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cred obligation; methinks the sense of that dreadful vow that is upon us should so overawe us, that we should not be able to think of sinning without horror: "For, Lord! how shall I dare to cheat and de"fraud my neighbour, when it was but the other day "that I vowed to be honest, and took the sacrament upon it? With what conscience can I now hate, or design revenge against my brother, when I so "lately swore unto God, upon the body and blood of my Saviour, that I would love and forgive all the "world?" Surely if men had any sense of God, any dram of religion in them, they would not be able, after such engagements, to look upon any temptation to sin without trembling: and whatsoever pretences of unworthiness men may make, to keep themselves from this ordinance, I doubt not but the great reason of their neglect is this, that they love their lusts, and are resolved, whatsoever comes of it, they will not part with them; and so they will not come to the sacrament, because they must be obliged to renounce their lusts there, which they are extremely unwilling to do. And if this be their reason, as I fear it is, they are unworthy indeed, the more shame for them but it is such an unworthiness as is so far from excusing their neglect, that it is a foul aggravation of it: for he that will not receive the sacrament because he will not renounce his lusts, makes one sin the reason of another, and so pleads that for his excuse which will be the cause of his condemnation. But if we are honestly resolved to part with all our sins, and can but willingly devote them as sacrifices to the altar, we are sufficiently prepared for this great solemnity, and shall be welcome guests to the table of our Lord: if we can sincerely pay our

vows at his altar, we may confidently take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. And having thus chained up our lusts by the vows of obedience we have paid there, it will be hard for them to shake off such mighty fetters, or ever to get loose again from so strict a confinement; especially if we take care to repeat this our sacramental vow as often as conveniently we can. For (as I have already shewed you) the frequent renewal of our holy vows and resolutions does mightily tend to strengthen and reinforce them: and therefore it is worth observing, how much care Christ hath taken, in the very constitution of his religion, to oblige us to a constant repetition of our vows and good purposes. For at our first entrance into covenant with him, we are to be baptized; in which solemnity we do renounce the Devil and all his works, and religiously devote ourselves to his service: but because we are apt to forget our vow, and the matter of it is continually to be performed, and more than one world doth depend upon it, therefore he hath thought fit not to trust to our first engagement, but so to methodize our religion, that we should ever and anon be obliged to give him new security. For which end he hath instituted this other sacrament, which is not, like that of baptism, to be received by us once for all, but is to be often repeated; that so at every return of it we might be obliged again to renew our old vows of obedience and doubtless would we but follow this good design of our Saviour, we should be far more successful in our religion than we are. For till we come to a confirmed state of goodness, our holy fervour will be very apt to cool, our good purposes to slacken and unwind, and our virtuous endeavours

to languish and grow weary: so that unless we revive our religion by frequent restoratives, in a little time it will faint and die away. Wherefore, to keep it alive, it is very necessary that we should come to our great Master's table every time we are invited by the solemn returns of this holy festival; that here we may renew our vows, and re-invigorate our resolutions, and repair our decays, and put our sluggish graces into a new fermentation: and if we would thus frequently communicate with a due preparation of mind, we should doubtless at every sacrament acquire new life and vigour, and our good resolutions would every day get ground of our bad inclinations, till at last they had totally subdued them.

VI. And lastly, Another instrument of mortification is constant prayer. For besides that by our sincere and honest prayers we are sure to obtain strength and assistance from God, to enable us to vanquish and subdue our lusts, he having promised to give his holy Spirit unto every one that asketh it; besides this, I say, by a constant and serious devotion, our hearts will be filled with such an overawing sense of God, that in all our actions we shall dread and revere his authority, and be ready to tremble at every thought of offending him. For there is nothing gives us such a quick sense of God as prayer, that being the most immediate address that we can make to him, and the highest elevation of our souls towards him: for we are a sort of beings that are akin to two worlds, being placed in the middle between heaven and earth, as the common centre wherein these distant regions meet. By our superior faculties we hold communion with the

spiritual world, and by our inferior with the corporeal one: but to this sensible or corporeal world we lie open and bare, all its objects being present to us, and striking immediately on our senses; whereas between us and the spiritual world there is a cloud of sensible things, which interrupts our prospect of the clear heaven above them; so that before we can perceive that which is divine, we must remove this world out of the way, and withdraw our souls from those thoughts and desires wherein these lower things have entangled them, that so we may lie open to the heavenly light, and our cold affections may be immediately exposed to the enlivening warmths of the Sun of righteousness. And hence arises the necessity of holy meditations and devout prayers; the one being necessary to abstract our minds from the objects of corporeal sense, and the other to inspire our wills with divine affections and inclinations: for meditation furnishes our understandings with noble thoughts and heavenly ideas, and prayer carries out our wills to the love of them, and joins our affections fast to them; so that by the one we are tied in our minds, and by the other in our choice of the better world. For prayer does naturally sublimate our gross and earthly passions; and by keeping our minds intent upon God, it wings our affections towards him, and animates them with divine fires: and we do never rise from our knees after a devout address unto God, without deriving a magnetic virtue from him, and being sensibly touched with his charms and attractions. So that if we did but inure ourselves to fervent prayer, those holy affections which we should suck in with our devotions would be instrumental to ex

tinguish our vicious inclinations; and we should go every day from the throne of grace with such a lively sense of God, and such a vigorous relish of divine things, as would be sufficient to antidote us all the day after against the venom of any sinful contagion. Wherefore, if we are in good earnest, and do seriously intend the mortification of our lusts, let us every day, before we go into the world, be seasoning of our minds with holy devotions; and while we are addressing unto God in the deepest sense of his unbounded perfections, and of our own dependance upon him, let us pour out our souls before him, and make an hearty oblation of our souls and bodies to him. Let us offer up our wills to him broken and contrite, that he may put them into what form and posture he pleases; shew him an heart that quitteth all interest in itself, and that would be only led and conducted by him; tell him that you are sensible, that to mortify your lusts is far more difficult than to resolve to do it; and beseech him to enable you to be valiant in your actions, as through his grace you are already in your minds and hearts, that you may with as much certainty, if not with as much ease, do and effect, as you have projected and resolved. And having thus implored his aid, and sincerely offered up yourselves unto him, you have laid a strong engagement upon him not to abandon you: for to be sure he will not throw away a heart that puts itself thus humbly into his hands, nor suffer the Devil to make a prey of that which hath been so affectionately devoted to him. For it was by the concurrence of his grace with our own faculties, that this resolution of submission to him was begotten in us; and can we

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