what excellencies he preach'd what wisdom he taught what life he liv'd what death he died what Mysteries he hath appointed by what ministeries he conveys himself to thee what rare arts he uses to save thee and after all that he intercedes for thee perpetually in heaven presenting to his heavenly Father that great Sacrifice of himself which he finished on the Cross and commands thee to imitate in this Divine and Mysterious Sacrament and in the midst of these thoughts and proportionable exercises and devotions address thy self to the solemnities and blessings of the day 5. Throw away with great diligence and severity all unholy and all earthly thoughts and think the thoughts of heaven for when Christ descends he comes attended with innumerable companies of Angels who all behold and wonder who love and worship Jesus and in this glorious imployment and society let thy thoughts be pure and thy mind celestial and thy work Angelical and thy spirit full of love and thy heart of wonder thy mouth all praises investing and incircling thy prayers as a bright cloud is adorned with fringes and margents of light 6. When thou seest the holy man minister dispute no more inquire no more doubt no more be divided no more but believe and behold with the eyes of faith and of the spirit that thou seest Christs body broken upon the Cross that thou seest him bleeding for thy sins that thou feedest upon the food of elect souls that thou puttest thy mouth to the hole of the rock that was smitten to the wound of the side of thy Lord which being pierced streamed forth Sacraments and life and holiness and pardon and purity and immortality upon thee 7. When the words of Institution are pronounced all the Christians us'd to say Amen giving their consent confesâ—ing that faith believing that word rejoicing in that Mystery which is told us when the Minister of the Sacrament in the person of Christ says This is my body This is my blood This body was broken for you and this blood was poured forth for you and all this for the remission of your sins And remember that the guilt of eternal damnation which we have all incurr'd was a great and an intolerable evil and unavoidable if such miracles of mercy had not been wrought to take it quite away and that it was a very great love which would work such glorious mercy rather than leave us in so intolerable a condition A greater love than this could not be and a less love than this could not have rescued us 8. When the holy Man reaches forth his hands upon the Symbols and prays over them and intercedes for the sins of the people and breaks the holy bread and pours forth the sacred calice place thy self by faith and meditation in heaven and see Christ doing in his glorious manner this very thing which thou seest ministred and imitated upon the Table of the Lord and then remember that it is impossible thou shouldest miss of eternal blessings which are so powerfully procur'd for thee by the Lord himself unless thou wilt despise all this and neglect so great salvation and chusest to eat with swine the dirty pleasures of the earth rather than thus to feast with Saints and Angels and to eat the body of thy Lord with a clean heart and humble affections 9. When the consecrating and ministring hand reaches forth to thee the holy Symbols say within thy heart as did the Centurion Lord I am not worthy but entertain thy Lord as the women did the news of the resurrection with fear and great joy or as the Apostles with rejoycing and singleness of heart that is clear certain and plain believing and with exultation and delight in the loving kindness of the Lord. 10. But place thy self upon thy knees in the humblest and devoutest posture of worshippers and think not much in the lowest manner to worship the King of Men and Angels the Lord of heaven and earth the great lover of souls and the Saviour of the body him whom all the Angels of God worship him whom thou confessest worthy of all and whom all the world shall adore and before whom they shall tremble at the day of judgment For if Christ be not there after a peculiar manner whom or whose body do we receive But if he be present to us not in mystery only but in blessing also why do we not worship But all the Christians always did so from time immemorial No man eats this flesh unless he first adores said S. Austin For the wise men and the Barbarians did worship this body in the manger with very much fear and reverence let us therefore who are Citizens of heaven at least not fall short of the Barbarians But thou seest him not in the Manger but on the Altar and thou beholdest him not in the Virgins arms but represented by the Priest and brought to thee in Sacrifice by the holy Spirit of God So. St. Chrysostome argues and accordingly this reverence is practised by the Churches of the East and West and South by the Christians of India by all the Greeks as appears in their answer to the Cardinal of Guise by all the Lutheran Churches by all the world saâ—es Erasmus only now of late some have excepted themselves But the Church of England chooses to follow the reason and the piety of the thing it self the example of the Primitive Church and the consenting voice of Christendome And if it be irreverent to sit in the sight and before the face of him whom you ought to revere how much more in the presence of the living God where the Angel the president of prayer does stand must it needs be a most irreligious thing to sit unless we shall upbraid to God that our prayers to him have wearied us It is the argument of Tertullian To which many of the Fathers add many other fair inducements but I think they cannot be necessary to be produced here because all Christians generally kneel when they say their prayers and when they bless God anâ— I suppose no man communicates but he does both and therefore needs no oâ—her inducement to perswade him to kneel especially since Christ himself and St. Stephen and â—he Apostle St. Paul used that posture in their devotions that or lower for St. Paul kneeled upon the shore and our Lord himself fell prostrate on the earth But to them that refuse I shall only use the words of Scripture which the Fathers of the Council of Turon applied to this particular Why art thou proud O dust and ashes And when Christ opens his heart and gives us all that we need or can desire it looks like an ill return if we shall dispute with him concerning the humility of a gesture and a circumstance 11. When thou dost receive thy Lord do thou also receive thy Brother into thy heart and into thy bowels Thy Lord relieves thee
do all the mischief for which they can have instruments and opportunity Concerning some sorts of passionate persons it may be truly said that they are very unfit to communicate but that thâ—y are fit it can be confidently said of none Here therefore let us thus examine our selves Are your desires unreasonable passionate impotent and transporting If God refuses to give you what you desire can you lay your head softly down upon the lap of providence and rest content without it Do you thankfully receive what he gives and when he gives you not what you covet can you still confesse his goodness and glorifie his will and wisdom without any amazement dissatisfaction or secret murmurs Can you be at peace within when your purposes are defeated and at peace abroad with him that stands in the way between you and your desires And how is it with you in your angers Does it last so long or return so frequently as before Have you the same malice or have you the same peevishness For one long anger and twenty short ones have no very great difference save only that in short and sudden angers we are surprised and not so in the other but it is an intolerable thing alwayes to be surprised and a thousand times to say I was not aware or I was mistaken But let us without excuses examine our selves in this matter for this is the great Magazine of vertue or vice here dwells obedience or licentiousness a close knot or an open liberty little pleasures and great disturbances loss of time and breach of vows But if that we may come to Christ we have stopped so many avenues of sin and fountains of temptation it may be very well but without it it can never 2. He that comes to the Holy Communion must examine himself whether his lusts be mortified or whether they be only changed For many times we have a seeming peace when our open enemies are changed into false friends and we think our selves holy persons because we are quit of carnal crimes and yet in exchange for them we are dying with spiritual It is an easie thing to reprove a murderer and to chide a foolish drunkard to make a liar blush and a thief to run away But you may be secretly proud when no man shall dare to tell you so and to have a secret envy and yet to keep company with the best and most religious persons A little examination will serve your turn to know whether you have committed adultery or be a swearer but to know whether your intentions be holy whether you love the praise of men more than the praise of God whether religious or secular interest be the dearer whether there be any hypocrisie or secret malice in your heart hath something of more secret consideration Do not you sometimes secretly rejoyce in the diminution or disparagement of your brother Do not you tell his sad and shameful story with some pleasure Are you not quick in telling it and willing enough it should be believed Would you not fain have him lesse than your self not so eminent not so well esteemed and therefore do not you love to tell a true story of him that is not so very much for his commendation These things must be examined not that it can be thought that a man must be without fault when he comes but that he must cherish none he must leave none unexamined he must discover as much as he can and crucifie all that he can discover He that hath mortified his carnal appetite and is proud of his conquest or prayes often reproaches him that does not and gives almes and secretly undervalues him that cannot or is of a right opinion but curses him that is in the wrong or leaves his ambitious pursuits and vain glorious purposes but sits at home and is idle is like a man who stands by a fire in a wide and a cold room he scorches on one side and freezes on the other whereas the habits of vertue are like a great mantle and the man is warm and well all over But it is an ill cure for the ague to fall into a feavour or to be eased of sore eyes by a diversion of the rheum upon the lungs and that soul that turns her back upon one sin and her face to another is it may be weary of the instance but not of the iniquity and rolling upon an uneasie bed of thorns chooses only to be tormented in another part but finding the same sense there because the part is informed by the same spirit and no difference between the thorn in the side and the thorn in the hand perceives her self miserable and incirled with calamity But when from carnal crimes which bring shame a man falls into spiritual crimes which most men let alone from those sins which every thing can reprove to a secret venom and an undiscerned ulcer a man may come to the Communion and the holy man that Ministers cannot reject him but he causes no joy before the Angels and because he does not examine wisely and judge severely he is discerned by God and shall be judged when to be judged means all one with being condemned 3. When we examine our selves in order to receiving of the blessed Sacrament we must be careful that we do not limit our examination and confine it to the time since our last receiving For some persons who think themselves spiritual usually examine how they have comported themselves since the last communion only and accordingly make judgement upon themselves and these men possibly may do well enough if they be of the number of them of whom our blessed Saviour affirms that they need no repentance that is no change of life no inquiry but into the measures of progression But there are but few who live at that rate and they that do it may be have not that confidence But to them and all men else it were safe advice that the inquiry how they have lived since the last communion should be but one part of their examination 1. Because they who so limit their inquiries must needs suppose that till then all was well and that they communicated worthily and consequently that all the whole work and Oeconomy of salvation was then performed every one of which supposals hath an uncertain truth but a very certain danger 2. They who so limit their examination suppose that at every Communion they begin the world anew whereas our future life is to be a progression upon the old stock and judgement is to be made of this that comes after by that which went before and therefore these limited examinations must needs be of lesse use and purpose True it is that at every Communion we are to begin a new life and so we ought every day that is we ought to be as zealous and as penitent and resolute and affectionate as if we never had begun before we ought so to suspect the imperfection of what
hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother thou slanderest thine own mothers Son These things thou hast done and I kept silence but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Deliver me from bloud-guiltiness O God thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness Blessed is he that considereth the poor the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble The Lord will deliver him and keep him alive and he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou wilt not deliver him into the will of his enemies The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness But I said Lord be merciful to me heal my soul for I have sinned against thee Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the day time and in the night his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life O send out thy light and thy truth let them lead me let them bring me to thy holy Hill and to thy Tabernacles Then will I go unto the Altar of God my exceeding joy yea upon the harp will I praise thee O God my God The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him and all the upright in heart shall glory Do good O Lord to them that are true of heart and evermore mightily defend them Do good in thy good pleasure unto Sion build thou the walls of Jerusalem In God will I praise his word in the Lord will I praise his word Thy vows are upon me O God I will render praises unto thee For thou hast delivered our souls from death wilt not thou deliver our feet from falling that we may walk before God in the light of the living I will love thee O God and praise thee for ever because thou hast done it and I will wait on thy name for it is good before thy Saints Glory be to the Father c. A Prayer for the grace of Charity c. O Most gentle most merciful and gracious Saviour Jesu thou didst take upon thee our nature to redeem us from sin and misery thou wert for us led as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a Sheep before the shearer is dumb so thou openedst not thy mouth thou turnedst thy back to the smiters and thy cheeks to the nippers thou wert mock'd and whip'd crucified and torn but thou didst nothing but good to thy enemies and prayedst with loud cries for thy persecutors and didst heal the wound of one that come to lay violent hands upon thee O plant in my heart gentleness and patience a meek and a long suffering spirit that I may never be transported with violent angers never be disordered by peevishness never think thoughts of revenge but may with meekness receive all injuries that shall be done to me and patiently bear every cross accident and with charity may return blessing for cursing good for evil kind words for foul reproaches loving admonitions for scornful upbraidings gentle treatments for all derisions and affronts that living all my daies with meekness and charity keeping peace with all men and loving my neighbour as my self and thee more than my self and more than all the world I may at last come into the regions of peace and eternal charity where thou livest who lovest all men and wouldst have none to perish but all men to be saved through thee O most merciful Saviour and Redeemer Jesu Amen An act of Forgiveness to be said with all earnestness and sincerity before every Communion O God my God I have sinned grievously against thee I am thy debtor in a vast and an Eternal debt and if thou shouldest take the forfeiture I shall be for ever bound in eternal prisons even till I pay the utmost farthing But I hope in thy mercies that thou wilt forgive me my ten thousand Talents and I also do in thy presence forgive every one that hath offended me whoever hath taken my goods privately and injuriously or hurt my person or contrived any evil against me whether known or unknown who ever hath lessened my reputation detracted from my best endeavours or hath slandered me or reproached reviled or in any word or way done me injury I do from the bottom of my soul forgive him praying thee also that thou wilt never impute to him any word or thought or action done against me but forgive him as I desire thou wouldst also forgive me all that I have sinned against thee or any man in the world Give him thy grace and a holy repentance for whatever he hath done amiss grant he may do so no more keep me from the evil tongues and injurious actions of all men and keep all my enemies from all the expresses of thy wrath and let thy grace prevail finally upon thy servant that I may never remember any injury to the prejudice of any man buâ— that I may walk towards my enemies as Christ did who received much evil but went about seeking to do goâ—d to every man and if ever it shall be in my power and my opportunity to return evill O then grant that the spirit of love and forgiveness may triumph over all anger and malice and revenge that I may be the Son of God and maâ— love God and prove my love to thee by my love to my Brother and by obedience to all thy Laws through the Son of thy love by whom thou art reconciled to mankind our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Amen Vers. Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Resp. Spare us good Lord spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood and be not angry with us for ever Amen CHAP. V. Of Repentance preparatory to the Blessed Sacrament SECT I. WHen Isaac and Abimelech had made a covenant of peace and mutual agreement they would not confirm it by a Sacramental Oath till the next morning that they might swear fasting for the reverence and religious regard of the solemn Oath saith Lyra. But Philo says they did it Symbolically to represent that purity and cleanness of soul which he that swears to God or comes to pay his vows ought to preserve with great Religion He that in a religious and solemn addresse comes to God ought to consider whether his body be free from uncleannesse and his soul from vile affections He that is righteous let him be righteous still and he that is justified let him be justified yet more saith the Spirit of God and then it follows He that thirsts let him come and drink of the living waters freely and without money meaning
