Wedding-Garments, for that thou wert by the great King of Heaven expected fhortly to be at his Supper? And doft thou make Confcience not to come because thou art not prepared, and yet make no Confcience to be prepared that thou mightest come? But,

Secondly, Judge thou which is the greater Sin, either wholly to neglect a Duty, or else to perform it with fuch Preparations as thou hast, or canft make, though they be not altogether fuch as they ought. We ought to be prepared to pray unto God, and to hear his Word; yet certainly if we neglect our due Preparations, it will be our Sin, it cannot be our Excufe, and we ought to perform these Duties the best we may in the respective Seasons of them. We ought to be humbled for our Want of Preparation; but our Want of Preparation must not cheat God of his Service. We are to labour with our Hearts in the very Entrance upon holy Duties (if we have finfully neglected it before) to bring them into fome holy and spiritual Frame, fit to maintain Communion and Fellowship with God. And know for certain, that thou doft but double thy Crime, whofoever thou art, that neglecteft thy Duty, because thou haft neglected thy Preparation for thy Duty:

H

Duty: For this indeed is nothing else, but that thou dareft not but fin, becaufe thou haft finned.

But may fome fay, The Apostle terrifies me in this Matter of the Sacrament, by pronouncing that dreadful Sentence, 1 Cor. 11. 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself: And therefore, because I have finned in neglecting due Preparation, I dare no more approach unto those holy Mysteries, than I dare eat burning Coals, or fwallow whole Draughts of Fire and Brimstone.

'Tis true, the Apostle hath pronounced that terrible Doom upon unworthy Receiving: But is it not as true, that he that prays unworthily, prays Damnation to himself, and he that hears unworthily, hears Damnation to himself? If thou art not worthy to receive the Sacrament, thou art not worthy neither to pray, faith St. Chryfoft. ad Pop. Ant. Hom. 61. Now wilt thou, or dareft thou, omit the Duties of Praying, or Hearing, upon a Pretenca that thou art not fufficiently prepared to perform them? Certainly, if to receive unworthily, be Damnation; then not to receive at all, because thou are unworthy, is double Damnation, being double Guilt, unless thou canft fin thy felf out

of

of Debt to God's Commands, and make that to be no Duty upon thy Offence, which was thy Duty before it.

And then as for Preparation, though it be very fit and requifite, that before fo folemn an Ordinance as this is, we should allot fome Time for a more serious Scrutiny and Search of our own Hearts, and the Stirring up of the Graces of God within us; yet, I must profess, that I look upon that Man who hath endeavoured to ferve God confcientiously in the ordinary Duties of every Day, to be fufficiently prepared for this holy and bleffed Ordinance, if he be fuddenly called to partake of it; and called to it he is, whenfoever he hath an Opportunity of receiving. And that a pious and inoffenfive Chriftian Life, was look'd upon "as the best Preparation to this holy Ordinance, as this Ordinance it self was look'd upon to be the greatest Obligation to fuch a Life, appears by the Hiftories of the Primitive Times; wherein we have Account given us, that the Chriftians did every Day, and at the fartheft every Lord's Day, communicate in the Lord's Supper: Yea, in St. Cyprian's Time, 250 Years after Chrift, he tells us, Enchariftiam quotidiè ad cibum falutis accipimus, in Orat. Dom.

H 2

Dom. num. 48. So that certainly there could be no confiderable Space of Time fet apart for a particular Preparation, but an holy blameless Life was thought fufficient to qualify them for worthy Receivers, neither do we find that they put fuch a Mock-Honour upon the holy Sacrament as to advance it so high, that they durft not come near it, and to neglect it out of pure Refpect.

And this is all that I fhall leave to the Confideration of those who absent themfelves, because they are not duly prepared: It is their great Sin, that they are not prepared; but this Sin cannot excufe them from their Duty. That to avoid one Sin, they become guilty of two; to avoid Receiving unworthily, they receive not at all, but most unworthily forbear; and because they fin in not Preparing, they refolve likewise to fin in not Receiving. Which is just as good an Excufe, as if a Servant fhould therefore refuse to do any Thing the whole Day, because he rofe not fo early in the Morning as he fhould have done. But,

Secondly, Others fcruple the very Lawfulness of Receiving the Sacrament in our Way of Adminiftring it, and fay, They are not fatisfied as to the Gefture of Kneel

ing; for fo, and not otherwise, hath Authority commanded us to communi

cate.

Two Things they object against it :.

The One, That it fymbolizeth too much with the Idolatry of the Church of Rome.

The Other, That not Kneeling, but Sitting, is a Table-Pofture, and that which Chrift ufed when he celebrated his last Supper with his Apostles, whofe Example we ought to imitate..

First, It is objected, That it fymbolizeth and agreeth too much with the Idolatry of the Romish Church: For they, according to their abfurd and impious Doatrine of Tranfubftantiation, falfly believing the corporal Prefence of Christ in the Eucharift, that the Bread is truly and properly his Body, and the Wine his Blood, do confonantly enough to that Error, fall down and worship him whom they believe to be there bodily prefent. If therefore we difavow and abhor that Doctrine, why fhould we imitate that Practice?