converses with God He did not sin when he slept other nights but this was a more illustrious act of holiness and a more fervent expression of love to his Father above that which the precept requires And concerning such devotions the Mahometans say Preces nocturnae sunt splendor dici Night-prayers are the light of the day So in Luke 22.41 we find that our Lord fell upon his knees and prayed and not long after ver 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prayed more earnestly and fervently than before He did not fail of his duty in the former prayer because it was not in such a vehement degree but in this later prayer he expressed a more excellent zeal and ardor of spirit then he was absolutely tied unto All these things are written for our instruction that we may learn to lay hold on the occasions that are presented to us of intending our spirits raising our hearts beyond their common pitch and temper I remember Strabo saith concerning the ancient Venetians that they used to sacrifice to Diomedes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a white Horse which might both signifie the purity and also the strength and speed of the service that they owed to God We must alway be holy and pure in our Addresses to the Divine Majesty but we have examples in Scripture and it will be highly pleasing unto him to put to greater strength sometimes and press forward with a greater speed to collect all the forces of our souls and strain them to the noblest degree of desire and love that we are able VI. You may likewise consider further That one act of Religion is preparative to another The daily sacrifice makes the weekly more acceptable Continual prayer makes us more fit for prayer on the Lords day The morning and evening spent well make us ready to spend a whole day better And these constant sacrifices keep the Altar warm and maintain a fire to kindle our free-will-offerings And one free-will-offering inflames our heart to a forwardness to present God with another So likewise back again these extraordinary devotions make us more solemn in our ordinary duties and the Lords day employed well makes every day
to be spent the better Meditation and retired thoughts fit us for prayer and prayer again nourisheth and feeds our meditations Both those fit us to receive holy exhortations and usefull instructions in Sermons and they again stir us up to more frequency and fervency in prayer and meditation And these together with all the former that I have mentioned prepare us for the Eucharist and the keeping the holy Feast of Christians in the Supper of the Lord. This again affords such nutriment that it makes us strong in the Grace of Christ and to perform all other duties with a greater gust and relish with more delight to God and unto our selves VII But it must also be acknowledged That there is some other preparations requisite to holy duties beside all this that I have mentioned For though fervency in any one duty of our Religion doth but fit us to be more fervent in all the rest and though the works of our employment conscientiously discharged do fit us for the duties of Religion yet to the doing of them fervently it is needfull that we lay out of our mind all other thoughts that concern not them Now the works of our ordinary employment being about a different matter from the works of devotion and the mind full of one thing not being able presently to be void for other company we must spend some time to discharge our thoughts of such objects as are alien to these holy duties we go about Constancy in our lawfull business doth hinder many indispositions and ill habits in our minds that else would grow up in us but yet they themselves may leave some little indispositions in us at least to such a fervency in devotion as we would arise unto They therefore must be turned out of doors and the thoughts of them must be laid aside that God may come in and possess himself of us The Altar of God Exod. 27.4 5. was made with a grate in the midst of it that let the ashes fall through so that the fire might burn hotter and more purely But yet for all this it is most likely that the sacrifice would need some stirring that so the ashes might be shaken off more perfectly and it more entirely consumed and therefore you read of flesh-hooks among the Utensils of the Altar wherewith the Priest ordered the flesh while it burn in the fire Just so it is with our hearts in which a continual fire ought to burn though they be like a grate or seive and let worldly thoughts pass through and run out of them which else like ashes would make the flame to be dimme and pale yet besides this care there will be need of some shaking and stirring up of our selves that we may more fully clear our hearts of all those earthly cloggs that will stick and cling unto us Now the higher that holy act of worship is which we are to perform and the seldomer it doth return to be performed and the more vehement that expression of love is which we would make in it the more solemn must be our preparation and the larger time there must be allowed for taking our minds from other things and bringing them to a serious intention upon this alone And therefore since our approaches to the Lords Table are of such moment and since they profit us not without the operation of our own mind and that benefit likewise so great when we come aright it cannot be thought but that we should use a great care and circumspection to fit our selves for such near converses especially since they are not so frequently performed as other duties And yet in this preparation there is also a latitude so that I cannot well determine how much is of absolute necessity to be done and if I should still we