The tables of the Lord, like the Delian altars, must not be defiled with blood and death, with anger and revenge, with wrath and indignation: and this is to be in all senses of duty and ministration 'an unbloody sacrifice'.' The blood of the cross was the last that was to have been shed. The laws can shed more, but nothing else. For by remembering and representing the effusion of blood, not by shedding it, our expiation is now perfected and complete: but nothing hinders it more than the spirit of war and death; not only by the emissions of the hand or the apertures of a wound, but by the murder of the tongue, and the cruelties of the heart, or by an unpeaceable disposition. It was love that first made societies, and love that must continue our communions and God who made all things by His power, does preserve them by His love; and by union and society of parts every creature is preserved. When a little water is spilt from a full vessel and falls into its enemy dust, it curls itself into a drop and so stands equally armed in every point of the circle, dividing the forces of the enemy, that by that little union it may stand as long as it can; but if it be dissolved into flatness it is changed into the nature and possession of the dusts. War is one of God's greatest plagues: and therefore when God in this holy sacrament pours forth the greatest effusion of His love, peace in all capacities, and in all dimensions, and to all purposes, He will not endure that they should come to these love feasts who are unkind to their brethren, quarrelsome with their neighbours, implacable to their enemies, apt to contentions, hard to be reconciled, soon angry, scarcely appeased. These are dogs, and must not come within the holy place, where God who is the congregating father", and Christ the great minister of peace, and the holy Spirit of love, are present in mysterious symbols and most gracious communications. For although it be true that God loves us first, yet He will not continue to love us, or proceed in the methods of His kindness, unless we become like unto Him and love. For by our love and charity He will pardon us, and He will comfort us, and He will judge us, and He will save us and it can never be well with us till love that governs heaven itself be the prince of all our actions and our passions. By this we know we are translated from death to • Φόνῳ καὶ θανάτῳ μὴ μιανθέντα. 4 Μή τις κατά τινος, diaconi solebant enunciare in synaxi. [Const. apostol., lib. ii. cap. 54.] * [Αναίμακτος θυσία —S. Cyril. Alex., declar. anathemat. xi. tom. vi. p. 156, et De adorat, in spir. et verit., lib. ii. p. 57. -See Suicer, Ovoía.] Scelera dissident. Seneca. ['Vulgo dicitur, scelera non habere consilium.' Quintil., inst. or., lib. vii. cap. 2.] Facinus. . sævum atque atrox: inter pocula atque epulas, ubi libare diis dapes, ubi bene precari mos esset, ad spectaculum scorti procacis in sinu consulis recubantis, mactatam humanam victimam esse, et cruore mensam respersam. Sic Valerius Antiates [leg. Antias] apud Livium, lib. xxxix. [cap. 43.] - Συναγωγός πατὴρ.-Dionys. Areop. [Cœlest. hierarch., cap. i. p. 2.] Cum nostros animos amor, quo cœlum regitur, regit. Boeth., consol. philos. [vid. lib. ii. metr. 8 fin.-p. 1006.] life, by our love unto our brethren,'-that's the testimonial of our comfort. I was hungry and ye fed Me; I was hungry and ye fed Me not,'-these are the tables of our final judgment. If ye love Me keep My commandments,'-that's the measure of our obedience. In that ye have done kindness to one of these little ones, ye have done it unto Me,'-that is the installing of the saints in their thrones of glory. If thou bringest a gift to the altar leave it there; go and be reconciled to thy brother,'-that's the great instrument of our being accepted. No man can love God and hate his brother,'that's the rule of our examination in this particular. 'This is a new commandment, that ye love one another,'-there's the great precept of the gospel. This is an old commandment, that ye love one another, there is the very law of nature. And to sum up all, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law,'-that's the excellency and perfection of a man; and there is the expectation of all reward, and the doing all our duty, and the sanctification of every action, and the Spirit of life: it is the heart, and the fire, and the salt of every sacrifice; it is the crown of every communion. And all this mysterious excellency is perfectly represented by that divine exhortation made by S. Paul", "Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened: for even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of MALICE and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Now concerning this grace, if we will enquire after it in order to a worthy receiving the holy communion, we must enquire after the effects and offices of charity and by the good we do or are ready to do, take an account of ourselves in this particular. The offices and general duties are three ;— : Doing good,-Speaking good;-and Forgiving evil. SECTION II. OF DOING GOOD TO OUR NEIGHBOURS. HE that loves me does me good: for until love be beneficial, it is not my good, but his fancy and pleasure that delights in me. I do not examine this duty by our alms alone; for although they are an excellent instrument of life ("for alms deliver from death," said the angel to old Tobit") yet there are some who are bountiful to the poor, and yet not charitable to their neighbour. You can best tell whether you have charity to your brother by your willingness to oblige him, and do him real benefit, and keeping him from all harm we can. Do you do good to all you can? will you willingly give friendly counsel? you readily excuse your neighbour's faults? do you rejoice when do he is made glad? do you delight in his honour and prosperity? do you stop his entry into folly and shame? do not you laugh at his miscarriages? do you stand ready in mind to do all good offices to all you can converse with? For nothing makes societies so fair and lasting, as the mutual endearment of each other by good offices; and never any man did a good turn to his brother, but one time or other himself did eat the fruit of it. The good man in the Greek epigram" that found a dead man's scull unburied, in kindness digging a grave for it, opened the enclosures of a treasure. And we read in the annals of France, that when Gontran king of Burgundy was sleeping by the murmurs of a little brook, his servant espied a lizard coming from his master's head, and essaying to pass the water; but seeming troubled because it could not, he laid his sword over the brook and made an iron bridge for the little beast, who passing entered into the earth and speedily returned back to the king and