CHAPTER II. OF OUR GENERAL PREPARATION TO THE WORTHY RECEPTION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE MYSTERIES. In all the scriptures of the New testament there are no words of particular duty relating to the blessed sacrament, and expressing the manner of our address to the mysteries, but those few words of S. Paul, "Let a man examine himself and so let him eat." The apostle expresses one duty, and intimates another. The duty of preparation is expressed but because this is a relative duty, and is not for itself, but for something beyond; he implies the other to be the great duty to which this preparation does but minister. 1) A man must examine himself, 2) And a man must eat. A man must not eat of these mysteries till he be examined: for that were dangerous and may prove fatal: but when a man is examined, he must eat; for else that examination were to no purpose. SECTION I. OF EXAMINATION OF OURSELVES IN ORDER TO THE HOLY COMMUNION. THERE is no duty in christianity that is partly solemn and partly moral, that hath in it more solemnity and more morality than this one duty and in the greatest declension of religion, still men have fear when they come to receive this holy sacrament. They that have no religion will fear when they come to die: and they who have but a little, will fear when they come to communicate. But although men who believe this to be the greatest secret and sacredness of our religion do more in their addresses to this than to any thing else; yet many of them that do come, consider that they are only commanded to examine themselves; and that, according to the ordinary methods, is easily done. It is nothing but asking ourselves a few questions, Do I believe? do I repent? and am I in charity? To these the answers are ready enough. I do believe that Christ gave His body and blood for me, as for all mankind; and that Christ is mystically present in the sacrament: I have been taught so all my life; and I have no reason to doubt it.-Secondly, I do also repent according to the measures I am taught. I am sorry I have sinned, I wish I had not done it and I promise to do so no more: and this I do constantly before every communion; and before the next comes I have reason enough to renew my vows; I was never so good as my word yet; but now I will.-Thirdly, I am also in charity with all the [1 Cor. xi. 28.] world; and against this good time I pray to God to forgive them; for I do. This is the usual examination of consciences; to which we add a fasting day, and on that we say more prayers than usual; and read some good discourses of the sacrament; and then we are dressed like the friends of the bridegroom, and with confidence come to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. But this examination hath itself need to be examined. Noah laboured an hundred years together in making the ark that he and a few more might be saved: and can we think in an hour to prepare our souls for the entertainment of Him that made all the world? This will very hardly be done. For although our duty of preparation is contained in this one word, of 'try,' or 'examine,' it being after the manner of mysteries, mysteriously and secretly described, yet there is great reason to believe that there is in it very much duty; and therefore we search into the secret of the word, and to what purposes it is used in the New testament. Δοκιμαζέτω. First, it signifies to try and search, to enter into the depths and secrets, the varieties and separations and divisibilities of things. The word is taken from the triers of gold; which is tried by the touchstone, and in great cases is tried by the fire. And in this sense S. Paul might relate to the present condition of the Christians who were often under a fiery trial. For the holy communion being used by the primitive Christians according to its intention, was indeed a great consolation to the martyrs and confessors, as appears often in S. Cyprian: and this blessing and design was mystically represented to the church in the circumstance of the institution, it being done immediately before the passion they who were to pass through this fiery trial, ought to examine themselves against this solemnity in order to that last trial, and see whether or no they were vessels of sanctification and honour; for none else were fit to communicate but they also that were fit to die ; Christ would give Himself to none but to them who are ready to give themselves for Him; according to that saying of Christ, "If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup ⚫ with him, and he with Me. To him that overcometh will I grant to * Καὶ τὸν χρύσον θεωροῦμεν καὶ δοκιμάζομεν ἕτερα παραδεικνύοντες.—[Isocr. panathen. § 43. p. 324 d.] i Non edit Israel sine amaris caulibus agnum, Lib. de lapsis. [passim; p. 121 sqq.] et epist. liv. [al. lvii. p. 117.] Nunc non infirmis sed fortibus pax necessaria est; nec morientibus, sed viventibus communicatio a nobis danda est; ut quos excitamus et hortamur ad prælium, non inermes et nudos relinquamus, sed protec tione sanguinis et corporis Christi muniamus et cum ad hoc fiat eucharistia, ut possit accipientibus esse tutela, quos tutos esse contra adversarium voluimus, munimento dominicæ saturitatis arme mus. * [Rev. iii. 20, 21.] sit with Me," &c., that is, "Those who are tried by the experiments of a great love and a great patience; that out of love are willing to suffer, and with patience do suffer unto the end; these are the guests at My heavenly table' for labour and affrightment put a price upon the martyr's crown, while his virtue grows in danger', and like the water-plants overgrow higher than the floods. Now the use that we can make of this sense of the word is, that we also are to examine what we are likely to be, or what we have been in the day of persecution; how we have passed through the fire. Did we contract the smell of fire, or the pollution of smoke; or are we improved by the purification of the discerning flames? Did we do our duties then, and then learn to do them better; or did we then only like glass, bend in all the flexures and mobilities of the flame, and then mingle with the ashes, incorporating with the interests and foulest pollutions of the world? Or were we like gold, patient of the hammer, and approved by the stone of trial? like gold in the fire did we untwist ourselves from all complications and mixtures with impurer dross? Certain it is, that by persecution and by moneym men are