and readiness of mind. But else; what you can learn in these cases ought to be done at all, must be done before the communion, if we can: that is, there must be no let in the will, no imperfect resolution, no indifference of affections to it; if it can be done before, it must. For so said our blessed Saviour," If at the altar thou rememberest, go and be reconciled:" That is, if thou art not reconciled, if thou art not in charity, or if thou beest in thy heart still injurious, and hast not a just and a righteous soul, go even from before the altar; but if thou hast a real charity, and hast done the duties of these graces by a moral diligence, you may come; and a sudden remembrance of an undiscovered obligation need not to expose thee to the reproach of sudden departure: provided, I say, always that thou wert indeed truly reconciled, and truly charitable. For, by our Lord's express command, you must, at no hand, offer till thou hast been in charity till thou hast forgiven, or till thou dost cease to hate, till thou beest 'reconciled,' that is our Saviour's word; for it is the inward grace which thou art tied to in all circumstances, and, therefore, in that; but, to the outward, something else may be necessary, and fit to be considered. Nothing can hinder thee from charity, in any circumstances whatsoever; from present or actual restitution, many things may, and yet thou be innocent: but if thou beest an angry person, or an unjust, or malice be upon thy heart, or injustice upon thy hand, let not thy hand be upon the altar, nor thy heart upon the sacrament. If thy brother hath ought against thee, I know not, why thou shouldest make haste to receive the sacrament, make haste to be reconciled: there is haste of this, there is no such haste of the other; but thou must yet stay, till thou hast done thy duty.

:

Only remember this, every deferring of it is some degree of unwillingness to do it; and, therefore, it is not good to trust thy own word, till thou hast served thy own end. After thou hast received, thou wilt think that there is less need than before; and, therefore, thou wilt make less haste. For what a religious man said in the case of a dying person, is also in proportion true of him who is to communicate; "He that will not restore presently, if he can,—is not to be absolved, is not to be communicated, although he promise restitution." Because it cannot be likely that he intends it

heartily, that puts it off longer than the day of its extreme, or the day of its positive, necessity. Let us not deceive ourselves of all the things in the world, the holy sacrament was never intended to give countenance to sinners, or palliation to a sin; warranty or colour, excuse, or perpetuity. There is a hard expression in the prophet", "They have filled the land with violence; and have returned to provoke me to anger, and lo, they put the branch to their nose, and behold they are as mockers;" so the Seventy read it; but make no mention of putting the branch to their nose. Theodotian f

g

e

puts them both together: " they hold out the branch like mockers;" and to this Symmachus gives yet a little more light, "They lifted up the branch, making a noise like them that mock with their noses." But this interpretation is something hard; there is yet an easier, and that which makes these words pertinent to our present duty, and a severe reproof to them who come to this holy service of God, not with the love of sons, and the duty of servants, but with the disaffection of enemies. The carrying of branches, in the superstition of the Gentiles, and the custom of the Jews, was a sign of honour. Thus they carried the pine-tree before the shepherds' god: they gave the cypress to Sylvanus, and the apricot-tree to Isis: and the branches of palms the Jews did carry before our blessed Saviour, and this is it that God complains of; They carried branches, as if they did him honour; but they held them to their noses like mockers' that is, they mocked him secretly when they worshipped him publicly; they came with fair pretences and foul hearts; their ceremony was religious all over, but their livest were not answerable. The difficulty came from the homonymy of the Hebrew word ", which signified a branch,' and a 'noise; and it will be as difficult to distinguish a hypocrite from a communicant, unless we really purpose to live better, and do so; unless we leave the next occasions to sin, and do justice and judgment, and cease to do evil, and cause that my brother shall no longer feel the evils of my injustice, and of my foolish crimes.

Qui tarde vult, diu noluit.

• Καὶ ἰδοὺ αὐτοὶ ὡς μυκτηρίζοντες.

d Ezek. viii. 17.

1 Καὶ ἰδοὺ αὐτοὶ ἐκτείνουσι τὸ κλῆμα, ὡς μυκτηρίζοντες.

5 Καί εἰσιν ὡς ἀφιέντες ἔχον, ὡς ἆσθμα διὰ τῶν μυκτήρων ἑαυτῶν.

SECTION IV.

How far we must have proceeded in our general Repentance, and Emendation of our Lives, before we communicate ?

To this I answer, that no man is fit to communicate, but he that is fit to die;' that is, he must be in the state of grace, and he must have trimmed his lamp; he must stand readily prepared by a state of repentance; and against a solemn time, he must make that state more actual, and his graces operative.

