CHAP. 4:

 

ON THE

 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

 

 RELIGION, in a large sense, signifies the whole duty of man, comprehending in it justice, charity, and sobriety; because all these being commanded by GOD, they become parts of that honor and worship which we are bound to pay to him. And thus the word is used in St. James; "Pure religion and undefiled before GOD and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world." But in a more restrained sense it is taken for that part of duty which particularly relates to GOD in our worshipping and adoration of him, in confessing his excellencies, loving his person, admiring his goodness, believing his word, and doing all that which may, in a proper and direct manner, do him honor. It is called godliness, and is by St. Paul distinguished from justice and sobriety. In this sense I am now to explain the parts of it.

 

Of the internal Acts of Religion.

 

 Those I call the internal actions off religion, in which the soul only is employed, and ministers to GOD in the special actions of faith, hope, and charity. Faith believes the revelations of GOD, hope expects his promises, and charity loves his excellencies and mercies. Faith gives our understanding to GOD, hope gives all the affections to heavenly things: and charity gives the will to the service of God. Faith is opposed to infidelity, hope to despair, charity to enmity and hostility. And these three sanctify the whole man, and make our duty to GOD and obedience to his commandments to be chosen, reasonable, and delightful, and therefore to be entire, persevering, and universal.

 

SECT. 1: OF FAITH.

 

The Acts and Offices of Faith are,

 

 1. To believe every thing which GOD has revealed to us; and when once we are convinced that GOD has spoken it, to make no farther inquiry, but humbly to submit, ever remembering that there are some things which our understanding cannot fathom, nor search out their depth.

 

 2. To believe nothing concerning GOD but what is honorable and excellent, as knowing that belief to be no honoring of GOD which entertains of him any dishonorable Thoughts. Faith is the parent of charity, and whatsover faith entertains must be apt to produce love to God. But he that believes GOD to be cruel or unmerciful, or a rejoicer in the unavoidable damnation of the greatest part of mankind, or that he speaks one thing and, privately means another, thinks evil Thoughts concerning GOD, and such as for which we should hate a man, and therefore are great enemies of faith, being apt to destroy charity.

 

 3. To give ourselves wholly up to CHRIST in heart and desire, to become disciples of his doctrine with choice, (besides conviction) being in the presence of GOD but as idiots, that is, without any principles of our own to hinder the truth of God; but sucking in greedily all that GOD has taught us, believing it infinitely, and loving to believe it. For this is an act of love reflected upon faith, or an act of faith leaning upon love.

 

 4. To believe all GOD’s promises, and that whatsoever is promised in Scripture shall on GOD’s part be as surely performed as if we had it in possession. This act makes us to rely upon GOD with the same confidence as we. did on our parents when we were children, when we made no doubt but whatsoever we needed we should have it if it were in their power.

 

 5. To believe also the conditions of the promise, on that part of the revelation which concerns our duty. Many are apt to believe the article of remission of sins, but they believe it without the condition of repentance, or the fruits of a holy life. And that is to believe the article otherwise than GOD intended it. For the covenant of the gospel is the great object of faith, and that supposes our duty to answer his grace; that GOD will be our GOD, so long as we are his people. The other is not faith, but flattery.

 

 6. To pray without doubting, without weariness, without faintness, entertaining no jealousies or suspicions of GOD, but being confident of GOD’s hearing us, and his returns to us, whatsoever the manner or the instance be, that if we do our duty, it will be gracious and merciful. These acts of faith are in several degrees in the servants of JESUS some have it but as a grain of mustard-seed, in some it grows up to a plant, some have the fullness of faith. But the least faith that is must be a persuasion so strong as to make as undertake the doing of all that duty which CHRIST built upon the foundation of believing.

 

Means to increase Faith are,

 

 1. An humble, willing, and docile mind, or desire to be instructed in the ways of God. For persuasion enters like a sun-beam, gently, and without violence; and open but the window and draw the curtain, and the Sun of Righteousness will enlighten Your darkness.

 

 2. Remove all prejudice to every thing which may be contradicted by faith. " How can ye believe," said CHRIST, " that receive praise one of another" An unchaste man cannot easily be brought to believe that without purity he shall never see God. He that loves riches can hardly believe the doctrine of poverty and renunciation of the world. And alms and martyrdom and the doctrine of the cross are folly to him that loves his ease and pleasures. He that has within him any principle contrary to the doctrine of faith, cannot easily become a disciple.

 

 3. Prayer, which is instrumental to-every-thing, has a particular promise in this thing. " He that lacks wisdom let hint ask it of God:" and, " If Thou give good things to Your children, how much more shall Your heavenly Father give his Spirit to them that ask him"

 

 4. In time of temptation be not busy to dispute, but rely upon the conclusion, and throw Thourself upon GOD, and contend not with him. but in prayer, and in the presence and with the help of a prudent untempted guide; and be sure to esteem all changes of belief which offer themselves in the time of Your greatest weakness (contrary to the persuasions of Your best understanding) to be temptations, and reject them accordingly.

 

SECT. 2: Of the Hope of a Christian.

 

Faith differs from hope in the extension of its object, and the intention of degree. St. Austin thus accounts their difference. " Faith is of all things revealed, good and bad, rewards and punishments, of things past, present, and to come, of things that concern us, and of things that concern us not; but hope has for its object things only that are good and fit to be hoped for, future, and concerning ourselves."

 

The Acts of Hope are,

 

 1. To rely upon GOD with a confident expectation of his promises, ever esteeming that every promise of GOD is a magazine of all that grace and relief which we can need in that instance for which the promise is made._ " Every degree of hope is a degree of confidence."

 

 2. To esteem all the danger of an action, and the possibilities of miscarriage, and every cross accident that can intervene, to be no defect on GOD’s part, but either a mercy on his part, or a fault on ours. For then we shall be sure to trust in GOD when we see him to be our confidence, and ourselves the causes of all mischances. “The hope of a Christian is. prudent and religious."

 

 3. To rejoice in the midst of a misfortune or seeming sadness, knowing that this may work for good, and will, if we be not wanting to our souls. This is a direct act of hope, to look through the cloud, and look for a beam of the light from God: and this is called in Scripture, " rejoicing in tribulation," when " the GOD of hope fills us with joy in believing." Every degree of hope brings a degree of joy.

 

 4. To desire, to pray, and to long for the great object of our hope, the mighty prize of our high calling; and to desire the other things of this life as they are promised, that is, so far as they are useful in order to GOD’s glory and the great end of souls. Hope and fasting are said to be the two wings of prayer. Fasting is but as the wing of a bird; but hope is like the wing of an angel soaring up to heaven, and bears our prayers to the throne of grace. without hope it is impossible to pray; but hope makes our prayers reasonable, passionate, and religious; for it relies upon GOD’s promise, or experience, or providente. Prayer is always in proportion to our hope, zealous and affectionate.

