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 ...

SECT. IV. Of actual faith as it is a necessary disposi∣tion to the Sacrament.

BEsides the faith that is previous to Baptisme, or is wrapped up in the offices of that Sacrament, the Church of God admitted only such persons to the Sacrament whom she called Fideles or Faithful, by a propriety or singularity and eminency of ap∣pellation. They accounted it not enough barely to believe or to be professors; for the penitents, and the lapsed and the Catechumens were so; but they meant, such persons whose faith was operative and alive and justifying; such men whose faith had overcome the world, and overcome their lusts, and conquered their spiritual enemy; such who by faith were real servants of Christ, disciples of his do∣ctrine, subjects of his Kingdom and obedient to his institution. Such a faith as this is indeed neces∣sary to every worthy communicant; because with∣out such a faith a Christian is no more but a name; but the man is dead; and dead men eat not. Of this therefore we are to take strict and severe ac∣counts: which we shall best do by the following measures.

1. Every true Christian believer must consent to the Articles of his belief by an assent firmer than can be naturally produced from the ordinary argu∣ments

of his persuasion. Men believe the resur∣rection; but it is because they are taught it in their child-hood, and they inquire no further in their age: their Parents and their Priests, the laws of the Church and the Religion of the Country make up the demonstration; but because their faith is no stronger than to be the daughter of such argu∣ments, we find they commonly live at such a rate, as if they did neither believe nor care whether it were so or no. The confidence of the article makes them not to leave off violently to pursue the in∣terests of this world, and to love and labour for the other. Before this faith can enable them to re∣sist a temptation they must derive their assent from principles of another nature; and therefore be∣cause few men can dispute it with arguments in∣vincible and demonstrative and such as are natural∣ly apt to produce the most perfect assent, it is ne∣cessary that these men of all other should believe it because it is said to come from God, and rely up∣on it because it brings to God, trust it because it is good, acknowledge it certain because it is excel∣lent; that there may be an act of the will in it, as well as of the understanding, and as much love in it as discourse.

For he that only consents to an article because it is evident, is indeed convinced, but hath no excel∣lency in his faith but what is natural, nothing that is gracious and moral: true Christian faith must have in it something of obscurity, something that must be made up by duty and by obedience: but it is nothing but this; we must trust the evidence of God in the obscurity of the thing. Gods testimo∣ny must be clear to him, and the thing in all other senses not clear; and then to trust the article be∣cause

God hath said it, must have in it an excel∣lency which God loves and that he will reward. In order to this, it is highly considerable that the greatest argument to prove our Religion, is the goodness and the holiness of it: it is that which makes peace and friendships, content and comfort, which unites all relations and endears the relatives, it relieves the needy and defends the widdow, it ends strife and makes love endless; all other arguments can be opposed and tempted by wit and malice, but against the goodness of the Religion no man can speak, by which it appears that the greatest argu∣ment is that which moves love intending by love to convince the understanding.

But then for others who can enquire better; their inquiries also must be modest and humble, ac∣cording to the nature of the things, and to the designes of God: they must not disbelieve an arti∣cle in Christianity which is not proved like a con∣clusion in Geometry; they must not be witty to object, and curious to enquire beyond their limit: for some are so ingeniously miserable, that they will never believe a proposition in Divinity if any thing can be said against it; they will be credulous enough in all the affairs of their life, but impene∣trable by a Sermon of the Gospel; they will be∣lieve the word of a man and the promise of their neighbour; but a promise of Scripture signifies no∣thing unless it can be proved like a proposition in the Metaphysicks. If Sempronius tell them a story, it is sufficient if he be a just man, and the narra∣tive be probable: but though Religion be taught by many excellent men who gave their lives for a testimony, this shall not passe for truth till there is no objection left to stand against it. The reason

of these things is plain: they do not love the thing; their interest is against it: they have no joy in Re∣ligion; they are not willing and desirous that the things shall appear true. When love is the prin∣ciple, the thing is easie to the understanding, the objections are nothing, the arguments are good, and the Preachers are in the right. Faith assents to the revelations of the Gospel, not only because they are well proved, but because they are ex∣cellent things; not only because my reason is convinced; but my reason yields upon the fairer termes because my affections are gained. For if faith were an assent to an article but just so far as it is demonstrated, then faith were no vertue, and infidelity were no sin; because in this there is no choice, and no refusal: but where that which is probable is also naturally indemonstrable, and yet the conclusion is that in which we must rejoyce, and that for which we must earnestly contend, and that in the belief of which we serve God, and that for which we must be ready to die. It is certain that the understanding observing the credibility, and the will being pleased with the excellency, they produce a zeal of belief, because they together make up the demonstration. For a reason can be opposed by a reason, and an argument by an argu∣ment; but if I love my Religion, nothing can take me from it, unless it can pretend to be more useful and more amiable, more perfective and more excellent than heaven and immortality, and a king∣dom and a crown of peace, and all the things and all glories of the Eternal God.

2. That faith which disposes to the holy Com∣munion must have in it a fulness of confidence and relying upon God, a trusting in, and a real ex∣pectation

of the event of all the promises of the Gospel. God hath promised sufficien•• for the things of this life to them that serve him. They who have great revenues and full bags can easily trust this promise: but if thou hast neither mony nor friends, if the labour of thy hands, and the successe of thy labour fails thee, how is it then? Can you then re∣lie upon the promise? What means your melan∣choly and your fear, your frequent sighs and the calling of your self miserable and undone? Can God only help with means? or cannot he also make the means, or help without them; or see them when you see them not? or is it that you fear whe∣ther he will or no? He that hath promised, if he be just, is alwayes willing, whether he be able or no; and therefore, if you do not doubt of his power, why should you at all doubt of his willing∣ness? For if he were not able, he were not Al∣mighty; if he were not willing to perform his pro∣mise, then he were not just: and he that suspects that, hath neither faith nor love for God, of all things in the world, faith never distrusts the good will of God, in which he most glories to commu∣nicate him self to mankind. If yet your fear ob∣jects and sayes that all is well on Gods part; but you have provoked him by your sins, and have lost all title to the promise; I can say nothing against that, but that you must speedily repent and amend your fault, and then all will be quickly well on your part also, and your faith will have no ob∣jection, and your fears will have no excuse. When the glutton Apicius had spent a vast revenue in his prodigious feastings, he kill'd himself for fear of starving: but if Caesar had promised to give him all Sicily or the revenues of Egypt, the beast would have lived and eaten. But the promises of

God give to many of us no security, not so much as the promise of our rich friend, who yet may be disabled, or may break his word, or die. * But let us trie again. *

God hath promised that all things shall work toge∣ther for good to them that fear him. Do we believe that our present affliction will do so? Will the loss of our goods, the diminution of our revenue, the amission of our honour, the death of our eldest son, the unkindness of a husband, the frown of our Prince, the defeating of our secular hopes, the unprosperous event of our imployment? Do we find that our faith is right enough really to be satisfied in these things so much as to be pleased with Gods order and method of doing good to us by these unpleasing instruments? Can we rejoyce under the mercy by the joys of believing at the same time when we groan under the affliction by the pas∣sions of sense? Do we observe the design of cure, when we feel the pain and the smart? Are we pati∣ent under the evil,* 1.1 being supported by the expectati∣on of the good which is promised to follow? This is the proper work of faith, and its best indication.

Plutarch tells that when the cowards of Lace∣daemon depicted upon their shields the most terrible beasts they could imagine, their design was to af∣fright their enemies that they might not come to a close fight; they would fain have made their ene∣mies afraid; because themselves were so. Which when Lacon espied, he painted upon a great shield nothing but a little fly for his device; and to them who said he did it that he might not be noted in the battle, he answered; yea but I mean to come so neer the enemy, that he shall see the little fly. This is our case, our afflictions seem to us like Gorgons

heads, Lions and Tigres, things terrible in picture, but intolerable in their fury; but if we come neer and consider them in all the circumstances; they are nothing but a fly upon a shield, they cannot hurt us, and they ought not to affright us, if we remember that they are conducted by God, that they are the effect of his care and the impresse of his love, that they are the method and order of a blessing, that they are sanctified and eased by a promise;* 1.2 and that a present ease it may be would prove a future infelicity. If our faith did rely upon the promise, all this were nothing; but our want of faith does cause all the excesse of trouble. For the question is not whether or no we be afflicted, whether we be sick, or crossed in our designs, or deprived of our children, this we feel and mourn for: but the question is, whether all this may not, or be not intended to bring good to us? Not whe∣ther God smiles or no, but to what purposes he smiles? Not whether this be not evil, but whether this evil will not bring good to us? If we do believe, why are we without comfort and without patience? If we do not believe it, where is our faith?

