The worthy communicant, or, A discourse of the nature, effects, and blessings consequent to the worthy receiving of the Lords Supper and of all the duties required in order to a worthy preparation : together with the cases of conscience occurring in the duty of him that ministers, and of him that communicates : to which are added, devotions fitted to every part of the ministration / by Jeremy Taylor ...

Here therefore let us thus examine our selves.

Are your desires unreasonable, passionate, impo∣tent and transporting? If God refuses to give you what you desire, can you lay your head softly down upon the lap of providence and rest content without it? Do you thankfully receive what he gives, and when he gives you not what you covet, can you still confesse his goodness and glorifie his will and wisdom, without any amazement, dissatisfaction, or secret murmurs? Can you be at peace within when your purposes are defeated; and at peace a∣broad with him that stands in the way between you and your desires? And how is it with you in your angers? Does it last so long, or return so frequent∣ly as before? Have you the same malice, or have you the same peevishness?* 1.1 For one long anger and twenty short ones have no very great difference, save only that in short and sudden angers we are surprised; and not so in the other: but it is an in∣tolerable thing alwayes to be surprised, and a thou∣sand times to say, I was not aware, or I was mis∣taken. But let us without excuses examine our selves in this matter, for this is the great Magazine of vertue or vice; here dwells obedience or licenti∣ousness,

a close knot,* 1.2 or an open liberty, little pleasures, and great disturbances, loss of time, and breach of vows. But if that we may come to Christ we have stopped so many avenues of sin and fountains of temptation, it may be very well; but without it, it can never.

2. He that comes to the Holy Communion must examine himself whether his lusts be mortified, or whether they be only changed. For many times we have a seeming peace when our open enemies are changed into false friends; and we think our selves holy persons because we are quit of carnal crimes, and yet in exchange for them, we are dying with spiritual. It is an easie thing to reprove a murderer, and to chide a foolish drunkard, to make a liar blush, and a thief to run away. But you may be secretly proud when no man shall dare to tell you so; and to have a secret envy and yet to keep com∣pany with the best and most religious persons. A little examination will serve your turn to know whether you have committed adultery, or be a swearer; but to know whether your intentions be holy, whether you love the praise of men more than the praise of God, whether religious or secular interest be the dearer, whether there be any hy∣pocrisie or secret malice in your heart, hath some∣thing of more secret consideration. Do not you sometimes secretly rejoyce in the diminution or disparagement of your brother? Do not you tell his sad and shameful story with some pleasure? Are you not quick in telling it, and willing enough it should be believed? Would you not fain have him

lesse than your self; not so eminent, not so well esteemed, and therefore do not you love to tell a true story of him that is not so very much for his commendation?

These things must be examined, not that it can be thought that a man must be without fault when he comes, but that he must cherish none, he must leave none unexamined; he must discover as much as he can and crucifie all that he can discover. He that hath mortified his carnal appetite, and is proud of his conquest; or prayes often & reproaches him that does not; and gives almes, and secretly un∣dervalues him that cannot; or is of a right opinion, but curses him that is in the wrong; or leaves his ambitious pursuits and vain glorious purposes, but sits at home and is idle, is like a man who stands by a fire in a wide and a cold room; he scorches on one side and freezes on the other: whereas the habits of vertue are like a great mantle, and the man is warm and well all over. But it is an ill cure for the ague to fall into a feavour, or to be eased of sore eyes by a diversion of the rheum upon the lungs: and that soul that turns her back upon one sin and her face to another is (it may be) weary of the instance, but not of the iniquity: and rolling upon an uneasie bed of thorns, chooses only to be tormented in another part: but finding the same sense there because the part is informed by the same spirit, and no difference between the thorn in the side and the thorn in the hand, perceives her self miserable and incirled with calamity. But when from carnal crimes which bring shame, a man falls into spiritual crimes which most men let alone; from those sins which every thing can reprove to a secret venom and an undiscerned ulcer; a man may

come to the Communion, and the holy man that Ministers cannot reject him; but he causes no joy before the Angels; and because he does not exa∣mine wisely and judge severely, he is discerned by God, and shall be judged, when to be judged, means all one with being condemned.

3. When we examine our selves in order to re∣ceiving of the blessed Sacrament, we must be care∣ful that we do not limit our examination; and con∣fine it to the time since our last receiving. For some persons who think themselves spiritual, usually exa∣mine how they have comported themselves since the last communion only, and accordingly make judgement upon themselves; and these men possi∣bly may do well enough; if they be of the number of them of whom our blessed Saviour affirms, that they need no repentance, that is, no change of life, no inquiry but into the measures of progression. But there are but few who live at that rate, and they that do, it may be have not that confidence. But to them and all men else, it were safe advice, that the inquiry how they have lived since the last communion should be but one part of their exami∣nation.

1. Because they who so limit their inquiries must needs suppose that till then all was well, and that they communicated worthily; and conse∣quently that all the whole work and Oeconomy of salvation was then performed; every one of which supposals hath an uncertain truth, but a very certain danger.