that when our affections to sin are gone when our hearts are clean then we may freely partake of the feast of the supper of the Lamb. For as in natural forms the more noble they are the more noble dispositions are required to their production so it is in the spiritual for when Christ is to be efformed in us when we are to become the Sons of God flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone we must be washed in water and purified by faith and sanctified by the spirit and cleansed by an excellent repentance we must be confirmed by a holy hope and softned by charity So God hath ordered in the excellent fabrick of humane bodies First our meat is prepared by fire then macerated by the teeth then digested in the stomach where the first separation is made of the good from the bad the wholesom juyces from the more earthy parts these being sent down to earth the other are conveyed to the Liver where the matter is separated again and the good is turned into blood and the better into spirits and thence the body is supplied with blood and the spirits repair unto the heart and head that thence they may be sent on Embassies for the ministeries of the body and for the work of understanding So it is in the dispensation of the affairs of the soul The ear which is the mouth of the soul receives all meat and the senses entertain the fuel for all passions and all interests of vertue and vice But the understanding makes the first separation dividing the clean from the unclean But when the spirit of God comes and purifies even the separate matter making that which is morally good to be spiritual and holy first cleansing us from the sensualities of flesh and blood and then from spiritual iniquities that usually debauch the soul then the holy nourishment which we receive passes into diviâ—e excellencies But if sensuality be in the palate and intemperance in the stomach if lust be in the liver and anger in the heart it corrupts the holy food and makes that to be a savour of death which was intended for health and holy blessiâ—gs But therefore when we have lived in the corrupted air of evil company and have sucked in the vile juices of coloquintida and the deadly henbane when that is within the heart which defiles the man the soul must be purged by repentance it must be washed by tears and purified by penitential sorrow For he that comes to this holy Feast with an unrepenting heart is like the flies in the Temple upon the day of Sacrifice the little insect is very busie about the flesh of the slain beasts she flies to every corner of the Temple and she tastes the flesh before the portion is laid before the God but when the nidour and the delicacy hath called such an unwelcome guest she corrupts the Sacrifice and therefore dies at the Altar or is driven away by the officious Priest So is an unworthy Communicant he comes it may be with pâ—ssion and an earnest zeal he hopes to be fed and he hopes to be made immortal he thinks he does a holy action and shall receive a holy blessing but what is his portion It is a glorious thing to be feasted at the Table of God glorious to him that is invited and prepared but not to him that is unprepared hateful and impenitent But it is an easie thing to say that a man must repent before he communicates so he must before he prayes before he dies before he goes a journey the whole life of a man is to be a continual repentance but if so then what particular is that which is required before we receive the holy Communion For if it be an universal duty of infinit extent of unlimited comprehension then every Christian must alwayes be doing some of the offices of repentance but then which are the peculiar parts and offices of this grace which have any special and immediate relation to this solemnity for if there be none the Sermons of repentâ—nce are nothing but the general doctrine of good life but of no special efficacy in our preparation The answer to this will explicate the intricacy and establish the measures of our duty in this proper relation in order to this ministery SECT II. The necessity of repentance in order to the holy Sacrament 1. THe holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper does not produce it's intended effect upon an unprepared subject He that gives his body to that which is against the spirit his spirit to the affections of the body cannot receive the body of Christ in a spiritual maner He that receives Christ must in great truth be a servant of Christ. It is not lawful saith Justin Martyr for any one to receive the holy Eucharistical bread and to drink of the sacred Calice but to him that believes and to him that lives according to Christs Commandment For as St. Paul argues of the infinite undecency of fornication because it is a making the members of Christ to become the members of an harlot upon the same account it is infinitely impossible that any such polluted persons should become the members of Christ to the intents of blessing and the spirit How can Christs body be communicated to them who are one flesh with an harlot and so it is in all other sins we cannot partake of the Lords table and the table of Devils A wicked person and a Communicant are of contrary interests of differing relations designed to divers ends fitted with other dispositions they work not by the same principles are not weighed in the same ballance nor meted by like measures and therefore they that come must be innocent or return to innocence that is they must repent or be such persons as need no repentance and St. Ambrose gives this account of the practise of the Church in this affair This is the order of this mystery which is every where observed that first by the pardon of our sins our souls be healed and the wounds cured with the medicine of repentance and then that our souls be plentifully nourished by this holy Sacrament and to this purpose he expounds the parable of the prodigal son saying that no man ought to come to this Sacrament unless he have the wedding ring and the wedding garment unless he have receiv'd the seal of the spirit and is cloathed with white garments the righteousness and justification of the Saints And to the same purpose it is that St. Cyprian complains of some in his Church who not having repented not being put under discipline by the Bishop and the Clergy yet had the Sacrament ministred to them against whom he presses the severe words of St. Paul He that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself that is he that repents not of his sins before he comes to the Holy Sacrament comes before he is prepared and therefore
lamp he must stand readily prepared by a state of repentance and against the solemn time he must make that state more actual and his graces operative Now in order to this it is to be considered that preparation to death hath great latitude and not only he is fit to die who hath attained to the fulness of the stature of Christ to a perfect man in Christ Jesus but every one who hath renounced his sin with heartinesse and sincerity and hath begun to mortifie it But in these cases of beginning or of Infancy in Christ though it be certain that every one who is a new Creature though but newly become so is born of God and hath life abiding in him and therefore shall not passe into condemnation yet concerning such persons the Rulers of Souls and Ministers of Sacraments have nothing but a judgment of charity and the sentences of hope relating to the persons the state is so little and so allayed and so near to the late state of death from which they are recovering that God only knows how things are with them yet because we know that there is a beginning in which new converts are truly reconciled there is a first period of life and as we cannot say in many cases that this is it so in many we cannot say this is not therefore the Church hopes well of persons that die in their early progressions of piety and consequently refuses not to give to them these divine Mysteries Whoever are reconciled to God may be reconciled to the Church whose office it is only to declare the Divine Sentence and to administer it and to help towards the verification of it But because the Church cannot be surer of any person that his sins are pardoned that he is reconciled to God that he is in the state of Grace that if he then dies he shall be saved than a man himself can be of himself and in his own case which certainly he knows better than any man else and that our degrees of hope and confidence of being saved when it is not presumption but is prudent and reasonable does increase in proportion to our having well used and improved Gods grace and inlarges it self by our proportions of mortification and spiritual life and every man that is wise and prudent abides in fears and uncertain thoughts till he hath gotten a certain victory over all his sins and though he dies in hope yet not without trembling till he finds that he is more than conquerour therefore in proportion to this address to death must also be our address to the holy Sacrament For no man is fit to die but he that can be united unto Christ and â—he only that can be so must be admitted to a participation of his body and his bloud It is the same case in both we dwell with Christ and the two states differ but in degrees it is but a passing from altar to altar from that where the Minister of the Church officiates to that where the head of the Church does intercede There is this only difference there may be some proportions of haste to the Sacrament more than unto death upon this account because the reception of the Sacrament in worthy dispositions does increase those excellencies in which death ought to find us and therefore we may desire to communicate because we perceive a want of gâ—ace and yet for the same reason we may at the same time be afraid to die because after that we can receive no more but as that finds us we shall abide for ever But he that fears justly may yet in many cases die safely and he shall find that his fears when he was alive were useful to the caution and zeal and hastiness of repentance but were no certain indication that God was not reconciled unto him The best and severest persons do in the greatest parts of their spiritual life complain of their imperfect state and feel the load of their sins and apprehend with trembling the sad consequents of their sins and every day contend against them and forget all that is past of good actions done and press forwards still to more grace and are as hungry as if they had none at all and those men if they die go to Christ and shall reign with him for ever and yet many of them go with a trembling heart and though considering the infinite obliquity of them they cannot over-value their sins yet considering the infinite goodness of God and his readiness to accept it they undervalue their repentance and are safe in their humility and in Gods goodness when in many other regards they think themselves very unsafe Now such men as these must not be as much afraid to communicate as they are afraid to die but these and all men else must not communicate till they be in that condition that if they did die it would go well with them and the reason is plain because every friend of God dying so is certainly saved and he that is no friend of God is unworthy to partake of the Table of the Lord. But for the reducing the Answer of this Question to practice and to particular considerations I am to advise these things 1. Because no man of an ordinary life and a newly begun repentance ought hastily to pronounce himself acquitted and in the state of grace and in the state of salvation in this rule of proportion we are only to take the judgment of charity not of certainty and what is usually by wise and good men supâ—osed to be the certain though the least measure of hopeful expectations in order to death that we must suppose also to be our least measure of repentance preparatory to the blessed Sacrament 2. This measure must not be taken in the daies of health and carelesness but when we are either actually in apprehension or at least in deep meditation of death when it is dressed with all such terrors and material considerations that it looks like the King of terrors and at least makes our spirits full of fear and of sobriety 3. This measure must be carefully taken without the allay of foolish principles or a careless spirit or extravagant confidences of personal predestination or of being in any sect but with the common measures which Christians take when they weigh sadly their sins and their fears of the Divine displeasure let them take such proportions which considering men relie upon when they indeed come to die for few sober men die upon such wild accounts as they rely upon in talk and interest when they are alive He that prepares himself to death considers how deeply God hath been displeased and what hath been done towards a reconciliation and he that can probably hope by the usual measures of the Gospel that he is in probability of pardon hath by that learnt by what measures he must prepare himself to the holy Sacrament 4. Some persons are of a timorous conscience and apt to irregular and
or to speak nothing but what is pertinent for a day or for a day not to be angry and then sometimes for two daies and so diet your weak soul with little portions of food till it be able to take in and digest a full meal Or 6. Meditate often every day of death or the day of judgment By these and the like instruments it will happen to the remains of sin as it did to the Aegyptians what is left by the Hail the Catterpiller will destroy and what the Catterpiller leaves the Locusts will eat These instruments will eat up the remains of sin as the poor gather up the gleanings after the Carts in harvest 9. But if at any Communion and in the use of these advices you do not perceive any sensible progression in the spirit of mortification or devotion then be sure to be ashamed and to be humbled for thy indisposition and slow progression in the discipline of Christ and if thou beest humbled truly for thy want of improvement it is certain thou hast improved And if you come with fear and trembling it is very probable you will come in the spirit of repentance and devotion These exercises and measures will not seem many long and tedious as the rules of art if we consider that all are not to be used at all times nor by every person but are instruments fitted to several necessities and useful when they can do good and to be used no longer â—or he that uses these or any the like advices by way of solemnity and in periodical returns will still think fit to use them at every Communion as long as he lives but he that uses them as he should that is to effect the work of reformation upon his soul may lay them all aside according to his work is done But if we would every day do something of this if we would every day prepare for the day of death or which is of a like consideration for the day of our Communion if we would every night examine our passed day and set our things in order if we would have a perpetual entercourse and conversation with God or which is better than all examinations in the world if we would actually attend to what we do and consider every action and speak so little that we might consider it we should find that upon the day of our Communion we should have nothing to do but the third particular that is the offices of Prayer and Eucharist and to renew our graces by prayer and exercises of devotion SECT IV. Devotions to be used upon the morning of the Communion 1. O Blessed Lord our gracious Saviour and Redeemer Jesus King of Kings and Lord of Lords thou art fairer than the children of men upon thee the Angels look and behold and wonder what am I O Lord that thou who fillest heaven and earth shouldst descend and desire to dwell with me who am nothing but folly and infirmity misery and sin shame and death 2. I confess O God that when I consider thy greatness and my nothing thy purity and my uncleanness thy glory and my shame I see it to be infinitely unreasonable and presumptuous that I should approach to thy sacred presence and desire to partake of thy Sacraments and to enter into thy grace and to hope for a part of thy glory But when I consider thy mercy and thy wisdome thy bounty and thy goodness thy readiness to forgive and thy desires to impart thy self unto thy servants then I am lifted up with hope then I come with boldness to the throne of grace Even so O Lord because thou hast commanded it and because thou lovest it should be so 3. It was never heard O Lord from the beginning of the world that thou didst ever despise him that called upon thee or â—orsake any man that abides in thy fear or that any person who trusted in the Lord was ever confounded But if I come to thee I bring an unworthy person to be united unto thee if I come not I shall remain unworthy for ever If I stay away I fear to lose thee If I come I fear to offend thee and that will lose thee more and my self too at last I know O God I know my sins have separated between me and my God but thy love and thy passion thy holiness and thy obedience hath reconciled us and though my sins deter me yet they make it necessary for me to come and though thy greatness amazes me yet it is so full of goodness that it invites me 4. O therefore blessed Saviour who didst for our sakes take upon thee our passions and sensibilities our weaknesses and our sufferings who wert hungry after the temptation of the Devil weary and thirsty in thy discourse with the woman of Samaria who didst weep over Lazarus wert afflicted in the garden whipt in the Consistory nail'd on the Cross pierc'd with a spear wrapp'd in liâ—nen laid in the grave and so art become a 〈◊〉 High Priest and pitiful to our infiâ—â—â—â—ieâ— be pleased to receive a weary sinner 〈◊〉 overburdâ—neâ—â—â—nscience an afflicted polluted soul iâ—to thy câ—re and conduct into thy custody and â—â—re I know that a thousand years of tears and sorrow the purity of Angels the love of Saints and the humiliation of the greatest penitent is not sufficient to make we worthy to dwell with thee to be united to thy infinity to be fed with thy body and refreshed with thy purest bloud to become bone of thy bone and flesh of thy flesh and spirit of thy spirit 5. But what I cannot be of my self let me be made by thee I come to thee wounded and bruised and bleeding for thou art my Physician arise then with healing in thy wings I am thirsty and faint as the Hart longeth after the water brooks so longeth my soul after thee O God thou art the eternal fountain from whence spring the waters of comfort and salvation I am hungry and empty and weak and I come running after thee because thou hast the words of eternal life O send me not away empty for I shall faint and die I cannot live without thee O let vertue go forth from thee and heal all my sickness do thou appear to my soul in these mysteries heal my sores purifie my stains enlighten my darkness turn me from all vain imaginations and illusions of the enemy all perverseness of will all violence and inordination of passions sensual desires and devillish angers lust and malice gluttony and pride the spirit of envy and the spirit of detraction let not sin reign in my members nor the Devil lead my will captive nor the world abuse my understanding and debauch my conversation 6. O Jesus be a Jesus unto me and let this Sacrament be a savour of life and thy holy body the bread of life and thy precious bloud the purifier of my sinful life Grant I may receive these Divine mysteries for the amendment of my