may go beyond those limits and perform more acceptable service unto God If you would know now after all that hath been said wherein preparation to his holy duty doth more particularly consist I may briefly resolve you about it thus We must deny to our selves lawfull things by sequestration of our selves from our ordinary business by abstinence from food and from the most chast embraces which the Apostle speaks of 1 Cor. 7.5 And this must be done for no other end but that we may more fully know the estate of our souls which I suppose we are already acquainted withall and be more deeply apprehensive of the evil of sin and more sorrowfully bewail it and more rationally resolve against it That we may pray with greater appetite and praise his Name with a more delicious relish when we distast all other things and in short that by disburdening of our bodies we may ascend up to Heaven with greater felicity in our thoughts and meditation And because preparation to the Sacrament of Christs body and blood is the prime end of this discourse I shall next descend to treat of that and in the following Chapter consider what greater degree of holiness may be conceived requisite to the right performance of that Christian duty CHAP. X. I. THat we are to lay aside some time before we come to the Lords Table all our worldly employments though never so innocent hath been already suggested We must so order our affairs that they may not hinder us in any of those acts which I am about to mention And if they prove to be of great weight then this thing must needs be premised For every act must have some time allowed wherein it is to be done and we cannot do two things at one time especially when they are of such a distant nature as spiritual an carnal things We find in our selves that when one faculty is in act we cannot intend the acts of another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr We cannot at the same time operate according to the brutal part and contemplate the things of a rational life Much less can one faculty mind two objects at once or can our mind be busied both about our earthly affairs and our spiritual concernments And besides this Seeing it is the design of a Christian in this duty to get as near to Heaven as he can it is the more necessary that he not only lay aside his business but his body too He is to endeavour to strip himself of his cloaths to put off his outward man that he may have a more naked and open sight of future glory and render his mind more sensible of God and fit to receive a deeper impression from his hand At this season we are to put forth the strongest acts of faith to excite the hottest flames of love to renew our resolutions to bind the obligations that are upon us faster about our souls which cannot be done but by a solemn heart So that this separation from our business before-hand seems to come within some degree of a necessary duty And give me leave to tell you that it would be a thing of singular advantage if those that have so
much room in their houses would set some little place apart for holy duties and let it be acquainted with no other thoughts but only of God and their own souls This would be an easie way of putting all our employments out of our thoughts which would all leave us when we came to that place where they were strangers None of them would be so bold as to tread in that place which is washt with tears they would not draw breath nor live in that place where there is no aire but Sighs and Prayers they would never abide in that room where no inhabitant is but God alone For we find that if we come to any place where something of note and concernment hath been done by us though it be slipt out of our mindes the very sight of the place revives the image of that thing and stirres it up again in our memories If therefore we had a place of privacy where we did nothing but read and pray and invite God into our company as soon as ever we did but look into it the face of God would meet us and we should be struck with a certain awe and reverence from his presence that uses to be there with us And a sweet remembrance also of what pleasure hath passed there either in joy or sorrow would by a kind of natural way be revived But if a man pray in his Counting-house the thoughts of his money will be apt to meet him as soon as he steps in at the door his bills and bonds will thrust themselves into his mind as soon as the Book of God so that he will find it more difficult to drive away such impertinent thoughts Let us therefore resolve on this as the first step to the Lords Table to separate our selves at least from all worldly employments if not from worldly places If we cannot have a little Chappel in our own houses yet let us look to that in our own heart that nothing now but God do enter into it Say thus in your own meditations Be gone you vain things for I am going to my God Yea Lord do thou bid them to be gone and not dare to appear in thy presence Welcome holy thoughts and pure desires O happy time wherein I may embrace my dearest love and solace my self in the armes of my Saviour I charge you O my companions that you haste away as fast as the Hinds or the Roes and that you stir not or disturb the beloved of my soul Come not near I charge you make no noise to displease him or to call me away from his enjoyment It is the voice of my beloved I hear him inviting of me to his house of banquets I see him coming to entertain me let all flesh therefore be silent and not be so bold as to whisper in his presence II. When you are thus at leisure set your self to consider what is the end of this Rite and what lieth hid under the Ceremony This one thing seems to me to call for some solemn