 

Rules to govern our Hope.

 

 1. Let Your hope be well founded, relying upon just confidences, that is, upon GOD according to his revelations and promises. For it is impossible for a man to have a vain hope upon God; and in matters of religion, it is presumption to hope, that GOD’s mercies will be poured forth upon lazy persons that do nothing towards holy and strict walking. A hope that is easy and credulous is an arm of flesh, an ill supporter without a bone.

 

 2. Let Your hope be without. vanity, sober, grave, and silent, fixed ed in the heart.

 

 3. Let Your hope be patient, without tediousness of spirit, or hastiness of prefixing time. Make no limits or prescriptions to GOD, but let Your prayers and endeavors go on still with a constant attendance on the periods of GOD’s providence. The men of Bethulia resolved to wait upon GOD but five days longer, but deliverance stayed seven days, and yet came at last.

 

 4. Remember that despair belongs only to passionate fools or villains, (such as were Ahitophel and Judas) or else to devils and damned persons; and as the hope of salvation is a good disposition towards it; so is despair a certain consignation to eternal ruin. A man may be damned for despairing to be saved. Despair is the proper passion of damnation " GOD has placed truth and felicity in heaven; curiosity and repentance -upon earth; but misery and de,-.pair are the portions of hell."

 

 5. Do Thou take care only of thy duty, of the means and proper instruments of thy purpose, and leave the end to God. Lay that up with him, and he will take care of all that is entrusted to him. And this being an act of confidence in Zion, is also a means of security to thee.

 

SECT 3: Of Charity, or the Love of God.

 

 Love is the greatest thing that GOD can give us, for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to GOD, for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the bond of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the law. It does the work of all other graces, without any instrument but its own immediate virtue. For as the love to sin makes a man sin against all his own reason, and all the discourses of wisdom, and all the advises of his friends, and without temptation, and without opportunity; so does the love of God; it makes a man chaste without the laborious arts of fasting and exterior disciplines, temperate in the midst of feasts, and reaches at glory through the very heart of grace, without any other arms but those of love. It is a grace that loves GOD for himself, and our neighbors for God. The consideration of GOD’s goodness and bounty, the experience of those profitable and excellent emanations from him, may be, and most commonly are, the first motive of our love; but when we are once entered, and have tasted the goodness of GOD, we love the spring for its own excellency, passing from passion to reason, from thanking to adoring, from sense to spirit, from considering ourselves to an union with God. And this is the image and little representation of heaven; it is beatitude in picture, or rather the infancy and beginnings of glory.

 

 We need no incentives by way of special enumeration to move us to the love of GOD, for we cannot love any thing for any reason real or imaginary, but that excellence is infinitely more eminent in God. There can but two things create love, perfection and usefulness; to which answer on our part; 1. Admiration; and 2. Desire; and both these are centred in love. For the entertainment of the first, there is in GOD an infinite nature, immensity without limit, immutability, eternity, omnipotence, onmiscience, holiness, dominion, providence, bounty, mercy, justice, perfection in himself, and the end to which all things and all actions must be directed, and will at last arrive. But for the entertainment of the second, we may consider that in him is a torrent of pleasure for the voluptuous, he is the fountain of honor for the ambitious, an inexhaustible treasure for the covetous. Our vices are in love with phantastic pleasures and images of perfection, which are truly to be found no where but in God. And therefore our virtues have such proper objects, that it is but reasonable they should all turn into love; for certain it is, that this love will turn all into virtue.

 

The Acts of Love to GOD are,

 

 1. Love does all things which may please the beloved person, it performs all his commandments; and this is one of the greatest instances and arguments of our love that GOD requires of us, " This is love, that we keep his commandments." Love is obedient.

 

 2. It does all the intimations and secret significations of his pleasure whom we love; and this is an argument of a great degree of it. The first instance is, it makes the love accepted; but this gives a greatness and singularity to it.

 

 3. Love gives away all things, that so he may advance the interest of the beloved person. He never loved GOD that will quit any thing of his religion to save his money. Love is always liberal and communicative.

 

 4. It suffers all things that are imposed by its beloved, or that can happen for his sake, or that intervene in his service, cheerfully, sweetly, willingly, expecting that GOD should turn them into good; " charity hopes all things, endures all things." Love is patient and content with any thing, so it be with its beloved.

 

 5. Love is also impatient of any thing that may displease the beloved person, hating all sin as the enemy of its friend; for love contracts all the same relations, and marries the sane friendships and the same hatreds; and all affection to a sin is perfectly inconsistent with the love of God. Love is not divided between GOD and GOD’s enemy. We must love GOD with all our hearts, that is, give him a whole and undivided affection, having love for nothing else but such things as he allows, and which he commands or loves himself.

 

 6. Love endeavors for ever to be present, to converse with, to enjoy, to be united with its object, loves to be talking of him, reciting his praises, telling his stories, repeating his words, imitating his gestures, transcribing his copy in every thing; and every degree of union, and every degree of likeness, is a degree of love; and it can endure any thing but the displeasure and the absence of its beloved. For we are not to use GOD and religion as men use perfumes, with which they are delighted when they have them, but can very well be without them. True charity is restless till it enjoy God; it, is like hunger and thirst, it must be fed or it cannot be answered; and nothing can supply the presence, or make recompense for the absence of GOD, or of the effects of his favor, and the light of his countenance.

 

 7. True love in all accidents looks upon the beloved person, and observes his countenance, and how he approves or disapproves it, and accordingly looks sad or cheerful. He that loves GOD is not displeased at those accidents which GOD chooses, nor murmurs at those changes which he makes in his family, nor is envious at. those gifts he bestows; but Chooses as he likes, and is ruled by his judgment, and is perfectly of his persuasion; loving to learn where GOD is the teacher, and being content to be ignorant or silent where he is not pleased to open himself.

 

 8. Love is curious of little things, not allowing to itself any infirmity which it strives not to master, aiming at what-it-cannot yet reach, desiring to be of an angelical purity, and of a perfect innocence, and a seraphical fervour, and fears every image of offence; is as much afflicted at an idle word, as some at an act of adultery, and will not allow to itself so much anger as will disturb a child, nor endure the impurity of a dream. And this is the niceness of divine love; this is the fear of GOD, the daughter and production of love.

 

The Measures and Rules of Divine Love.

 

 But because this passion is pure as the brightest and smoothest mirror, and therefore is apt to be sullied with every impure breath, we must be careful that our love to GOD be governed by these measures

 

 1. That our love be sweet, even, and full of tranquility, going on in a course of holy actions and duties, which are proportionable to our condition; not to satisfy all the desires, but all the probabilities and measures of our strength.

 

 2. That our love be prudent and without illusion; that is, express itself in such instances as GOD has chosen, or which we choose ourselves by proportion to his rules and measures. Love turns into doting, when religion turns into superstition. No degree of love can be imprudent, but the expressions may; we cannot love GOD too much, but we may proclaim it in indecent manners.