in all capacities and relations best examined how they are in their religion and their justice. Sometimes God tries His friends as we try one another, by the infelicities of our lives"; when we are unhappy in our affliction, if we be not unhappy in our friend too, he is a right good one; and God will esteem of us so, if we can say with David, "Though Thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons, yet have we not forgotten Thee;" and "My soul is alway in my hand," that is, I am always in danger and trouble, and I bear death about me, "yet do I not forsake Thy commandments." This indeed is God's way of examination of us; but that's all one; for we must examine ourselves here in order to our duty and state of being, as God will examine us hereafter in order to what we have been and done. And there is no greater testimony of our being fit to receive Christ, than when we are ready to die for Him. But this is a final trial; we must have some steps of progression before we come thus far. Secondly, there is a way something less than this; Lycurgus instituted among the Spartans, that the princes, the magistrates, the soldiers, and every citizen that was capable of dignity should be tried: "they examined their lives whether they had lived according to the rate of their employment or pretensions ;" and those who were so examined, were called dokiμaσlévτes?, 'tried and examined' men; and if they were persons quitting themselves like men, they were ascribed into the number of the good citizens. That is our way; to try whether we be instructed and rightly prepared to this good work, and that is to be examined by a course and order of good works; that was the old and true way of examining. For examination is but a relative duty, and nothing of itself; for no man is the better for being examined, if being examined there follows nothing after it. He that is examined, either must be approved, or else in S. Paul's phrase he is adókiμos, 'a reprobate;' and to what purpose is it that every man should examine himself, but in case that he find himself unfit, to abstain and forbear to come; for if he comes unworthy, he dies for it; and therefore to 'examine' must signify, 'Let every man examine himself so that he be approved.' And so the word is used by S. Paul', "Happy is he that doth not condemn himself in that which he approveth:" the word signifies both to examine and to approves, that is indeed to examine as wise men should (δοκιμάσας ἀντὶ τοῦ κρίνας, saith Suidast); it is all one as to judge righteous judgment after due examination; and that is expressly added by the apostle, in the same chapter, after the precept of examination; "Judge yourselves that you be not judged of the Lord;" that is, your examination of yourselves will prevent the horrors of the eternal scrutiny; your condemnation of your sins will prevent God's condemnation of you for them; and then when you examine so as to judge, and so condemn your sins that you approve yourselves to God and your own consciences, then you have examined rightly. The sense then is this; let a man examine and prove himself, whether he be fit to come to the holy communion; and so let him eat: not so if upon examination he be found unfit: but because it is intended he should come, and yet must not come without due and just preparations, let him who comes to the holy communion be sure that he worthily prepare himself. These then are the great enquiries: first, how a man shall so examine himself as to know whether he be fit or no; secondly, what are those necessary dispositions without which a man cannot be worthily prepared. The first will represent the general rules of preparation; the second enquiry will consider the more particular. • Δοκιμασθέντες, ἀντὶ τοῦ εἰς ἄνδρας tyypapértes. Suidas. [i. e. Demosthenes, teste Suida ubi supra; habetur autem, Demosth. cont. Midiam. p. 632.] 4 Ἐπὶ τῶν πράξεων τῶν χρησίμων τοὺς εὖ φρονοῦντας δοκιμάζειν.—[Isocr., ad Ni cocl. p. 29 e.] r [Rom. xiv. 22.] ἐν ᾧ δοκιμάζει. ['to prove' B.-Phil. i. 10; Gal. vi. 4; Eph. v. 10.] [In voc. dokiμáσas.] SECTION II. OF THE EXAMINATION OF OUR DESIRES. EVERY one that comes to the holy sacrament must have earnest affections and desires towards God and religion, and particularly toward these divine mysteries; and therefore he must examine accordingly whether or no he be willing and passionately desirous to do all his duty. His saying that he is so I do not suppose to be a sufficient satisfaction to a serious enquiry, unless he really feels himself to be so. For we find that all men pretend that they have earnest desires to be saved; and very many espying the beauties of wisdom, the brightness of chastity, the health of temperance, the peace of meek persons, and the reputation and joy of the charitable, wish that they were such excellent persons. But they consider not that it is the splendour, not the virtue, the reputation, not the usefulness, the reward and not the duty, that they are in love withal: our desires of holiness are too often like our desires of being cut of the stone, or suffering caustics or cupping-glasses; an unwilling willingness, a hard and a fatal necessity, and therefore something of a consequent choice; since it can be no better, it must be no worse: but this can never make our duty pleasant; we can never be heartily reconciled to the things of God as long as we feel smart and pain in the ministries of religion: we suffer' religion, and 'endure' the laws of God, but we 'love' them not. He that comes to God whether he will or no, confesses the greatness of God and the demonstrations of religion, but sees no amability and comeliness in it; and shall find as little of the reward. It is true that force and fear may bring us in to God; and 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and Christ said, 'Compel them to enter;' and our natural needs or our superinduced calamities may force us to run to God, and affright us into religion as into a sanctuary: but then if we enter at this door we must examine whether we be taken with the beauties of the interior house: does fear make us look, and does looking make us like? If holy desires and love be not in the beginning or the progression, we shall do the work of grace pitifully, and our preparations coldly, and our attentions distractedly, and receive the sacraments without effect. Now concerning our desires, we shall best judge of them by the proper effects and significations of desire. |