thoughts beforehand because it is a piece of our Religion that is cloathed with an outward garment it hath something of a positive institution in it and retains something of the ceremony the signification of which is to be studied lest we should not discern the Lords body 1 Cor. 11.19 If we look not beyond the shadow we shall feed nothing but our body or if we draw aside the veil but half way we shall lose a great part of the food of our souls which are instructed by every part of this holy action You must therefore labour to uncover the face of this mysterious food and consider it in all those notions wherein I have laid it open before you This I judge to be the more needfull together with the rest of those directions which I have to add because now this Feast doth return more seldome then it did in ancient times and so our minds may have let slip the remembrance of many of the ends of it or at least may retain but weak and dark notions of them For those things that are not of natural light do not use to stick so close to our souls as those that are engraven upon them but by the intervening of other images they may be either blotted out or else look more pale and lose the liveliness of their colour And therefore we had need the oftner to meditate on them that so by a new impression they may keep their form and then especially when we are going so near to God lest our acquaintance with them be decayed through the multitude of other things that we have converse withall Let every man then remember himself when he intends to remember Christ and say after this sort O my soul whither are we going What is that Table which I see yonder spread for us What means that broken bread that is provided For what end did his precious blood run out of his side Do men use to drink a cup of blood O my soul let us enter into this secret and know the bottom of this mystery Let us look into his wounds with joy and gladness to see how his heart doth beat with love to us Let us open our heart to him let us shew him how sorry we are and how our heart is pierced that we have pierced him Let us lay our hearts together and tye our selves in an everlasting Covenant that he may dwell in us and we in him Such as these are most seasonable meditations to dispose our minds the better to feast with him III. And then thirdly We should consider with our selves what acts are most proper when we shall be at Gods Table We should think with our selves what hatred of sin what desire what love to God and what Charity to our brethren is then to be expressed what prayers and intercessions what praises and thanksgivings are then to be offered For we shall scarce spend our time well there unless we be provided with some matter for our thoughts and have put them into some method and order that they may not hinder one another And therefore it is good to consider with our selves what disposition of soul doth best agree with every part of this sacred action How the mind is to be affected at the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine how it is to be moved when the Minister blesses and presents them unto God and how when he gives and distributes them unto us and the rest of our brethren Sect. 3. Of which and such like things I shall treat hereafter IV. And when we have diligently pondered of this let us begin to stir up those affections beforehand which will prepare us to a more lively expression of them when we come there Begin to admire at Gods goodness that he will send an invitation to such a poor wretch as thou art Render him many thanks for that being a Lord of such Majesty he would vouchsafe
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
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
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
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
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
the fruits of his Sons death and the earnests we have of the eternal inheritance We should begin to praise him with the Heavenly host and to joyn our hearts and voices with the celestial Quire we should wish that we could make all the world ring with his praises and that we could make all men hear from the East to the West the sound of our thanksgivings We should sing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all the Churches of Christ throughout all ages have sung saying Holy Holy Holy See the Learned Mr. Thorndike in his Relig. Assemb Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory And so we read that as soon as our Saviour had spoken those words that he would not any more drink with them till the Kingdom of his Father should come they sung an Hymne or Psalm of praise and so went forth And indeed who can sufficiently praise his divine Majesty The tongues of Angels stammer in uttering of his goodness and we become dumb the more we endeavour to speak of it The highest of our praises is humbly and affectionately to acknowledge that we cannot sufficiently praise him the greatest of our endeavours is daily to admire him the furthest we can strain our souls is to long for eternity wherein it may be our imployment to admire and praise him Call upon the Armies of Angels and wish them to praise him seeing thou canst not call upon all men and bid them praise him wish thou couldst awake all the world that all Creatures might praise him and make thine own soul hear more plainly call upon it more shrilly call upon it again and again call upon it every day to praise him Say as the Psalmist doth Psal 103. Bless the Lord ye his Angels which excell in strength that do his Commandements hearkning to the voice of his words Bless the Lord all ye hosts ye Ministers of his that do his