life and the defensative against my sins for the increase of vertue and the perfection of my spirit Grant that I may from thee thus Sacramentally communicated derive prevailing grace for the amendment of my life spiritual wisdom for the discerning the waies of peace the spirit of love and the spirit of purity that in all my life I may walk worthy of thy gracious favours which thou givest to me unworthy that I may do all my works in holiness and right intention that I may resist every temptation with a never fainting courage and a caution never surprized and a prudence never deceived 7. Sweetest Saviour I come to thee upon thy invitation and thy commandment I could not come to thee but by thee O let me never go from thee any more but enter into my heart feed me with thy word sustain me with thy spirit refresh me with thy comforts and let me in this divine mystery receive thee my dearest Saviour and be thou my wisdom and my righteousness my sanctification and redemption let me receive this holy nutriment as the earnest of an eternal inheritance as a defensative against all spiritual danger for the eviction of all the powers of the enemy as an incentive of holy love and a strengthning of my faith for the increasing of a holy hope and the consummation of a heavenly love that thou being one with me and I with thee I may by thee be gracious in the eyes of thy heavenly Father and may receive my portion amongst the inheritance of Sons O eternal and most gracious Saviour and Redeemer Jesu Amen Amen CHAP. VII Of our Comportment in and after our Receiving the Blessed Sacrament SECT I. Of the Circumstances and Manner of Reception of the Divine Mysteries IT is the custom of the Church of great antiquity and proportionable regard that every Christian that is in health should receive the Blessed Sacrament fasting The Apostles and primitive Bishops at first gave it after Supper or together with it but that soon passed into inconvenience and some were drunken and some were empty and despis'd and the Holy Sacrament was dishonour'd and the Lords body was not discerned and God was provoked to anger and the sinners were smitten and died in their sin as appears in the sad narrative which St. Paul makes of the misdemeanours and the misfortunes in the Corinthian Churches Something like to which is that which Socrates tells of some Christians in Aegypt they celebrated the Holy Communion at evening but never till they had fillâ—d themselves with varities of choice meat Of some also in Africa that communicated at evening St. Austin speaks and of others who communicated both morning and evening At evening because S. Paul called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper and in the morning from the universal custom of the Church which in most places from the very days of the Apostles prevail'd that the holy Eucharist should be given to none but to them that were fasting which thing was also decreed in the third Council of Carthage and hath been observed ever since And in this the Church hath not without good reason taken up the custom For besides that the intemperance of them that fâ—asted before they communicated did not only give scandal to the Religion but did infinitely indispose them that came and dishonour the Divine Mysteries and such feastings would for ever be a temptation and a snare and therefore could not be cured so well as by taking the occasion away besides these things the Church observed that in the time of the Synagogue the Servants of God did religiously abstain from meat and drink upon all their solemn feast days till their great Offices of Religion were finish'd and that upon this account the Jews were scandaliz'd at the Disciples for eating the ears of corn early on their Sabbath and Christ excus'd them only upon the reason of their hunger that is upon necessity or charity and after all even by natural reason and experience we find that they pray and worship best who are not loaden with meat and drink and that therefore this solemnity being the greatest worship of God in the whole Religion consequently ought to be done with all advantages it was therefore very reasonable that the Church took up this custom and therefore they who causelesly do prevaricate it shall bear their own burden and are best reproved by St. Pauls words We have no such custom nor the Churches of God But sick people and the weak are as readily to be excused in this thing as the Apostles were by Christ in the case before mentioned For necessity and charity are to be preferr'd before such ceremonies and circumstances of address 1. When you awake in the morning of your Communion day give God thanks particularly that he hath blessed thee with so blessed an opportunity of receiving the Symbols of pardon the ministery of the Spirit the Sacrament of Christ himself the seed of immortality and the Antepast of heaven and hasten earlier out of your bed The cock crowing that morning is like the noise that is made of the coming of the Bridegroom and therefore go out to meet him but rise that you may trim your lamp When you are up presently address your self to do such things as you would willingly be found doing when the Bridegroom calls and you are to appear before him to hear your final sentence 2. Make a general confession of your sins and be very much humbled in the sense and apprehension of them Compare the state and union of all your evils with the state and grandeur of that favour which God intends that day to consign to you and then think what you are and what God is what you have done and what God intends to do how ill you have deserved and yet how graciously you are dealth with And consider what an infinite distance there is between that state which you have deserved and that good which you are to have by considering how intolerable your case would have been if God had dealt with you as you deserve and as he hath dealt with very many who sinn'd no more than you have done and yet in what felicities you are placed by the mercies of your good God that you are in the hopes and in the methods and in the participations of pardon and eternal life 3. The effect of this consideration ought to be that you make acts of general contrition for all your sins known and unknown That you renew your purposes and vows of better obedience That you exercise acts of special graces and that you give God most hearty and superexalted thanks with all the transports and ravishments of spirit for so unspeakable so unmeritable so unrewardable a loving kindness 4. Worship Jesus Love him dedicate thy self to him recollect what he hath done for thy soul what glories he laid aside with what meanness he was invested what pains he suffered what shame he endur'd
Spirit of mercy and justice prudence and diligence the favour of God and the love of their people and grace and blessing that they may live at peace with thee and with one another remembring the command of their Lord and King the serene and reconciling Jesus 4. Give an Apostolical Spirit to all Ecclesiastical Prelates and Priests grant to them zeal of souls wisdom to conduct their charges purity to become exemplar that their labours and their lives may greatly promote the honour of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus O grant unto thy flock to be fed with wise and holy shepherds men fearing God and hating covetousness free from envy and full of charity that being burning and shining lights men beholding â—heir light may rejoyce in that light and glorifie thee our Father which art in heaven 5. Have mercy upon all states of men and women in the Christian Church the Governors and the governed the rich and the poor high and low grant to every of them in their several station to live with so much purity and faith simplicity and charity justice and perfection that thy will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven 6. Relieve all oppressed Princes defend and restore their rights and suppress all violent and warring spirits that unjustly disturb the peace of Christendom Relieve and comfort all Gentlemen that are fallen into poverty and sad misfortunes Comfort and support all that are sick and deliver them from all their sorrows and all the powers of the enemy and let the spirit of comfort and patience of holiness and resignation descend upon all Christian people whom thou hast in any instance visited with thy rod And be graciously pleas'd to pity poor mankind shorten the days of our trouble and put an end to the days of our sin and let the Kingdom of our dearest Lord be set up in every one of our hearts and prevail mightily and for ever 7. I humbly present to thy Divine Majesty this glorious Sacrifice which thy servants this day have represented upon earth in behalf of my dearest Relations Wife Children Husband Parents Friends c. Grant unto them whatsoever they want or wisely and holily desire keep them for ever in thy fear and favour grant that they may never sin against thee never fall into thy displeasure never be separated from thy love and from thy presence but let their portion be in the blessing and in the service in the love and in the Kingdom of God for ever and ever 8. Have mercy upon all strangers and aliens from the Kingdom of thy Son let the sweet sound of thy Gospel be heard in all the corners of the earth let not any soul the work of thy own hands the price of thy Sons blood be any longer reckon'd in the portions of thy Enemy but let them all become Christians and grant that all Christians may live according to the Laws of the holy Jesus without scandal and reproach full of faith and full of charity 9. Give thy grace speedily to all wicked persons that they may repent and live well and be saved To all good people give an increase of gifts and holiness and the grace of perseverance and Christian perfection To all Hereticks and Schismaticks grant the Spirit of humility and truth charity and obedience and suffer none upon whom the Name of Christ is called to throw themselves away and fall into the portion of the intolerable burning 10. For all mankind whom I have and whom I have not remembred I humbly represent the Sacrifice of thy eternal Son his merits and obedience his life and death his resurrection and ascension his charity and intercession praying to thee in vertue of our glorious Saviour to grant unto us all the graces of an excellent and perfect repentance an irreconcilable hatred of all sin a great love of God an exact imitation of the holiness of the ever blessed Jesus the spirit of devotion conformable will and religious affections an Angelical purity and a Seraphical love thankful hearts and joy in God and let all things happen to us all in that order and disposition as may promote thy greatest glory and our duty our likeness to Christ and the honour of his Kingdom Even so Father let it be because it is best and because thou lovest it should be so bring it to a real and unalterable event by the miracles of grace and mercy and by the blood of the everlasting Covenant poured forth in the day of the Lords love whom I adore and whom I love and desire that I may still more and more love and love for ever Amen Amen SECT III. An Advice concerning him who only Communicates Spiritually THere are many persons well disposed by the measures of a holy life to communicate frequently but it may happen that they are unavoidably hindred Some have a timerous conscience a fear a pious fear which is indeed sometimes more pitiable than commendable Others are advis'd by their spiritual Guides to abstain for a time that they may proceed in the vertue of repentance further yet before they partake of the Sacrament of love and yet if they should want the blessings and graces of the Communion their remedy which is intended them would be a real impediment Some are scandalized and offended at irremediable miscarriages in publick Doctrines or Government and cannot readily overcome their prejudice nor reconcile their consciences to a present actual Communion Some dare not receive it at the hands of a wicked Priest of notorious evil life Some can have it at no Priest at all but are in a long journey or under a Persecution or in a Country of a differing perswasion Some are sick and some cannot have it every day but every day desire it Such persons as these if they prepare themselves with all the essential and ornamental measures of address and eanestly desire that they could actually Communicate they may place themselves upon their knees and building an Altar in their heart celebrate the death of Christ and in holy desire joyn with all the Congregations of the Christian world who that day celebrate the holy Communion and may serve their devotion by the former Prayers and actions Eucharistical changing only such circumstantial words which relate to the actual participation And then they may remember and make use of the comfortable Doctrine of S. Austin It is one thing saith that learned Saint to be born of the Spirit and another thing to be fed of the Spirit As it is one thing to be born of the flesh which is when we are born of our mother and another thing to be fed of the flesh which is done when she suckles her Infant by that nourishment which is chang'd into food that he might eat and drink with pleasure by which he was born to life when this is done without the actual and Sacramental participation it is called spiritual Manducation Concerning which I only add the pious advice of
seek for Christ we shall find him in the methods of Vertue and the paths of Gods Commandments in the houses of Prayer and the offices of Religion in the persons of the poor and the retirements of an afflicted soul we shall find him in holy reading and pious meditation in our penitential sorrows and in the time of trouble in Pulpits and upon Altars in the Word and in the Sacraments If we come hither as we ought we are sure to finde our Beloved him whom our soul longeth after Sure enough Christ is here but he is not here in every manner and therefore is not to be found by every inquirer nor touched by every hand nor received by all comers nor entertained by every guest He that means to take the air must not use his fingers but his mouth and he that receives Christ must have a proper that is a spiritual instrument a purified heart consecrated lips and a hallowed mouth a tongue that speaks no evil and a hand that ministers to no injustice and to no uncleanness For a disproportionate intrument is an undecency and makes the effect impossible both in nature and morality Can a man bind a thought with chains or carry imaginations in the palm of his hand Can the beauty of the Peacocks train or the Estrich plume be delicious to the palat and the throat Does the hand intermeddle with the joys of the heart or darkness that hides the naked make him warm Does the Body live as does the Spirit or can the Body of Christ be like to common food Indeed the Sun shines upon the good and bad and the Vines give Wine to the drunkard as well as to the sober man Pirates have fair winds and a calm Sea at the same time when the just and peaceful Merchant man hath them But although the things of this world are common to good and bad yet Sacraments and spiritual joys the food of the soul and the blessing of Christ are the peculiar right of Saints and the Rites of our Religion are to be handled by the measures of Religion and the things of God by the rules of the Spirit and the Sacraments are Mysteries and to be handled by Mystic persons and to be received by Saints and therefore whoever will partake of Gods secrets must first look into his own he must pare off whatsoever is amiss and not without holiness approach to the Holiest of all Holies nor eat of this Sacrifice with a defiled head nor come to this feast without a nuptial garment nor take this remedy without a just preparative For though in the first motions of our spiritual life Christ comes alone and offers his Grace and enlivens us by his Spirit and makes us begin to live because he is good not because we are yet this great mysterious Feast and magazine of Grace and glorious mercies is for those only that are worthy for such only who by their cooperation with the Grace of God are fellow-workers with God in the laboratories of salvation The Wrastler that Clemens of Alexandria tells us of addressing himself to his contention and espying the Statue of Jupiter Pisaeus prayed aloud If all things O Jupiter are rightly prepared on my part if I have done all that I could do then do me justice and give me the Victory And this is a breviate of our case He that runneth in races saith the Apostle he that contends for mastery is temperate in all things and this at least must he be that comes to find Christ in these Mysteries he must be prepared by the rules and method of the Sanctuary there is very much to be done on his part there is an heap of duties there is a state of excellency there are preparations solemn and less solemn ordinary and extraordinary which must be premised before we can receive the mysterious blessings which are here not only consign'd but collated and promoted confirmed and perfected The holy Communion or Supper of the Lord is the most sacred mysterious and useful conjugation of secret and holy things and duties in the Religion It is not easie to be understood it is not lightly to be received It is not much opened in the writings of the New Testament but still left in its mysterious Nature It is too much untwisted and nicely handled by the writings of the Doctors and by them made more mysterious and like a Doctrine of Phylosophy made intricate by explications and difficult by the aperture and dissolution of distinctions So we sometimes espie a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure when it is observed by unskilful and phantastick travellers looks like a Centaure to some and as a Castle to others some tell that they saw an Army with Banners and it signifies War but another wiser than his fellow says it looks for all the world like a flock of Sheep and foretels Plenty and all the while it is nothing but a shining cloud by its own mobility and the activity of a wind cast into a contingent and inartificial shape So it is in this great Mystery of our Religion in which some espie strange things which God intended not and others see not what God hath plainly told some call that part of it a Mystery which â—none and others think all of it nothing but a meer ceremony and a sign some say it signifies and some say it effects some say it is a Sacrifice and others call it a Sacrament some Schools of learning make it the Instrument of Grace in the hand of God others say that it is God himself in that Instrument of Grace some call it venerable and others say as the vain men in the Prophet that the Table of the Lord is contemptible some come to it with their sins on their head and others with their sins in their mouth some come to be cured some to be quickned some to be nourished and others to be made alive some out of fear and reverence take it but seldom others out of devotion take it frequently some receive it as a means to procure great graces and blessings others as an Eucharist and an office of thanksgiving for what they have received some call it an act of obedience meerly others account it an excellent devotion and the exercising of the virtue of Religion some take it to strengthen their Faith others to beget it and yet many affirm that it does neither but supposes Faith before-hand as a disposition Faith in all its degrees according to the degree of Grace whither the Communicant is arrived Some affirm the Elements are to be blessed by prayers of the Bishop or other Minister others say it is only by the mystical words the words of institution and when it is blessed some believe it to be the natural body of Christ others to be nothing of that but the blessings of Christ his Word and his Spirit his Passion in representment and his Grace in real exhibition And all these men have something of
him till the time of restitution of all things and so long as we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord. In the mean time we can taste and see that the Lord is gracious that he is sweet but Christ is so to be tasted as he is to be seen and no otherwise but here we walk by faith and not by sight and here also we live by faith and not by meer or only bread but by that Word which proceedeth out from God that as meat is to the body so is Christ to the soul the food of the soul by which the souls of the just do live He is the bread which came down from heaven the bread which was born at Bethlâ—hem the house of bread was given to us to be the food of our souls for ever The meaning of which mysterious and Sacramental expressions when they are reduced to easie intelligible significations is plainly this By Christ we live and move and have our spiritual being in the life of grace and in the hopes of glory He took our life that we might partake of his he gave his life for us that he might give life to us He is the Author and finisher of our faith the beginning and perfection of our spiritual life Every good thought we think we have it from him every good word we speak we speak it by his spirit for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost and all our prayers are by the aids and communications of the spirit of Christ who helpeth our infirmities and by unutterable groans and unexpressible representment of most passionate desires maketh intercession for us In fine all the principles and parts all the actions and progressions of our spiritual life are derivations from the Son of God by whom we are born and nourished up to life Eternal 2. Christ being the food of our souls he is pleased to signifie this food to us by such symbols and similitudes as his present state could furnish us withal He had nothing about him but flesh and blood which are like to meat and drink and therefore what he calls himself saying I am the bread of life he afterwards calls his flesh and his blood saying My flesh is meat indeed my blood is drink indeed that is that you may perceive me to be indeed the food of your souls see here is meat and drink for you my flesh and my blood so to represent himself in a way that was neerest to our capacity and in a more intelligible manner not further from a Mystery but neerer to our manner of understanding and yet so involved in figure that it is never to be drawn neerer than a Mystery till it comes to experience and spiritual relish and perception But because we are not in darknesse but within the fringes and circles of a bright cloud let us search as far into it as we are guided by the light of God and where we are forbidden by the thicker part of the cloud step back and worship 3. For we have yet one further degree of charity and manifestation of this Mystery The flesh of Christ is his word the blood of Christ is his spirit and by believing in his word and being assisted and conducted by his spirit we are nourished up to life and so Christ is our food so he becomes life unto our souls Thus St. Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian affirm the Church in their days to have understood this Mystery saying The word of God is called flesh and blood For so the eternal wisdom of the Father calls to every simple soul that wanteth understanding come eat of the bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled and that we may know what is this bread and wine he adds forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding Our life is wisdom our food is understanding The Rabbins have an observation that when ever mention is made in the Book of the Proverbs of eating and drinking there is meant nothing but wisdom and the Law and when the Doctors using the words of Scripture say Come and eat flesh in which there is much fatness they would be understood to say Come and hear wisdom and learn the fear of God in which there is great nourishment and advantage to your souls Thus Wisdom is called Water and Vnderstanding Bread by the son of Sirach with the bread of understanding shall she feed him and give him the water of wisdom to drink It is by the Prophet Isaiah called water and wine and the desires of righteousness are called hunger and thirst by our blessed Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount And in pursuance of this mysterious truth we find that God in his anger threatens a famine of hearing the words of the Lord when we want Gods word we die with hunger we want that bread on which our souls do feed It was an excellent Commentary which the Jewish Doctors make upon those words of the Prophet with joy shall ye draw waters from the wells of salvation that is from the choicest or wisest of the just men saith Rabbi Jonathan from the chief Ministers of Religion the Heads of the people and the Rulers of the Congregation because they preach the Word of God they open the wells of salvation from the fountains of our Saviour giving drink and refreshment to all the people Thus the Prophet Jeremy expresses his spiritual joy and the sense of this Mystery Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart for I am called by thy Name O Lord God of Hosts the same with that of our Blessed Saviour My words are spirit and they are life they give life and comfort they refresh our souls and feed them up to immortality As the body or flesh of Christ is his Word so the blood of Christ is his Spirit in real effect and signification For as the body without blood is a dead and liveless trunck so is the Word of God without the Spirit a dead and ineffective Letter and this Mystery we are taught in that incomparable Epistle to the Hebrews For by the blood of Christ we are sanctified and yet that which sanctifies us is the spirit of grace and both these are one For so saith the Apostle the blood of Christ was offered up for us for the purification of our consciences from dead works but this offering was made through the eternal spirit and therefore he is equally guilty and does the same impiety he who does dâ—spâ—te to the spirit of Grace and he who accounts the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing for by this spirit and by this blood we are sanctified by this spirit and by the blood of the everlasting Covâ—nant Jesus Christ does perfect us in every good work so that these are the
same Ministry of salvation and but one and the same Oeconomy of God Thus St. Peter affirms That by the precious blood of Christ we are redeemed from our vain conversation and it is every where affirmed that we are purified and cleansed by the blood of Christ and yet these are the express effects of his Spirit for by the spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body and we are justified and sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus by the spirit of our God By which expressions we are taught to distinguish the natural blood of Christ from the spiritual the blood that he gave for us from the blood which he gives to us that was indeed by the spirit but was not the same thing but this is the spirit of grace and the spirit of wisdom And therefore as our Fathers were made to drink into one spirit when they drank of the water of the rock so we also partake of the spirit when we drink of Christs blood which came from the spiritual rock when it was smitten for thus according to the Doctrine of St. John the water aâ—d the blood and the spirit are one and the same glorious purposes As it was with our Fathers in the beginning so it is now with us and so it ever shall be world without end for they fed upon Christ that is they believed in Christ they expected his day they lived upon his promises they lived by faith in him and the same meat and drink is set upon our Tables and more than all this as Christ is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world so he shall be the food of souls in heaven where they who are accounted worthy shall sit down and be feasted in the eternal Supper of the Lamb concerning which blessedness our B. Saviour saith Blessed is he that eateth bread in the Kingdom of God for he hath appointed to his chosen ones to eat and drink at his table in his Kingdom plainly teaching us that by eating and drinking Christ is meant in this world to live the life of the spirit and in the other world it is to live the life of glory here we feed upon duty and there we feed upon reward our wine is here mingled with water and with myrrhe there it is mere and unmixt but still it is called meat and drink and still is meant grace and glory the fruits of the spirit and the joy of the spirit that is by Christ we here live a spiritual life and hereafter shall live a life eternal Thus are sensible things the Sacrament and representation of the spiritual and eternal and spiritual things are the fulfillings of the sensible But the consequent of these things is this that since Christ always was is and shall be the food of the faithful and is that bread which came down from heaven since we eat him here and shall eat him there our eating both here and there is spiritual only the word of teaching shall be changed into the word of glorification and our faith into Charity and all the way our souls live a new life by Christ of which eating and drinking is the Symbol and the Sacrament And this is not done to make this mystery obscure but intelligible and easie For so the pains of hell are expressed by fire which to our flesh is most painful and the joyes of God by that which brings us greatest pleasure by meat and drink and the growth in grace by the natural instruments of nutrition and the work of the Soul by the ministeries of the body and the graces of God by the blessings of nature for these we know and we know nothing else and but by phantasmes and ideas of what we see and feel we understand nothing at all Now this is so far from being a diminution of the glorious mystery of our Communion that the changing all into spirituality is the greatest increase of blessing in the world And when he gives us his body and his blood he does not fill our stomachs with good things for of whatsoever goes in thither it is affirmed by the Apostle that God will destroy both it and them but our hearts are to be replenished and by receiving his spirit we receive the best thing that God gives not his liveless body but his flesh with life in it that is his doctrine and his spirit to imprint it so to beget a living faith and a lively hope that we may live and live for ever 4. St. John having thus explicated this mystery in general of our eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ added nothing in particular concerning any Sacraments these being in particular instances of the general mystery and communion with Christ. But what is the advantage we receive by the Sacraments besides that which we get by the other and distinct ministeries of faith I thus account in general The word and the spirit are the flesh and the blood of Christ that is the ground of all Now because there are two great Sermons of the Gospel which are the summe total and abbreviature of the whole word of God the great messages of the word incarnate Christ was pleased to invest these two words with two Sacraments and assist those two Sacraments as he did the whole word of God with the presence of his Spirit that in them we might do more signally and solemnly what was in the ordinary ministrations done plainly and without extraordinary regards Believe and repent is the word in Baptisme and and there solemnly consigned and here it is that by faith we feed on Christ for faith as it is opposed to works that is the new Covenant of faith as it is opposed to the old Covenant of works is the covenant of repentance repentance is expressly included in the new covenant but was not in the old but by faith in Christ we are admitted to pardon of our sins if we repent and forsake them utterly Now this is the word of faith and this is that which is called the flesh or body of Christ for this is that which the soul feeds on this is that by which the just do live and when by the operation of the holy spirit the waters are reformed to a Divine Nature or efficacy the baptized are made clean theâ— are sanctified and presented pure and spotless unto God This mystery St. Austin rightly understood when he affirmed that we are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ when we are in baptisme incorporated into his body we are baptized in the passion of our Lord so Tertullian to the same sense with that of St. Paul we are buried with him in baptisme into his death that is by baptisme are conveyed to us all the effects of Christ's death the flesh and blood of Christ crucified are in baptisme reached to us by the hand of God by his holy spirit and received by the hand of man the Ministery of
