For when Christ feasts his body, let us also feast our fellow-members, who have right to the same promises, and are partakers of the same sacrament, and partners of the same hope, and cared for under the same Providence, and descended from the same common parents, and whose Father God is, and Christ is their elder brother. If thou chancest to communicate, where this holy custom is not observed publicly, supply that want by thy private charity; but offer it to God at his holy table, at least by thy private designing it there. 12. When you have received, pray and give thanks. Pray for all estates of men; for they also have an interest in the body of Christ, whereof they are members: and you, in conjunction with Christ (whom then you have received,) are more fit to pray for them in that advantage, and in the celebration of that holy sacrifice, which then is sacramentally represented to God. Give thanks for the passion of our dearest Lord: remember all its parts, and all the instruments of your redemption; and beg of God, that by a holy perseverance in well-doing, you may from shadows pass on to substances, from eating his body to seeing his face, from the typical, sacramental, and transient, to the real and eternal supper of the Lamb. 13. After the solemnity is done, let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith, and love, and obedience, and conformity to his life and death: as you have taken Christ into you, so put Christ on you, and conform every faculty of your soul and body to his holy image and perfection. Remember that now Christ is all one with you; and therefore when you are to do an action, consider how Christ did, or would do, the like, and do you imitate his example, and transcribe his copy, and understand all his commandments, and choose all that he propounded, and desire his promises, and fear his threatenings, and marry his loves and hatreds, and contract his friendships; for then you do every day communicate; especially when Christ thus dwells in you, and you in Christ, growing up towards a perfect man in Christ Jesus. 14. Do not instantly, upon your return from church, return also to the world, and secular thoughts and employment; but let the remaining parts of that day be like a post-communion, or an after-office, entertaining your blessed Lord with all the caresses and sweetness of love and colloquies, and intercourses of duty and affection, acquainting him with all your needs, and revealing to him all your secrets, and opening all your infirmities; and as the affairs of your persons or employment call you off, so retire again with often ejaculations and acts of entertainment to your beloved guest. The Effects and Benefits of Worthy Communicating. When I said, that the sacrifice of the cross, which Christ offered for all the sins and all the needs of the world, is represented to God by the minister in the sacrament, and offered up in prayer and sacramental memory, after the manner that Christ himself intercedes for us in heaven (so far as his glorious priesthood is imitable by his ministers on earth,) I must of necessity also mean, that all the benefits of that sacrifice are then conveyed to all that communicate worthily. But if we descend to particulars, then and there the church is nourished in her faith, strengthened in her hope, enlarged in her bowels with an increasing charity; there all the members of Christ are joined with each other, and all to Christ their head; and we again renew the covenant with God in Jesus Christ, and God seals his part, and we promise for ours, and Christ unites both, and the Holy Ghost signs both in the collation of those graces which we then pray for, and exercise and receive all at once. There our bodies are nourished with the signs, and our souls with the mystery; our bodies receive into them the seed of an immortal nature, and our souls are joined with him, who is the first-fruits of the resurrection, and never can die. And if we desire any thing else and need it, here it is to be prayed for, here to be hoped for, here to be received. Long life and health, and recovery from sickness, and competent support and maintenance, and peace and deliverance from our enemies, and content, and patience, and joy, and sanctified riches, or a cheerful poverty, and liberty, and whatsoever else is a blessing, was purchased for us by Christ in his death and resurrection, and in his intercession in heaven. And this sacrament being that to our particulars which the great mysteries are in themselves, and by design to all the world, if we receive worthily, we shall receive any of these blessings, according as God shall choose for us; and he will not only choose with more wisdom, but also with more affection, than we can for ourselves. After all this, it is advised by the guides of souls, wise men and pious, that all persons should communicate very often, even as often as they can without excuses or delays. Every thing that puts us from so holy an employment, when we are moved to it, being either a sin or an imperfection, an infirmity or indevotion, and an inactiveness of spirit. All Christian people must come. They indeed, that are in the state of sin, must not come so, but yet they must come. First they must quit their state of death, and then partake of the bread of life. They that are at enmity with their neighbours, must come, that is no excuse for their not coming; only they must not bring their enmity along with them, but leave it, and then come. They that have variety of secular employment, must come; only they must leave their secular thoughts