 

 3. That our love be firm, constant, and inseparable; not coming and returning like the tide, but descending like a never-failing river, ever running into the ocean of divine excellency, passing on in the channels of duty and constant obedience, and never ceasing to be what it is, till it comes to what it desires to be; still being a river till it be turned into sea, even the immensity of a blessed eternity.

 

Helps to increase our Love to God.

 

 1. Cut off all earthly and sensual loves, for they pollute and unhallow the pure and spiritual love. Every degree of inordinate affection to the things of this world, and every act of love to a sin, is a perfect enemy to the love of God; and it is a great shame to take any part of our affections from the eternal GOD, to bestow it upon a creature; or to give it to the devil, our open enemy, in disparagement of him who is the fountain of all excellencies.

 

 2. Remove worldly cares; and multitudes of secular .businesses; for if these take up our Thoughts, they will also possess our passions, which if they be filled with one object, cannot attend to another.

 

 3. Converse with GOD by frequent prayer. In particular, desire that Your desires may be right, and love to have Your affections regular and holy. To which purpose make very frequent addresses to GOD by ejaculations, and an assiduous daily devotion. Discover to him all Your wants, complain to him of all Your affronts; do as Hezekiah did,, lay Your misfortunes and Your ill news before him, " spread them before the Lord;" call to, him for health, run to him for counsel, beg of him for pardon; and it is as natural to love him to whom we make such addresses, and on whom we have such dependences, as it is for children to love their parents.

 

 4. Consider the immensity of the Divine love to us. expressed in all the emanations of his providence. 1. In his creation. 2. In his conservation of us. For it is not my prince, or my patron, or my friend that supports me, or relieves my needs; but GOD, who made the corn that my friend sends me, and supported him who has as many natural necessities as myself. GOD indeed made him the instrument of his providence to me, as he has made his own land or his own cattle to him; with this only difference, that GOD by his ministration to me, in tends to do him a favor, and to grant him a reward; which to natural instruments he does not. 3. In giving his Son. 4. In forgiving our sins. 5. In adopting us to glory; and ten Thousand times ten Thousand little instances in the doing every one of these; and it is not possible, but for so great love, we should give love again; for GOD we should give man, for felicity we should part with our misery. Nay, so great is the love of the holy JESUS, GOD incarnate, that he would leave all his triumphant glories, and die once more for man, if it were necessary for procuring felicity to him.

 

The two States of Love to God.

 

 The least love that is must be obedient, pure, simple, and communicative; that is, it must exclude all affection to sin, and all inordinate affection to the world, and must be expressive according to our power in the instances of duty, and must be love for love's sake. And of this love martyrdom is the highest instance, that is, a readiness of mind rather to suffer any evil than do any. Of this our blessed Savior affirmed, "That no man had greater love than this;" that is, this is the highest point of duty, the greatest love that GOD requires of man. And yet he that is the most imperfect must have this love also, and must differ from another in nothing, except in the degrees of promptness and alacrity.

 

 But the greater state of love is the zeal of love; concerning which these cautions are to be observed.

 

 1. If zeal be short, sudden, and transient, or be a consequent of a man's natural temper, it is to be suspected.

 

 2. That zeal is only good, which, in a fervent love, has temperate expressions., For let the affection boil as high as it can, yet if it boil over into irregular and strange actions, it will have but few, but will need many excuses. Elisha was zealous for the Lord of Hosts, and yet he was so transported with it, that he could not receive answer from GOD, till by music he was composed and tamed. And Moses broke both the tables of the law by being passionately zealous against them that brake the first.

 

 3. Zeal must spend its greatest heat in those things that concern ourselves; but with great care and restraint in those that concern others.

 

 4. Remember that zeal, being an excrescence of Divine

 

love, must in no sense contradict any action of love. Love to GOD includes love to our neighbor, and therefore no pretence of zeal for GOD’s glory, must make us uncharitable to our brother.

 

 5. Zeal may be let loose in the instances of internal, personal, and spiritual actions, that are matters of direct duty; as in prayers, and acts of adoration, and thanksgiving, and frequent addresses. Do all the parts of Your duty as earnestly as if the salvation of all the world, and the whole glory of GOD, and the confusion of all devils, and all that Thou hope or desire, did depend upon every action.

 

Of the external actings of Religion.

 

 Religion teaches us to present to GOD our bodies as well as our souls; for GOD is the Lord of both. The actions of the body, as it serves to religion, and as it is distinguished from sobriety and justice, are; 1. Reading and hearing the word of God. 2. Fasting and corporal austerities, called by St. Paul, bodily exercise. 3. Feasting, or keeping days of public joy and thanksgiving.

 

SECT. 4: Of Reading or Hearing the Word of God.

 

Reading and hearing the Word of GOD are but the several circumstances of the same duty; instrumental especially to faith, but consequently to all other graces of the Spirit.

 

 1. The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons.

 

 2. All the doctrine of salvation is plainly set down there, that the most unlearned person, by hearing it read, may understand all his duty. What can be plainer spoken than this, G1 Thou shall not kill." " Be not drunk with wine." " Husbands, love Your wives." " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto Thou, do ye so to them." The wit of man cannot more plainly tell us our duty, or more fully, than the Holy Ghost has done already.

 

 3. Good sermons and good books are of excellent use; but yet they can serve no other end but to bring us to practice the plain doctrines of Scripture. And concerning such books and ordinary sermons, take this advice: let not a prejudice to any man's person hinder thee from receiving good by his doctrine, if it be according to godliness.

 

SECT. 5:

 

Of Fasting.

 

 Fasting, if it be considered in itself without relation to spiritual ends, is a duty no where enjoined. But Christianity has to do with it, as it may be made an instrument of the Spirit, by subduing the lusts of the flesh, or removing hindrances of religion. And it has been practiced by all ages of the church, and advised in order 1. To prayer. 2. To mortification of bodily lusts. 3. To repentance: and it is to be practiced according to the following measures.

 

 1. Fasting, in order to prayer, is to be measured by the proportions of the times of prayer: that is, it ought to be a total fast from all things during the solemnity.

 

 2. Fasting, when it is in order to prayer, must be a total abstinence from all meat, or else an abatement of the quantity; for the help which fasting does to prayer cannot be served by changing flesh into fish, or milk-meats into dry diet; but by turning much into little, or little into none at all, during the time of solemn and extraordinary prayer.

 

 3. Fasting, as it is instrumental to prayer, must be attended with other aids of the like virtue; such as are removing for the time all worldly cares and secular businesses. To which add alms, for upon the wings of fasting and alms, holy prayer mounts up to heaven.

 

 4. Fasting designed for repentance, must be ever joined with an extreme care that we abstain from sin; for there is no greater folly in the world, than to commit that for which I am now judging and condemning myself.