Christs death an act of obedience a ceremony of memorial but of no spiritual effect and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver Against this besides the preceding discourse convincing their fancy of weakness and derogation the consideration of the proper excellencies of this mystery in its own seperate nature will be very useful For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into his oeconomy and dispensation For the understanding of which are to consider that Christ besides his Spiritual body and blood did also give us his natural and we receive that by the means of this For this he gave us but once then when upon the Crosse he was broken for our sins this body could die but once and it could be but at one place at once and Heaven was the place appointed for it and at once all was sufficiently effected by it which was design'd in the Counsel of God â—or by the vertue of that death Christ is become the Author of life unto us and of salvation he is our Lord and our Lawgiver but it he received all power in heaven and earth and by it he reconciled his Father to the world and in vertue of that he intercedes for us in heaven and sends his spirit upon earth and feeds our souls by his word he instructs us to wisdom and admits us to repentance and gives us pardon and by means of his own appointment nourishes us up by holinesse to life eternal This body being carried from us into heaven cannot be touch'd or tasted by us on earth but yet Christ left to us symbols and Sacraments of this natural body not to be or to convey that natural body to us but to do more and better for us to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body and the effusion of the blood which blessings being spiritual are therefore called his body spiritually because procured by that body which died for us and are therefore called our food because by them we live a new life in the spirit and Christ is our bread and our life because by him after this manner we are nourished up to life eternal That is plainly thus Therefore we eat Christs spiritual body because he hath given us his natural body to be broken and his natural blood to be shed for the remission of our sins and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance For by this gift and by this death he hath obtained this favour from God that by faith in him and repentance from dead works by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we may be saved To this sense of the Mystery are those excellent words of the Apostle He bare our sins upon his own body on the Tree that he might deliver us from the present evil world and sanctifie and purge us from all pollution of flesh and spirit that he might destroy the works of the devil that he might redeem us from all iniquity that he might purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and that we being dead unto sin might live unto righteousnesse Totum Christiani nominis pondus fructus mors Christi All that we are or do or have is produced and effected by the death of Christ. Now because our life depends upon his death the ministry of this life must relate â—o the ministry of this death and we have nothing to glory in but the Crosse of Christ the Word preached is nothing but Jesus Christ crucified and the Sacraments are the most eminent way of declaring this word for by Baptism we are buried into his death and by the Lords Supper we are partakers of his death we communicate with the Lord Jesus as he is crucified but now since all belong to this that Word and that Mystery that is highest and neerest in this relation is the principal and chief of all the rest and that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is so is evident beyond all necessity of inquiry it being instituted in the vespers of the Passion it being the Sacrament of the passion a sensible representation of the breaking Christs body of the effusion of Christs blood it being by Christ himself intituled to the passion and the symbols invested with the names of his broken body and his blood poured forth and the whole ministry being a great declaration of this death of Christ and commanded to be continued until his second coming Certainly by all these it appears that this Sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation here is the publication of the great word of salvation here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ the food of our souls much more clearly than in Baptism much more effectually than in simple enunciation or preaching and declaration by words for this preaching is to strangers and infants in Christ to produce faith but this Sacramental enunciation is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ a glorying in it giving praise for it a declaring it to be done and own'd and accepted and prevailing The consequent of these things is this That if any Mystery Rite or Sacrament be effective of any spiritual blessings then this is much more as having the prerogative and illustrious principality above every thing else in its own kind or of any other-kind in exteriour or interiour Religion I name them both because as in Baptism the water alone does nothing but the inward cooperation with the outward oblation does save us yet to Baptism the Scriptures attribute the effect so it is in this sacred solemnity the external act is indeed nothing but obedience and of it self only declares Christs death in rite and ceremony yet the worthy communicating of it does indeed make us feed upon Christ and unites him to the soul and makes us to become one spirit according to the words of S. Ambrose Ideo in similitudinem quidem accipis sacramentum sed verae naturae gratiam virtutemque consequeris thou recâ—ivâ—st the Sacrament as the similitude of Christs body but thou shalt receive the grace and the virtue of the true nature I shall not enter into so useless a discourse as to inquire whether the Sacraments confer grace by their own excellency and power with which they are endued from above because they who affirm they do require so much duty on our parts as they also do who attribute the effect to our moral disposition but neither one nor the other say true for neither the external act nor the internal grace and morality does effect our pardon and salvation but the spirit of God who blesses the symbols and assists the duty makes them holy and this acceptable Only they that attribute the efficacy to the Ministration of the Sacrament chose to magnifie the immediate work of man rather than the immediate work of God and prefer the external at least in glorious
the fruits of his passion and we shall if we abide in this union be all one body of a spiritual Church in heaven there to reign with Christ for ever Now unless we think nothing Good but what goes in at our eyes or mouth if we think there is any thing good beyond what our senses perceive we must confess this to be a real and eminent benefit and yet whatever it be it is therefore effected upon us by this Sacrament because we eat of one bread The very repeating the words of St. Paul is a satisfaction in this inquiry they are plain and easie and whatever interpretation can be put upon them it can only vary the manner of effecting the blessing and the way of the Sacramental efficacy but it cannot evacuate the blessing or confute the thing Only it is to be observed in this as in all other instances of the like nature that the grace of God in the Sacrament usually is a blessing upon our endeavours for spiritual graces and the blessings of sanctification do not grow like grasse but like corn not whether we do any husbandry or no but if we cultivate the ground then by Gods blessing the fruits will spring and make the Farmer rich if we be disposed to receive the Sacrament worthily we shall receive this fruit also Which fruit is thus expressed saying this Sacrament is therefore given unto us that the body of the Church of Christ in the earth may be joyned or united with our head which is in the heavens 3. The blessed Sacrament is of great efficacy for the remission of sins not that it hath any formal efficacy or any inherent vertue to procure pardon but that it is the ministery of the death of Christ and the application of his blood which blood was shed for the remission of sins and is the great means of impetration and as the Schools use to speak is the meritorious cause of it For there are but two wayes of applying the death of Christ an internal grace and an external ministery Faith is the inward applicatory and if there be any outward at all it must be the Sacraments and both of them are of remarkable vertue in this particular for by baptisme we are baptized into the death of Christ and the Lords supper is an appointed enunciation and declaration of Christs death and it is a Sacramental participation of it Now to partake of it Sacramentally is by Sacrament to receive it that is so to apply it to us as that can be applyed it brings it to our spirit it propounds it to our faith it represents it as the matter of Eucharist it gives it as meat and drink to our souls and rejoyces in it in that very formality in which it does receive it viz as broken for as shed for the remission of our sins Now then what can any man suppose a Sacrament to be and what can be meant by sacramental participation for unless the Sacraments do communicate what they relate to they are no communion or communication at all for it is true that our mouth eats the material signs but at the same time faith eats too and therefore must eat that is must partake of the thing signified faith is not maintained by ceremonies the body receives the body of the mystery we eat and drink the symbols with our mouths but faith is not corporeal but feeds upon the mystery it self it entertains the grace and enters into that secret which the spirit of God conveyes under the signature Now since the mystery is perfectly and openly expressed to be the remission of sins if the soul does the work of the soul as the body the work of the body the soul receives remission of sins as the body does the symbols of it and the Sacrament But we must be infinitely careful to remember that even the death of Christ brings no pardon to the impenitent persevering sinner but to him that repents truely so does the Sacrament of Christs death this can do no more than that and therefore let no man come with his guilt about him and in the heat and in the affections of his sin and hope to find his pardon by this ministery He that thinks so will but deceive wil but ruine himself They are excellent but very severe words which God spake to the Jews and which are a prophetical reproof of all unworthy Communicants in these divine mysteries What hath my beloved to do in my house seeing she hath wrought lâ—wdness with many The holy flesh hath passed from thee when thou doest evil that is this holy sacrifice the flesh and blood of thy Lord shall slip from thee without doing thee any good if thou hast not ceased from doing evil But the vulgar Latin reads these words much more emphatically to our purpose Shall the holy flesh take from thee thy wickedness in which thou rejoycest Deceive not thy self thou hast no part nor portion in this matter For the holy Sacrament operates indeed and consigns our pardon but not alone but in conjunction with all that Christ requires as conditions of pardon but when the conditions are present the Sacrament ministers pardon as pardon is ministred in this world that is by parts and in order to several purposes and with power of revocation by suspending the Divine wrath by procuring more graces by obtaining time of repentance and powers and possibilities of working out our salvation and by setting forward the method and Oeconomy of our salvation For in the usual methods of God pardon of sins is proportionable to our repentance which because it is all that state of Piety we have in this whole life after our first sin pardon of sins is all that effect of grace which is consequent to that repentance and the worthy receiving of the holy Communion is but one conjugation of holy actions and parts of repentance but indeed it is the best and the noblest and such in which man does best cooperate towards pardon and the grace of God does the most illustriously consign it But of these particulars I shall give full account when I shall discourse of the preparations of repentance 4. It is the greatest solemnity of prayer the most powerful Liturgy and means of impetration in this world For when Christ was consecrated on the crosse and became our High Priest having reconciled us to God by the death of the crosse he became infinitely gracious in the eyes of God and was admitted to the celestial and eternal Priesthood in heaven where in the vertue of the crosse he intercedes for us and represents an eternal sacrifice in the heavens on our behalf That he is a Priest in heaven appears in the large discourses and direct affirmatives of St. Paul that there is no other sacrifice to be offered but that on the crosse it is evident because he hath but once appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of
produce you ought not to esteem it strange and impossible for how earthly and mortal things are converted into the substance of Christ ask thy self who art regenerated in Christ Not long since thou wast a stranger from life a pilgrim and wanderer from mercy and being inwardly dead thou wert banished from the way of life On a sudden being initiated in the laws of Christ and renewed by the Mysteries of Salvation thou didst passe suddenly into the body of the Church not by seeing but by believing and from a son of perdition thou hast obtained to be adopted a son of God by a secret purity remaining in a visible measure thou art invisibly made greater than thy self without any increase of quantity thou art the same thou wert and yet very much another person in the progression of Faith to the outward nothing is added but the inward is wholly changed and so a man is made the son of Christ and Christ is formed in the mind of a man As therefore suddenly without any bodily perception the former vileness being laid down on the sudden thou hast put on a new dignity and this that God hath done that he hath cured thy wounds washed off thy staines wiped away thy spots is trusted to thy discerning not thy eyes so when thou ascendest the reverend altar to be satisfied with spiritual food by faith regard honour admire the holy body of God touch it with thy mind take it with the hand of thy heart even with the draught of the whole inward man SECT V. Practical conclusions from the preceding Discourses THe first I represent in the words of St. Augustin who reduces this whole doctrine to practice in these excellent words let this whole affair thus far prevail with us that we may eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ not only in the Sacrament which many evil persons doe but let us eat and drink unto the participation of the spirit that as members we may abide in the Lords body that we may be quickened by his spirit and let us not be scandalized because many do temporally eat and drink with us who yet in the end shall find eternal torments that is let us remember that the exteriour ministery is the least part of it and externally and alone it hath in it nothing excellent as being destitute of the sanctity that God requires and the grace that he does promise and it is common to wicked men and good but when the signs and the thing signified when the prayers of the Church and the spirit of God the word and the meaning the sacrament and the grace do concur then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a venerable cup and full of power and more honourable than all our possessions it is a holy thing saith Origen and appointed for our sanctification For Christ in the Sacrament is Christ under a vail as without the hand of faith we cannot take Christ so we must be sure to look here with an eye of faith and whatsoever glorious thing is said of the holy Sacrament it must be understood of the whole Sacrament body and spirit that is the Sacramental and the spiritual Communion 2. Let no man be lesse confident in his holy faith and persuasion concerning the great blessings and glorious effects which God designs to every faithful and obedient soul in the communication of these Divine mysteries by reason of any difference of judgement which is in the several Schools of Christians concerning the effects and consequent blessings of this Sacrament For all men speak honourable things of it except wicked persons and the scorners of Religion and though of several persons like the beholders of a dove walking in the sun as they stand in several aspects and distances some see red and others purple and yet some perceive nothing but green but all allow and love the beauties so do the several forms of Christians according as they are instructed by their first teachers or their own experience conducted by their fancy and proper principles look upon these glorious mysteries some as vertually containing the reward of obedience some as solemnities of thanksgiving and records of blessings some as the objective increasers of faith others as the Sacramental participations of Christ others as the acts instruments of natural union yet all affirm some great things or other of it and by their differences confesse the immensity and the glory For thus Manna represented to every man the taste that himself did like but it had in its own potentiality all those tasts and dispositions eminently and altogether those feasters could speak of great and many excellencies and all confessed it to be enough and to be the food of Angels so it is here it is that to every mans faith which his faith wisely apprehends and though there are some who are of little faith and such receive but a less proportion of nourishment yet by the very use of this Sacrament the appetite will increase and the apprehensions grow greater and the faith will be more confident and instructed and then we shall see more and feel more For this holy nutriment is not only food but physick too and although to him who believes great things of his Physitian and of his medicine it is apt to do the more advantage yet it will do its main work even when we understand it not and nothing can hinder it but direct infidelity or some of its foul and deformed ministers 3. They who receive the blessed Sacrament must not suppose that the blessings of it are effected as health is by physick or warmth by the contact and neighbourhood of fire but as musick one way affects the soul and witty discourses another and joyful tidings a way differing from both the former so the operations of the Sacrament are produced by an energy of a nature intirely differing from all things else But however it is done the thing that is done is this no grace is there improved but what we bring along with us no increases but what we exercise we must bring faith along with us and God will increase our faith we must come with charity and we shall go away with more we must come with truly penitential hearts and to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly he shall be a better penitent when he hath eaten the sacrifice that was slain for our sins and died in the body that we might live in the spirit and die no more For he is the bread from heaven he is the grain of wheat which falling into the earth unless it dies it remains alone but if it dies it brings forth fruit and brings it forth abundantly 4. Although the words the names and sayings concerning the Blessed Sacrament are mysterious and inexplicable yet they do nay therefore weare sure they signifie some great thing they are in the very expression beyond our understanding therefore much more are
