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
Tatius mentions that appeared to the sight as if they were on a flame and the fire leaped out of them continually but if you came to touch them they were as cold as any Snow And neither the fire saith he was quenched by the water nor the water heated by the fire but in that Fountain you might behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an amity and reconciliation of fire and water together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just so it is with many professing people they have a seeming zeal and a flagrant devotion they have warm expressions in their mouthes and pray earnestly but if you come near to them and handle them if you grow acquainted with their converse the world lyes cold at their hearts and there is no life of God in them but they have made a syncretism between life and death a league between the god of this world and the God of Heaven The same Author tells of a River in Spain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lb. into whose whirlpits if the wind insinuate it self it strikes upon the folds of the water and plays with them as we do upon the strings of a Cittern so that a Passenger would imagine that he was entertained by some Musicians Which may aptly resemble many men in the world who when the Spirit of God breathes at some solemn time upon them or when they hear the voice of God and look a little into themselves do seem to be delightfully moved and to make a pleasant noise as though they were tuned to the praises of God but follow them home and let that sweet breath be over and you shall see they are as greedy of the world as a deep pit and their thoughts roll and turn about that they may draw all that comes near them into themselves VI. And therefore sixthly Let us labour to impress and retain an Image of Christ upon our souls whom we have seen crucified before our eyes Let us represent unto our selves what a Person Christ was and what his manner of behaviour was in the world and then let us labour to carry him before our mind and have him in our eyes that so by looking on him we may shape all our affections and all our actions after that rare pattern that he hath set us Let us endeavour to think every where that we see him hanging upon the Cross and behold him bleeding for our sins or declaring to us his mind or doing something that the Gospel speaks of so that we may lead a mortified life and be in every thing fashioned after his likeness And this we must do the rather because as I have said he is now more nearly united unto us so that when we are to do any thing we must act like him we must consider how he did or what he would do in such a case and we must so behave our selves that in a very proper sense Christ may be said to live and not we Gal. 2.20 We must do our endeavour that he may eat and drink and buy and sell c. i. e. all these things may be done as we think that Christ would do them were he in the flesh who is one with us We must become so many little Images of him in the world that they who see us may behold him And that is the meaning I suppose of another phrase of the Apostle when he bids us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 13.14 i. e. to be so transformed into him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumen that both in our outward garb and deportment and also in our inward features we may be a lively resemblance of him Now the same Apostle tells us That as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3.27 and therefore much more they who have eaten of his Body and drunk of his Blood are supposed to have put him on and to have dressed their souls compleatly after his holy Image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. They must labour to be all over godly and to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his phrase is an universal vertue that they may be holy as he is holy And for our better direction 1. Let us labour to do something worthy of the expence of Christs Bloud and to think what manner of persons they ought to be for whom the Lord of life died and who are washed in no other laver but the Bloud of the Lamb. 2. Something answerable to the dearest love of the great God of Heaven and Earth and to consider after what sort they ought to live to whom God hath given so rich a gift whom he hath honoured not only to be his Sons but to have his dearest Son for their servant 3. Something that may correspond with so many and so great means of salvation And in particular we should think what is expected from those who have now received a greater strength from Heaven Strong food must not be given to those that intend to lead a sedentary life and have not much work to do A plentifull nourishment overthrows their health instead of yielding supports unto their spirits It is the greatest folly to come for this divine nutriment if we intend to sit still or to go but a slow pace in Religion as if we were newly come out of the sickness and disease of sin and could scarce stand in the wayes of God They ought to exercise themselves in all godliness to be active and full of motion who feed so abundantly They ought to be very good Children who are fed with such food for whom God furnished such a Table with so great a cost 4. We must labour to do something that is worthy of a soul and body consigned to immortal blessedness How holy should they be who expect such great things who have received such pledges of them who wait for the Lord from Heaven to change these vile bodies into his likeness O do not unhallow and desecrate that thing which is at present the Temple of the Lord and which is sanctified for the eternal mansions Prophane not that body and soul which shall for ever live with God are already become his habitation through his holy spirit dwelling in them Now consider I beseech you do you think that he leads a life worthy of any of these who delights not to converse with God who prays never or but very seldome exceeding briefly and as if he were frozen who hears Sermons and understands them not or else forgets them as soon as they are heard who grows no wiser nor better than he was many years agone whose time runs away in eating and drinking sleeping and playing working and toyling as if these were the things we exhorted them unto who rarely takes the Bible or a good Book into his hands and when he doth throws it away again at the call of any pleasure or worldly gain who loves no body but himself and is
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
give some brief touches upon those things §. 5. which you can without trouble inlarge in your own thoughts Which is one reason why I shall spare my self any long pains about them and hold another course in this following Treatise For our part we do here profess our selves of the Religion that Christ hath instituted and taught us as you will see more largely in the ensuing Book We do at once in this Feast both shew our gladness and assure him of our affections Sin is here represented so unto us that it cannot but make our wounds bleed afresh The remembrance of Christs death doth pierce our hearts again with godly sorrow and revives the smart and pain which the sense of sin hath created in our souls Faith likewise here is as greedy of its food as an hungry mouth is of its meat And Obedience is hereby confirmed because we receive lively nourishment into our souls which will make us strong to execute the will of our Lord. Our suffering also with Christ we profess more lively than by Water even by Blood it self When our Saviour saith in the sixth of S. John That we must eat of his flesh he means we must receive himself and digest his Doctrine but seeing the word flesh in Scripture-phrase signifies very frequently weakness and meanness he intends that we must receive him so as to partake with him in his poor low and suffering condition And this we do most notably protest that we will when we receive the signs of his broken body For the Bread broken doth not only argue it to be fit for food but that first we must be slain and mortified and likewise receive such strength that if he call us unto death we must undergo it We own hereby the Covenant of sufferings and feed upon a dead Saviour Which makes Theophylact give this as a reason why Christ gave thanks when he brake the bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That so we might receive Martyrdom thankfully It is a feast which we partake of and yet signifies sufferings But let it not seem strange for we must count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations Neither doth it less signifie and seal on Gods part being a manifest token of his great and inexpressible love in giving of his own Son to death even to the cursed death of the Cross for us Here he takes us not only under his wings as I said he doth in Baptism but he takes us into his armes He takes us to himself and he gives himself wholly unto us And then for Remission of sins it is manifest to be the purchase of his blood and so must needs further here be assured to all good souls And it is the very thing that is expressed in the Institution of this Sacrament This is my blood of the New Testament that is shed for many for the remission of sins And there are not so many spirits contained in the Wine as there are lively influences of Gods good Spirit hereby conveyed to pious hearts We have assurance likewise given by these things That he will not take his holy Spirit from us but that he will let it always diffuse it self through all our powers And as for the Resurrection from the dead We being made as it were of his flesh and of his bone and incorporated into him he can lose none of his members but all that eat of his flesh and drink of his blood as they ought shall be raised again at the last day We eat of the tree of life which will make us live for ever and we receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Ephes as Ignatius speaks an Antidote against death a Medicine to preserve us from corruption This the ancient Christians thought to be so fully assured to us in the Eucharist that this is one of the Arguments whereby Irenaeus confutes the Valentinians who denied the rising again of the Body after it is dead How can that flesh be corrupted L. 4. adv haeres cap. 34. and not live again which is nourished by the Body and Bloud of the Lord Either let them change their mind or else abstain from this Offering For as the Bread which is of the Earth perceiving the invocation of God is no longer common bread but the Eucharist consisting of something earthly and something heavenly Even so our bodies perceiving this Eucharist are not now corruptible but have the hopes of a Resurrection L. 5. cap. 2. Thus he who hath more to the same purpose in another Book Herein likewise God gives us a foretaste of Heaven and the joys to come as will be made more manifest in the following Discourse And thus far we may grant the Bread and Wine of Melchizedeck to have been Sacramental that they were given to Abraham as earnests for to secure him of the Land flowing with milk and honey By this Banquet or Entertainment which the Royal Priest made him he took Livery of Seisin as our Lawyers speak of the promised Land And in that very place it is most likely where God intended the Mother-City of the Kingdom should be was this conveyance made to Abraham's seed This Bread and Wine were most certain evidences that his Posterity should eat of the fruit of that Land wherein now he was a stranger And just in the same manner doth God give unto faithful souls this blessed Bread and Wine as an Antepast of his eternal love and hereby they do begin to taste of the heavenly Feast that they shall celebrate above They have herein a right made them unto Heaven and a kind of delivery of possession which shall shortly be compleated by an actual enjoyment They that would more than such things as these in this Sacrament Sect. 6. are in danger to have nothing at all as they should have While they think that Christ is received coporally by them they may neglect the spiritual eating and while they chew him as it were between their teeth their Souls may feel but little of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eâ—nap in vita Jambl. For just as it is with those that would paint a beautifull person while they think to add something of their own to the face thereby to make him look better than he is they spoil the comeliness of the Picture and miss both of his face and likewise of his true beauty So it is with the modern Church of Rome which would make Religion seem as fair and beautifull yea as gaudy and trim as their fancies can devise but by adding their own inventions and novel fashions they quite spoil both true Religion and the beauty of it which they study to adorn Whilest they think to offer a proper Sacrifice they many times offer none at all And whilst they think it is a Sacrifice both for quick and dead they rely so much upon it that it proves to be for neither By making it flesh and blood and bones they make Christ the
secrets and to know the pleasures of his heart for they are so still and calm that they cannot be perceived where there is any storm And indeed there can be no thoughts more fit for our preparation then these of forgiveness because we call our selves now to account for our offences against God and alas 〈◊〉 they are so great that they may well drown the remembrance of all offences that others have given us and wash them out of our thoughts as if they had never been Seeing then you go to beg pardon of God when you remember his Sonnes blood if you have offended any man first go and lay your selves at his feet and so approach to take hold of Christ and kiss his feet in an humble acknowledgment of your offences Say to every one of your passions and corrupt affections Come forth for I am resolved you shall be slain Methinks you should begin to dye at the very thoughts of a dying Saviour Methinks you should swoon away at the very sight of yonder blood that you should not stay till you come to the Cross of Christ but give up the ghost before you see but the image of his death Do you not feel the power of his death afar off Do not his pierced sides strike to your heart before you behold them Oh you bloody things What have you done What wounds have you made in the body of my Lord Do not think to live any longer oh you bloody things Nay never struggle nor resist for I have vowed you in sacrifice unto him Lay therefore your necks quietly upon the block and prepare your selves for death which is approaching Ask your evil hearts if they be not affrighted Wonder that they should hold up their faces Tell them that these are but the Addresses to their Execution and protest folemnly That none of these vile desires shall live a day longer and then they will begin to grow pale sick and languishing before you come to the Altar and there the slaughter will be more easie In particular say to thy self O my soul wipe out the remembrance of all offences that any have done unto thee let not one tittle of them remain but be blotted out Thy fellow-servant hath affronted and contemned thee but thou hast oftner contemned thy God thy Lord and Master himself V. Ch ysoft Orat. 60. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what equality is there between a fellow-servant and thy Master Perhaps he hath been insolent towards thee once or twice when he was provoked or wronged by thee and thou behavest thy self basely towards thy Lord every day though he be so far from wronging thee that he is thy continual benefactor O my soul do but collect with thy self how oft thou offendest in one day yea but in one duty What sloth is there in thy Prayers With what strange irreverence and disregard dost thou stand before God when thou speakest to him Never did a servant speak so carelesly to his Master nor a Souldier to his Commander Yea when thou speakest to a friend thou mindest what thou sayest but when thou art treating with the Lord about so many sins and art begging of him pardon and forgiveness thou art too often like a man asleep and though thy knees be upon the ground yet thy mind is in the Market or in the Fields and thy tongue blatters thou knowest not what Away then all you angry thoughts stay not to aggravate offences Be gone as clearly out of my heart as I desire my Lord to remember my sins no more If we could bring our hearts thus bleeding to his holy Table if the execution were begun before we came to him then would our anger and malice our love of pleasures and all other worldly affections receive a deadly and incurable wound from our Saviours hand when we did receive him VII As a most necessary Instrument to all these the Apostle directs us to examine our selves This is indeed a daily duty but now should be adverted with a greater intention and ardency of affection when we are about these sacred things We should examine our selves even about our neglects in the review of our selves about the coldness of our prayers the smallness of our sorrows the weakness of our services and our daily unavoidable infirmities We should make more deep reflections into our selves now that we are at more leisure and have so solemnly designed more time from other employments we should open a greater vent for our tears and cut a larger passage for our sorrow and affect our heart more deeply with our needs and the certainty of supply and so raise our souls to a greater height of humility of desire and of confidence altogether Our Saviour seems to intimate that before our approaches to God in any holy duty it is a fit and proper time to call our selves to an account for the trespasses we are guilty of when he saith Mat. 5.23 24. If therefore thou bring the gift to the Altar and remember that thy Brother c. It should seem by this expression that this is a season of remembring and calling things to mind that are past and gone which must be done by an examination of our selves And you may consider thus much to quicken you to this duty that the better we know our selves and our own wants the more hungry we shall be and the more knowledge we have of our own sincerity with the greater comfort and sweetness shall we eat Now we know both the one and the other by self-examination For this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render examine hath two meanings which are to prove and try and to approve after trial So that in brief I may thus state the whole business of examination We are to use an every-day-oversight over our selves And this general and daily examination is nothing else but such a caution and diligence in all our actions through the whole frame of our life that our own Conscience may approve them upon examination as accordant with the will of God Or more briefly it is a Christian care to do every thing so that God and our own Conscience may allow of it And it must needs consist of two parts First A Consideration of what is our duty to do of what is lawfull and what unlawfull of what is expedient and what inconvenient Socrates used always to say to every thing that presented it self to his mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what art thou and whence comest thou or as the Watchmen use to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew me your ticket let me see your Pass that I may know you are a friend Arrian L. 3. cap. 12. or an information of our selves upon due advice and search what is incumbent upon us as our duty through our whole life Then secondly This fore-handed examination must be followed with a serious consideration of what we have done and whether we behave our selves according to the Rule which we
have laid down to our selves as the guide of our life From these two arise the whole of that which is necessary to be done continually for the approbation of our selves to be such persons as have a care to please God Now this may be the prime and first sense of the Apostles words when he saith Let a man examine himself and so let him eat c. i. e. let him have a care that he lead such a Christian life that his own heart may approve of him as one of Christs Disciples This you may be best satisfied out of another place where this word is used Gal. 6.4 Let a man prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or examine his own work c. The meaning of which is Let every man make his work so approved and behave himself in that manner that both God and his own Conscience may judge it to be right and according to the Word of God That this is the sense of the phrase in that place will appear from the whole context where the Apostle speaks of bearing the infirmities of the weak and not thinking our selves to be godly because we do not fall like them by any temptation And so saith he Thou shalt have glory or rejoycing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 toward thy self and not in regard of another i. e. thou shalt take comfort simply in thy self that thou art a good man and not only be pleased with comparing thy self with others and being better then they for so thou mayest be and yet not be good From this it appears that he speaks not of something that should follow the actions of our life viz. a searching whether they be good or no but of such an institution and ordering of our lives beforehand that we may not fall into those sins which we reprehend in another nor be beholden to their sins to make us seem godly And the next words v. 5. plead for this sense For every man shall bear his own burden i. e. Thou oughtest to make thy work good and approved for every man sins at his own peril One mans sin will not excuse thee who dost not sin in that fashion but thou art to do thy own duty heartily to God according to thy Conscience or else thou shalt suffer as well as he And that the Apostle may have respect unto this examination before we come to the Sacrament in that place before-mentioned there is another phrase following v. 31. which may perswade us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if we judge our selves c. i. e. if we do discern our selves and discriminate our actions and determine our duty and live in conformity to it we should not be judged nor punished of God in this sort But whether this be the proper meaning of examining or no I shall not be overmuch solicitous seeing I have already made this good that he must be a holy person that comes to Gods Table And that there is beside this a more particular examination to be used when the time is near of communicating with our Lord I willingly grant And it consists of two parts according to the two-fold use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render examine The first is a proof trial and search into our own souls that we may know our estate and in what condition we stand before God So the word is used 1 Thess 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things i. e. make a trial of them and consider what they are and then hold fast that which you find to be good This examination considering that I suppose a pious life to precede must chiefly consist in a review of those failings or of those wants which our every-day proof of our selves doth present us withall If we should never examine our selves but when we come to the Lords Supper we should not know what we are nor what we need but in a confused heap of things many would be unobserved and yet if we should not also examine then we should not have such a lively sense of what we are to ask and for what we ought to plead the bloud of Christ But then this examination is but a serious reflection upon the Notes which we take every day of our selves Unless it be needfull that we examine our selves whether we have not forgot any of the ends for which we go to the Table of the Lord and though that be a great part of the Apostles meaning yet I have already taken notice of it In short we are to search rather in what state our Graces stands than whether we be in a state of Grace or no. Then secondly We must approve and allow of our selves and bring the trial to such an issue that we pass a verdict on our souls So the word is used Rom. 2.18 thou approvest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things that are excellent i. e. Thou professest to like and embrace them And so when the Apostle bids the Children of the light to prove what is acceptable unto God Ephes 5.8 10. He doth not mean a bare inquisition but that act which follows it which is embracing For they cannot be deemed Children of the light who do not so enquire after the pleasure of God as to pursue and practise it The meaning likewise of the Apostle Rom. 14.22 is this Happy is he that when he uses an indifferent thing doth approve himself as doing that which is lawfull and acts not against his Conscience Or this Happy is he that when he is resolved that he may do such a thing lawfully and with the approbation of his Conscience yet doth it with such a care that he hurts not others by the use of it There is one place more 2 Cor. 13.5 where you have both these parts of examination together Try your selves whether you be in the faith prove i. e. approve your selves When you know your estate by trial then pass a judgement upon your selves to be what you profess and pretend unto Now all the approbation that a good man is to give of himself before he go to the Lords Supper is this 1. He ought to judge himself to continue a friend of Christ and to remain as far as he can find in Covenant with God And 2. He ought to find that he hath used some godly care and diligence that he come not in a rude unbeseeming and drowsie manner into so holy a presence And this is plainly another part of the Apostles meaning when he saith Let a man examine himself and so eat c. i. e. Let him approve himself to come for pious and holy ends and with a due regard to the Lords most sacred body and blood Lay thy hand then Christian Reader upon thy heart before thou comest to this Table and feel how the pulse of thy soul beats mind whether it beat evenly or after a distempered sort Doth it move three times as quick when thou thinkest of the World as it doth when God is in
do as they resolve I think they may have a comfortable hope that there is a change wrought in them and so should approach unto it But there are others whose sins are notorious and ill favoured known to all the Neighbourhood And perhaps they have been reeking in a sin a few dayes before the holy Communion but their hearts begin now to smite them and they find such severe reproofs in their souls that prick them to some good resolutions I would wish these persons seriously to advise with themselves whether this may not be a start which comes from some sudden spurre and to make trial how they can like to travell in the wayes of God There are certain pangs of devotion that come upon men against a solemn time and when their souls are at a little leisure they speak very freely to them and their sins being great ugly and staring they may much affright them Therefore it is the safest course to stay till this fit be over and the next day to look upon them with the eye of a rational consideration and see whether they have not recovered their old complexion and begin to smile again For else we may adde one sin to another if we come to this holy duty with a relish of our sins and a likelihood to return again unto them after some little falling out which may conclude in a greater kindness It is monstrously unseemly and dangerous for a man to come from the last dayes vomit and his yesternight surfeit to sit at the Table of the Lord though he seem never so much ashamed It is that which destroyes Religion for men to think that they can leap so instantly from one state to another and change a state of fin for a state of Grace at a dayes warning Such Crimes must be purged with a great sorrow and in a deep humiliation which if it be true will make a man think himself unworthy to be presently entertained by God in so near a Communion yea to be below the least good look from his gracious eye With many tears will such a man seek but for the hope of a pardon many punishments will he inflict upon himself for such intemperance or uncleanness or covetousness or whatsoever other gross sin it be that he is guilty of and he will think it but a just punishment that though he were invited he should keep himself from the enjoying of God at his Table and from such good company of Gods People Shall I who am a Beast will such an one say go among the People of Gods Pasture A meer Wolf go and feed among the Sheep of his hands I who have wallowed in vice like a Swine in the mire go and sit me down in so holy a place I whose meat hath been ordure and filth to put the Bread of God to my lips Far be it from me let me rather eat ashes the bread of affliction and take my tears for my drink No! let my tongue rather cleave to the roof of my mouth let my lips rather be sowed together than that I should presume to drink of the Cup of Blessing who have deserved such a curse from the hand of God I sit down with God at his Table A Dunghill is a more proper place for such a bruit Come let us embrace the dust let us kiss the earth and think it is a strange mercy that we live and let us stay a while to see if the Lord will let us live and hope to live for ever Sit at the Table of the Lord Alas I am not fit to lye upon my own bed I dare not sleep for fear I die And oh that I could give no rest to my eyes nor slumber to my eye-lids till I had prepared a place for him to dwell in Oh that we were but friends though he would not use me as his friend I have but represented to you the sad and pathetick groans of a heart that knows what it is to sin It cannot tell how to move forward so boldly to God as men are apt to do it stands still or rather it lyes down and knows not what to do It wonders at the security and carelesness of offenders and if sleep come to stroak its head with the hopes of a slumber it can scarce tell how to welcome it by receiving its kindness and suffering its blanditions But then all this sadness tends to joy and is but like the Clouds which gather about the Heavens which having wept as much as they can make them look the clearer This humility and modesty doth not make a soul run from God but makes him to approach to it And when a man perceives really that he hath left his sin and is become a new Creature then let him entreat the favour of God that he who hath done him so much good would grant him the liberty to be in the number of those whom he feeds at his own Table Fifthly When thou findest that it is the sincere resolution and likewise endeavour of thy soul to please God though in some things thou shouldst break thy resolution against the very purpose of thy heart yet let not this hinder thy coming to the Supper of the Lord. When notwithstanding all our diligence we still offend it is a sign that we must use some other diligence and therefore we should be induced rather to fortifie our resolutions by so powerfull a means than to abstain from it For they that neglect it because they are weak may justly fear lest they be therefore weak because they live in neglect of a known duty Let it be the endeavour then of all those that study to live godlily though they be feeble and tottering to understand the true use and benefit of this duty and then to perform it for this end that they may be strengthened and confirmed 6. Yea sixthly If thou breakest thy resolution after thou hast received these holy Pledges and feelest but little strength yet let it not deterre thee from receiving but rather make thee frequent it the more that the repetition of this action may do that which a single act was not able to do For this Sacrament was instituted for the weak more than for the strong though it be necessary for both and it is likely men remain therefore weak because they seed so seldome and let the received strength decay before they give it a fresh repast But if they still forbear when they are sensible of a consumption what can be expected but a dangerous languishment If thou hast not got the victory by the use of this weapon thou canst not think but to be worsted and foiled by the neglect of it If thou hast received no more strength against thy lusts by this strong food how shalt thou hope by a weaker and thin diet to be able to wrestle with them Approve then thy resolutions to be smcere and stir up thy hunger more frequently awaken thy appetite that thou mayest feed
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
