Jews; there is no redeeming of it but only by the breaking of its neck and when a sinner comes to God groaning under his load, carrying the dead body of his lusts and laying them before the altar of God, saying, 'This is my pride that almost ruined me here is the corpse of my lusts, they are now dead, and as carcases are more heavy than living bodies, so now my sin feels more ponderous because it is mortified: I now feel the intolerable burden, and I cannot bear it;' when a sinner makes this address to God, coming with a penitential soul, with a holy sorrow, and with holy purposes, then no oblation shall be more pleasing, no guest more welcome, no sacrifice more accepted. The sacrament is like the word of God; if you receive it worthily it will do you good; if unworthily, it will be your death and your destruction. Here the penitent can be cleansed, and here the impenitent are consumed: here they that are justified shall be justified still, and they that are unholy become more unholy and accursed: here they that have shall have more abundantly, and they that have not shall lose what they have already; here the living are made strong and happy, and the dead do die again. "He that giveth honour to a fool," saith Solomon", "is like him that bindeth a stone in a sling;" so we read it, but so it is not easy to tell the meaning: the vulgar Latin reads it, "As he that throws a stone into the heap of Mercury, so is he that giveth honour to a fool;" and so the proverb is easy. For the gentiles did of old worship Mercury by throwing stones at him: now giving honour to a fool is like throwing a stone at Mercury, that is, a strange and unreasonable act for as the throwing of stones is against all natural and reasonable way of worship and religion, and is against the way of honour, so is a fool as strange and unfit a person to receive it. But when rabbi Manasses threw stones at Mercury in contempt and defiance of the image and the false god, he was questioned for idolatry, and paid his liberty in exchange for his outward worship of what he secretly hated: but by his external act he was brought to judgment and condemned for his hypocrisy. This is the case of every one that in a state of sins comes to the holy sacrament; he comes to receive the bread of God, and throws a stone at Him; he pretends worship, and secretly hates Him; and no man must come hither, but all that is within him, and all that is without, must be symbolical to the nature and holiness of the mysteries, to the designs and purposes of God. In short; the full sense of all this is expressed in the canon law in a few words, "A sacrament is not to be given but to him that repents:" for there must no sinful habit or impure affection re Omnia sacramenta obsunt indigne tractantibus, prosunt tamen .. digne sumentibus; sicut et verbum Dei.-S. August. contr. epist. Parmen. [lib. ii. cap. 10. tom. ix. col. 39 C.] [Prov. xxvi. 8.] * [Suidas, ἑρμαῖον.] [Gemara, Sanhedrin, cap. vii., f. 64. -Cf. Voss. annot. in Maimon. de idolol. cap. iii. § 7.] [Gratian. decret.] cap. Illud.' dist. xcv. [col. 497.]-Non poenitentibus istud [sc. chrisma] infundi non potest, quia genus est sacramenti. main in that tabernacle where God means to place His holy spirit. It is like bringing of a swine into the propitiatory; such a presence cannot stand with the presence of the Lord. It is Dagon before the ark; the Shechinah, the glory of the Lord, will depart from that unhallowed place. But because the duty of repentance, as it is a particular grace, is limited and affirmative, and therefore is determinable by proper relations and accidents, and there is a special necessity of repentance before the receiving of the sacrament; we must enquire more particularly, 1) What actions or parts of repentance are necessary in our preparation to the receiving these divine mysteries. 2) How far a penitent must be advanced in a good life before he may come safely; and how far before he may come with confidence. 3) What significations of repentance are to be accepted by the church. 4) Whether in case the duty be not performed, may every minister of the sacrament refuse to admit the wicked person, or the imperfect penitent, that offers himself and persists in the desire of it. SECTION III. WHAT ACTIONS OF REPENTANCE ARE SPECIALLY REQUIRED IN OUR THE particular actions of repentance, which are to be performed in their proper seasons, which cannot be always actual because they have variety, and cannot be attended to altogether, all such particulars of repentance are then in their season, they have this for their opportunity. For it is an admirable wisdom of God so to dispose the times and advantages of religion, that by the solennities of duty our dispersions are gathered up, our wanderings are united, our indifferences are kindled, our weariness is recreated, our spirits are made busy, our attention is called upon, our powers are