My truft is fix'd upon thy word,

Nor fhall I trust thy word in vain : Let mourning fouls addrefs the Lord,

And find relief from all their pain. Great is his love, and large his grace, Thro' the Redemption of his Son :* He turns our feet from finful ways, And pardons what our hands have done. A Prayer for Forgiveness of Sins.

A

LMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou haft made, and doft forgive the fins of all them that are penitent: create and make in me a new and contrite heart, that I, worthily lamenting my fins, and acknowledging my wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remiffion and forgiveness, thro' Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Meditation for Monday Evening.

No excufe fufficient to keep us from receiving the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John vi. 53.

CON

NONSIDER now, O my Soul! what advantages we might have reaped from that holy Communion yet all these will be loft and gone, if we don't pursue our course

to arrive where Chrift Jefus in calling us has determined, Philip. iii. 12. Remember how

many arguments the enemy of mankind ftarted to prevent our approach to that holy table; how he fuggefted that the number and greatnefs of our fins would, inftead of obtaining any benefit, only make us eat and drink our own damnation.*

II. This fuggestion, though it proceeded from an enemy, yet, O my foul! it contains

much

1 Cor. xi. 29. Or, fome temporal punishment, or judgment, as it is read in the margin of your Bible, fuch as fickness or death. The unworthy receiving, which is here condemned in the Corinthians by St. Paul, was their disorderly and irreverent participation of the Lord's Supper; their eating and drinking without a due regard to the manner and end of that holy inftitution; without a due refpect had to the facramental ufe of the bread and wine, which reprefented the Lord's body. It being the cuftom of the chriftians in the Apoftolical times to receive the holy Eucharift after their feafts of Charity, wherein the rich and the poor were wont to eat together with great fobriety and temperance; in the church of Corinth this method was not obferved; the poor were not admitted to this common feaft; for in eating every one took before each other his own fupper; fo that when fome wanted, others were guilty of fcandalous excefs, and grofs intemperance; and the effect of it was, they did not dif

cern

much truth; for if a man lies under the guilt of any fin, and does not repent of it, and heartily refolve to forfake and amend it, it is indeed prefumption and a fin, for fuch a perfon, whilft he continues in that fate, to come to the holy Communion: it is a deliberate affront and even a mocking of the Divine Majefly, for a man to make a fhew of worship and honour to him, whilft, at the fame time, he goes on in wilful difobedience to his known commands. And fo provokes God to plague him with divers difeafes and fundry kinds of deaths, with which the city of Corinth was afflicted for their great abuse and profanation of this holy inftitution, as the Apostle there oberves. But,

cern the Lord's Body. They made no difference betwween the Sacrament and a common meal; befween what was to fuftain their bodies, and what was to nourish their fouls. So that to eat the bread, and drink of the cup in the holy Sacrament, without a due and direct reverence paid to the Lord's body, by feparating the Bread and Wine from the common ufe, of eating and drinking for hunger and thirft, was to eat unworthily. The punishments annexed to these miscarriages, were infirmities, ficknefs, and temporal death, with which God corrected them, that they might not be condemned with the unbelieving world. By which it appears, that temporal judgments must be understood by the word our tranflators render Damnation.

III. Hear

III. Hear what our Saviour Christ faith :* Unless ye eat rhe flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. Whence it is easy to collect, that it is not the number or quality of our fins, but a wilful or fupine continuance in them, that should deter us from that holy Communion; for whatever fins a man hath been guilty of in times paft, if he truly repents of them, and heartily for. fakes them for the time to come, God has fo often and so plainly promifed + in this cafe to grant a full and free pardon of them, that they cannot justly be pretended as any obstacle, which fhould hinder us from approaching to him in any of his ordinances.

IV. Thus, my Soul, thou mayeft learn that it is in the power of every man (at least of every one, who by a long courfe of wickednefs hath not wholly provoked God to withdraw his grace from him) by that grace and affiftance, which God continually offers unto us, to repent of his fins, and amend his life if fuch a man looks upon his fins as a bar between him and the holy Communion, it is plainly fuch a bar, as it is in his own power to remove; and, therefore, can never justly be pleaded as an excufe in this behalf. And it was in confequence of this faith, that thou didst bring me to that holy Communion, whereby

John vi. 53. † Isaiah 1. 18,

Eph. iv. 12

whereby my whole manhood is fo changed, renewed, and established by divine grace, that I purpose never more to omit any opportunity of refreshing the whole man with divine food.

V. It is not an indifferent thing, whether or no we approach the Lord's Table; and we in vain think to fecure ourfelves by keeping from it. When we do not receive, we cannot draw upon ourselves the punishment of unworthy receiving; but then it will be equally pernicious to us, to neglect and refufe the advantages, provided for us at God's Table, and to which we are fo earnestly invited nay we declare our refolution to continue in our fins, if we refufe an opportunity of procuring our pardon. It fhews, that we are not much concerned to do our duty, when we avoid thofe occafions of improving our ftrength, and receiving that grace, without which it is impoffible to perform it. Nor can we continue in this neglect without offending God, who has made it our bounden duty, We cannot defpife his grace, without encreasing our guilt, and provoking his wrath and indignation against us. And by leaving undone the things which he hath commanded, as well as by doing those things he hath forbidden, we expofe our eternal Salvation, But,

* Heb. xiii. 9.

VI. Me