passionate, weary of sin and hating vanity, and reaching out the heart and hands to Christ. And this we are taught by the same mystery represented under other sacraments: the waters of the spiritual rock of which our fathers drank in the wilderness, the rock was Christ,' and those waters were His blood in sacrament; and with the same appetite they drank those sacramental waters withal, we are to receive these divine mysteries evangelical. Now let us by the aids of memory and fancy consider the children of Israel in the wilderness, in a barren and dry land where no water was, marching in dust and fire, not wet with the dew of heaven, wholly without moisture save only what dropped from their own brows; the air was fire and the vermin was fire; the flying serpents were of the same cognation with the firmament, their sting was a flame, their venom was a fever, and the fever a calenture, and their whole state of abode and travel was a little image of the day of judgment, when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. These men, like salamanders walking in fire, dry with heat, and scorched with thirst, and made yet more thirsty by calling upon God for water; suppose, I say, these thirsty souls hearing Moses to promise that he will smite the rock, and that a river should break forth from thence: observe how presently they ran to the foot of the springing stone, thrusting forth their heads and tongues to meet the water, impatient of delay; crying out that the water did not move like light, all at once; and then suppose the pleasure of their drink, the unsatiableness of their desire, the immensity of their appetite; they took in as much as they could, and they desired much more. This was their sacrament of the same mystery; and this was their manner of receiving it; and this teaches us to come to the same Christ with the same desires; for if that water was a type of our sacrament, or a sacrament of the same secret blessing, then that thirst is a signification of our duty; that we come to receive Christ in all the ways of reception with longing appetites; preferring Him before all the interests of the world, as birds do corn above jewels, or hungry men meat before long orations. For it is worth observing, that there being in the Old testament thirteen types and umbrages of this holy sacrament; eleven of them are of meat and drink: such are, the tree of life in the midst of paradise, the bread and wine of Melchisedec,-the fine meal that Sarah kneaded for the angels' entertainment, the Manna,-and the roasted paschal lamb,-the springing rock,-and the bread of proposition to be eaten by the priests, the barley cake in the host of Midian,-Samson's father's oblation upon the rock,-the honeycomb that opened the eyes of Jonathan,-and the bread which the angel z Sint desiderii post escas pocula magni, Petrus Blesens. [tract. de ss. eucharistia, cap. ix. p. 607.] brought to Elijah, in the strength of which he was to live forty days; all this to shew that the sacrament is the life of the spiritual man and the food of his soul, the light of his eyes and the strength of his heart; and not only all this and very much more of this nature, but to represent our duty also, and the great principle of preparation, meat is the object and hunger is the address. The wine is the wine of angels; but if you desire it not, what should you do with it? For the wine that is not to satisfy your need, can do nothing but first minister to vanity and then to vice; first to wantonness and then to drunkenness. S. Austin, expressing the affections of his mother Monica to the blessed sacrament, says that her soul was by the ligatures of faith united so firmly to the sacrifice which is dispensed in the Lord's supper, that a lion or a dragon could not drag her away from thence. And it was said of S. Katherine that she went to the sacraments as a sucking infant to his mother's breasts; and this similitude S. Chrysostom presses elegantly, "See you not with what pretty earnestness and alacrity infants snatch their nurse's breast? how they thrust their lips into the flesh" (like the sting of a bee)? "Let us approach to this table with no less desire, and with no less, suck the nipple of the holy calice; yet with greater desire let us suck the grace of the holy Spirit." And it is reported that our blessed Lord taught S. Mechtildis "When you are to receive the holy communion, desire and wish to the praise of My name to have all desire and all love that ever was kindled in any heart towards Me, and so come to Me; for so will I inflame, and so will I accept thy love, not as it is, but as thou desirest it should be in thee." "Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden," saith Christ; that is, they that groan under the burden of their sins, and feel the load of their infirmities, and desire pardon and remedy; they that love the instruments of grace as they are channels of salvation; they that come to the sacrament out of earnest desires to receive the blessings of Christ's death and of His intercession; these are the welcome guests: for so saith God", "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it," for "He hath filled the hungry with good things," said the holy Virgin mother: for Christ is food and refreshment to none else; for "the full He hath sent empty away." [Confess., lib. ix. cap. 13. § 36.