cases or circumstances: only, when a man has competently adjusted his accounts with God, (be it sooner, or be it later,) then is he fit to come, and not till then. There is an habitual, and there is an actual preparation. The habitual preparation is a good life; and the farther we are advanced in it, the less need there is of any actual preparation besides: but because men are too apt to flatter and deceive their own hearts, and to speak peace to themselves without sufficient grounds for so doing; therefore some actual preparation, self-examination, &c. is generally necessary even to those who may be habitually good, if it be only to give them a well grounded assurance that they really are so. However, the better men are, the less actual preparation may suffice, and the shorter warning will be needful. Some therefore may receive as often as they have opportunity, though it were ever so sudden or unexpected; and they may turn it to good account by their pious care and recollection in their closets afterwards. Others may have a great deal to consider of beforehand, many offences to correct, many disorders to set right, much to do and much to undo, before they presume to come to God's altar.

Fault has been sometimes found with the little treatises of Weekly Preparation, and the like: I think without reason. They are exceeding useful in their kind; and even their number and variety is an advantage, considering that the tastes, tempers, necessities, capacities, and outward circumstances of Christians, are also manifold and various. It may be happy for them who need none of those helps : but they that least need them are not the men, generally, who most despise them. However, they are not obtruded as things absolutely necessary for all, but as highly useful to many, and especially upon their first receiving: though we are none of us perhaps so perfect, as not to want, at some seasons, some such hints for recollection, or helps to devotion. There may be excesses, or there may be defects in such treatises: what human compositions are without them? On the other hand, it should be considered,

that there may be excesses and defects also in the censures or judgments passed upon them: for human frailties are as much seen to prevail in the work of judging and censuring, as in any thing else whatsoever. In the general, it is well for common Christians, that they are so plentifully provided with useful manuals of that kind: they that are well disposed will make use of them as often as they need them, and will at all times give God thanks and praises for them.

I have said nothing hitherto, about coming fasting to the Lord's table, neither need I say much now. The rule was early, and almost universal; a rule of the Church, not a rule of Scripture, and so a matter of Christian liberty, rather than of strict command. They that use it as most expressive of Christian humility and reverence, or as an help to devotion, do well; and they that forbear it, either on account of infirmity, or for fear of being indisposed, and rendered less fit to attend the service, are not to be blamed. No one need be scrupulous concerning this matter: none should be censorious either way; either in rashly charging superstition on one hand, or in charging, as rashly, irreverence on the other. I shall only observe farther, that it was a weak thing for so great a man as the justly celebrated Mabillon to draw an argument in favour of the corporal presence, from the custom of the Church in administering or receiving this holy Sacrament fasting h. For as the custom, probably, came in accidentally, either because, in times of persecution, Christians chose to communicate early in the morning for their greater safety, or because abuses had been committed in the previous love feasts; so was it continued for the like prudential reasons, and then only came to have different colours put upon it, when the reasons which first introduced it were, in a manner, forgotten and sunk. Besides, it was the ancient custom for both the administrator and receiver of Baptism, to

8 Bingham, xv. 7, 8. Gaspar. Calvoer. Ritual. Eccles. vol. i. p. 413, &c. Sam. Basnag. Annal. tom. ii. p. 295, &c.

h Mabillon de Liturg. Gallican. lib. i. cap. 6. p. 60, 61.

come fasting, out of reverence to that Sacramenti: which further shows how slight the argument is, drawn from the custom of fasting before the Eucharist, as to proving any thing of a corporal presence. If any man duly considering how sacred those symbols of the Eucharist are, and to what high and holy purposes they were ordained, looks upon fasting as a proper token of the reverence he bears towards things sacred; he may as well fast upon that principle, as upon the imaginary notion of a corporal or local presence.

I have nothing further to add, upon the head of sacramental preparation: but if any one desires to see this article more minutely drawn out, in its full length, he will not perhaps easily find a treatise better fitted to the purpose, than Bishop Taylor's Worthy Communicant k: to that therefore I refer the reader.

CHAP. XIV.

Of the Obligation to frequent Communion.