meet and embrace its gracious Lord. Me thinks I behold it preparing a gift of its whole self to offer unto him and such flames of Love seem to be kindling as if it would flye up to Heaven But stay it must first cast one look downward towards its sinfull self before it can think of getting up so high and of being a gift acceptable to God It could not indeed but think of giving the best it had to him who gave all himself to it But alas the time of Sacrifice is not yet come and it is not good enough for to begiven to him It will try if it can make it self a little better though never good enough before it offer up it self by making its sinnes feel the weight and sharpness of Christs Cross that they may all dye It will make a slaughter of them and then a sacrifice of it self which is the third Meditation I have to recommend to your thoughts 3. Consider how odious vile and intollerable every sin is that brought our Lord to such miseries and required such a Blood to expiate it This hatred of sinne proceeds from great Love and the viler we see it is the more will our love encrease to him that will pardon such a shamefull act Think therefore what is that which makes God so angry What bloudy thing is it which drinks the Bloud of Christ himself What hideous Monster that could not be satisfied with the flesh of all the World What cursed thing that the Son of God became a curse for it The thoughts of Christs Cross is enough to affright a man out of the very Arms and pleasant Embraces of a Lust it is enough to rescue a soul that is in the mouth of Hell and ready to go down the throat of the bottomless pit If it can but find any place to take hold of it can drag a man out of the very Jaws of the Monster and it can Arm the revenge of the veriest doting Lover that ever courted sinne and turn his wrath against it But. then how amiable doth the goodness of God appear that he would pass by so many offences and require no satisfaction from us for such insufferable wrongs How great was his love that he would transferre the punishment from us unto his Son and how great was his Sonnes Love that he would bear our iniquities that by his stripes we might be healed Nay none can tell nor think how great the love was but the more hainous and grievous our offences seem the more gloriously will it shine in our eyes and again the more lovely God appears the more shall we hate sin that does any injury to so good a God Let us therefore stay our thoughts here a while and think we hear Christ say to us You have lookt into my wounds and have seen into my very heart if you have any eyes sure you cannot but discern what hath put me into this gore Do you not see how sinne raked in my sides and tare my very heart Do you not see how greedily it suckt my bloud Behold the very print of its nails see here the very place where it hath thrust its Spear You say you are my friends will you not take my part against your sins Have not all these Wounds mouthes enough to entreat you to fall out with sin Would you have me used thus again Could you find in your heart to see me once more upon a Gibbet Why then can you not be perswaded by the remembrance of my sufferings for you Why do you not spit in the face of your sinnes Why do you not buffet and beat them and do all the despight you can unto them yea why do you not revenge me perfectly upon them and cry crucifie them crucifie them not these but Christ only Why do I not see them here nailed to my Cross never to be taken down till they be quite dead If you would have me embrace you say None but Christ none but Christ Christ and Wounds Christ and a Cross Christ and Death if he will shall be our portion What I beseech you would our hearts eccho back again if we thought that we heard him groaning such words from the Cross unto us What a fury and a rage would it put us into against these bloody sinnes With what a forwardness should we arm our selves against them With what a revenge should we flye upon them We could not but with all speed drag them to the Cross and torture them to death We could not but pass sentence and do the severest execution upon them Though they begg'd never so much for life the voice of Christ would drown their cryes Though all their friends familiars entreated for them their Petitions would be cast out Though our eyes should pity them and beseech that they might be spared though our Tongues and Pallates should plead for their life though all our senses though every part of our flesh should solicite in their behalf yet we should never endure that our Lord should be disgusted and affronted any more by them When Caesar was slain by Brutus and his Complices Anthony took his Bloudy Garments and spread them before the eyes of the people as if every hole which their Daggers had made would speak an Oration unto them Behold said he the Bloud of your Emperor see here the wounds they have given unto him Can you love these Paracides that have stickt him like a Beast Can you look with patience upon the Butchery they have committed Can you look through these Clothes without fire in your eyes And immediately he so moved the multitude by that artifice and the vehemency of his Oration that they run upon the houses of the murtherers as Tygers or Wolves upon their Prey and would as certainly have torn them in pieces as a Lion doth a Kid in the heat of his anger but that they were before fled from the danger Cannot then the representation not of the rent Garments of our Saviour but of his very broken Body more move a considerate heart against sin which was the slaughterer Cannot the very sign of his sacred Blood pierce with greater Rhetorick into his soul Think that thou hearest Christ himself say Behold my Wounds See here the breaches in my Body Look upon me whom they have pierced Read in me the cruelty of thy sins Canst thou hug and imbrace these bloody Parricides Canst thou shew any kindness to so vile an enemy Hast thou the patience to hear me ask any more Questions and reason with thee any further Surely in the middle of such thoughts as these the heart of a man could not but take fire and be so incensed and provoked against all his sins that he would leave them all dead at the foot of Christ Not one of them could escape but every mans hand would be against his particular lust and there they should lie bleeding as so many sacrifices at the Altar of the Lord. For who could lie
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
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
angry at him that would save his soul Do we eat and drink this Heavenly provision and then rise up to play do we stand in need of such noble nourishment for the following of our trades and the encouragement of us in our worldly business O consider beloved Reader that lookest on these lines that an honest Heathen would do better things than these He that never heard of Christ and never tasted of this Heavenly food would be ashamed of such a life Philosophy which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nutriment of the soul would produce far more excellent works There is no need thou shouldest be a Christian if thou hast no more noble end Meer reason will breed up better Scholars and therefore go and sit with the Deipnosophists and come not unto the Supper of the Lord unless thou intendest to walk worthy of him unto all pleasing Col. 1.10 being fruitfull in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God Do but hear what they promised themselves from their Philosophy Hoc est quod Philosophia mihi promittit ut me parem Deo faciat Epist 48. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then judge to what it is fit a Christian so divinely nourished should aspire This saith Seneca Philosophy doth make me promises of that it will make me a Peer with God This is that saith Cleomedes which preserves the Demy-God that is within us from being shamefully intreated which keeps it unmoveable and unshaken which gives it the better of all pleasures and pains which makes it intend some worthy end and receive all events and contingencies as coming from thence from whence it self came and above all which learns it to wait for the coming of death with a chearfull mind What man then deserves the name of a Christian that notwithstanding all the means of grace which God affords doth strive to make himself equal with a Beast that basely uses his noble part that is like a feather shaken with the wind and lyes down at the feet of every pleasure and cannot sustain the load of the least grief that vexes and frets at every cross as if the Devil ruled the world and trembles at death as a Child doth at a friend with a vizard on God expects sure that we should be men of another sort and that Philosophy should not beget more lusty souls than Christianity can We must be ashamed to live at a lower rate than a man that had been but at Plato's Compotation and we must make account the Blood of Christ is to nourish better Spirits in us than the very soul and spirit of reason if we could suck it in can be able to generate Let us look therefore into our hearts daily and see that he be there Whether we eat or drink or whatsoever else we do let us ask him if he be pleased Let us go to him constantly that he may know we love him And let us entreat him to tell us what he would have us to do and then let us do it with all our might VII Seventhly Let us maintain a longing in our souls after another such repast Let us strive every day to keep up a spiritual hunger after this food that so we may not neglect the next opportunity which God shall give us of Communion or if we should die before we have one yet Heaven may find us prepared for the Feast where the marriage shall be compleated Christ may find such holy longings after him that our souls may be taken into his bosome to dwell in him as he before dwelt in us When we cannot outwardly communicate yet we may in heart in spirit Though we cannot alwayes celebrate the mysteries yet we may have the thing signified in those mysteries as St. Bernard speaks at all times in all places i. e. We may with pious affections and holy actions receive Christ continually into our souls As the Sacrament saith he sine re Sacramenti without the thing of the Sacrament is death to the unworthy so we may conclude that res Sacramenti the thing it self without the Sacrament will be life eternal to the worthy Whensoever in remembrance of Christ thou art piously and devoutly affected into an imitation of Christ thou dost eat his Body and drink his Blood But then if we do constantly preserve such longings and hungring after this Feast and do at all times feast upon him we cannot pass by any occasion that God affords us of receiving him in that manner that he hath appointed and blessed and we cannot but be very forward to go to remember him when opportunity is presented in the Assembly of his people And therefore I shall not make it a distinct advice that you would come again when this Table is spread for you For this is but a just gratitude to God a sign that we like his fare and are well pleased with his chear and are ambitious of nothing more than such an entertainment And I think we shall shew our selves to have been very unworthy guests at the last Feast if we like it so little as to refuse to come the next time that we are invited In the beginning of our Religion they received every day Acts 2.46 Which proceeded from a great devotion and fervency of spirit when the holy Ghost like fire had descended upon them And this heat did not abate in all places for the space of 400 years but in some Churches of Affrica as St. Augustine writes and in Rome and Spain as St. Hierome tells us they retained this ardent love and continually remembred the dying of the Lord Jesus And it was proposed to St. Augustine as a doubt whether a person of business as a Merchant Husbandman or the like should every day Communicate To which he answered To receive the Sacrament every day I neither praise nor reprove but to Communicate every Lords-day I would wish you and exhort every one so to do And so St. Chrysostome exhorting of the people to build Churches in the Villages where they might hold Assemblies he perswades them by this Argument 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in cap. 8. Act. p. 716 edit Sav. There Prayers will be sent up daily for every one of you there God will be continually praised with Hymns and every Lords day will there be an Offering made for you And though the devotion of Christians fell from once in a day to once in a week and from thence to once in a moneth till at last the Church of Rome hath thought it fit to bind men of necessity but to once in a year yet I find a devout Papist thus speaking Fr. Sales Introd Though it be hard to say how often a man is bound to Communicate yet I think I may boldly affirm That the greatest distance between the times of Communicating among such as desire to serve God devoutly is from moneth to moneth And sure the strict observance
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
MENSA MYSTICA OR A DISCOURSE Concerning the SACRAMENT OF THE Lords Supper In which the ends of its Institution are so manifested our Addresses to it so directed our Behaviour there and afterward so composed that we may not lose the benefits which are to be received by it By Simon Patrick D. D. Minister of Gods Word at Batersea in Surrey 1 Cor. 11.24 Do this in remembrance of me LONDON Printed by A. M. for F. Tylon at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1667. To the Honourable Sir Walter St. John Baronet AND THE Lady Johanna St. John his Wife THese Meditations being conceived and born in your House I take it to be a piece of Justice that they should lay themselves at your feet and come abroad into the world under your Name And long before this had they come to tender their service to you had the Press been favourable to them and not let them stick longer there than they did in my mind before they could be brought forth into the world Love hath as great a power to make servants as any thing else and no bondman is faster chained than he that is tied by the bands of his own affection A Captive of that quality I must needs profess my self having such a feeling of the obligations you have laid upon me that I am not free to love you or not to love you but am held under such a sweet tyranny that I cannot so much as desire to recover my former liberty These thoughts therefore being the births of one so bound to serve you both by your favours and his own affections Exod. 21.4 according to the Law of the Hebrews you may challenge a right in them seeing I am yours as much as my own I know that I am writing to you and not of you and that you do not expect my commendation but my Counsel for if you did you would not deserve Commendation There is so much flattery many times in these addresses that men will not believe us when we say true and so we displease while we study to please The world likewise is so envious that they never think more of our faults than when we are praised But yet to tell you of your kindness to me though you do not expect it methinks I might be allowed were it not that then I should commend my self for a gratefull Person after I have declined to commend you But seeing that is no such great vertue that a man should be tempted to be proud of it I shall say thus much That of all the causes that are usually assigned of these Dedications I can find the impulse of none so strong as that of love and gratitude Which bids me bind my executors by these presents if these Papers can live longer than I to acknowledge your love and ever be mindfull of it to you and yours And although I may justly suspect that they have not strength enough to live to any great Age yet if they can increase your Piety but in the least degree that is a thing that never dies and will be an immortal witness of my endeavours to serve you To the study of that it is that I do most affectionately exhort you Do well and you shall hear well though mine and all other Pens lie asleep Piety is the truest and most Ancient Nobility as wickedness is the greatest and basest degeneracy There is no such way to exalt your Family as to make a strict alliance with God and to draw him into your kindred Nothing can so enrich your Bloud as to contract an affinity with the Blood of Jesus But if earthly honour be of any value as