from the love of God, and that love of God to be sufficiently signified by single acts of loving prayer, can easily, by such forms and ready exercises, fancy and conclude themselves in a very good condition, at an easy rate. But contrition is therefore necessary, because attrition can be but the one half of repentance; it can turn us away from sin, but it cannot convert us unto God; that must be done by love; and that love, especially in this case, is manifestly nothing else but obedience and until that obedience be evident and discernible, we cannot pronounce any comfort concerning our state of love; without which, no man can see God, and no man can taste him or feel him without it.

3. A single act of obedience in the instance of any kind, where the scene of repentance lies, is not a sufficient preparation to the holy sacrament, nor demonstration of our contrition: unless it be in the case of repentance only for single acts of sin. In this case to oppose a good to an evil, an act of proportionable abstinence to a single act of intemperance, for which we are really sorrowful, and (as we suppose) heartily troubled, and confess it, and pray for pardon,—may be admitted as a competent testimonial, that this sorrow is real, and this repentance is contrition; because it does as much for virtue, as in the instance it did for vice; always provided, that whatsoever aggravations or accidental grandeurs were in the sin, as scandal, deliberation, malice, mischief, hardness, delight, or obstinacy,-be also proportionably accounted-for in the reckonings of the repentance. But if the penitent return from a habit or state of sin, he will find it a harder work to quit all his old affection to sin, and to place it upon God entirely; and, therefore, he must stay for more arguments than one, or a few single acts of grace; not only because a few may proceed from many causes accidentally, and not from the love of God; but also because his love and habitual desires of sin must be naturally extinguished by many contrary acts of virtue; and till these do enter, the old love does naturally abide. It is true, that sin is extinguished, not only by the natural force of the contrary actions of virtue, but by the Spirit of God, by aids from heaven, and powers supernatural; and God's love hastens our pardon and acceptation; yet still, this is done by parts and methods of natural progression, after the manner of nature, though by

the aids of God; and, therefore, it is fit that we expect the changes, and make our judgment by material events, and discerned mutations, before we communicate in these mysteries, in which whoever unworthily does communicate, enters into death.

4. He that hath resolved against all sin, and yet falls into it regularly at the next temptation, is yet in a state of evil, and unworthiness to communicate; because he is under the dominion of sin, he obeys it, though unwillingly; that is, he grumbles at his fetters, but still he is in slavery and bondage. But if, having resolved against all sin, he delights in none, deliberately chooses none, is not so often surprised, grows stronger in grace, and is mistaken but seldom, and repents when he is, and arms himself better, and watches more carefully against all, and increases still in knowledge;-whatever imperfection is still adherent to the man unwillingly, does indeed allay his condition, and is fit to humble and cast him down; but it does not make him unworthy to communicate, because he is in the state of grace; he is in the Christian warfare, and is on God's side: and the holy sacrament, if it have any effect at all, is certainly an instrument or a sign in the hands of God to help his servants, to enlarge his grace, to give more strengths, and to promote them to perfection.

5. But the sum of all is this: he that is not freed from the dominion of sin, he that is not really a subject of the kingdom of grace, he in whose mortal body sin does reign, and the Spirit of God does not reign,-must, at no hand, present himself before the holy table of the Lord: because, whatever dispositions and alterations he may begin to have in order to pardon and holiness, he as yet hath neither, but is God's enemy, and, therefore, cannot receive his holy Son.

6. But because the change is made by parts and effected by the measures of other intellectual and spiritual changes, that is, after the manner of men, from imperfection to perfection by all the intermedial steps of moral degrees, and good and evil, in some periods, have but a little distance, though they should have a great deal; and it is, at first, hard to know whether it be life or death; and after that, very it is still very difficult to know whether it be health or sickness and dead men cannot eat, and sick men scarce can eat with benefit, at least are to have the weakest and the lowest

diet; and after all this, it is of a consequence infinitely evil, if men eat this supper indisposed and unfit;-it is all the reason of the world that returning sinners should be busy in their repentances, and do their work in the field (as it is in the parable of the Gospel), and in their due time" come home, and gird themselves, and wait upon their Lord;" and when they are bidden and warranted, then to sit down to the supper of their Lord. But, in this case, it is good to be as sure as we can; as sure as the analogy of these divine mysteries require, and as our needs permit.

7. He that hath committed a single act of sin, a little before the communion, ought, for the reverence of the holy sacrament, to abstain, till he hath made proportionable amends. And not only so, but if the sin was inconsistent with the state of grace, and destroyed or interrupted the divine favour, as in cases of fornication, murder, perjury, any malicious or deliberate known great crime, he must comport himself as a person returning from a habit or state of sin. And the reason is, because he that hath lost the divine favour, cannot tell how long he shall be before he recovers it; and, therefore, would do well not to snatch at the portion and food of sons, whilst he hath reason to fear, that he hath the state and calamity of dogs, who are caressed well, if they feed on fragments and crumbs, that are thrown away.