and affections behind them, and then come and converse with God. If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come, because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety, had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come, lest they become weak; and the weak, that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured, the healthful to be preserved. They that have leisure must come, because they have no excuse: they that have no leisure, must come hither, that by so excellent religion they may sanctify their business. The penitent sinners must come, that they may be justified; and they that are justified, that they may be justified still. They that have fears and great reverence to these mysteries, and think no preparation to be sufficient, must receive, that they may learn how to receive the more worthily: and they that have a less degree of reverence, must come often to have it heightened that as those creatures that live amongst the snows of the mountains, turn white with their food and conversation with such perpetual whitenesses; so our souls may be transformed into the similitude and union with Christ by our perpetual feeding on him, and conversation, not only in his courts, but in his very heart, and most secret affections, and incomparable purities. Prayers for all sorts of Men and all Necessities; relating to the several parts of the Virtue of Religion. A Prayer for the graces of Faith, Hope, Charity. O Lord God of infinite mercy, of infinite excellency, who hast sent thy holy Son into the world to redeem us from an intolerable misery, and to teach us a holy religion, and to forgive us an infinite debt; give me thy Holy Spirit, that my understanding and all my faculties may be so resigned to the discipline and doctrine of my Lord, that I may be prepared in mind and will to die for the testimony of Jesus, and to suffer any affliction or calamity, that shall offer to hinder my duty, or tempt me to shame or sin or apostacy: and let my faith be the parent of a good life, a strong shield to repel the fiery darts of the devil, and the author of a holy hope, of modest desires, of confidence in God, and of a never-failing charity to thee my God, and to all the world; that I may never have my portion with the unbelievers, or uncharitable and desperate persons; but may be supported by the strengths of faith in all temptations, and may be refreshed with the comforts of a holy hope in all my sorrows, and may bear the burden of the Lord, and the infirmities of my neighbour by the support of charity; that the yoke of Jesus may become easy to me, and my love may do all the miracles of grace, till from grace it swell to glory, from earth to heaven, from duty to reward, from the imperfections of a beginning and little growing love, it may arrive to the consummation of an eternal and never-ceasing charity, through Jesus Christ the Son of thy love, the anchor of our hope, and the author and finisher of our faith to whom, with thee, O Lord God, Father of heaven and earth, and with thy Holy Spirit, be all glory, and love, and obedience, and dominion, now and for ever, Amen. Acts of Love by way of Prayer and Ejaculation; to be used in Private. O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: : my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory so, as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Psal. Ixiii. 1, &c. I am ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Acts xxi. 13. How amiable are thy tabernacles, thou Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will still be praising thee. Psal. lxxxiv. 1,2, 4. O blessed Jesu, thou art worthy of all adoration, and all honour, and all love thou art the wonderful, the counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace; of thy government and peace there shall be no end: thou art the brightness of thy Father's glory, the express image of his person, the appointed heir of all things. Thou upholdest all things by the word of thy power; thou didst by thyself purge our sins: thou art set on the right hand of the Majesty on high: thou art made better than the angels; thou hast by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Thou, O dearest Jesus, art the head of the church, the beginning and the first-born from the dead; in all things thou hast the pre-eminence, and it pleased the Father, that in thee should all fulness dwell. Kingdoms are in love with thee: kings lay their crowns and sceptres at thy feet, and queens are thy handmaids, and wash the feet of thy servants. A Prayer to be said in any affliction, as death of Children, of Husband or Wife, in great Poverty, in Imprisonment, in a sad and disconsolate Spirit, and in Temptations to Despair. O eternal God, Father of mercies, and God of all comfort, with much mercy look upon the sadnesses and sorrows of thy servant. My sins lie heavy upon me, and press me sore, and there is no health in my bones by reason of thy displeasure and my sin. The waters are gone over me, and I stick fast in the deep mire, and my miseries are without comfort, because they are punishments of my sin: and I am so evil and unworthy a person, that though I have great desires, yet I have no dispositions or worthiness toward receiving comfort. My sins have caused my sorrow, and my sorrow does not cure my sins and unless for thy own sake, and merely because thou art good, thou shalt pity me and relieve me, I am as much without remedy, as now I am without comfort. Lord, pity me; Lord, let thy grace refresh my spirit. Let thy comforts support me, thy mercy pardon : |