it may conduce to the better serving of God you have the favour granted unto you to be noble both in your soul and body to be allied both to the Bloud of God and of great Men. The Saint in your name may put you in mind to be Saints in your selves The two Mullets or Stars in your Coat of Armes bids you shine like two Lights in the World The occasion of your bearing them which if I mistake not was because your Progenitors warred in the Holy Land may put you in remembrance to strive and fight to be made free of the Heavenly Jerusalem that City of God that is above As these Stars were born in their Ensigns in that expedition in opposition to the Turkish Crescent so let them put you in mind to keep the world still under your feet and to scorn these mutable and moon-like things See Cambden in Glamorganshire Nympha fluit propius Fons refluit Illa recedit Iste redit Sic livor in st pugaa parennis as much as you do Mahomet and the Turk There is a Spring in that Countrey where your name first took root in Brittish soil which is very low and empty of water when the Sea flows and swells the neighbouring River Ogmar and again ascends and fills it self when the Sea retires out of the Channel It will be a most lovely sight both to God and Man to see you humble and lowly in the highest tides of a swelling fortune and if your fulness should abate and draw back into the Ocean from whence it came to behold the elevation of your spirit and the greatness of your mind rising above all the reach of these worldly changes Then would you most truly imitate those Stars in your Escutchion which are not seen in the day and shine most brightly in the night But your name bids you above all things to be full of love both to each other and towards all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For beside that John in the Hebrew Language carries in its signification graciousness and kindness the beloved Disciple was the first of your name Degenerate not I beseech you from so worthy a precedent but imbrace with as dear an affection as two St. Johns would have done each other That great Saint had this alwayes in his mouth Little Children love one another the same have you alwayes in your heart seeing you are not onely Christians but of the same Family and of the same name which carries a remembrance of that divine Person The Athenians promised themselves nothing but Triumphs in the Sicilian War because their General Nicias derived his name from Victory which in the opinion of men had a good presage in it And some of the Ancient Philosophers did seriously Dispute whether there was not some secret fate or providence in it Plato in Cratilo that men should have names given them that did so exactly-agree with their after good or bad fortune I hope you will not think me impertinent therefore that I have urged you so much with your name and that you will not let it be given you for nothing And though that Nicias by his great overthrow did disappoint the hopes which his fellow Citizens conceived from his name yet you will have a care that you deceive not the expectation
of the truth they might cause by their artifice of words to pass for Fables in the world Marinus in vita Procli And it is very considerable me thinks that Marinus reports of Proclas though a Philosopher of younger times how that he observed the Roman the Phrygian and the Aegyptian Feasts with all new Moons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a most splendid and ceremonious manner And in brief he saith that he kept religiously the most famous Feasts of every Nation after their own manner and custome and composed an Hymn which he sung containing the praises of the God of several Nations For he had this saying frequently in his mouth That a Philosopher ought not to address his service to the fashion of one City or some Countries rites but to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 skilled in the sacra or holy offices of the whole world And it is very likely that this was the principle of several Philosophers before him it being a Character that Pausanias gives of the Greeks in general that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Baot strangely prone to have the things of another Country in greater admiration then those of their own Which agrees very well with what the Scripture saith of them that the Athenians were always hearing or telling some new thing Acts 17.21 and that even in matters of their Religion they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very apt to reverence every Deity that they heard of Hence it was that they worshiped the unknown God which S. Paul tells them was the true and living God which made all things This God was worshipped among the Jews and as Nazianzen saith that when they speak of the Elysian fields they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orct. 20. in a conceit of our Paradise which they took out of Moses his Books with the change of the name onely So I may say that when they invented the rest of their Poetical Divinity their Dreams were the off-spring of some real things which they had seen or heard out of the Book of God I will instance but in four which are not commonly observed so far as I have read Hercules is called by the Dark Poet Lycophron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the three nights Lion whom the sharp-tooth't Dog of Neptune swallowed up within his jaws This Dog of Neptune the Sea-God saith Isaac Tzetzes is the VVhale and Hercules hath the Epithete of Three-nights because being swallowed he lay three days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the VVhale which he calls nights because the belly of the Fish was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without all light and black as the night This seems to me to be but a corruption of the Story of Jonah which might well be known to the Heathens and easily applied to Hercules For it is observed by D. Kimchi that there is not so much as the name of Israel in all the Prophecy of Jonah because he was sent onely to Heathens And he was embarked in a vessel going to Tarshish or Tartessus in Spain as Bochartus hath proved in which part of the world it is well known the Tyrian Hercules was most worshipped Now it hath been the manner of the world to attribute all strange things that were done by others to some one person famous among them as all witty stories and jests are at this day fathered upon him that is most noted by us to abound with them and so they might easily tell this story of their Hercules when it was once noised among them because they ascribed all wonders and miracles to him A second instance I may give in the Fables of Iphigenia and Julia Luperca The former of which being to be sacrificed to Diana an Hare or as some say an Heifer came running in the middle and thickets as it were of the Greek Army which by the counsel of their Prophet they offered instead of her The latter having the knife just at her throat as it was at Isaac's an Eagle came and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 snatcheth away the knife out of the Priests hands and threw a young Panther near to the Altar which they offered for her These two stories are but a depravation of two in the Scripture concerning Isaac and Jeptha's Daughter which they have jumbled together And therefore the same Isaac Tzetzes in his Scholia upon Lycophron adds these words to these Stories You cannot but remember 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ram which instead of saac was caught in the bush Sabek so the LXX do read those words 22. 13. as I think I should have done if he had not noted it to my hand But those Verses of Homer on which Porphyry writes his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are as like to Davids words in Psal 139.15 as any thing can be if we receive Porphyry's Comment upon them And according to Tatianus his computation Homer lived not long after his time and so might have some knowledge of his Songs Davids words are I am fearfully and wonderfully made c. and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth Where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render curiously wrought is by Val. Schindler interpreted Contextus sum I am weaved and the Verb doth signifie acu pingere c. to work curiously with a needle or otherwise The words of Homer which I say do answer to these and describe the body of man as wrought in a loom and rarely weaved are in his Story of Ulisses Odyss N. where he speaks of a Cave and saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There do the Nymphs a wonder it is to see Their Purple Garments weave most curiously From off long Stones their threds are drawn And David saith That he was wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth i. e. the womb so here he speaks of an Antrum or Cave in which the Nymphs or souls making bodies did reside The Instruments or Tools from whence they drew their yarn which he calls great long stones Porphyry interprets to signifie the bones of the body which are hard like unto stones which uphold the flesh and unto which it is fastned and these Purple coloured garments are saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the flesh which is weaved and wrought out of blood which is as it were the Coat wherewith the soul clothes it self To this answers that in David that he was curiously wrought or weaved in the womb And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is expresly the same with those words of David I am fearfully and wonderfully made and marvellous are thy works And it is a wonder saith the same Porphyry whether we look 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the rare fabrick and composition of the body or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or at the no less strange conjunction of it with the soul Neither is this the single conceit of Porphyry
In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but he that will read Joh. Protospatharius upon that Verse of Hesiods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will soon see that he also thought Homer to have described in those words the contexture and formation of our bodies in the womb For he saith by the web he advises the woman to weave on the twelfth day of the Moon is meant a Physical Mystery concerning the generation of our bodies which he there explains and for a proof of what he saith he directs us plainly to this place of Homer which I have recited But I have no list to prosecute this any further There is another instance that suggests it self to my thoughts and I should have taken it for a corruption of the Story of Elias calling for fire from Heaven to consume his sacrifice had not Pausanias assured us that he saw it with his own eyes But it will clearly show how studious those false Gods were to imitate the God of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pausan Esiac 〈◊〉 L. 5. and render what I have said very probable which makes me think it fitting to be here related Some Priests he saith in Lydia who worshipped after the Persian manner used to call upon he knew not what God in a barbarous form of words not to be understood by the Greeks and presently the wood that was upon the Altar was kindled without any fire and appeared all in a bright flame I could easily show that these barbarous words were Abraham Isaac and Jacob Sebaoth and such like and in all probability the God they invoked was the unknown God and the example they Apishly followed was that great Prophet And indeed the Prophet Elijah did therefore call for fire from Heaven because all Sacrifices at Jerusalem were consumed and eaten onely by the Holy fire which God sent from above to them The Devil therefore in this thing may have seemed to endeavour that his Offerings might sometimes correspond with those at the Temple of God And so Pindar gives us another instance how that the Rhodians being about to offer Sacrifice to Jupiter had forgotten to bring fire along with them to his Altars but he being loth it seems to lose this fat oblation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did bring a yellow cloud over them and rained much Gold upon the Altar This Golden showre as an excellent Person of our own doth interpret it was nothing else but a showre of fire which devoured the Sacrifice Dr. Cudworth in imitation of the Sacred Story No wonder then if in other things as well as these they were forward to transcribe the holy Writ and let it not be imputed to a vain and affected ostentation of learning if I sometimes use their customes for an illustration of Sacred matters But the following Discourse is interlaced with so few of their Authors that perhaps it doth not merit this Apology and therefore I will cease it with this double desire The one is to my Reader that if he understand not every Line in the first part yet he would not throw away the rest which are fitted to his practice The other is to God that he would bless it to those Ends for which it is designed Amen THE CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE SECT I. CAP. I. THe first end of this Supper is for a remembrance of Christ What it is to remember The Passeover appointed for that end Two things it remembers us of And two wayes we are to remember it In two sences it may be called a Sacrifice p. 3. CAP. II. It is a remembrance with thanksgiving This is explained in six particulars And two other sences are given wherein it may be called a Sacrifice p. 22. CAP. III. Here the third end is discoursed of and it is considered as an holy Rite whereby we enter into Covenant with God This is explained in five things p. 46. CAP. IV. It is considered here as a sign and seal of remission of sin and this is cleared in three considerations but especially from this that we eat of the sin-offering and of that which was not made for one but for many i. e. the whole Congregation p. 73. CAP. V. It is a means of our nearer Vnion with the Lord Jesus The Nature of this Union and the effect of it is explained in five considerations p. 93. CAP. VI. Here is shown how the Supper is a means of our Union one with another And five General Observations are made to this purpose The last of which treats of the holy kiss the feast of love c. To which two things are added by way of conclusion of the first part p. 115. SECT II. Concerning Preparation CAP. VII An Introduction to the Discourse about Preparation wherein those words of the Psalmist are opened Psal 93.5 p. 159. CAP. VIII This word Preparation is to be cautiously understood Not a little time required for it Three things are discoursed of that tend to the fuller explication of it p. 164. CAP. IX Four things more are treated of which further open the Nature of this Preparation And so from a general Discourse concerning it way is made to descend to a more particular p. 174. CAP. X. Here is discoursed at large concerning those actions wherein it is fit for us to be employed before we come Of the setting apart some portion of our time and of our goods Of Examination of Reconciliation c. The whole is digested into ten considerations p. 195. CAP. XI Mistakes are removed The Primitive Christians not too zealous No reason for the neglects of the present worldly Christians Good people may be superstitious while they take themselves to be great enemies to it p. 235. CAP. XII Advice and Directions to those who never yet received the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Six things are said to them to prepare them and encourage them The Conclusion of this Discourse p. 251. SECT III. Concerning the Deportment of a Soul at the Lords Table c. CAP. XIII Love is instead of all other Directions Yet seeing it hath many wayes to express it self there is a necesssity to guide its motions so that they may not hinder each other p. 269. CAP. XIV Here therefore they are ranged and set in their right places And 1. The soul is directed what to do when it sees the Minister stand at the Table of the Lord. 2. What affections to express when the Bread is broken c. 3. When the Minister comes to give it to us 4. When we take it into our hands 5. When we eat 6. When we see him give it to others 7. When we receive the Cap. Every one of which is discoursed of in several Meditations And then 8. Meditations about the joys of Heaven And 9. Psalms of Praise are shown to be very fit conclusions of the solemnity p. 275. CAP. XV. An entrance is made upon the Discourse about our behaviour afterward 4. Sorts of Christians are