And why does any of us come to the holy Com∣munion if we do not believe it will be for our good? but if we do think it will, why do we not think so of our crosse? for the promise is that eve∣ry thing shall. Cannot the rod of God do good as well as the bread of God? and is not he as good in his discipline as in his provision? Is not he the same in his School as at his Table? Is not his physick as wholesome as his food? It is not reason, but plainly our want of faith that makes us think otherwise. Faith is the great magazine of all the graces and all the comforts of a Christian: and therefore the Devil

endeavours to corrupt the truth of it by inter∣mingling errours, the sincerity of it by hypocri∣sie, the ingenuity of it by interest, the comforts of it by doubting, the confidences of it by ob∣jections and secular experiences and present consi∣derations; by adherence to humane confidences, and little sanctuaries, and the pleasures of the world and the fallibilities of men. * When Xerxes had a great army to conduct, and great successes to desire, and various contingencies to expect, he left off to sacrifice to his Country gods, forsook Jupiter and the Sun, and in Lydia espying a goodly Platan tree, tall and strait and spread, he encamped all his army in the fields about it, hung up brace∣lets and coronets upon the branches, and with costly offerings made his petitions to the beauteous tree; and when he march'd away he left a guard upon his God, lest any thing should do injury to the plant of which he begged to be defended from all injury. By such follies as these does the Devil endeavour to deflour our holy faith and confidences in God: we trust in man who cannot trust himself; we relie upon riches, that relie upon nothing; for they have no stabiliment, and they have no foundation; but are like atoms in the air; the things them••elves can bear no weight, a••d the foundation cannot bear them. In our afflictions we look for comfort from wine or company, from a friend that talkes well, or from any thing that brings us present ease, but in the mean time we look not into the promises of God which are the store houses of comfort; and like the dogs at Hippocrene, we lick the water drops that fall upon the ground and take no notice of the fountain and the full vessels. These things are so necessary to be considered in order to our prepara∣tion

to the Communion, as they are necessary to be reduced to practice in order to a Christian Con∣versation: for the holy Communion is the sum∣mary and compendium of the Religion and duty of a whole life; and as faith cannot be holy, material and acceptable without it contain in it a real trust in the promises of God; so neither can it be a suffici∣ent disposition to the receiving the divine myste∣ries unlesse upon this ground it be holy, acceptable and material.

3. That faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy Communion must be the actual principle and effective of a good life: a faith in the threat∣nings and in the Commandments of God. Who can pretend to be a Christian and yet not believe those words of St. Paul [Follow after peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see God?* 1.3] and yet if we do believe it, what do we think will become of us, who neither follow peace nor holi∣ness, but follow our anger and pursue our lust? If we do believe this, we had need look about us and live at another rate than men commonly do. But we still remain peevish and angry, malicious and unplacable, apt to quarrel and hard to be recon∣ciled, lovers of money and lovers of pleasures, but careless of holiness and Religion; as if they were things fit only to be talked on, and to be the subject of Theological discourses, but not the rule of our lives and the matter of our care. * 1.4 It is ex∣presly said by St. Paul; He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. Now if we observe what crouds of people in great Cities come to the holy Communion, good and bad, penitent and impenitent, the covetous and the proud, the crafty Merch••nt from yesterdays

fraud, and the wanton fool from his last nights lust, we may easily perceive that not many men believe these words. He that sayes to me, drink not this for it is poyson, hath given me a law and an af∣frightment, and I dare not disobey him, if I be∣lieve him; and if we did believe St. Paul, I suppose we should as little dare to be damned as to be poy∣son'd.* 1.5 Our Blessed Saviour told us, that with what measure we mete to others, it shall be measured to us again; but who almost believes this, and considers what it means? Will you be content that God should despise you as you despise your brother? that he should be as soon angry with you, as you are with him? that he should strike you as hastily, and as seldom pardon you, and never bare with your infirmities, and as seldom interpret fairly what you say or do, and be revenged as frequent∣ly as you would be? And what think we of these sayings [Into the heavenly Jerusalem there shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth,* 1.6 or prophaneth, nei∣ther whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie?] Do men believe God, and yet doing these things hope to be saved for all these terrible sayings? [Now the works of the flesh are manifest,* 1.7 adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, &c. of which I tell you before, that they which do such th••ngs shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.] Certainly if we did believe that these things are spoken in earn∣est, we should not account fornication such a de∣cent crime, so fashionable and harmless; or make such a maygame of the fearful lectures of damna∣tion. For if these words be true; will men leave their sins, or are they resolved to suffer damnation, as being lesse troublesome than to quit their vain Mistresses? surely that's not it; but they have some little subterfuges and illusions to trust to. They say

they will relie upon Gods mercy. Well they may; if in well doing they commit their souls to him as to a faithful Creator: but will they make God their enemy, and then trust in him while he remains so? That will prove an intollerable experiment; for so said God, when he caused his name to be pro∣claimed to the host of Israel; The Lord God merci∣ful and gracious: he caused to be added; and that will by no means quit the guilty. By no means? No, by no means, let us believe that as well as the other. For the passion of our Redeemer, the intercession of our high Priest, the Sacraments of the Church, the body and blood of Christ, the mercies of God, the saying Lord, Lord, the priviledges of Christians, and the absolution of the Priest, none of all this, and all this together shall do him no good that remains guilty, that is, who is impenitent, and does not forsake his sin. If we had faith we should believe this, and should not dare to come to the holy Communion with an actual guiltiness of many crimes, and in confidence of pardon, against all the truth of Divine relati∣ons, and therefore without faith.