pleasure Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion Bless the Lord O my soul Mensa Mystica The Postcaenium or of our Deportment afterward CHAP. XV. ANd now that we have had a sight of them let us remember his love more than Wine Let his name be engraven upon our hearts and his Image remain fair and lively upon our souls Let us find a kind of unwillingness to admit of any other company and say in the secrets of our mind None but Christ none but Christ Yea when we do return to converse again with other things let us still be looking back towards him as one that hath got our hearts and say Lord evermore give us this Bread Let us labour that other objects may not come near our hearts nor make any strong impressions upon us but that they may be sealed up by him and so filled with him that all things else may look upon themselves as having nothing to do there Eusebius Pamphilus hath a pretty Observation on Cant. 5.12 where the eyes of the beloved are compared to the eyes of Doves by the Rivers of water washed with Milk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Milk saith he of all other moist things hath this singular property that it will not admit of the image or picture of any thing to be reflected in it and therefore it is a fit resemblance of his eyes in which nothing vain insubsistent deceiving doth cast its shadow but they do alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behold the being that truly is Our souls should labour to imitate him as much as they can and to endeavour at least that the world may not deceive and cheat us with its shadowes and pictures of things but we may see through them all to that being which is true and substantial and on that our eyes may be fixed as our only good and happiness The Lord expects now that we should proceed to a greater strength by the higher food that he vouchsafes unto us that our knowledge should be more bright that our love should be more inflamed that by our actions we should shine like lights in the world holding forth the word of life Many of the Ancients upon those words V. Comment trium Patrum Cant. 6.10 do note that there are four degrees of Christians Some are but newly converted and they do but look forth as the morning with weak and trembling thoughts being as it were in the twilight and not far enlightned A second sort have made some progress and are fair as the Moon they are much enlightned but have abundance of spots still in them and some discernable darkness still remaining A third sort are clear as the Sun very full of light very pure unblameable and bright in their conversations The world can take notice of no common failings yet sometime there may be a partial eclipse and if they mark themselves they will observe many weaknesses as the modern Astronomers that have pried more narrowly have discerned spots in the body of the Sun A fourth sort are they that are become such strong Christians that they are as terrible as an Army with Banners and all their enemies flie before them Few temptations are able to worst them but they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the appearance of an Agnelical Host that are so strong in the Lord and in the power of his might that they overcome the world and tread Satan under their feet Now in which soever lower form and rank we be of these we should strive to advance to that which is higher and seeing we have more than Angels food we should labour to do the will of God on earth as they do in Heaven We should put on all the Armour of God and gird it closer to our loins and shew greater valour to the perfecting the conquests we have begun We should labour to be so full of Christ that the Devil may be afraid of us and run away when he sees us grown so stedfast in the faith For we must not judge of the state of our souls by our fervency in this duty but by the holiness of our lives which is the fruit and effect of it Unless our lives be better than they were before we our selves are not made better We are but like some of the Sect of Pythagoras who held that a man took a new soul when to receive Oracles he approached to the images of their Gods but it was such a new one as was lent him but for a time and then he returned to the same man he was before Such a new soul men seem to have some time when they come to the solemn duties of their Religion they are inspired with strange and unusuall affections and moved beyond themselves But it is a soul that lives but for a day and then they fall to their old dulness and as for their own soul it gives no sign of its amendment and further renewal after the Image of God It is fit therefore that I should next of all
consider what is fit to be done for the keeping alive and feeding these flames of love when they are kindled in our souls And that shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVI FIrst I conceive it will be a fit expression of our love afterward to invite the poor the next meal unto our Table or to send some portion of our good things unto them When God hath feasted us at his House it is agreeable that we should feast others at ours or relieve them more plentifully than at other times The Jews used to send portions one to another and gifts to the poor upon a good day as they call it i. e. at a festival or time of rejoycing as you may see Esth 9.22 The Portions I suppose were part of the sacrifice of Peace-offerings which they had offered and which they sent unto friends that were absent and could not be with them and gifts to the poor likewise accompanied them that they might rejoyce in God also And so you read that the first Christians Act. 2.46 47. after they had broken bread did eat their meat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr. Ham. in