and so allayed, and so near to the late state of death from which they are recovering, that God only knows how things are with them; yet because we know that there is a beginning in which new converts are truly reconciled, there is a first period of life, and as we cannot say in many cases that this is it;' so in many we cannot say, 'this is not; therefore the church hopes well of persons that die in their early progressions of piety; and consequently refuses not to give to them these divine mysteries. Whoever are reconciled to God, may be reconciled to the church; whose office it is only to declare the divine sentence and to administer it, and to help towards the verification of it.

But because the church cannot be surer of any person that his sins are pardoned, that he is reconciled to God, that he is in the state of grace, that if he then dies he shall be saved, than a man himself can be of himself and in his own case, which certainly he knows better than any man else; and that our degrees of hope and confidence of being saved when it is not presumption, but is prudent and reasonable, does increase in proportion to our having well used and improved God's grace, and enlarges itself by our proportions of mortification and spiritual life; and every man that is wise and prudent abides in fears and uncertain thoughts till he hath gotten a certain victory over all his sins; and though he dies in hope, yet not without trembling, till he finds that he is more than conqueror; therefore in proportion to this address to death must also be our address to the holy sacrament. For no man is fit to die but he that can be united unto Christ, and he only that can be so must be admitted to a participation of His body and His blood. It is the same case; in both we dwell with Christ, and the two states differ but in degrees; it is but a passing from altar to altar, from that where the minister of the church officiates, to that where the Head of the church does intercede.

There is this only difference; there may be some proportions of haste to the sacrament, more than unto death, upon this account; because the reception of the sacrament in worthy dispositions does increase those excellencies in which death ought to find us; and therefore we may desire to communicate, because we perceive a want of grace; and yet for the same reason we may at the same time be afraid to die, because after that we can receive no more, but as that finds us we shall abide for ever. But he that fears justly, may yet in many cases die safely; and he shall find that his fears when he was alive were useful to the caution and zeal and hastiness of repentance; but were no certain indication that God was not reconciled unto him. The best and severest persons do in the greatest parts of their spiritual life complain of their imperfect state, and feel the load of their sins, and apprehend with trembling the sad consequents of their sins, and every day contend against them; and forget all that is past of good actions done, and press forwards still to more grace,

and are as hungry as if they had none at all; and those men if they die, go to Christ and shall reign with Him for ever; and yet many of them go with a trembling heart; and though considering the infinite obliquity of them they cannot over-value their sins, yet considering the infinite goodness of God and His readiness to accept it, they undervalue their repentance, and are safe in their humility, and in God's goodness, when in many other regards they think themselves very unsafe. Now such men as these must not be as much afraid to communicate as they are afraid to die; but these and all men else must not communicate till they be in that condition, that if they did die, it would go well with them: and the reason is plain; because every friend of God dying so, is certainly saved; and he that is no friend of God is unworthy to partake of the table of the Lord.

But for the reducing the answer of this question to practice and to particular considerations, I am to advise these things;

1. Because no man of an ordinary life and a newly begun repentance ought hastily to pronounce himself acquitted, and in the state of grace, and in the state of salvation, in this rule of proportion; we are only to take the judgment of charity, not of certainty, and what is usually by wise and good men supposed to be the certain though the least measure of hopeful expectations in order to death, that we must suppose also to be our least measure of repentance preparatory to the blessed sacrament.

2. This measure must not be taken in the days of health and carelessness; but when we are either actually in apprehension, or at least in deep meditation of death; when it is dressed with all such terrors and material considerations, that it looks like the king of terrors, and at least makes our spirits full of fear and of sobriety.

3. Thirdly, this measure must be carefully taken without the allay of foolish principles, or a careless spirit, or extravagant confidences of personal predestination, or of being in any sect; but with the common measures which Christians take when they weigh sadly their sins and their fears of the divine displeasure; let them take such proportions which considering men rely upon when they indeed come to die; for few sober men die upon such wild accounts as they rely upon in talk and interest when they are alive. He that prepares himself to death, considers how deeply God hath been displeased, and what hath been done towards a reconciliation; and he that can probably hope by the usual measures of the gospel that he is in probability of pardon, hath by that learnt by what measures he must prepare himself to the holy sacrament.