Sacramental Symbols as a direct consignation of pardon not that it is them compleated for it is a work of time it is as long in doing as repentance is in perfecting it is the effect of that depending on its cause in a perpetual operation but it is then working and if we go on in duty God will proceed to finish the methods of his grace and snatch us from eternal death which we have deserved and bring us unto glory And this he is pleased by the Sacramental all the way to consigne God speaks not more articulately in any voice from Heaven than in such real indications of his love and favour 14. Lastly since the Sacrament is the great solemnity of prayer and imitation of Christs intercession in Heaven let us here be both charitable and religious in our prayers interceding for all states of men and women in the Christan Church and representing to God all the needs of our selves and of our Relatives For then we pray with all the advantages of the spirit when we pray in the faith of Christ crucified in the love of God and of our neighbour in the advantages of solemn piety in the communion of Saints in the imitation of Christs intercession and in the union with Christ himself Spiritual and Sacramental and to such prayers as these nothing can be added but that which will certainly come that is a blessed hearing and a gracious answer SECT III. Devotions preparatory to this Mystery Ejaculations I. 1. I Will praise thee with my whole heart before the Angels will I sing praise unto thee 2. I will worship towards thy holy Temple and praise thy Name for thy loving kindnesse and for thy truth for thou hast magnified above all thy name the word of thy praise 3. In the day when I call upon thee thou shalt answer and shalt multiply strength in my soul. 4. How precious are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the sum of them The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me Thy mercy O Lord endureth for ever 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 6. My soul doth wait for the Lord more than they that keep the morning watches that they may observe the time of offering the morning sacrifices 7. O let my soul hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption he shall redeem his people from all iniquitie II. 1. Our Lord is gentle and just our God is merciful 2. The Lord keepeth the simple I was humbled but the Lord looked after my redemption 3. O my soul return thou unto thy rest because the Lord hath restored his good things unto thee 4. He hath snatched my soul from death mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling I will therefore walk before the Lord in the land of the living 5. I have believed therefore will I speak in the assemblies of just men I will greatly praise the Lord. 6. What shall I return unto the Lord all his retributions are repayed upon me 7. I will bear the chalice of redemptions in the Kingdom of God and in the name of the Lord I will call upon my God III. 1. I will pay my vows unto the Lord I will then shew forth his Sacraments unto all the people 2. Honourable before the Lord is the death of his holy one and thereby thou hast broken all my chains 3. I have sworn and I will perform it that I will keep thy righteous judgments 4. I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth yea I will praise him among the multitude 5. For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor to save him from them that condemn his soul. 6. His work is honourable and glorious and his righteousnesse remaineth for ever He hath made his wonderful works to be remembred 7. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion he hath given meat unto them that fear him he will ever be mindful of his covenant he hath shewed his people the power of his works blessed be God The Prayers to be used in any day or time of preparation to the Holy Sacrament I. O Thou shepherd of Israel thou that feedest us like sheep thou makest us to lie down in pleasant pastures and leadest us by the still waters running from the clefts of the rock from the wounds of our Lord from the fountains of salvation thou preparest a table for us and anointest our heads with the unction from above and our cup runneth over let the blood of thy wounds and the water of thy side wash me clean that I may with a pure clean soul come to eat of the purest sacrifice the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world II. THou givest thy self to be the food of our souls in the wonders of the Sacrament in the faith of thy Word in the blessings and graces of thy Spirit Perform that in thy Servant which thou hast prepared and effected in thy Son strengthen my infirmities heal my sicknesses give me strength to subdue my passions to mortifie my inordinations to kill all my sin increase thy Graces in my soul enkindle a bright devotion extinguish all the fires of hell my lust and my pride my envy and all my spiritual wickednesses pardon all my sins and fill me with thy Spirit that by thy Spirit thou maist dwell in me and by obedience and love I may dwell in thee and live in the life of grace till it pasâ— on to glory and immensity by the power and the blessings by the passion and intercession of the Word incarnate whom I adore and whom I love and whom I will serve for ever and ever III. O Mysterious God ineffable and glorious Majesty what is this that thou hast done to the sons of men thou hast from thy bosom sent thy Son to take upon him our nature in him thou hast opened the fountains of thy mercy and hast invited all penitent sinners to come to be pardoned all the oppressed to be eased all the sorrowful to be comforted all the sick to be cured all the hungry to be filled and the thirsty to be refreshed with the waters of life and sustained with the wine of elect souls admit me O God to this great effusion of loving kindness that I may partake of the Lord Jesus that by him I may be comforted in all my griefs satisfied in all my doubts healed of all the wounds of my soul and the bruises of my spirit and being filled with the bread of heaven and armed with the strength of the Spirit I may begin continue and finish my journey thorow this valley of tears unto my portion of thy heavenly kingdom whither our Lord is gone before to prepare a place for every loving and obedient soul. Grant this O Eternal God for his sake who died for us and intercedes for us and gives himself daily to us our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Amen CHAP. II. Of
unreasonable fears and nothing but a single ray from heaven can give them any portions of comfort and these men never trust to any thing they do or to any thing that is done for them and fear by no other measures but by consideration of the intolerable misery which they should suffer if they did miscarry and because these men can speak nothing and think nothing comfortable of themselves in that agony or in that meditation therefore they can make use of this rule by the proportions of that judgment of charity which themselves make of others and in what cases and in what dispositions they conclude others to die in the Lord if they take those or the like measures for themselves and accordingly in those dispositions address themselves to the holy Sacrament they will make that use of this rule which is intended and which may do them benefit 5. As there are great varieties and degrees of fitness to death so also to the holy Sacrament he that hath lived best hath enough to deplore when he dies and causes enough to beg for pardon of what is past and for aids in the present need and when he does communicate he hath in some proportion the same too he hath causes enough to come humbly to come as did the Publican and to say as did the Centurion Lord I am not worthy but he that may die with most confidence because he is in the best dispositions he also may communicate with most comfort because he does it with most holiness 6. But the least measures of repentance less than which cannot dispose us to the worthy reception of the holy Mysteries are these 1. As soon as we are smitten with the terrors of an afflicted conscience and apprehend the evil of sin or fear the Divine Judgments and upon that account resolve to leave our sin we are not instantly worthy and fit to communicate Attrition is not a competent disposition to the blessed Sacrament because although it may be the gate and entrance of a spiritual life yet it can be no more unless there be love in it unless it be contrition it is not a state of favour and grace but a disposition to it He that does not yet love God cannot communicate with Christ and he that resolves against sin out of fear only or temporal regards hath given too great testimony that he loves the sin still and will return to it when that which hinders him shall be removed Faith working by charity is the wedding garment and he that comes hither not vested with this shall be cast into outer darkness But the words of St. Paul are express as to this particular In Christ Jesus nothing can avail but faith working by love and therefore without this the Sacrament it self will do no good and if it does no good it cannot be but it will do harm Our repentance disposing us to this Divine feast must at least be contrition or a sorrow for sins and purposes to leave them by reason of the love of God working in our hearts 2. But because no man can tell whether he hath the love of God in him but by the proper effects of love which is keeping the Commandments no man must approach to the holy Sacrament upon the account of his mere resolution to leave sin untill he hath broken the habit untill he hath cast away his fetters untill he be at liberty from sin and hath shaken off its laws and dominion so that he can see his love to God entring upon the ruines of sin and perceives that Gods Spirit hath advanced his Scepter by the declension of the sin that dwelt within till then he may do well to stand in the outward Courts lest by a too hasty entrance into the Sanctuary he carry along with him the abominable thing and bring away from thence the intolerable sentence of condemnation A man cannot rightly judge of his love to God by his acts and transports of fancy or the emanations of a warm passion but by real events and changes of the heart The reason is plain because every man hath first loved sin and obeyed it and untill that obedience be changed that first love remains and that is absolutely inconsistent with the love of God an act of love that is a loving ejaculation a short prayer affirming and professing love is a very unsure warrant for any man to conclude that his repentance is indeed contrition for wicked persons may in their good intervals have such sudden fires and all men that are taught to understand contrition to be a sorrow for sins proceeding from the love of God and that love of God to be sufficiently signified by single acts of loving prayer can easily by such forms and ready exercises fancy and conclude themselves in a very good condition at an easie rate But contrition is therefore necessary because attrition can be but the one half of repentance it can turn us away from sin but it cannot convert us unto God that must be done by love and that love especially in this case is manifestly nothing else but obedience and untill that obedience be evident and discernable we cannot pronounce any comfort concerning our state of love without which no man can see God and no man can taste him or feel him without it 3. A single act of obedience in the instance of any kind where the scene of repentance lies is not a sufficient preparation to the holy Sacrament nor demonstration of our contrition unless it be in the case of repentance only for single acts of sin In this case to oppose a good to an evil an act of proportionable abstinence to a single act of intemperance for which we are really sorrowful and as we suppose heartily troubled and confess it and pray for pardon may be admitted as a competent testimonial that this sorrow is real and this repentance is contrition because it does as much for vertue as in the instance it did for vice alwaies provided that whatsoever aggravations or accidental grandeurs were in the sin as scandal deliberation malice mischief hardness delight or obstinacy be also proportionably accounted for in the reckonings of the repentance But if the penitent return from a habit or state of sin he will find it a harder work to quit all his old affection to sin and to place it upon God intirely and therefore he must stay for more arguments than one or a few single acts of grace not only because a few may proceed from many causes accidentally and not from the love of God but also because his love and habitual desires of sin must be naturally extinguished by many contrary acts of virtue and till these do enter the old love does naturally abide It is true that sin is extinguished not only by the natural force of the contrary actions of vertue but by the Spirit of God by aids from heaven and powers supernatural and Gods love hastens ouâ— pardon and acceptation
yet still this is done by parts and methods of natural progression after the manner of nature though by the aids of God and therefore it is fit that we expect the changes and make our judgment by material events and discerned mutations before we communicate in these mysteries in which whoever unworthily does communicate enters into death 4. He that hath resolved against all sin and yet falls into it regulaâ—ly at the next temptation is yet in a state of evil and unworthiness to communicate because he is under the dominion of sin he obeys it though unwillingly that is he grumbles at his fetters but still he is in slavery and bondage But if having resolved against all sin he delights in none deliberately chooses none is not so often surprized grows stronger in grace and is mistaken but seldom and repents when he is and arms himself better and watches more carefully against all and increases still in knowledge whatever imperfection is still adherent to the man unwillingly does indeed allay his condition and is fit to humble and cast him down but it does not make him unworthy to communicate because he is in the state of grace he is in the Christian warfare and is on Gods side and the holy Sacrament if it have any effect at all is certainly an instrument or a sign in the hands of God to help his servants to inlarge his grace to give more strengths and to promote them to perfection 5. But the sum of all is this He that is not freed from the dominion of sin he that is not really a subject of the Kingdom of grace he in whose mortal body sin does reign and the Spirit of God does not reign must at no hand present himself before the holy Table of the Lord because whatever dispositions and alterations he may begin to have in order to pardon and holiness he as yet hath neither but is Gods enemy and therefore cannot receive his holy Son 6. But because the change is made by parts and effected by the measures of other intellectual and spiritual changes that is after the manner of men from imperfection to perfection by all the intermedial steps of moral degrees and good and evil in some periods have but a little distance though they should have a great deal and it is at first very hard to know whether it be life or death and after that it is still very difficult to know whether it be health or sickness and dead men cannot eat and sick men scarce can eat with benefit at least are to have the weakest and the lowest diet and after all this it is of a consequence infinitely evil if men eat this Supper indisposed and unfit It is all the reason of the world that returning sinners should be busie in their repentances and do their work in the field as it is in the parable of the Gospel and in their due time come home and gird themselves and wait upon their Lord and when they are bidden and warranted then to sit down in the Supper of their Lord. But in this case it is good to be as sure as we can as sure as the analogy of these divine Mysteries require and as our needs permit 7. He that hath committed a single act of sin a little before the Communion ought for the reverence of the holy Sacrament to abstain till he hath made proportionable amends and not only so but if the sin was inconsistent with the state of grace and destroyed or interrupted the divine favour as in cases of fornication murder perjury any malicious or deliberate known great crime he must comport himself as a person returning from a habit or state of sin and the reason is because he that hath lost the divine favour cannot tell how long he shall be before he recovers it and therefore would do well not to snatch at the portion and food of Sons whilest he hath reason to fear that he hath the state and calamity of Dogs who are caressed well if they feed on fragments and crums that are thrown away Now this Doctrine and these cautions besides that they are consonant to Scripture and the analogy of this divine Sacrament are nothing else but what was directly the sentiment of all the best most severe religious and devoutest ages of the Primitive Church For true it is the Apostles did indefinitely admit the faithful to the holy Communion but they were persons wholly enflamed with those holy fires which Jesus Christ sent from heaven to make them burning and shining lights such which our dearest Lord with his blood still warm and fresh filled with his holy love such whose spirits were so separate from the affections of the world that they laid their estates at the Apostles feet and took with joy the spoiling of their goods such who by improving the graces they had received did come to receive more abundantly and therefore these were fit to receive the bread of the strong But this is no invitation for them to come who feel such a lukewarmnesse and indifference of spirit and devotion that they have more reason to suspect it to be an effect of evil life rather than of infirmity for them who feel no heats of love but of themselves for them who are wholly immerg'd in secular affections and interests for them who are full of passions and void of grace these from the example of the others may derive caution but no confidence So long as they persever'd in the Doctrine of the Apostles so long they also did continue in the breaking of bread and solemn conventions for prayer for to persevere in the Doctrine of the Apostles signified a life most exactly Christian for that was the Doctrine Apostolical according to the words of our Lord teaching to observe all things which I have commanded you And by this method the Apostolical Churches and their descendants did administer these holy Mysteries a full and an excellent testimony whereof we have in that excellent Book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy commonly attributed to St. Dionys. The Church drives from the Sacrifice of the Temple meaning the divine Sacrament such persons for whom it is too sublime and elevated First those who are not yet instructed and taught concerning the participation of the Mysteries Next those who are fallen from the holy and Christian state meaning Apostates and such as have renounced their Baptism or fallen from the grace of it by a state of deadly sin or foulest crimes Thirdly they who are possessed with evil spirits And lastly those who indeed have begun to retire from sin to a good life but they are not yet purified from the phantasms and images of their past inordinations by a divine habitude and love with purity and without mixture And to conclude they who are not yet perfectly united to God alone and to speak according to the style of Scripture they who are not intirely inculpable and without reproach And when St.
