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does the spirit? Or can the body of Christ be like to com mon 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 merchantman 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 God's 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 co-operation with the grace of God, are fellow-workers with God in the laboratories of salvation. The wrestler that Clemens of Alexandria tells us of, addressing himself to his contention, and espying the statue of Jupiter Pisæus, 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 a 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

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* Εἰ πάντα (εἶπεν) ὦ Ζεῦ, δεόντως μοι πρὸς τὸν ἀγῶνα παρεσκεύασμαι, ἀπόλος φέρων δικαίως τὴν νίκην ἐμοί,

the mysterious blessings, which are here not only consigned, 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 easy 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 philosophy, made intricate by explications, and difficult by the aperture and dissolution of distinctions. So we sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure; when it is observed by unskilful and fantastic travellers, it looks like a centaur 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 this 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 espy strange things which God intended not, and others see not what God hath plainly told: some call that part of it a mystery which is none and others think all of it nothing but a mere 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 quickened: 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 merely, others account it an excellent devotion, and the exercising of the virtue of religion: some take it to strengthen their faith, others to

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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 reason for what they pretend; and yet the words of Scripture from whence they pretend, are not so many as are the several pretensions.

My purpose is not to dispute, but to persuade; not to confute any one, but to instruct those that need; not to make a noise, but to excite devotion; not to enter into curious, but material inquiries, and to gather together into a union all those several portions of truth, and differing apprehensions of mysteriousness, and various methods and rules of preparation, and seemingly opposed doctrines, by which even good men stand at distance, and are afraid of each other. For since all societies of Christians pretend to the greatest esteem of this, above all the rites or external parts and ministries of religion, it cannot be otherwise but that they will all speak honourable things of it, and suppose holy things to be in it, and great blessings, one way or other, to come by it; and it is contemptible only among the profane and the atheistical. All the innumerable differences which are in the discourses and consequent practices relating to it, proceed from some common truths, and universal notions, and mysterious or inexplicable words, and tend all to reverential thoughts, and pious treatment of these rites and holy offices; and, therefore, it will not be impossible to find honey or wholesome dews upon all this variety of plants; and the differing opinions, and several understandings of this mystery, which (it may be) no human understanding can comprehend, will serve to excellent purposes of the Spirit; if like men of differing interest, they can be reconciled in one communion, at least the ends and designs of them all can be conjoined in the design and ligatures of the same reverence, and piety, and devotion.

My purpose, therefore, is to discourse of the nature, excellencies, uses, and intention of the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, the blessings and fruits of the sacrament, all the advantages of a worthy communion, the public and the private, the personal and the ecclesiastical, that we may understand what it is that we go about, and how it is to be treated. I shall account also concerning all the duties of preparation, ordinary and extraordinary, more and less solemn; of the rules and manners of deportment in the receiving; the gesture and the offering, the measures and instances of our duty, our comport and conversation in and after it; together with the cases of conscience that shall occur under these titles respectively, relating to the particular

matters.

It matters not where we begin; for if I describe the excellencies of this sacrament, I find it engages us upon matters of duty, and inquiries practical: if I describe our duty, it plainly signifies the greatness and excellency of the mystery: the very notion is practical, and the practice is information; we cannot discourse of the secret, but by describing our duty; and we cannot draw all the lines of duty, but so much duty must needs open a cabinet of myste ries. If we understand what we are about, we cannot choose but be invested with fear and reverence; and if we look in with fear and reverence, it cannot be but we shall understand many secrets. But because the natural order of theology is by faith to build up good life, by a rectified understanding to regulate the will and the affections, I shall use no other method, but first discourse of the excellent mystery, and then of the duty of the communicant, direct and collateral.

THE

WORTHY COMMUNICANT,

&c. &c.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE NATURE, EXCELLENCIES, USES, AND INTENTION OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER,

SECTION I.

Of the several Apprehensions of Men concerning it. WHEN our blessed Lord was to nail the hand-writing of ordinances to his cross, he was pleased to retain two ceremonies, baptism and the holy supper; that Christians may first wash, and then eat; first be made clean, and then eat of the supper of the Lamb: and it cannot be imagined but that this so signal and peculiar retention of two ceremonies is of great purpose and remarkable virtues. The matter is evident in the instance of baptism: and as the mystery is of the foundation of religion, so the virtue of it is inserted into our creed, and we all " believe one baptism for the remission of our sins;" and yet the action is external, the very mystery is by a ceremony, the allusion is bodily, the element is water, the minister a sinful man, and the effect is produced out of the sacrament in many persons, and in many instances, as well as in it and yet that it is effected also by it and with it, in the conjunction with due dispositions of him that is to be baptized, we are plainly taught by Christ's apostles, and the symbols of the church.

But concerning the other sacrament, there are more divisions and thoughts of heart. For it is never expressly

• Acts, ii. 38.

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