Now, in order to this, it is to be considered, that preparation to death hath great latitude: and not only he is fit to die, who hath attained to the fulness of the stature of Christ, to a perfect man in Christ Jesus; but every one who hath renounced his sin with heartiness and sincerity, and hath begun to mortify it. But, in these cases of beginning, or of infancy in Christ, though it be certain that every one who is a new creature, though but newly become so, is born of God, and hath life abiding in him, and, therefore, shall not pass into condemnation,-yet concerning such persons, the rulers of souls, and ministers of sacraments, have nothing but a judgment of charity, and the sentences of hope relating to the persons; the state is so little, and so allayed, and so near to the late state of death from which they are recovering, that God only knows how things are with them; yet, because we know that there is a beginning, in which new converts are truly reconciled, there is a first period of life; and as we cannot say in many cases that this is it,' so in many we cannot say, this is not;' therefore the church hopes well of persons, that die in their early progressions of piety; and, consequently, refuses not to give to them these divine mysteries. Whoever are reconciled to God, may be reconciled to the church, whose office it is only to declare the divine sentence, and to administer it, and to help towards the verification of it.

But because the church cannot be surer of any person that his sins are pardoned, that he is reconciled to God, that he is in the state of grace, that if he then dies he shall be saved, than a man himself can be of himself, and in his own

case, which certainly he knows better than any man else; and that our degree of hope and confidence of being saved, when it is not presumption, but is prudent and reasonable, does increase in proportion to our having well used and improved God's grace, and enlarges itself by our proportions of mortification and spiritual life; and every man that is wise and prudent, abides in fears and uncertain thoughts, till he hath gotten a certain victory over all his sins; and though he dies in hope, yet not without trembling, till he finds that he is more than conqueror; therefore, in proportion to this address to death, must also be our address to the holy sacrament. For no man is fit to die, but he that can be united unto Christ; and he only that can be so, must be admitted to a participation of his body and his blood. It is the same case, in both we dwell with Christ; and the two states differ but in degrees; it is but a passing from altar to altar, from that where the minister of the church officiates, to that where the head of the church does intercede.

There is this only difference; there may be some proportions of haste to the sacrament, more than unto death, upon this account, because the reception of the sacrament, in worthy dispositions, does increase those excellencies, in which death ought to find us; and, therefore, we may desire to communicate, because we perceive a want of grace; and yet, for the same reason, we may at the same time be afraid to die, because after that we can receive no more; but, as that finds us, we shall abide for ever. But he that fears justly, may yet, in many cases, die safely; and he shall find, that his fears, when he was alive, were useful to the caution, and zeal, and hastiness of repentance; but were no certain indication, that God was not reconciled unto him. The best and severest persons do, in the greatest parts of their spiritual life, complain of their imperfect state; and feel the load of their sins, and apprehend with trembling the sad consequents of their sins, and every day contend against them; and forget all that is past of good actions done, and press forwards still to more grace, and are as hungry as if they had none at all. And those men, if they die, go to Christ, and shall reign with him for ever; and yet many of them go with a trembling heart, and though, considering the infinite obliquity of them, they cannot overvalue their sins; yet considering the

infinite goodness of God, and his readiness to accept it, they, undervalue their repentance, and are safe in their humility, and in God's goodness, when, in many other regards, they think themselves very unsafe. Now, such men as these must not be as much afraid to communicate, as they are afraid to die but these, and all men else, must not communicate till they be in that condition, that if they did die, it would go well with them: and the reason is plain; because every friend of God, dying so, is certainly saved; and he that is no friend of God, is unworthy to partake of the table of the Lord.

But, for the reducing the answer of this question to practice, and to particular considerations: I am to advise these things.

1. Because no man of an ordinary life, and a newly begun repentance, ought hastily to pronounce himself acquitted, and in the state of grace, and in the state of salvation, in this rule of proportion; we are only to take the judgment of charity, not of certainty; and what is usually by wise and good men supposed to be the certain, though the least measure of hopeful expectations in order to death,— that we must suppose also to be our least measure of repentance preparatory to the blessed sacrament.

2. This measure must not be taken in the days of health and carelessness; but when we are either actually in apprehension, or at least in deep meditation of death; when it is dressed with all such terrors and material considerations, that it looks like the king of terrors, and at least makes our spirits full of fear and of sobriety.

3. This measure must be carefully taken without the allay of foolish principles, or a careless spirit, or extravagant confidences of personal predestination, or of being in any sect; but with the common measures which Christians take, when they weigh sadly their sins, and their fears of the divine displeasure; let them take such proportions, which considering men rely upon when they indeed come to die; for few sober men die upon such wild accounts as they rely upon in talk and interest, when they are alive. He that prepares himself to death, considers how deeply God hath been displeased, and what hath been done towards a reconciliation; and he that can probably hope, by the usual measures of the Gospel, that he is in probability of pardon, hath by