singleness i. e. liberality and openness of heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having favour c. i. e. doing acts of charity as an excellent Critick notes unto all the people It may be said that we make an offering at the Sacrament and so need not now renew our charity But those that think so forget that I am perswading to keep the heart from cooling by laying on new fewel And therefore as we praise God again in our private houses so it will well become us and will much assure our good disposition to us if we again express our bounty as we are able unto others For our charity is to be a running stream through our whole lives and therefore this advice is good to keep the passage open that it may not be suddenly stopped now that it hath newly found a vent for it self The Apostle bids the Christian Jews to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. 13.15 whereby in all likelihood he understands their offering of Almes instead of the fruits of their herds and flocks joyned with praises and thanksgivings to God at the Eucharist Which offerings he calls the fruits of their lips because they were such as they had vowed and consecrated to God in token of their gratitude And this place of the Apostle seems exactly answerable to that of the Psalmist 50.14 Offer unto God Thanksgiving and pay thy vowes to the Most High But then after he had given them this exhortation to perform these two duties of Thanksgiving and Almes-doing at the Sacrament he adds v. 16. But to do good and communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased i. e. Do not think it sufficient to have payed your vowes at that solemn meeting of Christians but over and above that you must be carefull to exercise continuall Charity and not to omit any season or occasion of doing others good and this is a kind of daily sacrifice wherewith God is much delighted As the Jewes had their continuall Burnt-offerings beside those extraordinary Peace-offerings when they gave thanks for some great mercy so Christians besides these offerings at the Table of the Lord must be mindfull daily to be beneficiall unto others according as they have objects presented unto them And that they may not forget it will be wisdome to keep themselves in doing and presently after this Divine Food to think of feeding others that stand in need II. Secondly Let us not presently return to our worldly Employments if it be not upon the Lords day that we receive but let us spend the after-part of the day in entertaining our Lord with acts of Love and Delight with Thanks and Praise unto him for his favours Let us admire his Perfections and Graces let us talk with him about the Affairs of our Souls let us open to him every room in the House and lead him into the most private closet of our hearts shew him all our fecrets acquaint him with all our wants and weaknesses spread before him all our desires and earnestly entreat him to stay and dwell with us Let us tell him again That all we have is his let us tye a new knot upon the band of the Covenant that is between us let us be afraid lest by going presently into the world it should be loosed and dissolved It is not fit you know that a Bride on the day she is married should go from the company of the Bridegroom to follow Houshold-business or associate her self with other persons but she delights only in the presence of her new Love Even so unseemly it is to leave the company of our Lord as soon as we have let him into our hearts and to divert to other occasions when we have newly given him our Faith and taken him as the Bridegroom of our souls We should pass that day at least in heavenly discourses with him in expressions of our love and affection toward him in acts of desire after inseparable union with him and in promises and vows that we will alwayes be faithfull and loyal unto him that so the remaining part of the day may be as a Postcaenium an lafter-Supper and second Communion like the Feast of Charity which succeeded I told you in ancient time the holy Sacrament And indeed it is not only unbecoming us but likewise very dangerous and prejudicial to our health when we are thus warm to step instantly into the cold and chilling affairs of this world Motibus oppositis nihil permitiosius is a rule among Physicians there is nothing more hurtfull to us than motions quite opposite immediately succeeding each to other and therefore as it is pernicious after exercise to go and wash in cold water so it must needs be extreamly noxious to sink our selves into Earthly Employments just after our souls have been above in the exercise of love to God It argues likewise a soul but little affected that can presently relish Worldly things after it hath had any tasts of Gods sweetness It seems to me that such a man is like to Ganymede the Shepherds Boy in Lucian who though he was beloved of Jupiter and carried up to Heaven yet could not forget the things that he had left behind but asks What now will become of my Fathers Sheep Alas whither will they wander now that I am taken from them How will my business thrive if I spend so much time in Meditation and Prayer saith a silly soul How shall I be cast behind in my work while I am thus employed But as the Dialogist handsomely brings in Jupiter giving him a check so may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. dost thou yet think of thy sheep now that thou art made immortal Doth thy mind run upon thy shop now that thou