— tom. i. col. 170.] [In vita ejus passim. Vide præsertim part. ii. cap. 6. § 187; Act. sanctt. Bolland. in April. xxx. p. 900.] In actis Lovaniensibus dicitur de B. Ida ex ore et naribus fluere sanguinem solere, qui non sistebatur donec ad sacram mensam se sisteret ad sedandum vehemens ejus communicandi cum eo quem ardenter amaverat desiderium.-Cap. 9. [al. lib. i. cap. 4. ubi supra, in April. xiii. p. 164.] In Matth. xxvi. hom. [lxxxii. al.] lxxxiii. [§ 5. tom. vii. p. 788 E.] Прoσίωμεν τοίνυν μετὰ θερμότητος αὐτῷ καὶ πεπυρωμένης ἀγάπης, καὶ μὴ ὑπομείνωμεν TIμwplav.-S. Chrys., hom. xxiv. in 1 ad Corinth. [§ 5. tom. x. p. 218 B.] d [Matth. xi. 28.] e [Ps. lxxxi. 10.] 1 [Luke i. 53.] If therefore you understand your danger, and deeply resent the evil of your infirmities and sinful state; if you confess yourselves miserable and have all corresponding apprehensions; if ye long for remedy and would have it upon any terms; if you be hungry at your very heart, and would fain have food and physic, health and spiritual advantages: if you understand what you need, and desire what you understand; if these desires be as great as they are reasonable, and as lasting as they are great; if they be as inquisitive as they are lasting, and as operative as they are inquisitive; that is, if they be just and reasonable pursuances of the means of grace; if they carry you by fresh and active appetites to the communion; and that this may be to purpose, if they fix you upon such methods as will make the communion effect that which God designed and which we need, then we shall perceive the blessings and fruits of our holy desires: according to those words of David (as it is rendered in the vulgar Latin) "The Lord hath heard the desire of the poor, and His ear hath hearkened to the preparation of their heart." An earnest desire is a good preparation; and God will attend unto it. Concerning this therefore we are first to examine ourselves. Upon the account of our earnest desires, it is seasonable to enquire whether to communicate frequently be an instance of that holy desire which we ought to have to these sacred mysteries; and whether all men be bound to communicate frequently, and what measure is the safest and best in this enquiry? But because the answer to this depends upon some other propositions of differing matter; I reserve it to its proper place b, where it will be a consequent of those propositions. SECTION III, OF OUR EXAMINATION CONCERNING REMANENT AFFECTIONS TO SIN. HE that desires to communicate worthily, must examine himself whether there be not in him any affection to sin remaining. This examination is not any part of repentance, but a trial of it; for of preparatory repentance I shall give larger accounts in its own place; but now we are to try whether that duty be done; that if it be, we may come; if not, we may be remanded, and go away till we have performed it. For he that comes, must have repented first; but now he is to be examined whether he have or no done that work so materially, that it is also prosperously; that is, whether he have done it not only solemnly and ritually, but effectively; whether he have so washed, that he is indeed clean from any foul and polluting principle. [Ps. x. 17.] h Chap. v. sect. 4. When the heathens offered a sacrifice to their false gods, they would make a severe search to see if there were any crookedness or spot, any uncleanness or deformity in their sacrifice: the priest was wont to handle the liver and search the throbbing heart; he enquires if the blood springs right, and if the lungs be sound'; he thrusts his hand into the region of the lower belly, and looks if there be an ulcer, or a scirrhus, a stone or a bed of gravel. Now the observation which Tertullian makes upon these sacrificial rites is pertinent to this rule, When your impure priests look after a pure sacrifice, why do they not rather enquire into their own heart, than into the lamb's appurtenance? why do they not ask after the lust of the sacrificers more than the little spot upon the bull's liver ?' The rites of sacrifices were but the monitions of duty; and the priest's enquiry into the purity of the beast was but a precept represented in ceremony and hieroglyphic, commanding us to take care that the man be not less pure and perfect than the beast. For if an unclean man brings a