Soter exhorted all persons to receive upon the day of the Institution or the vespers of the Passion he excepted those who were forbidden because they had committed any grievous sin But what was the Doctrine and what were the usages of the Primitive Church in the ministery of the Blessed Sacrament appears plainly in the two Epistles of St. Basil to Amphilochius in the Canons of Ancyra those of Peter of Alexandria Gregory Thaumaturgus and Nyssâ—en which make up the Penitential of the Greek Church and are explicated by Balsamo in which we find sometimes the penance of two years imposed for a single theft four years and seven years for an act of uncleannesse eleven years for perjury fifteen years for adultery and incest that is such persons were for so many years sepâ—rate from the Communion and by a holy life and strict observances of penitential impositions were to give testimony of their contrition and amends The like to which are to be seen in the Penitentials of the Western Church that of Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury that of venerable Bede the old Roman and that of Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz The reason of which severity we find thus accounted in St. Basil All this is done that they may try the fruits of their repentance For we do not judge of these things by the time but by the manner of their repentance For the Bishop had power to shorten the days of their separation and abstention and he that was an excellent penitent was much sooner admitted but by the injunction of so long a trial they declar'd that much purification was necessary for such an address And if after or in these penitential years of abstention they did not mend their lives though they did perform their penances they were not admitted These were but the Churches signs by other accidents and manifestations if it hapned that a great contrition was signified or a secret incorrigibility became publick the Church would admit the first sooner and the latter not at all For it was purity and holinesse that the Church required of all her Communicants and what measure of it she required we find thus testified The faithful which hath been regenerated by baptism ought to be nourished by the participation of the divine Mysteries and being cloathed with Jesus Christ and having the quality of a child of God he ought to receive the nutriment of life eternal which the Son of God himself hath given us and this nutriment is obedience to the word of God and execution of his will of which Jesus Christ hath said Man lives not by bread alone but my meat is to do my Fathers will and a little after he affirms that whereas St. Paul saith that Jesus Christ hath appointed us to eat his body in memory of his death the true remembrance which we ought to have of his death is to place before our eyes that which the Apostle saith that we were wholly dead and Jesus Christ died for us to the end that we should no more live unto our selves but to him alone and that so we should do him honour and give him thanks for his death by the purity of our life without which we engage our selves in a terrible damnation if we receive the Eucharist And again He that not having this charity which presses us and causes us to live for him who died for us dares approach to the Eucharist grieves the holy Spirit For it is necessary that he who comes to the memorial of Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us should not only be clean from all impurity of flesh and spirit but that he should demonstrate the death of him who died and rose for us by being dead unto sin to the world and to himself and that he lives no more but only to God through Jesus Christ. And therefore St. Cyprian complains as of a new and worse persecution that lapsed persons are admitted to the Communion before they have brought forth fruits of a worthy repentance and affirms that such an admission of sinners is to them as hail to the young fruits as a blasting wind to the trees as the murren to the cattel as a tempest to the ships The ships are overturned and broken the fruits fall the trees are blasted the cattel die and the poor sinner by being admitted too soon to the ministeries of eternal life falls into eternall death And if we put together some words of Sâ— Ambrose they clearly declare this Doctrine and are an excellent Sermon Thou comest to the Altar the Lord Jesus calls thee he sees thee to be clean from all sin because thy sins are wash'd away therefore he judges thee worthy of the câ—lestial Sacraments and therefore he invites thee to the heavenly banquet Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth But some desire to be admitted to penance that presently they may receive the Communion These men do not so much desire themselves to be absolved as that the Priest be bound for they do not put off their own evil conscience But I would that the guilty man should hope for pardon let him require it with tears seek it with sighs beg to obtain it by the weepings of all the people and if he be denied the Communion again and again let him consider that his prayer was not sufficiently earnest let him weep more and pray more To which I shall add some like words of St. Austin Therefore my dearest Brethren let every one consider his conscience and when he finds himself wounded with any crime first let him take care with prayers and fastings and alms to cleanse his conscience and so let him receive the Eucharist .... for he that knowing his guilt shall humbly remove himself from the Altar for the amendment of his life shall not fear to be wholly ex-communicate from that eternal and celestial banquet For this Divine Sacrament is not to be eaten with confidence and boldnesse but with fear and all manner of purity saith St. Chrysostome for impudence in these approaches will certainly slay the souls For thâ—s is the body whither none but Eagles are to gather because they ought to be sublime and elevated souls such which have nothing of earthliness in them that do not sit and prey upon the ground that are not immerg'd in the love of Creatures but such whose flight is towards heaven whose spirit does behold the Sun of Righteousnesse with a penetrating contemplation and piercing eyes for this is the Table of Eagles and not of Owls And therefore this Saint complains of some who did approach to the Eucharist as it were by chance or rather by custom and constraint of Laws rather than by argument and choice In whatsoever estate their souls are they will partake of these Mysteries because it is Lent or because it iâ— the feast of the Epiphany but certain it is that it is not the time which puts us into
live with him and converse with him for ever It is good to be with Christ and S. Hierom said I would to God that we could alwayes receive with a pure conscience and without self-condemnation It is without dispute that it is better to be with Christ in all the wayes of being with him than to be away from him one hour this therefore ought to be no part of the question But because there is more required to the receiving Christ than eating the Symbols and a man may eat to his condemnation and increase his sins and swell his sad accounts and be guilty of Christs body and blood if he does not take heed therefore first men must be prepar'd and be in the state of holiness or else they may not receive at all and they that are so may receive it frequently the oftner the better So Hierom and St. Austin tell that even till their dayes the cuâ—tome of receiving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain and all the Ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent communion but just as Physicians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and the infant but the strong man and the healthful And this we find thus determined by S. Chrysostom There are some living in desarts who receive but once in a year or it may be once in two years what then whom shall we account best of them that receive but once or that receive but seldome or that receive frequently Neither one nor the other But them that communicate with a sincere conscience with a pure heart and an unreprovable life They that are such let them alwayes communicate and they that are not so let them not approach so much as once because they do nothing but draw upon themselves the judgements of God and make themselves worthy of condemnation To which if we add the excellent discourse of S. Austin in this question the consequents of it may suffice to determine the whole inquiry Some will say that the Eucharist is not to be receiv'd every day If you ask why he tels you because some dayes are to be chosen in which a man may live more purely and continently that so he may come to so great a Sacrament more worthily because he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself On the other side another sayes if thou hast received so great a wound and contracted so violent a disease that such remedies are to be deferr'd every such man ought by the authority of the Bishop to be remov'd fâ—om the Altar and put to penance and by the same authority be reconcil'd For this is to receive unworthily then to receive when a man should be doing penance and not according to his own pleasure offer himself to or withdraw himself from the Communion But if his sins be not so great as to deserve excommunication he ought not to separate himself from the dayly medicine of the Lords Body Between these possibly a man may determine the question better if he admonishes that men should abide in the peace of Christ. But let every one do what according to his faith he piously believes ought to be done For neither of them dishonours the body and blood of the Lord if they in their several wayes contend who shall most honour the most holy Sacrament For Zachaeus and the Centurion did not prefer themselves before one another when the one received Christ into his house and the other said he was not worthy to receive him under his roof both of them honouring our Blessed Saviour by a divers and almost a contrary way both of them were miserable by sins and both of them obtain'd mercy Now from the words of these two Saints put together we may collect these resolutions 1. The question does no way concern evil men desperately or greatly wicked for they so remaining or committing such sins quae non committit omnis bonae fidei speique Christianus which exclude men from the Kingdom of heaven and cannot stand with the hopes of a good man are separate from the Spirit of the Lord and ought not to touch the body of our Lord. 2. Neither does it concern such imperfect persons and half Christians who endeavour to accord the rules of the Gospel with their irregular and ruling passions who would enter into heaven and yet keep their affections for earth and earthly interests who part stakes between God and the world and resolve to serve two Masters who commit oftentimes deliberate and great sins and repent and yet sin again when the temptation comes for they are yet very far from the Kingdom of God and therefore ought not to be admitted to the portion of sons and the bread of children 3. It concerns only such whose life does not dishonour their profession who pretend to be servants of Christ and indeed are so in great truth whose faith is strengthned with hope and their hope animated with charity who cannot pretend to be more perfect than men yet really contend to avoid all sin like the children of God who have right to be nourished by the body of the Lord Corpus Christi quod ipsi sunt because they are indeed members of his body and joyned in the same Spirit The question is not between the Publican and the Pharisee but between the converted Publican and the proselyte Centurion between two persons who are both true honour ours of Christ. and penitent sinners and humbled persons and have no affection for sin remaining the question then is which is more to be commended he that out of love receives Christ or he who out of humility and reverence abstains because he thinks himself not worthy enough To this St. Chrysostome answers 4. They that are such have a right to receive every day and because they are rightly disposed it is certain that a frequent Communion is of great advantage to them and therefore they that frequent it not are like to be losers For this is the daily bread the heavenly supersubstantial bread by which our souls are nourished to life eternal This is the medicine against our daily imperfections and intrudings of lesser crimes and sudden emigration of passions it is the great consignation of pardon and St. Ambrose argues well If Christs bloud is powred forth for the remission of sins then I ought as often as I can receive it when it is poured forth to me that because I sin often I may perpetually have my remedy Which discourse of his is only to be understood of those imperfections of our life which perpetually haunt those good men who are growing in grace untill they come to perfection and consummation in grace 5. They that in conscience of their past sins and apprehension of their repentance do abstain for fear of irreverence and the sentence of condemnation do very well as long as they find that their sin returns often or tempts strongly
to a man had in reputation for wisdom is as a fly in a box of oyntment not only uselesse but mischievous And S. Bernard commends S. Malachie because he reprov'd a Deacon for attending at the Altar the day after he had suffered an illusion in the night It had been better he had abstain'd from the Altar one day and by that intermediate expiation and humility have the next day return'd to a more worthy ministery 4. One degree of curious caution I find beyond all this in an instance of St. Gregory the Great in whose life we find that he abstain'd some days from the holy Communion because there was found in a Village neer to Rome a poor man dead no man could tell how but because the good Bishop fear'd he might have been starv'd and that he died for want of provision he supposing it might reflect upon him as a defect in his Government or of his personal Charity thought it fit to deplore the accident and to abstain from the Communion till he might hope for pardon in case he had done amiss If these things proceed from the sincerity of a well disposed spirit that can suffer any trouble rather than that of sin the product is well enough and in all likelihood would always be well if the case were conducted by a prudent spiritual guide for then it would not change into scruples and superstition But these are but the fears and cautions and securities of a tender spirit but are not an answer to the Question Whether it be lawful for such persons to Communicate For certainly they may if all things else be right and they may be right in the midst of such little accidents But these belong to the questions of perfection and excellencies of grace these are the extraordinaries of them who never think they do well enough and therefore they extended no further than to a single abstention or some little proportionable retirement and may be useful when they are in the hands of prudent and excellent persons SECT V. What significations of Repentance are to be accepted by the Church in admission of Penitents to the Communion THis inquiry will quickly be answered when we consider that the end why the Church enjoyns publick or private amends respectively to any convict or confessed Criminal she only does it as a Mother and a Physician to souls and a Minister of the Divine Pardon and the Conductress of penitential Processes she does it that the man may be recovered from the snare of the enemy that she may destroy the work of the Devil that the sinner may become a good Christian and therefore the Church when she conducts any mans repentance is bound to enjoyn so many external Ministeries that if they be really joyned with the external contrition and reformation will do the work of reconcilement in the Court of heaven The Church can exact none but what she can see or some way take external notice of but by these externals intends to minister to the internal repentance which when it is sufficiently signified by any ways that she may prudently rely upon as testimonies and ministeries of a sufficient internal contrition and real amends she can require no more and she ought not to be content with lesse It is therefore infinitely unsafe and imprudent to receive