 

 5. When fasting is an act of mortification, that is, is intended to subdue fleshly lusts and irregular appetites, it must not be a sudden, sharp, and violent fast, but a state of fasting, a diet of fasting, a daily lessening our portion of meat and drink, and a choosing such a coarse diet which may make the least preparation for the lusts of the body.

 

 6. Fasting alone will not cure this devil, Though it helps towards it; but it must not therefore be neglected, but assisted by all the proper instruments.of remedy against this unclean spirit; and what it is unable to do alone, in company with other instruments, and GOD’s blessing upon them, it may effect.

 

 7. All fasting, for whatsoever. end it be undertaken, must be done without any opinion of the. necessity of the thing itself, without censuring others, with all humility, in order to the proper end; and just as a man takes physic, of which no man has reason to be proud, and no man thinks it necessary, but because he is in sickness, or in danger of it.

 

 8. All fasts ordained by lawful authority are to be observed in order to the same purposes to which they are enjoined; and to be accompanied with actions of the same nature, just as it is in private fasts; for there is no other difference, but that in public our superiors choose for us what in private we do for ourselves.

 

He that undertakes to enumerate the benefits of fasting, may in-the next page also reckon all the benefits of physic. For fasting is not to be commended as a duty, but as an instrument; and in that sense no man can reprove it, or undervalue it, but he that knows neither spiritual arts, nor spiritual necessities. But by the doctors of the church it is called the nourishment of prayer, the restraint of lust, the wings of the soul, the diet of angels, the instrument of humility and self-denial, the purification of the spirit; and the paleness which is consequent to the daily fast of great mortifiers, is by St. Basil said to be the mark in the forehead, which the angel observed when he signed the sainta_in the forehead to escape the wrath of God.

 

SECT. VI

 

Of keeping Festivals, and Days holy to the Lord; particularly the Lord's Day.

 

 TRUE natural religion, that which was common to all nations and ages, did principally rely upon four great propositions. 1. That there is one God. 2. That GOD is nothing of those things which we see. 3. That GOD takes care of all things below, and governs all the world. 4. That he is the great Creator of all things; and according to these were framed the four first precepts of the decalogue. In the first, the unity of the Godhead is expressly affirmed. In the second, his invisibility and immateriality. In the third, is affirmed GOD’s government and providence, by avenging them that- swear falsely by his name; by which also his omniscience is declared. In the fourth commandment he proclaims himself the Maker of heaven and earth; for in memory of GOD’s rest from the work of six days, the seventh was hallowed into a sabbath; and the keeping it was a confessing GOD to be the great Maker of heaven and earth, and consequently to this, it also was a confession of his goodness, his omnipotence, and his wisdom, all which were written with a sun-beam in the great book of the creature.

 

 GOD’s rest was a natural cessation. He who could not labor, -could not be said to rest; but GOD’s rest is to be.understood to be a beholding and a rejoicing in his work finished; and therefore we truly represent GOD’s rest, when we confess and rejoice in GOD’s works and GOD’s glory. This the Christian church does upon every day, but especially upon the Lord's day, which she has set apart for this, and all other offices of religion, being determined to this day by the resurrection. of her Lord, it being the first day of joy the church ever had. And now upon the Lord's day we are not tied to the rest of the Sabbath, but to all the work of the Sabbath; and we are to abstain from bodily labor, not because it is a direct duty to us, as it was to the Jews; but because it is necessary in order to our duty that we may attend to the offices of religion.

 

 The observation of the Lord's day differs nothing from the observation of the Sabbath in the matter of religion, but in the manner. They differ in the ceremony and external right; rest with then was the principal; with us it is the accessory. They differ in the office or forms of worship. For they were then to worship GOD as a Creator and - a gentle Father; we are to add to that, worshipping him as our Redeemer, and for all his other excellencies -and mercies.

 

Rules for keeping the Lord's Day, and other Christian Festivals.

 

 1. When Thou go about to distinguish festival days from common, do it not by lessening the devotions of ordinary days, that the common devotion may seem larger upon festivals; but on every day keep Your ordinary devotions entire, and enlarge upon the holy day.

 

 2. Upon the Lord's day we must abstain from all servile works, except such as are matters of necessity, or, of great charity; for these are permitted by that authority which has separated the day for holy uses. The Sabbath of the Jews, Though consisting principally in rest, and established by GOD, did yield to these. The labor of love and the labors of religion were not against the commandment. The priests might kill their beasts and dress them for sacrifice:; and CHRIST, Though born under the law, might heal a sick man; and the sick man might carry his bed to witness his recovery, and confess the mercy, and leap and dance to GOD for joy.

 

 3. The Lord's day, being the remembrance of a great blessing, must be a day of spiritual rejoicing and thanksgiving; and therefore it is a proper work' of the day, to let Your devotions spend themselves in singing or reading psalms, in recounting the great works of GOD, in remembering his mercies, in worshipping his excellencies, in celebrating his attributes, in admiring his person, in sending portions of meat to them for whom nothing is provided, and in all the arts and instruments of advancing GOD’s glory, and the reputation of religion, in which it were a great decency, that a memorial of the resurrection should be inserted, that the particular religion of the day may not-be swallowed up in the general. And of this we may the more easily serve ourselves, by rising seasonably in the morning to private devotion, and by retiring at the leisures and spaces of the day, not employed in public offices.

 

 4. Fail-not to be present at the public hours and places of prayer, entering early and cheerfully, attending -reverently and devoutly, abiding patiently during- the whole office, piously assisting at the prayers, and gladly also hearing the sermon; and at no hand omiting to receive the holy communion when it is offered, this being the great solemnity of thanksgiving, and a proper work of the day.

 

 5. After the solemnities are past, and in the intervals between the morning and evening devotion, (as Thou shall find opportunity) visit sick persons, reconcile differences, inquire into the needs of the poor, especially housekeepers, relieve them as they shall need, and as Thou are able; for then we truly rejoice in GOD, when we make our neighbors, the poor members of CHRIST, rejoice together with us.

 

 6. Whatsoever Thou are to. do Thourself as necessary, Thou are to take care that others also, who are under Your charge, do in their station. Let Your servants be called to church, and all Your family that can be spared, those that cannot let them go by turns, and be supplied otherwise as well as they may; and provide on these days especially that they be instructed in the necessary parts of their duty.

 

 7. What the church has done in. the article of the resurrection, she has in' some measure done in the other articles of the nativity, of the ascension, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost at pentecost; and so great blessings deserve an anniversary solemnity; since he is a very unthankful person that does not often record them in the whole year, and esteem them the ground of his hopes, the object of his faith, the. comfort of his troubles, and the great effluxes of the Divine mercy, greater than all the victories over our temporal enemies, for which all glad persons usually give thanks. And if with great reason the memory of the resurrection does return solemnly every week, it is but reason. the other should return once a year. To which I add, that the commemoration of the articles of our creed in solemn days and offices, is a very excellent instrument to. convey and imprint the sense and memory of it upon the spirits of the most ignorant persons.