to go out of our selves when we think of him For II. Just Mart. Ib. It was instituted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in commemoration of his passion and sufferings for us As the bread and wine do commemorate the truth of his body so do bread broken and wine poured out commemorate the truth of his sufferings for us which those phantastical people in the first times did no less deny And the bread and wine being given to us severally not both together do clearly tell us that he was really dead his vital blood being separated from his body and his veins and heart being emptied of it This is that miracle of love which the Apostle saith we should shew forth till he come this is that famous act which never ennobled the story of any person that the Lord would purchase enemies by his own blood yea by the blood of the Cross reconcile them to himself The thoughts of this is able to wound a heart of marble with love and to turn a rock into a fountain of tears and to unloose the tongue of the dumb that they may speak the honour of his Name and shew forth his praise And therefore because this was such a singular instance of love and because it contains in it so many secrets which we should have before our eyes it is the chief thing that we are to make a remembrance of But as I said before there are two parts of this Commemoration and it cannot be contained within the bounds of this world but we must make it reach as far as Heaven For 1. We do shew it forth and declare it unto men which is sufficiently clear by all that hath been said We do publish and annunciate unto all that he is the Saviour of the world and that he hath died for us and purchased blessings thereby beyond the estimate and account of humane thought And further the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may import that we do extol praedicate magnifie and highly lift up in our praises this great benefit so that all may come to the knowledge of it as far as is in our powers to procure This commemoration the Minister chiefly makes unto the people and all the people together with him to all that are present so that all may wonder at his love When our Saviour therefore saith Do this in remembrance of me the meaning is do this in remembrance that I dwelt in flesh in memory of what I suffered in memory of the infinite price of my blood which I shed for you in memory of the victory that I have obtained by it over the enemies and tyrants of your souls in memory of the immortal glory that I have purchased for you celebrate this feast in memory of all these things and when I am dead let me alway live in your heart Tell them one to another in a solemn manner and declare them in the face of my Church Let all ages know these things as long as the world shall last that as the benefit is of infinite merit so may the acknowledgement be an eternal memorial Be so careful in doing this that when I come again I may find you so doing 2. We do shew forth the Lords death unto God and commemorate before him the great things he hath done for us We keep it as it were in his memory and plead before him the Sacrifice of his Son which we shew unto him humbly requiring that grace and pardon with all other benefits of it may be bestowed on us And as the Minister doth most powerfully pray in the virtue of Christs sacrifice when he represents it unto God so do the people also when they shew unto him what his Son hath suffered Every man may say Behold O Lord the bleeding wounds of thy own Son remember how his body was broken for us think upon his precious blood which was shed in our behalf Let us die if he have not made a full satisfaction We desire not to be pardoned if he have not paid our debt But canst thou behold him and not be well pleased with us Canst thou look on his body and blood which we represent to thee and turn thy face from us Hast thou not set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood O Lord then suffer us sinful creatures to plead with thee Let us prevail in the virtue of his sacrifice for the graces and blessings that we need and hide not thy self from us unless thou canst hide thy self from thy Son too whom we bring with us unto thee In this sort may we take the boldness to speak to God and together with a representation of Christ we may represent our own wants and we may be confident that when God sees his Son when we hold up him as it were between his anger and our souls he will take some pity and have mercy upon us Just as a poor man pleading with a King commemorates to him the worthy deeds of some of his Ancestors or makes mention of the name of some high Favourite for whose sake he desires his Petition may be granted So it is with us when we come before God to request mercy of him we can hope to prevail for nothing but through the Name of our Lord whom we can never mention with so much advantage as when we solemnly commemorate his sufferings and deservings For then we pray and do something else also which God hath commanded so that there is the united force of many acceptable things to make us prevalent And hence I suppose it is that Isid Pelus calls the Sacramental bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 1. Epist. 123. the shew-bread as we render it which we set before God as that stood alway before his face in the time of the Law that God looking upon it might remember his people Israel for good It will not be unprofitable to add That this was one reason why the Ancients called this action a Sacrifice which the Romanists now so much urge because it doth represent the Sacrifice which Christ once offered It is a figure of his death which we commemorate unto which the Apostle Paul as a Learned man conceives hath a reference L'Emptreur when he saith to the Galatians Gal. 3.1 That Jesus Christ was set forth evidently before their eyes crucified among them They saw as it were his Sacrifice on the Cross it was so lively figured in this Sacrament And it is very plain that Chrysostome understood no more Hom. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c when as he thus speaks upon the Epistle to the Hebrews What then do not we offer every day yet we offer by making a commemoration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his death And we do not make another sacrifice every day but alway the same or rather a remembrance of a sacrifice Such an unbloody Sacrifice which is only rememorative and in representation we all acknowledge And if that would content
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
the Blood he sprinkled on the Altar which represented God and the other half he sprinkled on the people ver 6 7 8. as a token of the Covenant between them But for compleating of the Compact the chief of the people went up nearer to God and saw that bright appearance and did eat and drink ver 11. which sure must be understood of their feasting upon the Peace-offerings which had been sacrificed unto God whereby they professed to own that Covenant he had given to them Not long after this people made to themselves other gods and offered not onely burnt-offerings but also peace-offerings to them Exod. 32.6 and then sate down to eat and driuk and rose up to play i. e. to be wanton and commit uncleanness with each other Now that this was an associating of themselves with the Egyptian gods we may learn from the Apostle who reciting of this passage and speaking of their Idolatry makes no mention at all of their sacrificing to these new gods but onely of this eating c. which did conclude the Ceremony as if the Idolatry did formally consist in this and that hereby they did devote themselves to that strange Worship Neither be you Idolators saith he 1 Cor. 10.8 as were some of them as it is written the people sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play By which words you may see the Apostle makes account that this eating and drinking of the sacrifices was a renouncing of the Covenant of their God and joyning of themselves to idols Now because it was the manner as it seems of some of the Corinthians still to feast in the Idols Temples and perhaps in the Temple of Venus famous in that City which makes the Apostle add those words ver 8. Neither commit fornication as some c. He tells them that this was a plain forsaking of Christ and utterly incompatible with his Profession For the vouching of which assertion he reminds them what the Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord doth import viz. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 participation or communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ver 16 17. which is as much as to say it is a profession that we as one body partaking of one bread do hold communion with Christ and adhere unto him as our Lord and Head and that to his Worship and Service we do consecrate our selves For just as Israel by eating of the sacrifices partake of or have communion with the Altar ver 18. i. e. profess to be of that Religion and adhere to that way of Worship So it is with Christians when they eat of the Body and Blood of the crucified Saviour which was offered for us And therefore by a likeness of Reason he concludes That to partake of the Table of Devils and eat of things sacrificed to them was to profess to have communion with those impure spirits and thereby to desecrate themselves it being impossible for them at once to be devoted to things so quite contrary as Christ and the Devil ver 20 21. From all which discourse we may thus reason That this holy Sacrament is a Feast upon the Sacrifice which Christ offered as the Jewish Feasts were made with the flesh of those sacrifices which they offered to God For the Apostle makes the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ver 16. parrallel to eating of the sacrifices ver 18. And therefore it is a rite whereby we solemnly addict our selves to the service and Worship of Christ and take upon our selves strict engagements to be faithfull in that Covenant that is between us which is the thing that was to be proved As Israel joined themselves to God by feasting in his house of the Sacrifices so we joyn our selves to Christ by feasting in the place of his Worship and at his Table upon the remembrances of his body and blood And our obligations to cleave unto him do as much excel all other tyes in their sacredness strength and vertue as the Sacrifice of Christ excels the Sacrifice of a Beast or the eating and drinking of his Body and Blood is beyond all participation of the meat of the ancient Altars Yea it is supposed that we are the friends of God before we come hither and that we are not in any willing uncleanness else we should be shut out from partaking of this offering And therefore our approach to his Table is but more strongly to tye the knot and to bind us in deeper promises to continue friendship with him If more can be said then this I may add that the eating of this sacrifice is a solemn Oath that we will be true and loyal to him For even Heathens themselves did use by sacrifice to bind themselves in Oaths From whence it is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies that sacrifice which was slain when they made a covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. and in regard of its relation to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be rendred the Oath-sacrifice And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cut this sacrifice in Homers phrase is to make a Covenant which it is likely may be taken from the Hebrew custome mentioned Jer. 34.18 And to swear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the warm intrails of the beast was the greatest Oath that could be made When we lay our hands therefore upon the body of Christ that was sacrificed for us and much more when we eat of it we do solemnly take our Oaths that we will be his faithfull foederates and rather die then shrink from those duties to which we bind our selves IV. If there be any that look upon eating and drinking of this bread and wine onely as symbols of beleeving in Jesus Christ the matter draws to the same point for faith is the condition of the Covenant of Grace and comprehends in its signification all that God requires So some of the Ancients expound those words Joh. 6. ver 54. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life to signifie thus much He that is made partaker of my wisdom through my incarnation and sensible life among men shall be saved For flesh and blood saith Basil he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist 141. ad Caesar all the mystery of his incarnation and conversation here in the flesh amongst us together with his doctrine which he hath taught us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. by which the soul is nourished and fitted for the sight of coelestial things and therefore eating and drinking of these must denote embracing of all Christ so as to be conform to him and to his doctrine If then we take the body and blood of Christ in this Supper represented to us to signifie the same and eating and drinking to be onely believing yet you may easily see to how much we are engaged if we do really believe But it is manifest to me that eating and drinking here must comprehend more then it doth in St. John for
else we shall do nothing at the Lords Supper but what we might do at any other time as well If it be onely beleeving and meer spiritual eating that here is exercised then we may feed so without this food And when Christ commands so frequently Do this in remembrance of me it would be no more sence then if he had said Do this which yet you may do without doing this This eating and drinking therefore must be a profession of our faith a covenanting solemnly with God and a receiving and giving of those pledges of love which we cannot have any where else V. And indeed the old Christians did so sacredly bind themselves hereby to their Saviour that Heathens were ready to suspect them of dangerous combinations and such conspiracies as might prove mischievous to the Commonwealth From which imputation whilest Pliny doth acquit them L. 10. Epist. 