the Confessions of Criminals and after the injunction of certain cursory penances to admit them to the Blessed Sacrament without any further emendation without any trial of the sincerity of their conversion before it is probable that God hath pardon'd them before their affections to sin are dead before the spirit of mortification is entred before any vice is exterminated or any vertue acquired Such a loosnesse of discipline is but the image of repentance whether we look upon it as it is described in Scripture or as it was practised by the Primitive Church which at least is a whole change of life a conversion of the whole man to God And it is as bad when a notorious criminal is put to shame one day for such a sin which could not have obtain'd the peace of the Church under the severity and strictness of fifteen years amongst the holy Primitives Such publick Ecclesiastical penances may suffice to remove the scandal from the Church when the Church will be content upon so easie terms for she only can tell what will please her self But then such discipline must not be esteem'd a sufficient ministery of repentance nor a just disposition to pardon For the Church ought not to give pardon or to promise the peace of God upon terms easier than God himself requires and therefore when repentance comes to be conducted by her she must require so much as will extinguish the sin and reform the man and make him and represent him good All the liberty that the Church hath in this is what is given her by the latitude of the judgment of charity and yet oftentimes a too easie judgment is the greatest uncharitableness in the world and makes men confident and careless and deceiv'd and therefore although gentle sentences are useful when there is danger of dispair or contumacy yet that is rather a palliation of a disease than a cure and therefore the method must be chang'd as soon as it can and the severe and true Sermons of the Gospel must be either proclaimed aloud or insinuated prudently and secretly and men be taught to rely upon them and their consequents and upon nothing else for they will not deceive us But the corrupt manners of men and the corrupt doctrines of some Schools have made it almost impossible to govern souls as they need to be governed The Church may indeed chuse whether she will impose on Criminals any exterior significations of repentance but accept them to the Communion upon their own accounts of a sincere conversion and inward contrition but then she ought to do this upon such accounts as are indeed real and sufficient and effective and allowed that is when she can understand that such an emendation is made and the man is really reformed she can pronounce him pardoned or which is all one she may communicate him And farther yet she can by Sermons declare all the necessary parts of repentance and the conditions of pardon and can pronounce limited and hypothetical or conditional pardons concerning which the penitent must take care that they do belong to him But if she does undertake to conduct any repentances exteriously it is to very little purpose to do it any way that is not commensurate to that true internal repentance which is effective of pardon Indeed every single act of penance does something towards it but why something should be enjoyned that is not sufficient and that falls infinitely short of the end of its designation though the Church may use her liberty yet it is not easie to understand the reason But I leave this to the consideration of those who are concerned
they had zeal for the good of souls Let no man say I repent in private I repent before God in secret God who alone does pardon does know that I am contrite in heart For was it in vain was it said to no purpose whatsoever ye shall loose in earth shall be loosed in heaven we evacuate the Gospel of God we frustrate the words of Christ so S. Austin And therefore when a man hath spoken the sentence of the most severe medicine let him come to the Presidents of the Church who are to minister in the power of the Keyes to him and beginning now to be a good son keeping the order of his Mother let him receive the measure and manner of his repentances from the Presidents of the Sacraments Concerning this thing I shall never think it fit to dispute for there is nothing to inforce it but enough to perswade it but he that tries will find the benefit of it himself and will be best able to tell it to all the world SECT VII Penitential Soliloquies Ejaculations Exercises and preparatory Prayers to be us'd in all the days of preparation to the Holy Sacrament I. ALmighty and eternal God the fountain of all vertue the support of all holy hope the Author of pardon of life and of salvation thou art the comforter of all that call upon thee thou hast concluded all under sin that thou mightest have mercy upon all Look upon me O God and have pity on me lying in my blood and misery in my shame and in my sins in the fear and guilt of thy wrath in the shadow of death and in the gates of hell I confesse to thee O God what thou knowest already but I confesse it to manifest thy justice and to glorifie thy mercy who hast spared me so long â—hat I am guilty of the vilest and basest follies which usually dishonour the fools and the worst of the sons of men II. I have been proud and covetous envious and lustful angry and greedy indevout and irreligious restless in my passions sensual and secular but hating wise counsels and soon weary of the Offices of a holy Religion I cannot give an account of my time and I cannot reckon the sins of my tongue My crimes are intolerable and my imperfections shameful and my omissions innumerable and what shall I do O thou preserver of men I am so vile that I cannot express it so sinful that I am hateful to my self and much more abominable must I needs be in thy eyes I have sinn'd against thee without necessity sometimes without temptation only because I would sin and would not delight in the ways of peace I have been so ingrateful so foolish so unreasonable that I have put my own eyes out that I might with confidence and without fear sin against so good a God so gracious a Father so infinite a Power so glorious a Majesty so bountiful a Patron and so mighty a Redeemer that my sin is grown shameful and aggravated even to amazement I can say no more I am asham'd O God I am amaz'd I am confounded in thy presence III. But yet O God thou art the healer of our breaches and the lifter up of our head and I must not despair and I am sure thy goodness is infinite and thou dost not delight in the death of a sinner and my sins though very great are infinitely less than thy mercies which thou hast revealed to all penitent and returning sinners in Jesus Christ. I am not worthy to look up to heaven but be thou pleased to look down into the dust and lift up a sinner from the dunghil let me not perish in my folly or be consumed in thy heavy displeasure Give me time and space to repent and give me powers of Grace and aids of thy spirit that as by thy gift and mercy I intend to amend whatsoever is amiss so I may indeed have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same Inspire me with the spirit of repentance and mortification that I may always fight against my sins till I be more than conquerour Support me with a holy hope confirm me with an excellent operative and unreprovable faith and enkindle a bright and a burning charity in my soul Give me patience in suffering severity in judging and condemning my sin and in punishing the sinner that judging my self I may not be condemned by thee that mourning for my sins may rejoyce in thy pardon that killing my sin I may live in righteousness that denying my own will I may always perform thine and by the methods of thy Spirit I may overcome all carnal and spiritual wickednesses and walk in thy light and delight in thy service and perfect my obedience and be wholly delivered from my sin and for ever preserved from thy wrath and at last passe on from a certain expectation to an actual fruition of the glories of thy Kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Amen Amen 1. I am in thy sight O Lord a polluted person sin like a crust of leprosie hath overspread me I am a scandal to others a shame to my self a reproach to my relations a burden to the earth a spot in the Church and deserve to be rejected and scorn'd by thee 2. But this O God I cannot bear It is just in thee to destroy me but thou delightest not in that I am guilty of death but thou lovest rather that I should live 3. O let the cry of thy Sons blood who offers an eternal Sacrifice to thee speak on my behalf and speak better things than the blood of Abel 4. My conscience does accuse me the Devils rejoyce in my fall and aggravate my crimes already too great and thy holy Spirit is grieved by me But my Saviour Jesus died for me and thou pittiest me and thy holy Spirit still calls upon me and I am willing to come but I cannot come unlesse thou drawest me with the cords of love 5. O draw me unto thee by the Arguments of charity by the endearments of thy mercies by the order of thy providence by the hope of thy promises by the sense of thy comforts by the conviction of my understanding by the zeal and passion of holy affections by an unreprovable faith and an humble hope by a religious fear and an increasing love by the obedience of precepts and efficacy of holy example by thy power and thy wisdom by the love of thy Son and the grace of thy Spirit Draw me O God and I will run after thee and the sweetnesses of thy precious ointments 6. I am not worthy O Lord I am not worthy to come into thy presence much less to eat the flesh of the Sacrificed Lamb For my sins O Blessed Saviour Jesus went along in confederation with the High Priests in treachery with Judas in injustice with Pilate in malice with the people 7. My sins and the Jews crucified thee my hypocrisie was the kiss that betrai'd thee my covetous
of thy Cross reconcile me to thy eternal Father and bring to me peace of Conscience let the victory of thy Cross mortifie all my evil and corrupt affections let the triumph of thy Cross lead me on to a state of holiness that I may sin no more but in all things please thee and in all things serve thee and in all things glorifie thee 7. Great and infinite are thy glories infinite and glorious are thy mercies who is like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on high and yet humbleth himself to behold the things that are in Heaven and earth Heaven it self does wholly minister to our salvation God takes care of us God loves us first God will not suffer us to perish but imployes all his attributes for our good The Son of God dies for us the holy Spirit descends upon us and teaches us the Angels minister to us the Sacrament is our food Christ is married to our souls and heaven it self is offered to us for our portion 8. O God my God assist me now and ever graciously and greatly Grant that I may not receive bread alone for man cannot live by that but that I may eat Christ that I may not search into the secret of nature but inquire after the miracles of grace I do admire I worship and I love Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome Ride on triumphantly because of thy words of truth and peace load my soul in this triumph as thy own purchase thy love hath conquer'd and I am thy servant for ever 9. Thou wilt not dwell in a polluted house make my soul clean and do thou consecrate it into a Temple O thou great Bishop of our souls by the inhabitation of thy holy spirit of purity Let not these teeth that break the bread of Angels ever grind the face of the poor let not the hand of Judas be with thee in the dish let not the eyes which see the Lord any more behold vanity let not the members of Christ ever become the members of a harlot or the ministers of unrighteousness 10. I am nothing I have nothing I desire nothing but Jesus and to be in Jerusalem the holy City from above Make haste O Lord Behold my heart is ready my heart is ready Come Lord Jesus come quickly When the holy Man that Ministers reaches the consecrated Bread suppose thy Lord entring into his Courts and say Lord I am not worthy thou shouldest come under my roof but speak the word Lord and thy servant shall be whole After receiving of the Bread pray thus Blessed be the Name of our gracious God Hosannah to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord. Hosannah in the highest Thou O blessed Saviour Jesus hast given me thy precious body to be the food of my soul and now O God I humbly present to thee my body and soul every member and every faculty every action and every passion Do thou make them fit for thy service Give me an understanding to know thee and wisdom like as thou didst to thy Apostles ingenuity and simplicity of heart like to that of Nathanael zeal and perfect repentance like the return of Zacheus Give me eyes to see thee as thy Martyr Stephen had an ear to hear thee as Mary a hand to touch thee as Thomas a mouth with Peter to confess thee an arm with Simeon to embrace thee feet to follow thee with thy Disciples an heart open like Lydia to entertain thee that as I have given my members to sin and to uncleanness so I may henceforth walk in righteousness and holiness before thee all the days of my life Amen Amen If there be any time more between the receiving the holy Body and the blessed Chalice then add O immense goodness unspeakable mercy delightful refection blessed peace-offering effectual medicine of our souls Holy Jesus the food of elect souls coelestial Manna the bread that came down from heaven sweetest Saviour grant that my soul may relish this divine Nutriment with spiritual ravishments and love great as the flames of Cherubims and grant that what thou hast given me for the remission of my sins may not â—y my fault become the increase of them Grant that in my heart I may so digest thee by a holy faith so convert thee into the unity of my spirit by a holy love that being conformed to the likeness of thy death and resurrection by the crucifying of the old man and the newness of a spiritual and a holy life I may be incorporated as a sound and living member into the body of thy holy Church a member of that body whereof thou art head that I mâ—y abide in thee and bring forth fruit in thee and in the resurrection of the Just my body of infirmity being reformed by thy power may be configured to the similitude of thy glorious body and my soul received into a participation of the eternal Supper of the Lamb that where thou art there I may be also beholding thy face in glory O blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Amen When the holy Chalice is offered attend devoutly to the blessing and joyn in heart with the words of the Minister saying Amen I will receive the Cup of salvation and call upon the Name of our Lord. After receiving of the holy Cup pray thus It is finished Blessed be the name of our gracious God Blessing glory praise and honour love and obedience dominion and thanksgiving be to him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever I bless and praise thy Name O eternal Father most merciful God that thou hast vouchsafed to admit me to a participation of these dreadful and desirable mysteries unworthy though I am yet thy love never fails and though I too often have repented of my repentances and fallen back into sin yet thou never repentest of thy loving kindness Be pleased therefore now in this day of mercy when thou openest the treasures of heaven and rainest Manna upon our souls to refresh them when they are weary of thy infinite goodness to grant that this holy Communion may not be to me unto judgment and condemnation but it may be sweetness to my soul health and safety in every temptation joy and peace in every trouble ligâ—t and strength in every word and work comfort and defence in the hour of my death against all the oppositions of the spirits of darkness and grant that no unclean thing may be in me who have received thee into my heart and soul. II. Thou dwellest in every sanctified soul she is the habitation of Sion and thou taâ—est it for thine own and thou hast consecrated it to thy self by the operation of glorious mysteries within her O be pleased to receive my soul presented to thee in this holy Communion for thy dwelling place make it a house of prayer and holy meditations the seat of thy Spirit the repository of graces reveal to me