 

 8. The memories of the saints are precious to GOD, and therefore they ought also to be so' to us; and such persons who served GOD by holy living, industrious preaching, and religious dying, ought to have their names preserved in honor, and GOD to be glorified in them; and their holy doctrines and lives published and imitated; "and we by so doing give testimony to the article’of the communion of saints. But in these cases, as every church is, to be sparing in the number of days, so also should she- be temperate in her injunction, not imposing them but upon voluntary and unbusied persons, without snare or burden. But the holy day is best kept by giving GOD thanks for the excellent persons, apostles or martyrs,' whom we then remember, and by imitating their lives. This all may do, and they that can also keep the solemnity, must do that too when it is publicly enjoined.

 

Rules for the Practice of Prayer.

 

 1. We must be careful that we never ask any thing of GOD that is sinful, or ministers to sin; for that is to ask GOD to dishonor himself, and to undo us. We had need to consider for what we pray, for before it returns in blessing it must be joined with CHRIST's intercession, and presented to God.

 

 2. We may lawfully pray to GOD for the gifts of the Spirit that minister to holy ends; such as are the gift of, preaching, the spirit of prayer, good expression, good understanding, learning, -opportunities to publish them, &c. with these only restraints. 1. That we cannot be confident" of the event of those prayers. 2. That-we must secure our intention in these desires, that we may not ask them to serve our own ends, but only for GOD’s glory. 3. We must submit to GOD’s will, desiring him to choose our employment, and to furnish our persons as he shall see expedient.

 

 3. Whatsoever we may lawfully desire of temporal things, we may lawfully ask of GOD in prayer, and we may expect them’ as they are promised. 1. Whatsoever is necessary to our life and being is promised to us; and therefore we may with certainty expect food and raiment. 2. Whatsoever is convenient for us we may pray for, if we do it, (1.) With submission to GOD’s will. (2.) without impatient desires. (3.) That it be not a trifle and inconsiderable, but a matter so grave and concerning, as to be a fit matter to be treated on between GOD and our souls. (4.) That we ask it not to spend upon our lusts, but for ends of justice, or charity, or religion, and that it be employed with sobriety.

 

 4. He that would pray with effect must live with care and piety. For although GOD gives to sinners and evil persons the common blessings of life; yet either they want the comfort and blessing of those blessings, or these things become occasions of sadder accidents to them.

 

 5. All prayer must be made with faith and hope that is, we must certainly believe we shall receive the grace which GOD has commanded us to ask, and we must hope for such things as he has permitted us to ask; and our hope shall not be vain, Though we do not obtain what is not absolutely promised, because we shall at least have an equal blessing in "the denial, as in the grant.

 

 6. Our prayers must be earnest and importunate, when we pray for things of high concernment and necessity. Continuing instant in prayer; striving in prayer; laboring fervently in prayer; praying always with all prayer." So St. Paul speaks; " Watching unto prayer." So St. Peter; GQ Praying earnestly', So St. James. And this is not at all to be abated in matters of duty; for according as our desires are, so are our prayers; and as our prayers are, so shall be the grace; and as that is, so shall be the measure of glory.

 

 7. Our desires must be lasting, and our prayers continual; not asking for a blessing once, and then leaving it, but daily renewing our suits, and exercising our hope, and faith, and patience, and long-suffering, and resignation, and self-denial in all the degrees we shall be put to.

 

 8. Let the words of our prayers be pertinent, grave, material, riot studiously many, but according to our need, sufficient to, express our wants, and to signify our importunity.

 

 9. In all forms of prayer mingle petition with thanksgiving, that Thou may endear the present prayer, and the future blessing, by returning praise and thanks for what Thou have already received. This is St. Paul's advice, "Be. careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let Your requests be made known unto God."

 

 1O. Whatever we beg of GOD, let us also work for it, if the thing be matter of duty, or a consequent to industry. For GOD loves to bless labor and to reward it, but not to support- idleness. Read the Scriptures, and then pray to GOD for understanding. Pray' against temptation; but Thou must also resist the devil, and then he will flee From Thou. Ask of GOD competency of living: but Thou must also " work with Your hands the things that are honest,, that ye may have to supply in time of need." We can but do our endeavor, and. pray for a blessing, and then leave the success with God; and beyond this we cannot take care, but so far' we must.

 

 11. To this purpose let every man study his prayers, and read his duty in his petitions. For the body of our prayer is the sum, of our duty; and as we must ask of GOD whatsoever we need; so we must labor for all that we ask. Because it is our duty, therefore we must pray for GOD’s grace.; but because GOD’s grace is necessary; and without it we can do nothing, we are sufficiently taught, that in the proper matter of our religious prayers is the just matter of. our duty; and if we turn our prayers into precepts, we shall the easier turn our hearty desires into effective practices.

 

 12. In all our prayers we must be careful to attend our present work, having a present mind, riot wandering upon impertinent things, not distant from our words; by all means striving to obtain a diligent, a sober, an untroubled, and a composed spirit.

 

SECT. 8:

 

Of Alms.

 

 Maucy and alms are the body and soul of that charity which we must pay to our neighbor's need; and it is a precept with GOD, therefore enjoined to the world, that the great inequality which he was pleased to suffer in the possessions of men, might be reduced to some evenness.

 

Works of Mercy, or the several Kinds of corporal Alms.

 

 The works of mercy are so many as the world has kinds of misery. Men want meat, or drink, or clothes, or a house, or liberty, or attendance, or a grave. In proportion to these, seven works are usually assigned to mercy, and there are seven kinds of corporal alms reckoned: 1. To feed the hungry. 2. To give drink to the thirsty. 3. Or clothes to the naked. 4. To redeem captives. 5. To-visit the sick. 6. To entertain strangers. 7. To bury the dead. But many more may be added such as are, 8. To give physick to sick persons. 9. To bring cold and starved people to warmth and to the fire; for sometimes clothing will not do it; or this maybe done when we cannot do the other. 1O. To lead the blind in right ways. 11. To lend money. 12. To forgive debts. 13. To remit forfeitures. 14. To mend highways and bridges. 15. To reduce or guide wandering travelers. 16. To ease their labors by accommodating their work with apt instruments, or their journies with beasts of carriage. 17. To deliver the poor from their oppressors. 18. To die for our brethren. 19. To pay maidens' dowries, and to procure for them honest and chaste marriages.

 

Works of spiritual mercy, are,

 

 1. To teach the ignorant. 2. To counsel doubtful persons. 3. To admonish sinners diligently, prudently, seasonably, and charitably; to which also may be reduced provoking -and encouraging to good works. 4. To comfort the afflicted. - 5. To pardon offenders. 6. To support the weak. 7. To pray for all estates of men, and for relief to all their necessities. To which may be added, 8. To punish or correct refractoriness. 9. To be gentle and Sharitablc in censuring the actions of others. 1O. To establish the scrupulous, wavering, and inconstant spirits. 11. To confirm the strong.