97. he likewise instructs us for what end they met together at this feast They assemble themselves saith he in a Letter to Trajan the Emperor before day break and sing a Hymn to Christ as if he were God and then they do sacramento se obstringere bind themselves with a Sacrament or Oath not that they will do mischief to any but that they will not rob or steal nor commit adultery nor falsifie their words nor deny their trust c. And then after they have eat together they depart to their own homes Of more then this they protested to him he should never find them guilty and this was the crime of Christians in those first ages to engage themselves to commit no crime which they bound themselves unto by this Sacrament of Christs body and blood The Greek Christians at this day Christop Angelus rit Eccles Graec. when they take the bread or cup into their hands make this profession Lord I will not give thee a kiss like Judas but I do confess unto thee like the poor thief and beseech thee to remember me when thy Kingdom comes If we do touch the body of Christ with traitorous lips and embrace him with a false heart we stain our souls with the guilt of that blood which can onely wash them from all their other sins And therefore we must come unfeignedly to bewail our neglects and to settle our former resolutions of strict obedience It is grown even to a Proverb as Joseph Accosta relates among the poor Indians that have entertained the faith De procur Ind. Sal. L. 6. that Qui eucharistiam semel susceperit nullum amplius crimen debet committere He must never be guilty more of any crime who hath once received the Eucharist And if they chance to commit any they bewail it with such a sorrow and compunction that he saith he hath not found such faith no not in Israel But it would be very sad if we should be sent to school as far as India There are I make no doubt many pious souls among our selves that look upon it as a blessed opportunity to knit their hearts in greater love to God and that are more afflicted for an evil thought after such engagements then other are for a base and unworthy action Whensoever therefore we come to celebrate the memory of Christs death in this manner we must remember with our selves that we are assembled for to renew our baptismal vow and league and in the devoutest manner to addict our selves to a more constant love and service of the Lord Jesus We must look upon this feast to which we are admitted as a disclaiming of all enmity to him and a profession of our continuing a hearty friendship so as never to do any hostile act against him And thence indeed it is called a Sacrament according to Tertullian and others with him because we here take an Oath to continue Christs faithfull Souldiers and never to do any thing against his Crown and dignity as long as there remains any breath in our bodies We do repeat our Oath of Allegiance and swear fealty again to him or as we ordinarily speak we take the Sacrament upon it that we will be Christs faithfull servants and Souldiers against the Devil World and Flesh and never flie from his service Every act of sin then after such promises is not onely treason but perjury not onely the breaking of our faith but of our Oath yea not onely the violation of a simple Oath but of Oath upon Oath which we ought more to dread then we do to break our bones We esteem it an impiety of a high nature for a Minister to give a cup of poyson into a mans hand instead of the blood of Christ and we do deservedly abhorre that Priest that poysoned Pope Victor the 3d. Venenum sub specie sacramenti dedit vertens calicem vitae in calicem mortis with the Sacrament and him that poysoned Henry the 7th Emp. turning as Nauclerus his phrase is the cup of life into the cup of death But whilest our hearts swell in indignation at such a crime let us consider with our selves what a treasonable act it is to poyson our souls with our own hands and by a base treachery to God to swallow down curses and woes into our selves Better were it for us to be choaked with the bread of life or to feel the venome of Asps boiling in our veins after the holy cup then to take an Oath which we take small care to keep then to go on in a course of sin after such sacred professions of our duty and service unto Christ We are amazed to hear that men can touch the Gospels before a Magistrate and kiss the book or lift up their hand to Heaven and yet make good never a word that they swear We are apt to think that either these men have no souls or that they do not value them at the price of a rotten nut O let our very flesh then tremble to think that we should lay our hand upon the body of Christ and take it into our very mouths and solemnly swear unto him and yet not be faithfull in his Covenant nor heartily indeavour to perform our promises unto him For there is no forsworn person hath such a black soul as he whose soul is fouled even by the blood of Christ himself which washes the souls of others The world cannot but shrink at the thoughts of that fearful act of one of the Popes who making a League with Caesar and the French King divided the bread of the Sacrament into three parts with this saying scarce tollerable As the holy Trinity is but one God so let the union indure between us three confederates and yet he was the first that broke it and started from the agreement Far be it from us then after this action wherein we joyn our selves to God and unite our hearts to fear his Name and become as it were one with him to rescind our Covenants or stand again at tearms of defiance But let us have a care
another likeness by the offering up of our bodies to God which is a piece of this service Rom. 12.1 2. And so some observe that all other meat is received as it is in it self and no otherwise but this meat is divers as it is received Other meat affecteth and altereth the taste but here the taste altereth the meat For if it be worthily received it is the body and blood of Christ if unworthily it is but bare bread and wine But yet this must be cautiously understood when we thus speak for his presence is with the bread though not in it Though it be onely in us yet it comes with it unto us if we will receive him because else we shall not know how unworthy persons are said to be guilty of his body and blood 1 Cor. 11.27 if he be not present with his body and blood to work in mens souls This likewise is to be further observed for the better under standing of it that the Devil who loves to imitate God that he may the better cozen and cheat doth seldom manifest his power to any great purpose but when he is called by some of his own ceremonies and sacraments that he hath appointed This doth but tell us that Christ is then most powerfully present when we use his rites which he hath instituted and hallowed as special remembrances of his love and testimonies of our love unto him So that we may come hither and expect that we shall feel more at such a time and in the use of such means then at or in others because he hath made them his body and blood in such sort as I have declared Other union then this by Christs spirit I know no use of though we should believe that which we do not understand I can conceive great things concerning the power of Christs humane nature and it is not for us to tell how far it may extend its influences through the inhabitation of the Deity That it is brighter then the Sun Saint Paul saw when the Lord appeared to him Acts 26.13 And as the Sun we see communicates his beams a vast way and twists it self about us by silver threads of light though seated in the Heavens so may we conceive that the sacred humanity of Christ doth tie us to it self by cords of love and now embrace us in its outstretched armes after a more affectionate manner when we come to remember him But to what purposes this should serve I do not well understand and without the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us the flesh can profit nothing at all though never so glorious and therefore I lay aside such thoughts and content my self to know that they that are joyned or cleave to the Lord 1 Cor. 6.17 are one spirit 5. Now from this secret union that is here made between Christ and our persons it comes to pass that this Sacrament hath been accounted an earnest and pledg of the resurrection For nothing that is made one with Christ can die and be lost but he will raise it up again at the last day His spirit can find out all their dust after a thousand changes it can gather all their dispersons and renuite their scattered crums and knead them again into a goodly body And this it will do 1 Cor. 6.19 for their very bodies are the Temples of the holy Ghost therefore he will quicken their mortal bodies Rom. 8.11 by his Spirit that dwelleth in them Hence it was that Cyril so earnestly invited guests to this feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saying Come eat the bread that renews your natures drink the wine that is the smile and cheer of immortality Eat the bread that purges away the ancient bitterness drink the wine that asswages the pain of our old sore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the very restorative of nature an healing plaister for the bitings of the Serpent a powerfull antidote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ainst all his poyson he hath infused into us And so several of the elder times speak not without reason for seeing our Lord gives to these things the name of his body and blood we need not fear to attribute to them the vertues and efficacy of his death which we know was the restorer of life We should think therefore when we go to the Table of the Lord that we go to joyn our selves more closely to our head and to unite our hearts more firmly to the fountain of our life That we go to receive of his holy Spirit which like wine running through our veins should diffuse it self into all the vital powers of our souls and make us more able and strong active and quick ready and forward in the service of our Saviour We should think that hereby we may get greater victories over our enemies if we do not betray our succours that we may more compleat our conquests if we use the power that is sent unto us We should look upon this bread as the bread of life and conceive that we take the cup of immortality into our hands and that the next draught may be in the Kingdom of God when our bodies shall be raised to feast at the eternal supper of the Lamb. For this is but a just consequence of forgiveness of sins which the former Chapter treated of that our bodies should live again which became mortal through sin And therefore as Christ here seals unto us the one so he likewise wise assures us of the other and gives unto us the earnest of the Spirit What joy then must these thoughts needs create in our souls What better chear can we desire What greater dainties would we taste then this holy feast affords or what cause would we have of thanksgiving more then hath been named If we desire a consort in our thanksgivings and to have an harmony of souls while we sing his praises if we would hear some voice besides our own that might fill up our joys and lift them to a greater height That is not wanting neither as the next Chapter shall declare For here is an union of minds begot and a sweet consent of hearts is the result of this entertainment CHAP. VI. AS this Sacrament is a means of uniting us to our Lord by faith so likewise of uniting us to our brethren by love It knits us not onely to our head but all the members also thereby are more indeared unto each other We enter here into a strict league of friendship with them as well as into a Covenant with God For all true Christians are not onely of the Family of God but his children and nearest relations so that we cannot profess any love unto the father of them all but we must at the same time embrace his whole progeny as bearing his character and having in them those very things which we love in him When we take the bridegroom we
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
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
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
thy heart When art thou all in a heat When thou art in pursuit of the World or when thou followest after God Ask thy heart whom dost thou love most What is it that thou dost most constantly desire In what Company is it thy pleasure to be Dost thou love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and all thy strength Hadst thou rather dye than displease him Are thy graces not only alive but lively Come then let us go to this holy Feast and thank the Lord for this Grace and for all his other favours VIII If we find by examining that we have fallen into any sin and through neglect or ignorance broken our resolution since the last Communion Let us make most serious reflections upon it Besides all the sorrow that I must suppose it hath cost a good heart presently after its commission besides its hatred of it and affliction of it self for it with a most speedy amendment of the fault This is a fit time to bewail it over again to call our selves to a new account for it to drown it in another flood of tears more firmly to strengthen our resolutions against it and to prepare it for to receive another wound a mortal stroak from the wounds of Jesus that it may never live any more Say therefore thus to thy self when thou art in thy meditations What didst thou mean O my soul to be so treacherous unto God and to break thy resolution Was there ever a better Master Were ever any tyed to another by such sacred Bands and Oaths O perjured wretch that thou art What was in thy heart to break loose from God dost thou not blush to think of it or rather art thou not pale and wan and ready to dye to think of such a horrid thing Well I see these sins are not quite dead but still they stirre and move or though they seem to be stretched out and to have no life yet they may recover But I am resolved if Christ can kill them that they shall not live Come along with me if you dare live so long into his presence and there receive your mortal wound from his hand seeing you will not be killed by mine There shall you all be slain at his feet you shall be nailed to his Cross and I will leave you hanging there till you be asham'd to live IX But if the commission of such a sin have brought any timerousness as well it may upon the heart so that it trembles to set one foot forward unto the Lords Table and its hands shake with a paralitick fear so that it cannot stretch them to receive such Pledges of Gods Love It is most necessary that a man advise with his spiritual Pastor and Director in the way of life I wish it were better understood for what ends God hath set Pastors over the flock and that men would look upon them as a kind of Parents to whom they should go in all their needs But now the subject of my Discourse leads me to say no more but this That there are two necessary times of receiving the benefit of their counsell The one is when a mans sin oppresseth him so sorely with the sense of the guilt it hath contracted that he can receive no comfort And the other is when it oppresseth him so heavily with its strength and power that he can get no conquest over it There is a third season when it is at least convenient to repair unto them and that is when a man is in doubt whether he have passed a right judgement upon himself which should make him desirous to have the opinion of those persons that can neither be deemed to be deceived themselves through ignorance nor to be willing to deceive others through flattery and partial Judgement If any one therefore be in the perplexity of such like cases when he thinks of coming to this holy feast let him dis-imbosome his soul unto him that hath the care of it and desire him that out of the tender love a Father ought to have unto his Child he would be his guide in this Affair And so shall a man know how to use these spiritual weapons better when he is taught by a skilfull Commander and the more solid comfort shall he have when his Physician assures him that as far as he can discern he is in a state of health X. And yet when we have done all this then we should pray to God that he would prepare us better than all our preparation As when a King comes unto a City to stay there for some space he doth not expect that the Citizens if they be poor should provide all the furniture for him which is a thing above their power but he sends the Grooms of his Chamber before with such Hangings and Ornaments as may make the house they have prepared most befitting his Majesty So let us entreat the Lord that after all our endeavour to set apart our hearts for him to sweep the house as clean as we can and fit it to receive such a glorious Guest he would be pleased to send his holy Spirit that may prepare the place for him and adorn our souls with such Graces that His Sacred Majesty may not disdain to come and make his abode with us Say thus unto thy gracious God Oh Lord thou seest how much dirt I have left behind after all my diligence to cleanse and purifie my soul Alas all my thoughts of thee are but dreams all my desires but a vapour my Love is but a flash my Prayers are but a breath my Tears will scarce fill a bubble and my Sorrow is no bigger than a Sigh all that I do I am ashamed of it my self and therefore thou maist much more loath it and despise it Come thou Psal 139 23 24. O Lord therefore and search my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Do thou awaken in me most lively thoughts do thou inkindle a burning affection open thou the flood-gates of my eyes and open thou my lips that my mouth may shew orth thy praise Seeing my heart Lord is so strait and narrow that it is not fit to entertain thee do thou widen and enlarge it and then come and fill me with thy self and say Here will I dwell for I have desired it this is my rest for ever Yea O my gracious God unless thou interpose thy Power I am very much afraid I shall not keep this little goodness till the next morning which now seems to be in me These weak Thoughts these faint Desires and sickly Affections that are in my soul I doubt will not live a night unless thou find wayes for to preserve and cherish them my inveterate habits of evil will smother and choak these new Resolutions I am in fear that all these meditations will be flown away while I am asleep and my