4. Some persons are of a timorous conscience, and apt to irregular and unreasonable fears, and nothing but a single ray from heaven can give them any portions of comfort, and these men never trust to any thing they do, or to any thing that is done for them; and fear by no other measures but by consideration of the intolerable misery which

they should suffer if they did miscarry. And because these men can speak nothing and think nothing comfortable of themselves in that agony, or in that meditation; therefore they can make use of this rule by the proportions of that judgment of charity which themselves make of others and in what cases, and in what dispositions they conclude others to die in the Lord; if they take those or the like measures for themselves, and accordingly in those dispositions address themselves to the holy sacrament, they will make that use of this rule which is intended, and which may do them benefit.

5. As there are great varieties and degrees of fitness to death; so also to the holy sacrament; he that hath lived best, hath enough to deplore when he dies, and causes enough to beg for pardon of what is past, and for aids in the present need; and when he does communicate, he hath in some proportion the same too; he hath causes enough to come humbly, to come as did the publican, and to say as did the centurion, 'Lord, I am not worthy:' but he that may die with most confidence because he is in the best dispositions, he also may communicate with most comfort, because he does it with most holiness.

6. But the least measures of repentance, less than which cannot dispose us to the worthy reception of the holy mysteries, are these:

1. As soon as we are smitten with the terrors of an afflicted conscience, and apprehend the evil of sin, or fear the divine judgments, and upon that account resolve to leave our sin, we are not instantly worthy and fit to communicate. Attrition is not a competent disposition to the blessed sacrament; because although it may be the gate and entrance of a spiritual life, yet it can be no more, unless there be love in it; unless it be contrition, it is not a state of favour and grace, but a disposition to it. He that does not yet love God, cannot communicate with Christ; and he that resolves against sin out of fear only, or temporal regards, hath given too great testimony that he loves the sin still, and will return to it, when that which hinders him shall be removed. Faith working by charity is the weddinggarment; and he that comes hither not vested with this, shall be cast into outer darkness. But the words of S. Paul' are express as to this particular. "In Christ Jesus nothing can avail but faith working by love;" and therefore without this, the sacrament itself will do no good; and if it does no good, it cannot be but it will do harm. Our repentance disposing us to this divine feast, must at least be contrition, or a sorrow for sins, and purposes to leave them, by reason of the love of God working in our hearts.

2. But because no man can tell whether he hath the love of God in him, but by the proper effects of love, which is keeping the commandments; no man must approach to the holy sacrament upon the account of his mere resolution to leave sin: until he hath broken the habit, until he hath cast away his fetters, until he be at liberty

[See vol. vii. p. 435.]

' [Gal. v. 6.]

from sin, and hath shaken off its laws and dominion; so that he can see his love to God entering upon the ruins of sin, and perceives that God's spirit hath advanced His sceptre, by the declension of the sin that dwelt within; till then he may do well to stand in the outward courts; lest by a too hasty entrance into the sanctuary he carry along with him the abominable thing,' and bring away from thence the intolerable sentence of condemnation. A man cannot rightly judge of his love to God, by his acts and transports of fancy, or the emanations of a warm passion; but by real events and changes of the heart. The reason is plain, because every man hath first loved sin, and obeyed it, and until that obedience be changed, that first love remains, and that is absolutely inconsistent with the love of God: an act of love, that is, a loving ejaculation, a short prayer affirming and professing love, is a very unsure warrant for any man to conclude that his repentance is indeed contrition: for wicked persons may in their good intervals have such sudden fires; and all men that are taught to understand contrition to be a sorrow for sins proceeding from the love of God, and that love of God to be sufficiently signified by single acts of loving prayer, can easily by such forms and ready exercises fancy and conclude themselves in a very good condition at an easy rate. But contrition is therefore necessary, because attrition can be but the one half of repentance; it can turn us away from sin, but it cannot convert us unto God; that must be done by love, and that love, especially in this case, is manifestly nothing else but obedience and until that obedience be evident and discernible, we cannot pronounce any comfort concerning our state of love; without which no man can see God, and no man can taste Him or feel Him without it.