disturbed him (as it is supposed) into a dream, in which he saw an iron bridge which landed him at the foot of the mountain, where if he did dig he should find a great heap of gold. The servant expounded his master's dream; and shewed him the iron bridge; and they digged where the lizard had entered; where they found indeed a treasure; and that the servant's piety was rewarded upon his lord's head, and procured wealth to one and honour to the other. There is in human nature a strange kind of nobleness and love to return and exchange good offices, but because there are some dogs who bite your hand when you reach them bread, God by the ministry of His little creatures tells, that if we will not, yet He will certainly recompense every act of piety and charity we do to one another. This the Egyptians did well signify in one of the new names of their constellations. For when the wife of Ptolomæus Euergetes had vowed her hair to the temple upon condition her husband might return in safety, and she did consecrate the beauty of her head to the ornaments of religion; Comonus the astronomer told her that the gods had placed her hair among the stars; and to this day they call one knot of stars by the name of Berenice's hair. For every such worthiness like this will have an immortal name in some record, and it shall be written above the stars, and set by Ille capillos Billii antholog. [f. 79 b. 8vo. Paris. 1575.] the names of the sons of God, who by doing worthy things have endeared communions and societies of mankind. In all the sacrifices of the ancients they were hugely kind to one another; they invited their friends to partake the sacrifice, and called them to a portion of the pardon, that they might eat of that mercy and that forgiveness which they expected from their God. Then they sent portions to the absent, then they renewed leagues, and re-established peace, and made marriages, and joined families, and united hearts, and knitted interests by a thread and chain of mutual acts of kindness and endearment: and so should we, when we come to this holy sacrifice; we must keep our hearts entire to God, and divide them amongst our brethren; and heartily love all them who feed upon the same Christ, who live by the same faith, who are entertained by the same hope, and are confederate by the laws, and the events and the causes, by the acts and emanation of the same charity. But this thing is plain; no discourse here is useful, but an exhortation; all that can be said is this; that it is decent and it is useful, and it is necessary that we be very kind and very charitable to all the members of Christ; with whom we are joined by the ligatures of the same body, and supported by the strength of the same nourishment, and blessed by influences from the same divine head, the Lord Jesus Christ. SECTION III. OF SPEAKING GOOD OF OUR NEIGHBOURS. If it be not in our hands to do well, it must be in our hearts; and the contrary must never be upon our tongues; we are sure we can speak well, or we can abstain from speaking ill. If it be otherwise with us, we cannot be welcome here; we shall not worthily communicate. God opens His mouth and His heart and His bowels, His bosom and His treasures to us in this holy sacrament, and calls to us to draw water as from a river; and can we come to drink of the pleasant streams that we may have only moisture enough to talk much and long against the honour of our brother or our sister? can it be imagined that Christ, who never spake an ill word, should take thee into His arms, and feast thee at His table, and dwell in thy heart, and lodge thee in His bosom, who makest thyself all one with the devil, whose office and work it is to be an accuser of the brethren ? No, Christ never will feast serpents at His tablei, persons who have stings instead of tongues, and venom in all the moisture of their mouth, and reproach is all their language. Η Αρύετε ὡς ἐκ Νείλου. [Αρύσασθε ὡς Νείλου, καὶ ἐμοῦ, inquit Vespasianus ad Ægyptios.-Philostr. vit. Apollon.Tyan., lib. v. cap. 10. p. 235.] i Inter epulas, ubi bene precari mos erat.-Livius, lib. xxxix. [p. 119 supra.] gravior terras infestat echidna Cum sua vipereæ jaculantur toxica linguæ Queis nimis innocuo volupe est in sanguine rictus Quæ morum ista lues? We should easily consent that he that killed a man yesterday, and is likely to kill another to-morrow, were not this day worthy to communicate: now some persons had rather lose their lives than lose their honour; what then think we of their preparation to the holy communion, that make nothing of murdering their brother's or their sister's fame? that either invent evil stories falsely and maliciously, or believing them easily, report them quickly, and aggravate them spitefully, and scatter them diligently? He that delights to report evil things of me, that will not endure so much as to have me well spoken of, hath certainly but little kindness to me: he would very hardly die for me, or lay out great sums of money for me, that will not afford me the cheapest charity of a good word. The Jews have a saying, that "it were better that a man were put into a flame of fire, than he should publicly disgrace his neighbour."-But in this there are two great considerations that declare the unworthiness of it ; 1. They who readily speak reproachfully of others, destroy all the love and combinations of charity in the world; they ruin the excellency and peculiar privilege of mankind, whose nature it is to delight in society, and whose needs and nature make it necessary. Now slander and reproach and speaking evil one of another, poisons love and brings in hatred, and corrupts friendship, and tempts the biggest virtue by anger to pass unto revenge. For an evil tongue is a perpetual storm; it is a daily temptation, and no virtue can without a miracle withstand its temptation. "If you strike a lamprey but once with a rod," saith the Greek proverb", "you make him gentle, but if often you provoke him." A single injury is entertained by christian. patience like a stone into a pocket of wool; it rests soft in the embraces of a meek spirit, which delights to see itself overcome a wrong by a worthy sufferance; but he that loves to do injury by talk, does it in all companies, and takes all occasions, and brings it in by violence, and urges it rudely, till patience being weary goes away, and is waited upon by Charity, which never forsakes or goes away from patience. A wound with the tongue is like a bruise, it cannot be cured in four and twenty hours.' 2. No man sins singly in such instances as these. Some men commit one murder and never do another; some men are surprised * Καὶ μύραινα πληγεῖσα νάρθηκι εἰσάπαξ ἡσυχάζει· εἰ δὲ πλεονάκις, εἰς θυμὸν άTTETα. [Ælian. de natura animalium, lib. i. cap. 37.] |