made active, our virtues fermented: we are called upon, and looked after and engaged. For as it is in motion, and as it is in lines, a long and a straight progression diminishes the strength and makes languishing and infirmity; but by doubling the point, or making a new centre, the moving body gathers up its parts and powers into a narrower compass, and by union, as by a new beginning, is rescued from weakness and diminution: so it is in the life of a Christian; when he first sets forth he is zealous and forward, full of appetite and full of holy fires; but when his little fuel is consumed and his flame abates, when he goes on and grows weary, when he mingles with the world, and by every conversation is polluted or allayed; when by his very necessary affairs of life he is made secular and interested, apt to tend his civil regards, and to be remiss in the spiritual; by often and long handling of money beginning too much to love it: then we are interrupted in our declining piety, we are called upon by religion, and by the sacredness of this holy duty are made to begin again, not to go back, but to be re-enkindled. Every time we receive the holy sacrament all our duties are summed up; we make new vows, we chastise our negligence, we mend our pace, we actuate our holy purposes and make them stronger, we enter upon religiou as if we had never done any thing before; we bring again our first penitential heats: and as when we pray, and pray long, our devotion slackens, and our attention becomes trifling, and by wandering thoughts we are gone very far from the observation of the offices; the good man that ministers calls out to us, 'Let us pray and then the wandering thoughts run home, then we are troubled that we have lost so much of our prayers as we have not attended to; then we begin again and pray the more passionately by how much we observe ourselves to have been more negligent before. If God did not particularly call upon us by these religious necessities, and stop us by the solemn return of the sacrament, and stir up our fires, and remind us of our duty, and make actual seasons and opportunities for actual and great attendances on religion; if God did not make some days, and some necessities, and some opportunities for heaven, the soul and her interest would not be at all regarded. For this life is the day for the body, and our needs do indeed require so much attendance, and employ so much of our affections, and spend so much of our time, that it is necessary some abstractions and separations of time and offices be made. Receiving the holy sacrament is like a lock upon the waters; which makes them rise higher and begin a fuller stream as from a new principle of emanation: so that the repentance which is the duty of our life and dispersed over all the parts and periods of it, like the waters in the first creation upon the face of the whole earth, is gathered together against the day of the Lord's communion as into a bosom and congregation of penitential waters. Then you are to mourn for your sins and to resolve against them, then you are to * ['In the beginning.. is placed this short and ancient exhortation, so often repeated in all the old liturgies; whereby the priest gives the signal of battle or the watchword, to all the assembly, that they may set on their enemies with courage, and besiege even heaven itself with a holy importunity. And as the crier of old in the heathen sacrifices proclaimed his Hoc agite, and warned all to attend what they were about; so doth the minister charge you against all wandering thoughts, which are never more frequent nor pernicious than in holy duties; desiring you not to rest satisfied in his petitions for you, but to let your heart go along with him; that they may be accepted as your prayers, though pronounced with his lips. He enjoins you all to pray with him, and for one another: for it is a great work you have to do, and you must now take off your thoughts from all other things, and wholly mind this.'-Comber, Companion to the Temple, pt. i. sec. 19.] remember what vows you have already made and broken, how often you have prevaricated in your duty, and by what temptations you are used to fall then you are to renew the strength of your purposes, to fortify your tenderest part, and to cut off all advantages from the enemy: then you must prune your vinea, and make the branches bleed; then the bridegroom comes, and you must trim your lamp and adorn it with the culture of religion: that is, against the day of communion, you must sum up all the parts of your repentance; for the sacrament is a summary of all the mysteries, and all the duty of the whole religion of a Christian. But baptism and the holy eucharist do nothing for us unless we do good works, and perfect them with a conjugation of holy duties, bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. But our enquiry must be yet a little more