AS to frequency or constancy in receiving the Sacrament, it may be justly said in the general, abstracting from particular circumstances, that a man cannot too often commemorate our Lord and his passion, nor too often return devout thanks and praises for the same, nor too often repeat his resolutions of amendment, nor too often renew his solemn engagements, nor too often receive pardon of sins, and fresh succours of Divine grace: and if coming to the Lord's table (prepared or unprepared) were a sure and infallible way to answer those good and great ends, there could then be no question, but that it would be both our wisdom and our duty to communicate as often as opportunities should invite and health permit. But it is certain, on the other hand, that bare communicating is not

i Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Rit. tom. i. p. 25. The like rule was afterwards made for Confirmation. Vid. p. 237, 239.

k

* Taylor's Worthy Communicant, chap. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. p. 79—357.

the thing required, but communicating worthily. Here lies the main stress of all, not to urge frequency of communion so far as to render this holy Sacrament hurtful or fruitless to the parties concerned; neither yet to abate so far of the frequency, as to make a kind of dearth or famine of this so salutary and necessary food. Divines in all ages of the Church (unless we may except the first, and part of the second) have found some perplexity in settling a just mean between the extremes. I do not mean as to theory, or as to the thing considered in the general and in the abstract, but with respect to particular persons, cases, and circumstances; of which it is very difficult, if not impossible, to judge with unerring exactness. They determined perhaps as well and as wisely, upon the fairest presumptions and probabilities, as human sagacity in such dark cases could do: and if they sometimes ran into extremes, either on the right hand or on the left, their meaning all the while was good, and their conduct such as may reasonably claim all candid construction, and the best natured allowances. One thing is observable, (and I know not whether one can justly blame them for it,) that, for the most part, they seemed inclinable to abate of frequency, rather than of the strictness of preparation or qualification. They considered, that due dispositions were absolutely necessary to make the Sacrament salutary, and were therefore chiefly to be looked to: and they supposed, with good reason, that God would more easily dispense with the want of the Sacrament, than with the want of the qualifications proper for it. They thought farther, that while a man was content to abstain from the Lord's table, out of an awful reverence for it, there was good probability that such a person would, by degrees, be perfectly reclaimed: but if once a man should set light by those holy solemnities, and irreverently rush upon them, without awe or concern, there could be very little hopes of his conversion or amendment; because he despised the most sacred bands of allegiance towards God, and looked upon them only as

common forms1. Such were the prevailing sentiments of the ablest Divines and casuists in those ancient times; as will appear more fully, when I come to give a brief detail of their resolutions in this article, which I shall do presently.

But I may first take notice, for the clearer conception of the whole case, that since it is allowed on all hands, that there can be no just bar to frequency of Communion, but the want of preparation, which is only such a bar as men may themselves remove if they please, it concerns them highly to take off the impediment, as soon as possible, and not to trust to vain hopes of alleviating one fault by another. It was required under the Law, that a man should come holy and clean, and well prepared m to the Passover: but yet his neglecting to be clean (when he might be clean) was never allowed as a just apology for his staying away. No: the absenting in that case was an offence great enough to deserve the being cut off from God's people", because it amounted to a disesteeming, and, in effect, disowning God's covenant. The danger of misperforming any religious duty is an argument for fear and caution, but no excuse for neglect: God insists upon the doing it, and the doing it well also. The proper duty of the high priest, under the Law, was a very dangerous employ, requiring the exactest care and profoundest reverence: nevertheless, there was no declining the service; neither was the exactness of the preparation or qualifications any proper excuse to be pleaded for non-performance. It was no sufficient plea for the slothful servant, under the Gospel, that he thought his Master hard to please, and thereupon neglected his bounden duty P: for the use he ought to have made of that thought was, to

1 Vid. Isidor. Pelusiot. lib. iii. ep. 364. p. 398. alias 345.

m2 Chron. xxx. 1, &c. xxxv. 3-6, &c.

" Exod. xii. 15, 19. Numb. ix. 13.

Levit. xvi. 13. Conf. Deyling. Observ. Sacr. tom. ii. n. 41.

tom. iii. n. 46. p. 454, &c.

P Matt. xxv. 24, &c. Luke xix. 20, &c.

p. 493.