And as you see a Mountebank commends his Medicines his Balsomes and Pomanders with so many amplifications and lyes and arts of insinuation that he cheats poor silly people So doth the Devil puff up the ambitious mans mind and swells a Mole-hill into a Mountain and he tickles the wanton fancy with promises of ravishment in an empty pleasure and to the covetous heart he saith Thou canst not tell the contentment that so many baggs of Gold or such a fair Lordship would give thy heart And there is no man but he labours to cast a mist before his eyes and to dazzle him with some glittering appearance in the midst of which he hopes to work his ends upon him Now the light of faith strikes through all those painted shows and an hearty belief of the truth of the Gospel which the holy Eucharist still encreaseth makes all these shadows flye away It will not let us be deceived as was our Mother Eve with specious pretences but saith Avant thou Impostor away you lying vanities Tell me not these Tales For his Testimonies have I taken as an Heritage for ever for they are the rejoycing of my heart Psal 119.111 And there is no less power in this holy food to enervate a second of his Arts which is to affright us with the noise of danger and mischief that shall seem greater than all the pleasures of goodness if we will not be perswaded but that it is pleasurable He puts strange vizards upon all things and makes them look as ugly and fouly as he can that so he may make us flye from the troubles of a mortified life He labours to make us believe that there is nothing but sadness in Gods wayes and it begins perhaps to make us melancholly with the very thoughts of it And if this will not do he will stir up enes mies against us to discourage us our own friends perhaps shall cast us off or the fire of persecution shall burn against us But now the Hope of the glory of God will make us rejoyce even in the midst of tribulations Here we embrace also a crucified Saviour and there is no better Livery than a Garment rent and torn a Body wounded and abused if need should be for Christs sake There is nothing can affright a soul that dwells in the wounds of its Saviour as in the holes of a Rock Nothing will seem difficult to a heart that is filled with expectations to dwell for ever in his embraces in the Heavens And now how is the world and the flesh confounded when they see good men rejoyce and triumph in the midst of all miseries and discouragements How do the Devils howle to see their stratagems so unsuccessfull that even Paines are accounted Pleasures and Losses are accounted Gains and Torments are turned into Joyes and Prisons are the Gate-houses of Paradises The Devil you will say will study to be revenged on such men and will not cease to vent his malice against such souls And seeing he knows not how to do them harm but by makeing of them sin he will try if like a Serpent he can insinuate but a part of himself at any little hole He will perswade them to self-indulgence in some small crime that so he may bring them to all the rest or he will labour to draw them if it may be within the verge of sin into an infections place into the society of a temptation hoping that by little degrees and preambles he may make way for sin to enter But the love of God which is here much inflamed will make the soul of such a quick scent that it may easily perceive his wiles Love doth extraordinarily enlighten the soul by its flames and will make it more discerning of the least spot that is in it self and of the least danger that is without And the more pure and white the soul grows by love the sooner will any speck of filth be espied upon it The more full of light it is the more imperfections will it take notice of which before were unobserved as in the beams of the Sun we see a thousand little attomes or motes which before were not discerned By all this which in your own meditation may be enlarged you see what strength it affords To which you may add if you please that as the Devil hath baits for every pallate and can humour every mans taste and comply with all complexions and dispositions So is the holy Sacrament an Heavenly Manna which tastes as every man wishes and as the Author of the Book of Wisdom speaks doth serve to the appetite of the eater Wiâ—â— 16.20 21. and tempers it self to every mans likeing being able to give them all content Thirdly I fficacia ad medicinam But this Bread and Wine being spiritually received are not onely food and meat but Physick and Medicine also They are means to preserve health where it is and to restore it where it is decayed Though this may seem more doubtfull then the two former and you may ask how Bread-and-Wine do signifie any thing of this nature yet I shall show you that is denoted by them in Christs intention more then any thing else For the bread as you have seen doth not represent the Body and flesh of Christ barely and in general as it is the food of the soul but in a more especial manner as the flesh of a Sacrifice and that a Sacrifice for our sin whereby it becomes not only our meat but our medicine also The food we eat is in remembrance that Christ died for sin and so it is healing to our souls and killing to our sins it purges away our iniquities and purifies our hearts And so Christs Blood is here considered as the Blood of the Cross the Blood of Atonement and propitiation for us and therefore we do not receive as hath been said bare Bread and Wine but Bread broken and Wine poured out And here you may take notice of the reason why Christ did institute Bread and Wine rather then flesh to represent himself by unto us Not because flesh was used by the Jews in their Sacrifices for so were Bread and Wine nor onely because this was the common food and nourishment for the body for so was flesh also But it is likely Christ chooses things without life wherein there was no Blood viz. Bread and Wine because he would shew that no Creature was any more to lose its life for the sin of men and that no more Bloud was to be shed for expiation of it The Passeover which we may call a Sacrament of the Old Testament was bloudy to denote Christs Bloud that should be shed but now that it is shed the Sacrament which represents it as already done is without any bloudy thing He is shown to us as one that hath died by this broken bread and wine effused and he shows us likewise that there shall be no more Death no more blood shed for us a