 

 To both these kinds a third also may be added of a mixed nature, partly corporal, and partly spiritual. Such are, 1. Reconciling enemies. 2. Erecting public schools of learning. 3. Maintaining lectures of divinity. 4. Erecting colleges of religion and retirement from the temptations of the world. 5. Finding employment for unemployed persons, and putting children to honest trades. Alms in general are to be disposed of according to the

 

following rules:

 

 1. Let no man do alms of that which is not his own; for of that he is to make restitution; that is due to the owners, not to the poor. This is not to be understood as if it were unlawful for a man that is not able to pay his debts, to give smaller alms to the poor. He may not give such portions as can in any sense more disable him to do justice; but such which, if they were saved, could not advance the other duty, may retire to this, and do here what they may, since in the other duty they cannot do what they should.

 

 2. He that gives alms must do it in mercy; that is, out of a true sense of the calamity of his brother, first feeling it in himself in some proportion, and then endeavoring to ease himself and the other of their common calamity. Against this rule they offend who give alms out of custom, or to upbraid the poverty of another, or to make him mercenary and obliged, or with any unhandsome circumstances.

 

 3. He that gives alms must do it with a single eye and heart that is, without design to get the praise of men. And if he secures that, he may either give them publicly or privately; for CHRIST intended only to provide against pride and hypocrisy, when he bid alms to be given in secret; it being otherwise one of his commandments, that our light should shine before men;" this is more excellent, that is more safe.

 

 4. Give alms with a cheerful heart and countenance, "'not grudgingly or of necessity, for GOD loves a cheerful giver;" and therefore give quickly when the power is in thy hand, and the need is in thy neighbor, and thy neighbor at thy door. He gives twice that relieves speedily.

 

 5. According to thy ability, give to all men that need and in equal needs give first to good men, rather than to bad men.

 

 6. Give no alms to vicious persons, if such alms will support their sin; as if they will continue in idleness; ("if they will not work, neither let them cat;") or if

 

they will spend it in drunkenness or wantonness; such persons, when they are reduced to very great want, must be relieved in such proportions as may not relieve their dying lust, but may refresh their faint or dying bodies. 

 

 7. The best objects of charity are poor house-keepers, that labor hard and are burdened with many children; or gentlemen fallen into sad poverty, especially if by innocent misfortune; persecuted persons,, widows, and fatherless children, putting them to honest trades, or schools of learning. And search into the needs of numerous and meaner families; for there are many persons that have nothing left them but misery and modesty; and towards_ such we must add two circumstances of charity. 1. To inquire them out. 2. To convey our relief to them so as not to make them ashamed.

 

 8. Trust not Your alms to under-dispensers; by which rule is not only intended the securing Your alms in the right channel; but the humility of Your person, and that which the apostle calls the "labor of love." Arid if Thou converse in hospitals and alms-houses, and minister with Your own hand what Your heart has first decreed, Thou will find Your heart endeared andd made familiar with the needs and with the persons of the poor, those excellent images of CHRIST.

 

 9. If Thou halt no money, yet Thou must have mercy; and art bound to pity the poor, arid pray for them, and throw thy holy desires into the treasure of the church. And if Thou dost what Thou art able, be it little or great, corporal or spiritual, the charity of alms, or the charity of prayers; a cup’of wine, or a cup of water, if it be but " love to the brethren," or a desire to help all or any of CHRIST's poor, it shall be "accepted according to what a man has, not according to what he has not." For love is all this, and all the other commandments.; and it will express itself where it can; and where it cannot, yet it is love still, and it is also sorrow that it cannot.

 

SECT. VIII.

 

Of Repentance, (taken in the full Sense of the Word)

 

 Repentance, of all things in the world, makes the greatest change; it changes things in heaven and earth; for it changes the whole man from sin to grace, from vicious habits to holy customs, from unchaste bodies to angelical souls, from swine to philosophers, from drunkenness to sober counsels. And GOD himself, with whom is' no variableness or shadow of change, is pleased, by descending to our weak understandings, to say that he changes also upon man's repentance, that he alters his decrees, revokes his sentence, cancels the bills of accusation, throws the records of shame and sorrow from the court of heaven, and lifts up the sinner from the grave to life, from his prison to a throne, from hell and the guilt of eternal torture, to heaven and to a title to never ceasing felicities. If we be absolved here, we shall be loosed there; if we repent, GOD will repent, and not send the evil upon us which we had deserved.

 

 But this repentance contains in it all the parts of a holy life, from the time of our return to the day of our death. For there is but one repentance in a man's whole life, if repentance be taken in the proper and strict evangelical sense. That is, we are but once to change our whole state of life from tile power of the devil and his entire possession, from the state of sin and death, to the life of grace, to the possession of JESUS, to the kingdom of the gospel. After this change, if ever we fall into the contrary state, and be wholly estranged from GOD and religion, and profess ourselves servants of unrighteousness, GOD has made no more covenant of restitution to us, there is no place left' for any more repentance, or entire change of condition. But if we be overtaken by infirmity, or commit a grievous sin, we are for the present in a damnable condition, if we die; but if we live, we are in a recoverable condition; for so we may repent often. We repent or rise from death but once; but from sickness many times; and by the grace of GOD we shall be pardoned, if we so repent..

 

Acts and Parts of Repentance.

 

 I. He that repents truly is greatly sorrowful for his past sins; not with a superficial sigh or tear, but an afflictive sorrow; such a sorrow as hates the sin so much that the man would choose to die. rather than act it any more. We may read the degree and manner of it by the lamentations of the prophet Jeremy, when he wept for the sins of the nation; by the heart-breaking of David; and the bitter weeping of St. Peter, after the shameful denying of his Master. The expression of this sorrow differs according to the temper of the body, the. sex, the age, and by many accidental tendernesses, or masculine hardnesses;, and the repentance is not to be estimated by the tears, but by the grief; and the grief is to be valued not by the sensitive trouble, but by the cordial hatred of the sin, and ready actual dereliction of it, and a real resisting its consequent temptations. Some people can shed tears for nothing, sonic for any thing. But the proper and true effects of a godly sorrow are, Fear of the Divine judgments, apprehension of GOD’s displeasure, watchings and strivings against sin, patiently enduringg the cross of sorrow, (which GOD sends as their punishment,) in accusation of ourselves in perpetually begging ardon, in mean and base opinions of ourselves, and in all the natural productions from these, according to our temper and constitution. For if we be apt to weep in other accidents, it is ill if we weep. not also in. the sorrows of repentance; not that weeping is of itself a duty, but that the sorrow, if it be as great, will be still expressed in as great a manner.