house will be foul again before I awake unless thou keep me Ah my dear God! seeing I have bestowed some small pains upon my heart and have conceived some little hopes suffer them not to be all dashed in pieces in a night Spread the wings of thy goodness over me and maintain that which not I but thou thy self hast wrought Lord let me find when I awake that my affections and desires are grown beyond the strength of man and that thy power rests up on me Oh let me find a greater fervour than ever in thy service let that spark which I feared would go out be grown to a flame that will never expire and so shalt thou draw mine eyes towards thy self alone who workest such wonders so shall my heart be filled with nothing but thy sweetness and my lips shall overflow with thy praises Lord if I may beg this grace of thee I am verily perswaded I shall languish after none but thee and seek for no other pleasures but to please thee Therefore my good Lord I leave my self in thy hands hoping that either I am or would be such as thou wouldst have me And if I be arrived but as far as a will and desire to be what thou wouldst have me that will is thine and therefore seeing that will is mine too and we both conspire together I take the boldness to say Lord let thy will be done Oh my sweet Saviour I was going to say that I am sick of love that I cannot live unless thou love me and make me better But I correct my self and it is enough if I be sick because I cannot love thee Do thou make me sick or rather make me well with love unto thee so shall I come to thy Table with joy and gladness hoping that thou wilt kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth for thy love is better than Wine Draw me and I will run after thee yea we will run after thee for I will proclaim to others the loving-kindness of the Lord. When one bad Socrates prepare himself for his trial he answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Do not I seem then to thee through all my life to be prepared for this thing It hath been my care neither before thee nor alone to do any evil Aâ—rian lib. 2. cap. 2. CHAP. XI WHat preparation there should be besides this I do not understand it being directly contrary to the first thing that I propounded for any to imagine that we ought just before the Sacrament to have a greater care of not sinning than at other times We are alwayes pilgrims and strangers and so ought to abstain from fleshly lusts that warre against the soul These lusts are alwayes poysonous and not onely when we are going to take the Cup of the Lord into our hand And therefore it is a grand deceit to think that we and our sins must be severed only then when we more nearly embrace our Lord for holiness is our profession afterward as much as before we communicate with his Holiness Or rather all the time after one Communion being before the next which doth succeed it is the time of Preparation for it We are to keep our selves in a constant purity and to labour to keep close to the Covenant of our God only when the time doth nearly approach that we may enjoy such another repast we should excite our appetite raise our thoughts and meditations imprint the ends of the institution more fairly in our memories voluntarily offer more of our time and our thoughts to religious exercises and do all that over again with a greater zeal which we have been doing every day since we were last in his Sacred Presence You may observe that as just before this solemnity our thoughts are more deep and serious and our hearts lifted up to a greater fervour and we have stronger longings after Christ and his Blessings which prepare us for the enjoyment so the enjoyment leaves us for some time afterward in a great degree of heat in more lively apprehensions and more vigorous affections But these through multitude of business and many occasions may languish by little and little and may abate of that degree and ardour wherein they were which I look upon as the weakness rather than the sin of a good heart and therefore our work is to recover our souls before the next Communion to the same or rather an higher degree of zeal And then though afterward there may be again some abatement and fall in our affections yet it will be less and more fervency and heat will remain than would have been if we had not got up our hearts by that Preparation and that Communion to an higher pitch of spiritual love The Primitive Christians who communicated every day as some passages in the Acts of the holy Apostles would make us think or at least every Lords Day had need of less of this Preparation that I have mentioned for as soon as ever the flame began to decay there was new fewel added and that degree of warmth to which they were raised was scarce gone from their hearts before a new fire was kindled But now the custome is so that this Feast returns more seldome and we cannot say with Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Epist 2. ad Caesarcam Patritiam In the beginning of which Epistle he commends an every-day Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good and profitable We Communicate four times in a week besides all Festival dayes but it is very much if men be so devout as to Communicate once in four weeks and therefore because many things may be slipt out of our minds and former impressions may be grown weak we had need more solemnly to recollect what we have learnt to stir up our remembrance to renew a sense of the ends of its institution of our own wants of the wants of the poor and the rest of those things which I have in the former Chapter recommended to your thoughts If men understood these things they would neither wonder that the ancient Christians communicated so oft nor would they have any excuse left for their own neglect First I say they would not wonder that the fervour of those primitive souls was so great for they had a huge care to lead an holy life and that made them both fit and desirous to converse with God every day VVe judge of them perhaps by our selves and think that it was superstition rather than Religion that made them so forward to this Office and by casting a blot upon their Piety we hope in this frozen age to be accounted Pious If superstition can be believed to have grown up so early then we may be thought with less zeal to be more devout If they did only flatter Christ with such a busie devotion and frequent resort unto him we may hope to pass for better Friends that are not so forward but more discreetly reserved and sparing of
them own it in the secrets of their own soul and let them profess it unto him that God hath set over them and so desire to be admitted for to strengthen their resolution by adding a new Sacrament to the former Engagement That which they should have done at Baptism if they had been men let them do now that they understand their Baptism and enter their protestations against the lusts of the world the flesh and the Devil Secondly As they must well exmine themselves before they make such a profession so now intending to receive this holy Sacrament they should make a new search into all the parts of their soul Let such a man therefore first bring his understanding unto tryal and examine it what it apprehends concerning Christ and all his Offices What knowledge it hath of the ends of his death and the benefits that come thereby unto us as also of the nature of the new Covenant and of this Sacrament whereby we come to partake of those benefits Then secondly Call thy Judgement before the Barr of Conscience and ask it how it prizes and esteems of Christ and all his benefits and whether it count all things but dung and dross for the excellency of his knowledge and whether it value the deliverance wrought by him from the power as well as punishment of sin more than a Kingdom bigger than the world Then thirdly Take thy will under examination and ask it if it heartily consent to believe all that he saith to do all that he commands and to expect in such a way all that he promiseth Here thou must be very inquisitive lest thy heart should be divided between two Masters And it is necessary that thou represent unto thy self all the dangers thou mayest undergo and the hazards thou mayest run if thou cleave to Christ and not unto the world and then ask thy soul if it chuse Christ with disgrace if it embrace him and a stake both together and in one word if it sincerely love a crucified Saviour Fourthly Then next of all Let thy affections be called to an account which are but several motions of thy will See what sorrow what pain and grief thou hast conceived for offending of thy Lord. What hunger and thirst there is in thee after righteousness What desire after the Blood of Christ to quench the fire of Gods anger that is kindled in thy soul and to wash away all that filthiness which makes him angry See that thou be in love in charity with all men that there be no hatred nor enmity no wrath nor displeasure against any of thy Brethren See that there be such affections in thy heart as befit that duty which thou thinkest to perform ex gr Ask thy soul why did thy Saviour bleed was he a Malefactor or were thy sins the Traytors which delivered him to these horrid torments What hatred then dost thou find against them how canst thou find in thy heart to use them Ask again Was thy Saviour overcome by death or did he overcome it O think what triumph it should raise in thy soul if thou dost consent unto him and what joy it should create in thy heart that he hath destroyed sin death and the grave and opened the gates of life Ask it once more What are those glorious things that he hath purchased by his Bloud And what love dost thou feel in thy self towards him What sympathy hast thou with his dear affection and what canst thou find in thy heart to do for the Holy Jesus Fifthly And then after all this let all the actions of thy life be brought again before the same Tribunal and arraign thy self for all the villanies thou hast committed against thy Lord for all the breaches of thy faith and sacred Oath unto him Yea if there be but a little passion a rash word a vain thought whereby thou hast given him the least prick of a wound find them out as near as thou canst and let them be brought forth to be slain before him Then lastly Dive most seriously into the bottome of thy heart and fetch up all the resolutions that thou thinkest lye there set them in the very face of thy Lord and ask thy heart before him and bid it say true as it will answer it at the day of Judgement What are thy purposes for the future for what ends wouldst thou approach to the Lords Table Yea go so far as to examine thy self about thy intention in such things as thou thought'st formerly could never be done or never avoided from being done Ask thy heart about the faults of thy nature of thy temper and those which through humane weakness will occurre about thy foolish thoughts thy little passions which none discern to swell but thy self c. Art thou resolved to be more watchfull against these to use more industry to suppress them to redeem thy time to avoid all occasions of evil to guard thy self more strongly where the temptation used to come Resolve thy self and be satisfied about all these particulars and so accordingly proceed forward when thou knowest thy self and thy heart hath told the truth concerning thine estate For examination is not commanded for it self but in order to something else that is to follow after this search 3. Therefore thirdly Let every man approve himself in these particulars and judge that he is a person that means really to live godlily to forsake all other Masters and cleave to Jesus only having an understanding of the conditions of his Service Let thy soul give thee a good Answer upon the foregoing examination and then I have little more to say But be sure of this That thy judgement of thy self i. e. of thy Understanding Will Affections c. be impartial and unbiassed and do not incline to any favourable construction of thy self but let the Word of God be thy Rule and thy spiritual Pastor be thy Guide if thou doubtest that thou flatterest thy self But fourthly If thou hast lately committed some great and scandalous offence before thy heart began to be thus pricked and stimulated to ransack it self make some trial of thy self before thou comest to the Lords Table Two sorts of Converts there are Some have not behaved themselves towards God as they ought but lived carelesly without the exercise of Piety and Devotion to him yet have not committed any gross sin which might cast a blot upon the Sacredness of this Feast if they should presently come to it nor offend the flock of Christ who have Communion with them If they be touched with a sense of their private neglect if their sins against God be a burden to them though men know them not if they heartily abhor them and betake themselves to the work of godliness with all their might and do firmly determine with themselves that they will hereafter be more carefull and diligent in their duty and desire to come to the Sacrament that they may be more strongly engaged and tyed to
of 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
take away but one offence among the Jews and that meerly against a carnall Commandment yet this though but one can take away all offences even against the eternall Law of God And the strength of a Sacrifice under the Law continued no longer than just while it was offered but was to be repeated again in case of a new offence but the bloud of Jesus endures for ever Heb 10.14 and by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified We that live at sixteen hundred years distance from that sacrifice may be as much expiated and receive as great benefit by it as they that saw him upon the Altar or as he that put his fingers into his wounds and thrust his hand into his side For the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all and he bare the sinnes not only of that generation but of all succeeding Ages Think then now that the Cup is in thy hands now that thou drinkest of his bloud that thou mayest receive as reall effects of his sacrifice as if thou hadst been permitted to have laid thy hands on his head and put all thy sins upon him as Aaron did upon the head of the Beast that was offered for the Congregation of Israel And so let thy thoughts slide to a second Meditation which is hereon depending 2. And consider with thy self how firm that Covenant is which is made with us in the bloud of Jesus and how certainly God will perform whatsoever his Sonne hath promised It is called the bloud of the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13.20 which doth intimate that he sealed the Covenant with his Bloud that he died to assert the truth of all that he said he took it upon his death that he was sent of God and as he sealed to it by his death so God did seal to it by his resurrection which two put together are the grand proofs which we have to shew for the truth of the Gospel And then we may be confident that the mercy of the Lord endures for ever for the seal of the Covenant is everlasting and never fails The first Covenant was made by bloud as you may see Exod. 24.7 8. yea there is such an affinity between these words sanctio and sanguis that in all likelihood their nearness arise from hence because by bloud all establishments and sanctions were wont to be made But the Bloud of that Covenant vanished away and never rose again and so in time did the Covenant it self as the Apostle tells us Heb. 8.13 And therefore the Lord sealed the new Compact by a better bloud which is quickned again to an eternall life to assure us that the mercies of it shall never cease Here therefore thy soul may again plead with God that he would put his Laws into thy heart and write them in thy mind and that thy sins and iniquities he would remember no more which is the sum of the Covenant as it there follows in the Apostles discourse Heb. 10.16 17. Thou mayest grow confident and rejoyce in God thy salvation thou mayest desire him to remember that it is the precious Bloud of his Sonne which thou remembrest thou mayest tell him that is not the bloud of Bulls and Goats that thou pleadest but of Jesus the Lamb of God without spot and blemish Thou mayest