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
thou lovest him nor will any sin which he afterward commits be imputed to thy neglect nor will the sin of his receiving unworthily be laid to thy charge because thou didst what thou couldst to prevent it It can only be matter of thy compassion and sorrow but not thy burden and trouble that another doth not do his duty when thou hast done thine And all Gods Servants in all ages of the Church have received comfort in such mixed communions and have patiently waited till Christs course was taken with men for their reformation And it is to be feared that such objectors seek for too much comfort in outward things and discomfort themselves in their own fancies Whereas their true comfort lyes in doing of their duty faithfully to God and to their Brethren and in the mercy of God in Christ And if they look for other comfort they will be deceived for the net of the Gospel brings both good and bad to the shore and where there is Wheat there are Tares many times also Let no man therefore plead this or that in excuse for his not coming to the Lords Table but resolve hereafter carefully to perform so necessary a duty Let the sinner quit his state of sin and death and so come and eat of the Bread of life Let the ignorant come into the School of Christ and proceed till they come to the highest form to the upper room where this Feast is prepared Let those that are in enmity with their Neighbours also come let them only first go and be reconciled to their Brethren and so let them offer their gift Let those that have a multitude of worldly employments come only let them leave them as Abraham did his Asses at the bottome of the Mount and so let them ascend to Heaven in their thoughts and converse with God Let the weak come that they may grow in strength and let the strong come that they may not grow weak Let them who have fears come that their hearts may be setled by the acts of a more lively faith and let them come who have hopes that they may rise to greater degrees of an humble confidence Let those who have leisure accept of this invitation because they have no excuse and let those who have but little leisure entertain it also that they may the more sanctifie their business and employments let the sad and sorrowfull approach that their hearts may be filled with the joys of the Lord and let those that rejoyce in the Lord alwayes approach that their joy may be full Do not send your excuses when you are called but resolve that a necessity lyes upon you unless you will be guilty of the foulest neglect of your duty and the greatest disrespect to Gods love If any man can be content to stay away after all these entreaties on to come but seldome when he may be so welcome Let him consider what a wrong he offers to his own soul how he robs it of its food and nourishment and how he pineth the most noble and excellent Creature in the world And let him consider what an affront it is to God to despise the choisest of his chear the most costly provision made by the expense of his Sons Bloud and the most kind and gracious invitations to it O foolish people and unwise do we thus requite the Lord do we thus slight the dying of our Saviour are we no more affected with his singular love Is this to commemorate the death of Christ to come once or twice in a year to this Feast The Lord have mercy upon us and help us How are we degenerated from the primitive practise how cold is our love to God and to his Son grown Unless we blow it up by a frequent remembrance of Christ it is to be feared it will quite go out The ashes and dust of this world will bury all the remaining sparks of it which are not yet extinguished Let Christ I beseech you see that you love him by taking all occasions to come to him by binding your selves faster with the cords of his love to all obedience and dutifulness toward him And let me but tell you these two truths and I shall put an end to this Discourse The way to have reformed us would not have been to leave off Communions but to make them more frequent Nor secondly To unite and consolidate Parishes but to make more Pastors in greater Parishes that by more personal instruction men might be better fitted for frequent Communion But so it is that zeal oft-times hath too much passion in it and too little knowledge The good Lord pardon us and be gracious unto us FINIS