Now this doctrine and these cautions, besides that they are consonant to Scripture and the analogy of this divine sacrament, are nothing else but what was directly the sentiment of all the best, most severe, religious, and devoutest ages of the primitive church. For true it is, the apostles did indefinitely admit the faithful to the holy communion; but they were persons wholly inflamed with those holy fires, which Jesus Christ sent from heaven, to make them burning and shining lights; such which our dearest Lord, with his blood still warm and fresh, filled with his holy love; such whose spirits were so separate from the affections of the world, that they laid their estates at the apostles' feet, and took with joy the spoiling of their goods; such who, by improving the graces they had received, did come to receive more abundantly; and, therefore, these were fit to receive

"the bread of the strong." But this is no invitation for them to come, who feel such a lukewarmness and indifference of spirit and devotion, that they have more reason to suspect it to be an effect of evil life, rather than of infirmity : for them who feel no heats of love but of themselves; for they who are wholly immerged in secular affections and interests; for they who are full of passions and void of grace; these, from the example of the others, may derive caution, but no confidence: so long as they " persevered in the doctrine of the apostles," so long they also did continue" in the breaking of bread and solemn conventions for prayer" for to persevere in the doctrine of the apostles signified à life most exactly Christian; for that was the doctrine apostolical, according to the words of our Lord", " teaching to observe all things which I have commanded you."

And by this method the apostolical churches and their descendants, did administer these holy mysteries; a full and an excellent testimony whereof we have in that excellent book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy commonly attributed to St. Dionysius: "The church drives from the sacrifice of the temple," meaning the divine sacrament, "such persons for whom it is too sublime and elevated: first, those who are not yet instructed and taught concerning the participation of the mysteries: next, those who are fallen from the holy and Christian state," meaning apostates, and such as have renounced their baptism, or fallen from the grace of it by a state of a deadly sin, or foulest crimes: "Thirdly, those who are possessed with evil spirits: and lastly, those who, indeed, have begun to retire from sin, to a good life, but they are not yet purified from the fantasms and images of their past inordinations, by a divine habitude and love, with purity and without mixture. And to conclude, those who are not yet perfectly united unto God alone, and, to speak according to the style of Scripture, those who are not entirely inculpable and without reproach." And when St. Soter exhorted all persons to receive upon the day of the institution, or the vespers of

אבירים

e' Acts, ii. 48.

d Matt. xxviii.

9. Οἱ τῆς ἐναντίας μὲν ἀποστάντες ζωῆς, οὔπω δὲ καὶ τῶν φαντασιῶν αὐτῆς ἕξει καὶ ἔρωτι θείῳ καὶ ἀμιγεῖ καθαρισθέντες, καὶ μετ ̓ αὐτοὺς, οἱ μὴ καθάπαξ ἐνοειδεῖς, καὶ, νομικές εἰπεῖν, ἄμωμοι καὶ ἀλώβητοι παντελῶς.

the passion, he excepted those who were forbidden, because they had committed any grievous sin.

But what was the doctrine and what were the usages of the primitive church in the ministry of the blessed sacra ment, appears plainly in the two Epistles of St. Basil to Amphilochius in the Canons of Ancyra, those of Peter of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Nyssen; which make up the Penitential of the Greek church, and are ex plicated by Balsamo; in which we find sometimes the penance of two years imposed for a single theft; four years, and seven years, for an act of uncleanness; eleven years for perjury; fifteen years for adultery and incest; that is, such persons were for so many years separate from the com munion, and by a holy life, and strict observances of peni tential impositions, were to give testimony of their contrition and amends. The like to which are to be seen in the Penitentials of the western church; that of Theodorus, archbishop of Canterbury, that of Venerable Bede, the old Roman, and that of Rabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mentz: The reason of which severity we find thus accounted in St. Basil: "All this is done, that they may try the fruits of their repentance: for we do not judge of these things by the time, but by the manner of their repentance." For the bishop had power to shorten the days of their separation and abstention; and he that was an excellent penitent, was much sooner admitted; but by the injunction of so long a trial, they declared, that much purification was necessary to such an address. And if after, or in, these penitential years of abstention, they did not mend their lives, though they did perform their penances, they were not admitted. These were but the church's signs; by other accidents and manifestations if it happened that a great contrition was signified, or a secret incorrigibility became public, the church would admit the first sooner, and the latter not at all. For it was purity and holiness that the church required of all her communicants; and what measure of it she required, we find

1 Ὥστε τοὺς καρποὺς δοκιμάζεσθαι τῆς μετανοίας" οὐ γὰρ πάντως τῷ χρόνῳ κρίνομεν τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἀλλὰ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς μετανοίας προσέχομεν.-Cap. 2. ad Amphiloch.

Κ. Ἐὰν δὲ δυσαποσπάστως ἔχονται τῶν ἰδίων ἐθῶν, καὶ ταῖς ἡδοναῖς τῆς σαρκὸς μᾶλλον δουλεύειν θελήσωσιν, ἢ τῷ Κυρίῳ, καὶ τὴν κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ζωὴν μὴ παραδέχωνται, oùdels hμïv ægòs aùroùs noivòs λóyos.—Ibid. lib. i. de Bapt. cap. 3.