But then here we may consider, that no man in this case can hope to be excused from the necessi∣ties of a holy life upon pretence of being saved by his faith. For if the case be thus; these men have it not. For he that believes in God, believes his words; and they are very terrible to all evil persons: For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail, but a new creature, nothing but keeping the Commandments of God, nothing but faith work∣ing by charity: they are the words of God. Wicked men therefore can never hope to be saved by their faith, or by their faith to be

worthy Communicants, for they have it not. Who then can?

He only by his faith is worthily disposed to the Communion, and by his faith can be saved, who by his faith lives a life of grace; whose faith is to him a magazine of holy principles, whose faith endears obedience, and is the nurse of a holy hope, and the mother of a never failing charity. He shall be saved by his faith who by his faith is more than conquerour; who resists the Devil and makes him flie, and gives laws to his passions, and makes them obedient; who by his faith overcomes the world and removes mountains, the moun∣tains of pride and vanity, ambition and secular designs; and whose faith casteth out Devils, the Devil of lust and the Devil of intempe••ance, the spirit that appears like a goat, and the spirit that comes in the shape of a swine: he whose faith opens the blind mans eyes and makes him to see the things of God, and cures the lame hypocrite and makes him to walk uprightly. For these signs shall follow them that believe (said our blessed Savi∣our;* 1.8) and by these as by the wedding garment we are fitted to this heavenly Supper of the King. In short, for what ever end faith is designed, whatever propositions it intends to perswade, to what duties soever it does engage, to what state of things soever it ought to efform us, and whither∣soever the nature and intention of the grace does drive us, thither we must go, that we must do, all those things we must believe, and to that end we must direct all our actions and designs. For ••he nature of faith discovers it self in the affairs of our Religion as in all things; if we believe any thing to be good we shall labour for it; if we think so,

we shall do so;* 1.9 and if we run after the vanities of the world and neglect our interest of heaven, there is no other account to be given of it, but because we do not believe the threatnings and the Laws of God, or that heaven is not so considerable as those sottish pleasures and t••ifling regards for which all pains is too much, though we think all labour and all passion is too little. * 1.10 Plutar••h tells that when poverty desired to have a childe she lay with the God Porus their God of plen••y, and she proved with childe and brought forth Love, by which they intended to represent the nature of the Divine love;* 1.11 it is born of a rich Father and a poor mother; that is, it proceeds from a contempt of the world and a value of God; an emptiness of secular affections and a great estimate of wisdom and Religion.

But therefore it is that God and the fruits of his garden, and the wealth of his treasure, and the meat of his Table, and the graces of his spirit are not gustful and delicious, because we dote upon mushromes and colliquintida. But as Manna was given in the desart and it became pleasant when they had nothing else to eat: So it is in ••he sweet∣nesses of Religion; we cannot live by faith, and rejoyce in the banquets of our Saviour, unlesse our souls dwell in the wilderness; that is, where the pleasures and appetites of ••he world may not prepossesse our palates and debauch our reasonings.* 1.12 And this was mysterio••sly spoken by the Psalmist, The broad places of the wilderness shall wax fat, and the hills shall be en••ircled with joy; that is, what∣soever ••s barren and desolate, not full of the things and affections of the world shall be inebriated with the pleasures of Religion and rejoyce in Sacra∣ments, in faith and holy expectations. But the

love of mony and the love of plea∣sures are the intrigues and fet∣ters to the understanding; but he only is a faithful man who * 1.13 re∣strains his passions and despises the world and rectifies his love, that he may believe a right, and put that value upon Religion as that it become the satisfaction of our spirit and the great object of all our passionate desires; pride and prejudice are the Parents of misbelief, but humility and contempt of the world first bear faith upon their knees, and then upon their hands.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Quae{que} la∣tent meli∣ora puta.
• * 1.2

  poenam Phaethon pro mu∣nere pos∣cis.
• * 1.3

  Heb. 12.14.
• * 1.4

  1 Cor. 11.28.
• * 1.5

  Mat. 7.2.
• * 1.6

  Revel. 21.27.
• * 1.7

  Galat. 5.21.
• * 1.8

  Mark 16.17.18.
• * 1.9

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Just. Mart.
• * 1.10

  Isid. & Osir.
• * 1.11

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.12

  Delicata est Divina consola∣tio quae non datur admit tentibus alienam. S. Ber∣nard.
• * 1.13

  Fraenetur ergo corpo∣rum cupidinesDetersa ut intus emicet prudentia,Sic excitato perspicax acu∣mineLiberque flatu laxiore Spi∣ritusReum parentem rectius precabitur.Prudent. in Cathemerin.