 

 2. Every true penitent is obliged to confess his sins, and to humble himself before GOD for ever. Confession of sins has a special promise. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins:" meaning, that GOD has bound himself to forgive us, if we duly confess our sills, and do all that for which confession was appointed; that is, be ashamed of them, and commit them no more. For confession of our sins to GOD can signify nothing of itself, in its direct nature. He sees us when we act them, and keeps a record of them; and we forget them, unless he reminds us of them by his grace. So that to confess them to GOD does not punish us, or make us ashamed; but confession to him, if it proceeds from shame and sorrow, and is an act of humility and self-condemnation, and is a laying open our wounds for cure, then it is a duty GOD delights in. In all which circumstances we may very much be helped if we take in the assistance of a spiritual guide.

 

 3. Every man is to work out his salvation with fear and trembling; and after the commission of sins his fears must multiply; because every new sin, and every great declining from the ways of GOD, is still a degree of new danger, and has increased GOD’s anger; and it may be, the last sin Thou committed made GOD unalterably resolved to send upon Thou some sad judgment.' Of the particulars in all cases we are uncertain; and therefore 'we have reason always to mourn for our sins, that have so provoked GOD, and made our condition so full of danger, that it may be no prayers or tears can alter his sentence concerning some judgment upon-us. Thus God irrevocably decreed to punish the Israelites for idolatry, although Moses prayed for them, and GOD forgave them in some degree; that is, so that he would not cut them off from being a people; yet he would not forgive them so, but he would visit that their sin upon them.

 

 4. After the beginnings of thy recovery, be infinitely fearful of a relapse; and therefore, upon the stock, of thy sad experience, observe where thy failings were, and arm against that temptation. For if all those arguments which GOD uses to us to preserve our innocence, and thy late danger, and thy fears, and the goodness of GOD making thee once to escape, and the shame of thy fall, and the sense of thy own weaknesses, will not make thee watchful against a fall, especially knowing how much it costs a man to be restored, it will be infinitely more dangerous if ever Thou fallest again; not only for fear.God should no more accept thee to pardon, but even thy own hopes will be made more desperate, and thy impatience greater, and thy shame may turn to impudence, and thy own will be more estranged, violent and refractory; and. thy latter end be worse than thy beginning. To which add this consideration, that thy sin, which was once pardoned, will not only return upon thee with all its own loads, but with the baseness of unthankfulness, and Thou wilt be set as far back from heaven as ever; and all thy former labors, and fears, and watchings and agonies -will be reckoned for nothing, but as arguments to up-braid thy folly, who, when Thou hadst set one foot in heaven, didst pull that back and carry both to hell.

 

Motives to Repentance.

 

 I shall use no other arguments to move a sinner to repentance, but to tell him,. unless he does, he shall certainly perish; and if he does repent and believe, he shall be forgiven and saved. But yet I desire that this consideration may be enlarged with some great circa instances; and let us remember,

 

 1. That to admit mankind to repentance and pardon, was a favor greater than ever GOD gave to the angels; for they were never admitted to the condition of second Thoughts; CHRIST never groaned one groan for them; he never suffered one stripe nor, one affront; nor shed one drop of blood to restore them to hopes of blessedness after their first failings. But this he did for us; he paid the score of our sins, only that we might be admitted to repent, and, that this repentance might be effectual to the great purposes of salvation

 

 2. Consider, that as it cost CHRIST many millions of prayers, and groans, and sighs, so he is now at this instant, and, hath been. for these 16OO years, night and day, incessantly praying for grace to. us that we may repent, and for pardon when we do,' and this prayer he will continue till his second coming; " He ever lives to make intercession for us." And that we may know what it is in behalf of.which he intercedes, St.. Paul tells us his design, "We are ambassadors for CHRIST, as Though he did beseech Thou by us, we pray Thou in CHRIST's stead -to be reconciled to God." And what CHRIST prays us to do, he prays to GOD that we may do; that which he desires of us as his servants, he desires of GOD, who is the fountain of grace and power unto us, and without whose

 

assistance we can do nothing.

 

 3, That ever we should repent, was so costly a purchase, and so high a favor, that the event is esteemed by GOD himself so great an excellency, that our blessed Savior tells us, " That there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth:" meaning, that when CHRIST should be glorified, and at the right hand of his Father, make intercession for us, praying for our repentance, the repentance of every sinner should be part of CHRIST's glorification. It is the answering of his prayers, it is a portion of his reward in which he does essentially glory by the joys of his glorified humanity. This is the joy of our Lord himself directly, not of the angels, save only by reflection: the joy,. said our blessed Savior, shall be in the presence of the angels; they shall see the glory of the Lord, the answering of his prayers, the satisfaction of his desires, and the reward of his sufferings, in the repentance and pardon of a sinner. For therefore he once suffered, and for that reason he rejoices for ever. And therefore when a penitent sinner comes to receive the effect of his pardon, it is called an C entering into the joy of our Lord," that is, a partaking of that joy which CHRIST received at our conversion, and has enjoyed ever since.

 

 4. Add to this, that the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious, and CHRIST's burden is so light, his yoke is so easy, that it is a shameless impudence to expect so great glories at a less rate than a holy life. It cost the blood of the Son of GOD to obtain heaven for us upon that condition; and who shall die again to get heaven for us upon easier terms What would Thou do if GOD should command Thou to kill Your eldest son, or to work in the mines for a Thousand years together, or to fast all Your life-time with bread and water Were not heaven a very great bargain even after all this And when GOD requires nothing of us but to live soberly, justly, and godly," (which things of themselves are to a man a very great felicity,) shall we think this to be an intolerable burden, and that heaven is too little a purchase at that price; and that GOD in mere justice will take a death-bed sigh.or groan, and a few tears and promises, in exchange for all our duty

 

SECT. 9:

 

Of Preparation for, and the Manner horn to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

 

 THE celebration of the holy sacrament is the great mysteriousness of the Christian religion, and succeeds to the most solemn rite of natural and judicial religion, the law of sacrificing. For GOD spared mankind, and took the sacrifice of beasts, together with our solemn prayers for an instrument of expiation. But these could not purify the soul from sin, but were typical of the sacrifice of something that could. But nothing could do this, but either the offering of all that sinned, that every man should be the anathema, or devoted thing; or else by some of the same capacity, who by some superadded excellency, might, in his own personal sufferings, have a value great enough to satisfy for the whole kind of sinning persons. This, the Son of GOD, JESUS CHRIST, GOD and man, undertook and finished, by a sacrifice of himself upon the cross.

 

 2. This sacrifice, because it was perfect, could be but one, and that once: but because the needs of the world should last as long as the world itself, it was necessary that there should be a- perpetual ministry established, whereby this one sufficient sacrifice should be made eternally effectual to the several new-arising needs of all the world who should desire it, or be capable of it.