particular. There are some actions of repentance which must be finished and made perfect before we receive the holy communion; and there are some which will be finishing all our life. Concerning the first the question is, which they are, and what must be done concerning them; concerning the second we are to enquire how far we must have proceeded in them before we may communicate. Those parts of repentance which must be finished before we approach the blessed sacrament are these ; FIRST, we must have renounced, perfectly renounced all affections to sin, and firmly purpose to amend all, to sin no more, to lead a new life in all solid and material practices of virtue. This we learn from Origen, "We eat the bread which is made a holy thing, and which sanctifies and makes holy all them who use it with holy and salutary purposes" and designs of living holily: not by a solemn and pompous profession only, but with a real and hearty resolution: resolving not to say so, and be a fool; but to say so because indeed we mean so; not to profess it because it is the custom of Christians and the expectation of the solemnity, but because we intend really to be quit of the sin for ever. Now concerning our purposes of amendment, these things are to be taken care of ; 1) That they be made prudently, attentively, sincerely, and with intuition upon a credible, possible, and designed effect. For there are some that make vows (purposes I cannot call them) which they believe impossible to keep; and no man can wisely purpose such things, of which he hath such belief: but they believe themselves Enodes trunci resecentur, ut inde Exeat in cœlum ramis felicibus arbor.-[vid. Virg. georg. ii. 78, 81.] Parum est baptizari, et eucharistiam accipere, nisi quis factis et opere perficiat.-S. Cypr. [test. ad Quirin. iii. 26; tit. cap. in marg. nonnull. edd.] Αρτους ἐσθίομεν γινομένους . ἅγιόν τι, καὶ ἁγιάζον τοὺς μεθ ̓ ὑγιοῦς προθέσεως αὐτῷ χρωμένους.—Lib. viii. adv. Celsum. [p. 44 supra.] inevitably engaged to commit a sin, and yet as inevitably engaged to The Greeks tell of a famous fool among them; say they will not. her name was Acco; who when she saw herself in a glass, would discourse as wisely as she could to the other woman, and supposed her own shadow to be one of her neighbours, with whom sometimes she had great business, but always huge civilities; only she could never agree which of them should go away first, or take the upper hand. Such wise resolvers are some persons: they take the shadow of it for a substance, and please themselves by the entertainment of the images of things; and think that the outside and the words of a promise are the only thing that God requires; they and their promises do not know which shall go away first; the resolution quickly dies, and the man presently after; but the sin lives and abides there still, and will do so for ever. Cast about and see; have you promised what you are likely to perform; and do you intend it in good earnest never to consent to a sin, in no circumstance, and for no argument, and by no temptation? For he that resolves never to commit that which he knows he shall commit, is like him who resolves he will never die; his vain resolution sets not his death back one hour. It is hypocrisy and lying to say it before God, and it is folly and madness to pretend that we will do it to ourselves. But of this I have already spokend. 2) He that in his preparation to the holy communion purposes to live a holy life, must not judge of the goodness of his purposes by the present intendment, but by the consequent performance. He must not think it is well yet; because many good purposes are broken by temptations, disordered by supervening accidents, frustrated by impotency, and laid aside by purposes to the contrary: such which Plutarch compares to windy eggs, which though they look fairly yet produce no birds. Now by this consideration it is not intended that a man must defer his communion till he hath fully performed all his purposes of a holy life, for then he should never communicate till he dies; but by this we are advised to make such enquiry, and to use such cautions, and to require such indications of the reality of our purposes, as becomes wise, interested, and considering persons, who are undone if they be deceived, and receive damage by the profane and unholy usages of the divine mysteries if they were cozened and abused themselves in the sincerity and efficacy of their preparatory purposes. Plato tells that Alcibiades did sometimes wish Socrates had been dead, because he was ashamed to see him, for that he had If we not kept the promises which he had so often made to him. who often have communicated, do find that the purposes of reformation which we have formerly made proved ineffective; if we perceive ε Ατελῆ τινὰ καὶ ἄψυχα ὑπολήμματα. -[De audit.-tom. vi. p. 139.] See great Exemplar, part 2. sect. 12. n. 34. |