3. A single act of obedience in the instance of any kind where the scene of repentance lies, is not a sufficient preparation to the holy sacrament, nor demonstration of our contrition: unless it be in the case of repentance only for single acts of sin. In this case, to oppose a good to an evil, an act of proportionable abstinence to a single act of intemperance, for which we are really sorrowful and (as we suppose) heartily troubled, and confess it, and pray for pardon, may be admitted as a competent testimonial that this sorrow is real, and this repentance is contrition; because it does as much for virtue, as in the instance it did for vice: always provided that whatsoever aggravations or accidental grandeurs were in the sin, as scandal, deliberation, malice, mischief, hardness, delight or obstinacy, be also proportionably accounted for in the reckonings of the repentance. But if the penitent return from a habit or state of sin, he will find it a harder work to quit all his old affection to sin, and to place it upon God entirely; and therefore he must stay for more arguments than one or a few single acts of grace: not only because a few may proceed from many causes accidentally, and not from the love of God; but also because his love and habitual desires of sin must be naturally

extinguished by many contrary acts of virtue; and till these do enter, the old love does naturally abide. It is true that sin is extinguished not only by the natural force of the contrary actions of virtue, but by the Spirit of God, by aids from heaven, and powers supernatural; and God's love hastens our pardon and acceptation; yet still, this is done by parts and methods of natural progression; after the manner of nature, though by the aids of God; and therefore it is fit that we expect the changes, and make our judgment by material events and discerned mutations, before we communicate in these mysteries, in which whoever unworthily does communicate, enters into death.

4. He that hath resolved against all sin, and yet falls into it regularly at the next temptation, is yet in a state of evil and unworthiness to communicate; because he is under the dominion of sin; he obeys it, though unwillingly; that is, he grumbles at his fetters, but still he is in slavery and bondage. But if having resolved against all sin, he delights in none, deliberately chooses none, is not so often surprised, grows stronger in grace, and is mistaken but seldom, and repents when he is, and arms himself better, and watches more carefully against all, and increases still in knowledge; whatever imperfection is still adherent to the man unwillingly, does indeed allay his condition, and is fit to humble and cast him down; but it does not make him unworthy to communicate, because he is in the state of grace; he is in the christian warfare, and is on God's side; and the holy sacrament, if it have any effect at all, is certainly an instrument or a sign in the hands of God to help His servants, to enlarge His grace, to give more strengths, and to promote them to perfection.

5. But the sum of all is this; he that is not freed from the dominion of sin, he that is not really a subject of the kingdom of grace, he in whose mortal body sin does reign and the Spirit of God does not reign, must at no hand present himself before the holy table of the Lord; because whatever dispositions and alterations he may gin to have in order to pardon and holiness, he as yet hath neither, but is God's enemy, and therefore cannot receive His holy Son.

6. But because the change is made by parts, and effected by the measures of other intellectual and spiritual changes, that is, after the manner of men, from imperfection to perfection by all the intermedial steps of moral degrees; and good and evil in some periods have but a little distance though they should have a great deal; and it is at first very hard to know whether it be life or death; and after that, it is still very difficult to know whether it be health or sickness; and dead men cannot eat, and sick men scarce can eat with benefit, at least are to have the weakest and the lowest diet; and after all this, it is of a consequence infinitely evil if men eat this supper indisposed and unfit it is all the reason of the world, that returning sinners, should be busy in their repentances, and do their work in the field (as it is in the parable of the gospel) and in their due time 'come home and gird themselves, and wait upon their Lord,' and when they