Conclusion would be as certain as either that therefore I am pardoned But seeing the first Proposition is grounded on a fallible judgment and it is possible I may deceive my self therefore I cannot make a conclusion of equal certainty with the second proposition but That I am pardoned will be no stronger then this That I beleeve Yet notwithstanding if a man find no cause to suspect his own reality he may have a belief of his pardon free from doubting and may rest well satisfied that he is in a good estate because nothing appears to the contrary but that he sincerely doth the Will of Christ Though he attains unto this perswasion not by a direct but a reflex act of faith i. e. not meerly by a belief of Gods Word which no where saith that I am pardoned but by a serious examination of himself according to the tenor of the Word yet seeing he discerns a conformity between himself and it he may have a very good and strong though not infallible assurance that his sinnes are blotted out and shall not be imputed to him Whensoever then we approach to the Lords Table we should come with a belief that God makes over unto us the greatest blessings if we receive them as he requires Now all that he requires is That we would love and obey him as we said in the former Chapter when we heartily engage to this we have hereby a conveyance made to us of all that Heaven contains which is included in this phrase forgiveness of sinne For you may observe that in Scripture-stile the taking away of Gods Wrath is the doing of some favour His kindnesses are not meer negatives or removals of evil but when he forgives sinne and inflicts not the punishment he conferres the contrary blessing and restores us to the inheritance CHAP. V. THE distance being taken away between God and us this Sacrament must be considered as a means of our nearer union with our Lord Christ He doth not onely embrace us when we come to his Table but he likewise knits and joins us to himself He not onely ties us with Cords of Love and binds us to his service by favours and blessings conferred on us but in some sort he makes us one with him and takes us into a nearer conjunction then before we enjoyed And who would not desire to be infolded in his arms Who would not repose himself in his bosome but who durst have presumed to entertain a thought of being married unto him and becoming one with him And yet who would refuse such a favour now that it is offered to us but they that neither know him nor themselves This Covenant into which we enter is a Marriage-Covenant and our Lord promises to be as a Husband to us and we chuse him as the best beloved of our souls It is none of the common friendships which we contract with him by eating and drinking at his Table but the rarest and highest that can be imagined and we are to look upon this as a Marriage-Feast What this union then with Christ is it need not be disputed we may be sure that it is such an one as is between a man and his wise the Vine and the Branches the Head and the Members the Building and the Foundation as hereafter will more fully appear yea far beyond all sorts of union whether moral natural or artificial which the world affords example of That which I am to shew is That by these Sacramental Pledges of his Love and this communion with Christ our Lord we are faster tied unto him and the Ligaments are made more strong and indissoluble between us This will be manifest upon these considerations I. Seeing we do after a sort eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood we must needs thereby be incorporated further with him I dispute not now in what sence we eat and drink his body and blood but so far as we grant that we do that so far the other is likewise done Our union is of the same kind and degree with our communion and participation And therefore when the Apostle speaks of a communion with them 1 Cor. 10.16 that adhaesion and cleaving to Christ signifies That in some sort we are made one with him So Chrysostome observes That the Apostle useth not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is participation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion because he would shew the near conjunction that is between us and that we are knit and united to him by this partaking of him So likewise Oecumenius upon the place observes That Christs blood uniteth us to him as our Head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by our receiving of it And indeed as it is contrary to all analogy of speech to call the Bread and Wine by the Name of Christs Body and Blood if they be not at all so in like manner it is incongruous to use the phrase of eating and drinking if there be no union between us and that which we eat and drink II. Faith and Love bearing a great part in this holy action and Christ being by them embraced it must needs be a means of our nearer union For union you know begins in our consent unto him and therefore the stronger that grows and with the greater dearness of affection that is expressed the stronger and closer our union to him becomes Now Faith and Love which are our consent receive here a great encrease of strength by the most intense operation of them which is apt to perfect and compleat them No man comes aright hither that doth not from the bottom of his heart as you have seen put himself into the will of Christ to be moved and governed at his pleasure He must run into Christs heart to have no motion but according as that beats so that his whole life should be put to a pulse answering to the heart of Christ And so Cyril brings in Christ calling upon men and saying I am the bread of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. in myst Caen. take me in as a leaven to diffuse it self through your whole mass Be you even leavened with me that every bit of you may taste of me This can be effected by nothing else but a hearty conjunction of our wills with Christs We must put our selves wholly out of our own power as the wife doth when she gives her self to her husband and the more we can get out of our selves so as to have no proper will of our own the more we become one with him When we feel not our selves to be any thing at all nor to have any interest different from that of his then we and he are made perfectly one or rather we are not but he is All. Now this abolition of propriety and self is much promoted by the remembrance of Christs death and his unvaluable love whereby we become dead and are even snatched and ravished from our selves Whatsoever other unions there may be they all wait