 

 3. To this end CHRIST was made a priest for ever. He was consecrated on the cross, and there began his priesthood, which was to last till his coming to judgment. It began on earth, but was to last, and be officiated in heaven, where he sits perpetually representing and exhibiting to the Father that great effective sacrifice, which he offered on the cross, to eternal and never-failing purposes.

 

 4. As CHRIST is pleased to represent to his Father that great sacrifice as a mean of atonement and expiation for all mankind, and with special purposes and intendment for all the elect, all that serve him in holiness; so he has appointed that the same ministry shall be done upon earth too, in our manner, and according to our proportion, and therefore has constituted an order of men who, by showing forth the Lord's death, by sacramental representation, may pray unto GOD after the same manner that our high-priest does, that is, offer to GOD, and represent, in this solemn prayer and sacrament, CHRIST as already offered; so sending up a gracious instrument, whereby our prayers may, for his sake, and in the same manner of intercession, be offered up to GOD in our behalf, and for all them for whom we pray, to all those purposes for which CHRIST died.

 

 5. As the ministers of the sacrament, do in a sacramental manner, present to GOD the sacrifice of the cross, by being imitators of CHRIST's intercession; so the people are sacrificers too in their manner. For, besides that, by saying Amen, they join in the act of him that ministers, and make it also to be their own; so when they eat and drink the blessed elements worthily, they receive CHRIST within them, and therefore may also offer him to God; while, in their sacrifice of obedience and thanksgiving, they present themselves to GOD with CHRIST whom they have spiritually received, that is, themselves with that which will make them acceptable. The offering their bodies and souls and services to GOD in him, and by him, and with him, who is his Father's Well-beloved, ".'and in whom he is well-pleased," cannot but be accepted to all the purposes of blessing, grace, and glory.

 

 6. This is the sum of the greatest mystery of our religion; it is the copy of the passion, and the ministration of the great mystery of our redemption. And therefore, whatsoever entitles us to the general privileges of CHRIST's passion, all that is necessary by way of disposition to the celebration of the sacrament of his passion is included in it., because this celebration is our manner of applying it. The particulars of which preparation are represented in the following rules

 

 1. No man must dare to approach to the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, if he be in a state of any one sin, that is, unless he have entered into the state of repentance, that is, of sorrow and amendment; lest it be said concerning him, as it was concerning Judas, “The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table."

 

 2. Every communicant must first have examined himself, that is, tried the condition and state of his soul, searched out the secret ulcers, inquired out its weak.

 

nesses, and all those aptnesses where it-is exposed to temptation; that by finding out its diseases, he may find a cure, and by discovering its aptnesses, he may secure his present purposes of future amendment, and may be armed against dangers and temptations.

 

 3. When we have this general and indispensably necessary preparation, we may set apart some portion of our time immediately before the day of solemnity, according as our occasions will permit. And this time is especially to be spent in actions of repentance, confession of our sins, renewing our purposes of holy living, praying for the pardon- of our failings, and for those graces which may prevent the like for the time to come, meditation upon the passion, upon the infinite love of GOD expressed in so mysterious manners of redemption; and in all acts which may build our souls up into a temple fit for the reception of CHRIST himself, and the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit.

 

 4. The celebration of the holy sacrament being the most solemn prayer, joined with the most effectual instrument of its acceptance, must suppose us to have faith in CHRIST, and be in charity with all the world. And therefore we must, before every communion especially, remember what differences or jealousies are between us and any one else, and recompose all disunions, and cause right understandings between each other, offering to satisfy whom we have injured, and to forgive them who have injured us.

 

 5. When the day of the feast is come, lay aside all cares and impertinencies of the world, and remember that this is thy soul's day, a day of traffic and intercourse with heaven. Arise early in the morning. 1. Give GOD thanks for the approach of so great a blessing. 2. Confers thine own unworthiness to admit so divine a guest. 3. Then remember and deplore thy sins which have made thee so unworthy. 4. Then confess GOD’s goodness, and take sanctuary there; and upon him place thy hopes. 5. And invite him to thee with renewed acts of love, of holy desire, of hatred of his enemy, sin. 6. Make oblation of thyself wholly to be disposed by him, to the obedience of him, to his providence and possession, and pray him to enter and dwell there for ever. And after this, with joy and holy fear, and the forwardness of love, address thyself to the receiving of him, to whom, and by whom, and for whom all faith, and all hope, and all love in the whole catholic church, both in heaven and earth, is designed; him, whom kings and queens and whole kingdoms ought to be in love with, and count it the greatest honor in the world, that their crowns and sceptres are laid at his holy feet.

 

 6. When the holy man stands at the table of blessing, and ministers the rite of consecration, then do as the angels do, who behold, and love, and wonder that the Son of GOD should become food to the souls of his servants; that he who cannot suffer any change or lessening, should be broken into pieces, and enter into the body to support and nourish the spirit, and yet at the same time remain in heaven, while he descends to thee upon earth; that he who has essential felicity should become miserable and die for thee, and then give himself to thee for ever to redeem thee from sin and misery; that by his wounds he should procure health to thee, by his affronts he should entitle thee to glory, by his death he should bring thee to life, and by becoming a man he should make thee partaker of the Divine nature. These are such glories, that although they are made so obvious that each eye may behold them, yet they are so deep that no Thought can fathom them. But so it has pleased him to make these mysteries to be sensible, because the excellency and depth of the mercy is not intelligible; that while we are ravished with -the infiniteness of so vast a mercy, yet we may be as sure of it as of that thing we see and feel, and smell and taste.

 

 7. In the act of receiving, exercise acts of faith with much confidence and resignation, believing it not to be common bread and wine, but holy in their use, holy in their signification, holy in their change, and holy in their effect. And believe, if Thou art a worthy communicant, Thou dost as verily receive CHRIST's body and blood to all effects and purposes of the Spirit, as Thou dost receive the blessed elements into thy mouth, that Thou puttest thy finger to his hand, and thy hand into his side. Dispute not concerning the manner of CHRIST's presence. It is sufficient to thee that CHRIST shall be present to thy soul, as an instrument of grace, as a pledge of the resurrection, as the earnest of glory and immortality, and a means of many intermediate blessings, even all such as are necessary for thee, and are in order to thy salvation.

 

 8. 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 Thou have taken CHRIST into Thou, so put CHRIST on Thou, and conform every faculty of Your soul and body to his holy image and perfection. Remember that now CHRIST is all one with Thou; and therefore when Thou are to do an action, consider how CHRIST did or would do the like, and do Thou 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. CHRIST thus dwells in Thou, and Thou in CHRIST, growing up towards " a perfect man in CHRIST JESUS."

 

All persons should communicate as often as they can without excuses or delays. 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 neighbors 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 employments 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, and 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 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 so their souls may be transformed into the similitude of CHRIST by their perpetual feeding on him, and conversation, not only in his courts, but in his very heart and most secret affections.