ask him if he do not see that Bloud in the Heavens if he be not more pleased with it than with the bloud of the Cattle upon a thousand Hills Say Lord is the Bloud of Jesus dead Doth it not cry as loud in thine ears as ever Hast thou not made him a Priest after the power of an endless life yea hast thou not sworn and is it not impossible that thou shouldst repent Then I humbly crave that a poor sinner which hath nothing to offer thee may be accepted by that offering Then let me live by his Life as so many already have done Let me know that thou art well pleased with sinners through him Let me know that I have found favour in thine eyes Let all the Prayers that I have now made be graciously accepted Remember all my offerings and accept of my sacrifice of Prayers and Praises Yea remember his bloud when I do not actually remember it and when I am silent and do not pray let that prevail for blessings upon me Psalm 21. Doth not the King joy in thy strength Hast thou not given him his hearts desire and not withholden the request of his lips Thou hast set a Crown of pure Gold upon his head He asked Life of thee and thou gavest it him even length of dayes for ever and ever His Glory is great in thy Salvation Honour and Majesty hast thou laid upon him For thou hast made him most blessed for ever Thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy Countenance And therefore since he lives let us live also Since thou hast heard him hear us also for his sake Send us help out of thy Sanctuary and strengthen us out of Sion Grant us according to our heart and fulfill all our petitions Save Lord let the King hear us when we call 3. Meditate likewise what danger there is in not standing to that Covenant that is here confirmed by bloud between God and us They used when they made Covenants by bloud to cut the Beast in sunder and both parties passed between the two halfs as you may see Jer. 34.18 19. Which custome was as old as Abrahams time as Gen. 15.10 17 18. will inform you This passing of both parties between the parts of the Beast was as much as a wish that so it might befall him that should break the Covenant which was made between them Now when we behold the Bloud of the Son of God poured out and his Body broken and so a Covenant stricken between God and us by his receiving him into Heaven and our drinking of his bloud and eating of his Body here on Earth we should think what the danger will be of not being stedfast in his Covenant God will require his Sonnes bloud at our hands The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looks not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and shall cut him in sunder and give him his portion with the Hypocrites Mat. 24.50 51. I have often thought that he alludes to that custome of cutting the Beast in twain and that the meaning is All persons that are deceitfull and false Luk. 12.46 or as St. Lukes phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unbelievers unfaithfull souls all that break their faith with Christ and violate his Covenant they shall be cut in two as the word signifies they shall have such an execution done upon them as was done upon the Beast of old and receive such a horrible doom as is fit for perjured persons They shall be broken in pieces as his Son was broken Yea he will fall upon them as
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
spend some time in strengthning of our purposes and confirming our resolutions of a more holy obedience that so there may be some fruit seen of this day in many others that follow till the solemnity shall return again Let us labour to fix and plant the meditations we have had so strongly in our mind that they may shoot their Roots to the bottome of our hearts nothing may be able to pluck them up Let us possess our hearts so much with those perswasions that when a temptation comes and knocks at our door we may readily and naturally say Cease your importunity for Christ dwells here and I cannot open to you Ego non sum ego I am not he that I was before the property of the house is quite changed and though I was not long ago a common Inne to entertain all comers yet now I am become the sole habitation of my Lord. Let us make our souls so sensible that he is in us and united to us that we may readily think on every occasion in this manner How is it fit that I should treat my gracious Lord who hath taken his abode within me Shall I take the Members of Christ and make them the Members of a Harlot Shall I over-charge that body with loads of meat and drink where he hath chosen for to reside Shall I force him out of his house by any impunities Shall I offend him by the smell of any noisome breath out of my mouth Shall I displease him by any unhandsome thought Shall I be so greedy of the World that I shall forget to retire to converse with my dearest Saviour Shall I so perplex my self in business as to omit to pray to meditate to sing praise to him No I am not at my own dispose I have sworn Psal 119.106 I will perform it That I will keep thy righteous Judgements And to provoke every one the more to do his endeavour thus to strengthen his resolution let these two things be seriously considered First The more carefully we walk with God the less labour we shall find to prepare our selves against the next Communion with the less pains shall we dress up our souls to come to another Feast There will be some relish of the former food left in our hearts and we shall be though not in the next yet in no very remote disposition to perform the same acts again Secondly Every return to finne after these Engagements makes it more intollerable and more highly displeasing to God and our Saviour After a man hath seriously considered how hatefull it is in its own nature after he hath resolved against it and solemnly covenanted to avoid it the sinne is more black and deadly a greater wrong to him that we have taken to lodge in our souls than Annas and Caiphas and the Scribes did him when they put him to death If this truth were setled upon mens hearts sinne would find colder entertainment with them than it doth and they would not have such kindness for that which fastens a more odious Character upon them than they can put on the very worst of the Jews the murtherers of our Lord. And yet I shall more than say that sinners now do greater injury to him than did the Sanhedrin if you will but grant this one Principle which is clearly proved by one of our own Writers Dr. Jackson The Rule whereby we must measure the greatness of a wrong done is the opposition which it hath in it to the Will of him that is wronged And so the more opposite any act or practise is to the will or liking of the party that is displeased and wronged the greater are we to account the injury and offence which is done to him Now all men that live in sin and especially those who lick up their vomit after they have received Jesus Christ the Lord do those things which Christ is more unwilling they should do than he was to suffer all the indignities of the Jewes and all the torments that the Roman Laws could inflict He was willing to dye by their hands rather than inconvenience should fall upon us viz. That sinne should reign over us and Satan keep possession in us He was so unwilling that this should be our condition that he rather chused to dye that he might cast the Devil out and destroy all his works and restore us to liberty again Now if any man hold on Satans side and seek to keep him in his Throne if any will maintain and uphold his Works and stand in the defence of his Cause he doth a thing more displeasing and grievous unto Christ than his Death and Passion was He was not troubled so much to dye as he is to see thee live in sin for he dyed that thou mightest cease to sin And therefore have a care what thou dost unless thou wilt be worse than a Jew and wound him more than he did who lanced his side and be a greater and more dangerous Enemy to him than they that complotted his death And consider if sin be so displeasing to him so much against his will that he was willing to suffer any torment rather than it should live how canst thou think that he will stay with thee if thou again offendest him and makest no conscience to watch over thy wayes and avoid all temptations and shun all occasions of sinne How can he endure thou shouldst lodge Harlots together with him That thou shouldst let this world in to be his Compeere and divide thy heart with him No he is the High and holy One he expects to be treated honourably and like unto himself that we should keep the house clean and sweet that we should live righteously soberly and godlily And then as he hath come to us so he will abide with us and will manifest himself to our souls acquaint us with more of the secrets of his Religion and the delights that are in his holy life For so he saith to his Disciples He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self unto him which he repeats over again verse 23. If a man love me he will keep my words And my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him I speak the more of this because there are too many that approach with a fair behaviour and forward devotion to the holy Table who soon after take the liberty to run upon a new score of sin hoping shortly to humble themselves and to wipe all off again Many that live in secret covetousness and earthly mindedness in neglect of their families and disregard to all their Brethren many that fall back into heart-burnings and evil surmisings if not into open quarrels and contentions who need to be awakened to look into themselves They are like to the waters in Sicily which Ach.
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
afford us a constant chearfulness They do not beget a pleasure that lyes only upon the pallate but they are the more pleasing when they are descended as far as the heart and there they lay the foundation of a lasting joy by turning the affections of the heart toward Christ The benefits of this food are not like a blaze of straw that warms a man for the present but soon leaves him cold nor like a flash of Lightning darting through the soul for a moment which returns presently into its darkness nor like the frisking of the spirits in our body after a draught of Wine which when the adventitious heat is over fall into sluggishness again But they are solid and substantial like to the warmths of the Sun-beams when there is no Clouds before his face nor no windes to sweep them away or rather like the pleasures of eating food which encreases our strength and fattens our bones and causes a durable chearfulness and vivacity of our spirits For Bread you know is called the staffe of Life and that which strengthens mans heart as Wine is that which glads his heart and cheareth God and Man By a right use of this holy Sacrament all the faculties and parts of the soul are nourished and augmented The understanding becomes more full and clear in its perceptions the will is made more free and chearfull in its choice of good the affections more Heavenly and Divine more forward and compliant with our wills the passions more regular and orderly under better government and command All which would admit of a large discourse but seeing I have drawn this tract already to over-great a length I will chuse to speak and that but briefly neither of what is most sensible to every good man viz. the encrease of these three great Graces Faith Hope and Charity First Faith is hereby made more solid and strong whether we consider it in its direct or reflex acts i. e. We do in this holy Feast look most seriously upon the proper object of our Faith Jesus Christ and all the truths of the Gospel We do profess with all our souls to embrace a crucified Saviour We do seal to this truth which he hath sealed by his Bloud We make a most solemn and publick confession of what we believe We do most sacredly protest that we firmly consent to live according to it and obey it And then if we would reflect and turn our eyes back into our own souls and believe something of our selves we may be able to make a better judgement concerning our selves and be more confirmed in the belief that we are real Christians seeing after serious examination and advice with our selves we find that we heartily love and obey Christs commands and seeing that in his most sacred Presence who is the searcher of the heart we dare confidently avow it that there is not any thing though never so difficult which we know to be his Will but we are resolved for to do it We are then in the right use of this Food more strengthned both in the premisses and also in the conclusion As if a man should make this Syllogism or reasoning He that heartily believes in Christ and obeys the Gospel-commands shall inherit the promises and be saved I do so heartily believe and obey Therefore I shall be saved All these three Propositions or Affirmations are by worthy receiving much strengthened in us We do heartily profess to believe the Gospel and we are more confirmed in our belief and in particular of this That he who doth believe in Christ and obey him shall be saved We see before our eyes such testimonies of Gods love that we cannot but be full of this belief which is a generall Faith and contained in the first of those now named Propositions We do likewise here renew our consent to believe and obey our Lord in every thing he hath said and this contains the second Proposition and is a particular special act of Faith Now what should hinder but that we may conclude most strongly that which is in the Third Therefore I shall be saved And then Faith is manifestly nourished in every sense that you can take it in We do directly put forth more lively acts of Faith as that implies assenting to the Gospel and consenting to obey it And why should not the consequent be That we may reflect more comfortably and solidly upon our selves that we are in a safe condition And that we may continue so there wants nothing but that we be diligent in the use of all means of which this is one To confirm and establish our faith more by often receiving the Sacred Body and Bloud of Christ 2. Our Hope is here also nourished and made more lively And indeed it must be strengthned in proportion to our Faith for hope arises out of it and hath its growth with it being but the expectation and waiting of Faith Because I believe those things that are promised in the Gospel therefore I wait for them the stronger therefore that my belief and obedience is the stronger will my hope be Now he that expresses his Faith in Christ at this Sacrament and believes also that Christ is really present there and likewise that he is united to Christ through a worthy use of it He doth thereby get a greater reason to hope and wait for the other appearance and presence of Christ more visibly and openly when he shall be divested of all signs and figures and shall reveal himself with open face When we shall not know him so much as that he dyed but as he that lives and reigns and triumphs 3. Our Love hereby is manifestly enlarged and nourished partly by fulfilling one of Christs commands He that loves me keeps my Commandments saith our Lord and this is one of them Do this in remembrance of me And partly by laying new fewel upon the fire which it may feed upon New considerations I mean and experiences new arguments and incentives to obedience And partly by knitting and uniting of us in a more cordial love and affection to all our Brethren which is an expression of love to him For he hath said 1 John 4.12 If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us Now Faith Hope and Love what will not they do what cannot they overcome All the craft of the Devil is discovered all his power is broken all his temptations are bafled by this Heavenly Nourishment For if we consider the first piece of the Devils Policy which consists in magnifying and extolling the advantages of that thing to which he would tempt us it is defeated by the light of faith which this Sacrament doth make more clear and shining He uses all the Rhetorick and Sophistry that he hath to perswade us that it is a harmless or a pleasant or a profitable or a credible thing He paints sinne forth in the best colours and provides for it the most amorous dresses
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