clean sacrifice, the sacrifice shall not cleanse the man, but the man will pollute the sacrifice; let them bring to God a soul pure and spotlessm; lest when God espying a soul humbly lying before the altar and finding it to be polluted with a remaining filthiness or the reproaches of a sin, He turn away His head, and hate the sacrifice. And God who taught the sons of Israel in figures and shadows, and required of the levitical priests to come to God clean and whole, straight and with perfect bodies", meant to tell us that this bodily precept in a carnal law does in a spiritual religion signify a spiritual purity. For God is never called a lover of bodies, but the great lover of souls';' and Ile that comes to redeem our souls from sin and death, from shame and reproach, would have our souls brought to Him as He loves them; an unclean soul is a deformity in the eyes of God; it is indeed spiritually discerned, but God hath no other eyes but what are spirits and flames of fire. Here therefore it concerns us to examine ourselves strictly and severely; always remembering that to examine ourselves (as it is here intended) is not a duty completed by examining: for this 1 Et fibras pecorum et spirantia consulit exta.—Virg. [Æn. iv. 64.] Miror cum hostia probantur penes yos a vitiosissimis sacerdotibus, cur præcordia potius victimarum quam ipsorum sacrificantium examinantur.-Apolog. c. xxx. [p. 27 C.] 1 Submonentur in his symbolis ut quoties accedunt ad altaria, vel nuncupaturi vota vel reddituri, nullum vitium nullumque morbum afferant in anima.Philo. [De animal. sacrif. idon., tom. ii. p. 238. ed. Mangey.] Conentur omnino nitidam et immaculatam [animam] in conspectum Dei producere ne visam aversetur.-Philo, VIII. F [ibid.] [Wisd. xi. 26.] P Salvatorem nostrum (fratres charissimi) suscepturi, totis viribus debemus nos cum ipsius adjutorio præparare, et omnes latebras animæ nostræ diligenter aspicere, ne forte sit in nobis aliquod peccatum absconditum, quod et conscientiam nostram confundat et mordeat, et oculos divinæ majestatis offendat.-S. Ambros. de sacram. [?] carries us on to the sacrament, or returns us to the mortifications of repentance. But sometimes our sins are so notorious that they go before unto judgment and condemnation; and they need no examining: and whatsoever is not done against our wills, cannot be besides our knowledge; and so cannot need examination, but remembering only and therefore I do not call upon the drunkard to examine himself concerning temperance, or the wanton concerning his uncleanness, or the oppressor concerning his cruel covetousness, or the customary swearer concerning his profaneness. No man needs much enquiry to know whether a man be alive or dead when he hath lost a vital part. But this caution is given to the returning sinner, to the repenting man, to him that weeps for his sins and leaves what was the shame of his face, and the reproach of his heart. For we are quickly apt to think we are washed enough; and having remembered our shameful falls we groan in method and weep at certain times; we bid ourselves be sorrowful, and tune our heart-strings to the accent and key of the present solemnity: and as sorrow enters in dress and imagery when we bid her, so she goes away when the scene is done. Here, here it is that we are to examine whether shows do make a real change, whether shadows can be substances, and whether to begin a good work splendidly can effect all the purposes of its designation. Have you wept for your sin so that you were indeed sorrowful and afflicted in your spirit? are you so sorrowful that you hate it? do you so hate it that you have left it ? and have you so left it that you have left it all, and will you do so for ever?-These are particulars worth the enquiring after; how then shall we know? SIGNS BY WHICH WE MAY EXAMINE AND TELL WHETHER OUR 1. BECAUSE in examining ourselves concerning this, we can never be sure but by the event of things, and the heart being deceitful above all things, we secretly love what we profess to hate; we deny our lovers, and desire they should still press us; we command away the sin from our presence, for which we die if it stays away; therefore while we are in this preparatory duty of examination, the best sign whereby we can reasonably suppose all affection to sin to be gone away is, if we really believe that we shall never any more commit that sin to which we are most tempted and most inclined, and by which we most frequently fall. Here is a copious matter for examination. 2. When thou dost examine thyself thou canst not but remember how often thou hast sinned by wantonness perhaps, or by intemperance; but now thou sayest thou wilt do so no more. If thou hadst never said so and failed, it might have been likely enough; but the sun does not rise and set so often as thou hast sinned and broken all |