2. They who so limit their examination suppose that at every Communion they begin the world

anew; whereas our future life is to be a progressi∣on upon the old stock, and judgement is to be made of this that comes after by that which went before; and therefore these limited examinations must needs be of lesse use and purpose. True it is, that at every Communion we are to begin a new life; and so we ought every day; that is, we ought to be as zealous, and as penitent, and resolute and af∣fectionate, as if we never had begun before; we ought so to suspect the imperfection of what is past, that we are to look upon our selves but as new be∣ginners; that by apprehending the same necessity we may have the same passion, the same fervour and holy fires. But in the matter of examining we must consider how much hath been pardoned, that we may examine how thankful we have been, and what returns we have made: we must observe all our usual failings, that we may now set our guards accordingly: we must remember in what weak part we were smitten, that we may still pray against it; and we must renew our sad remembrances that we may continue our sad repentances, and we must look upon our whole life that we may be truely hum∣bled. He that only examines how it is with him since the last Communion, will think too well of himself if he spies his bills of accusation to be small, but every man will find cause enough to hide his face in the dust, and to come with fear and trem∣bling when he views the sum total of his life, which certainly will appear to be full of shame and of dishonour.

3. We are not to limit our examinations to the interval since the last Communion, because much of our present duty is relative to the first parts of our life. For all the former vows of obedience

though we have broken them a thousand times, yet have still an obliging power; and there are many contingencies of our life which require peculiar usages and treatments of our selves, and there are many follies which we leave by degrees, and many obligations which are of continual duty; and it may be that our passion did once carry us to so ex∣tream to intollerable a violence; perhaps twenty years ago, that we are still to keep our fears and tremblings about us, lest the same principle pro∣duce the same evil event. When Horatius Cocles had won that glorious victory over the three Sabine Brothers, and entring gloriously into Rome espi∣ed his sister wetting his Laurel with her unseason∣able tears for the death of one of them whom she love with the honour of a wife and the passion of a lover; and being mad with rage and pride, be∣cause her sorrow allayd his joyes and glory, kill'd her with that sword by which her servant died: Sometimes passion makes a prodigious excursion and passes on to the greatest violence, and the most prodigious follies; and though it be usually so re∣strained by reason and Religion that such transvo∣lations are not frequent; yet one such act is an eternal testimony how weak we are, and how mis∣chievous a passion can be. It is a miracle of provi∣dence that in the midst of all the rudenesses and ac∣cidents of the world, a man preserves his eyes, which every thing can extinguish and put out: and it is no lesse a miracle of grace, that in the midst so many dishonourable loves there are no more hor∣rid tragoedies: and so many brutish angers do not produce more cruel sudden murders; and that so much envy does not oftener break out into open hostilities; it is indeed a mighty grace that pares the nails of these wild beasts, and makes them more

innocent in their effects, than they are in their nature; but still the principle remains: there is in us the same evil nature, and the same unruly passion, and therefore as there ought to be continual guards upon them, so there must be continual inquiries made concerning them; and every thing is to be examined, lest all be lost upon a sudden.

4. We must not limit our examination to the in∣terval of the last Communion, because our first repentances must still proceed and must never be at an end. For no man was so pardoned at the last Communion but that he is still obliged to beg pardon for those sins he then repented of. He must always repent, & always pray and never be at peace with the first sins of his youth; and the sorrows of the first day must be the duty of every day; and that examination must come into this account; and when we inquire after our own state we must not view the little finger, but the whole man. For in all the forrest the ape is the handsomest beast so long as he shewes nothing but his hand; but when the inquiring and envious beasts looked round about him, they quickly espied a foul deformity.

There are in the state of a mans soul some good proportions, and some well dayes, and some for∣tunate periods, but he that is contented with be∣holding them alone, cares more to please himself than to please God, and thinks him to be happy whom man, not whom God approves. By this way twenty deceptions and impostures may abuse a man. See therefore what you are from head to foot, from the beginning to the end, from the first entry to your last progression; and although it be not necessary that we always actually consider all;

yet it will be necessary that we alwayes truly know it all, that our relative duties, and our imperfect actions, and our collateral obligations, and the direct measures of the increase of grace may be justly discerned and understood.

4. He that examines himself and would make right judgement of his state and of his duty must not do it by single actions, but by states of life and habits of Religion. If we can say truly that neither prosperity nor adversity, neither crosse nor crown, imployment nor retirement, pub∣lick offices nor houshold-cares do disorder us in our duty to God and our relations; that is, if we safely and wisely passed through, or converse in any one of these states of life, it is very likely that things are well with us. But the consideration of single actions will do but little. Some acts of charity, and many prayers, and the doing one noble action, or being once or twice very bounti∣ful, or the strugling with one danger, and the speaking for God in one contestation; these are excellent things, and good significations of life, but not alwayes of health and strength, not of a state of grace. Now because in the holy Com∣munion we are growing up to the measures of the fulness of Christ, we can no otherwise be fitted to it, but by the progressions and increase of a man, that is, by habits of grace and states and permanen∣cies of Religion; and therefore our examinations must be accordingly.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Haec bre∣vis est illa perennis aqua.
• * 1.2

  — hic habitat constricta licentia nodoEt flecti faciles irae vino{que} madentesExcubiaeJocundi{que} metus, & non secura voluptasEt lasciva volant levibus perjuria pennis.Claudian. de nuptiis Honorii.