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increase, and the growth of grace; which is duty and reward, food and physic, health and pleasure, deletery and cordial, prayer and thanksgiving, an union of mysteries, the marriage of the soul, and the perfection of all the rites of Christianity: dying with the holy sacrament in us, is a going to God with Christ in our arms, and interposing him between us and his angry sentence. But then we must be sure that we have done all the duty, without which we cannot communicate worthily. For else Satan comes in the place of Christ, and it is a horror not less than infinite, to appear before God's tribunal possessed, in our souls, with the spirit of darkness. True it is, that, by many laws of the church, the bishop and the minister are bound to give the holy eucharist to every person, who, in the article or apparent danger of death, desires it, provided that he hath submitted himself to the imposition and counsels of the bishop or guide of his soul, that, in case he recovers, he may be brought to the peace of God and his church, by such steps and degrees of repentance, by which other public sinners are reconciled. But to this gentleness of discipline, and easiness of administration, those excellent persons who made the canons thought themselves compelled, by the rigour of the Novatians; and because they admitted not lapsed persons to the peace of the church upon any terms, though never so great, so public, or so penal a repentance; therefore, these not only remitted them to the exercise and station of penitents, but also to the communion. But the fathers of the council of Eliberis denied this favour to persons, who, after baptism, were idolaters; either intending this as a great argument to affright persons from so great a crime, or else believing that it was unpardonable after baptism, a contradiction to that state which we entered into by baptism, and the covenant evangelical. However, I desire all learned persons to observe it, and the less learned also to make use of it, that those more ancient councils of the church, which commanded the holy communion to be

¶ Concil. Nicen. can. eod. Con. Ancyr. c. 6. Conc. Aurelian. ii. c. 12. r Conc. Elib. c. 1.

* Μετὰ δοκιμασίας ὁ ἐπίσκοπος ἐπιδότω. — Concil. Nicen. c. 15. Τούτους ἐπὶ ὅρῳ δεχθῆναι. — Conc. Anc. c. 9.

De his qui in pœnitentia positi vitâ excesserunt, placuit nullum communione vacuum debere dimitti. Conc. Aurel. ii. n. 12.

given to dying persons, meant only such, which, according to the custom of the church, were under the conditions of repentance, that is, such to whom punishment and discipline of divers years were enjoined; and if it happened they died in the interval, before the expiration of their time of reconciliation, then they admitted them to the communion. Which describes to us the doctrine of those ages, when religion was purer, and discipline more severe, and holy life secured by rules of excellent government; that those only were fit to come to that feast, who, before their last sickness, had finished the repentance of many years, or, at least, had undertaken it'. I cannot say it was so always, and in all churches; for as the disciples grew slack, or men's persuasions had variety, so they were more ready to grant repentance, as well as absolution, to dying persons: but it was otherwise in the best times, and with severer prelates. And certainly it were great charity to deny the communion to persons, who have lived viciously till their death; provided it be by competent authority, and done sincerely, prudently, and without temporal interest: to other persons, who have lived good lives, or repented of their bad, though less perfectly, it ought not to be denied, and they less ought to neglect it.

25. But as every man must put himself, so also he must put his house in order, make his will, if he have an estate to dispose of; and in that he must be careful to do justice to every man, and charity to the poor, according as God hath enabled him and though charity is then very late, if it begins not earlier; yet, if this be but an act of an ancient habit, it is still more perfect, as it succeeds in time, and superadds to the former stock. And, among other acts of duty, let it be remembered, that it is excellent charity to leave our will and desires clear, plain, and determinate, that contention and lawsuits may be prevented, by the explicate declaration of the legacies. At last, and in all instances and periods of our following days, let the former good acts be renewed; let God be praised for all his graces and blessings of our life, let him be entreated for pardon of our sins, let acts of love and contrition, of hope, of joy, of humility, be

VOL. II.

Vide Concil. Eliber. c. 46, et c. 69.

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the work of every day which God still permits us, always remembering to ask remission for those sins we remember And if the condition of our sickness permits it, let our last breath expire with an act of love; that it may begin the charities of eternity", and, like a taper burnt to its lowest base, it may go out with a great emission of light, leaving a sweet smell behind us, to perfume our coffin; and that these lights, newly made brighter, or trimmed up, in our sickness, may shine about our hearse, that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends, (as the charitable coats, which Dorcas made, were to the widows,) and exemplar to all those who observed, or shall hear of, our holy life and religious death. But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents, as a disturbed fancy, a weakened understanding, wild discoursings, or any deprivation of the use of reason, it concerns the sick persons, in the happy intervals of a quiet, untroubled spirit, to pray earnestly to God, that nothing may pass from him, in the rages of a fever, or worse distemper, which may less become his duty, or give scandal, or cause trouble to the persons in attendance: and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak, not himself, he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person. And after these preparatives, he may, with piety and confidence, resign his soul into the hands of God, to be deposited in holy receptacles till "the day of restitution of all things;" and in the mean time, with a quiet spirit, descend into that state which is the lot of Cæsars, and where all kings and conquerors have laid aside their glories.

THE PRAYER.

O eternal and holy Jesus, who, by death, hast overcome death, and by thy passion hast taken out its sting, and made it to become one of the gates of heaven, and an entrance to felicity; have mercy upon me now, and at the hour of my death: let thy grace accompany me all the days

Ut se vixisse beatum

Dicat, et exacto contentus tempore vitæ
Cedat utì conviva satur

Hor. Serm. 1.

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· of my life, that I may, by a holy conversation, and an habitual performance of my duty, wait for the coming of our Lord, and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come. Lord, let not my death be in any sense unprovided, nor untimely, nor hasty, but after the common manner of men, having in it nothing extraordinary, but an extraordinary piety, and the manifestation of a great and miraculous mercy. Let my senses and understanding be preserved entire till the last of my days, and grant that I may die the death of the righteous, having first discharged all my obligations of justice, leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure; but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives, and let thy blessing descend upon their heads, and abide there, till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the church; and bless my death-bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual guide, with the assistance and guard of angels, with the perception of the holy sacrament, with patience and dereliction of my own desires, with a strong faith, and a firm and humble hope, with just measures of repentance, and great treasures of charity to thee, my God, and to all the world; that my soul, in the arms of the holy Jesus, may be deposited with safety and joy, there to expect the revelation of thy day, and then to partake the glories of thy kingdom, O eternal and holy Jesus. Amen.

Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy Jesus.

1. WHEN the sentence of death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution, the soldiers pulled off the robe of mockery, the scarlet mantle, which in jest they put upon him, and put on his own garments. But, as Origen observes, the evangelist mentioned not that they took off the crown of thorns; what might serve their interest they pursue, but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of sufferings, not to lay aside his imperial thorns, till they were changed into

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diadems of glory. But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain a gay spectacle to satisfy impious eyes, who would not stay behind, but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the catastrophe of this bloody tragedy. But when Piety looks on, she beholds a glorious mystery. Sin laughed to see the King of heaven and earth, and the great lover of souls, instead of the sceptre of his kingdom, to bear a tree of cursing and shame. But Piety wept tears of pity, and knew they would melt into joy, when she should behold that cross, which loaded the shoulders of her Lord, afterward sit upon the sceptres, and be engraved and signed upon the foreheads of kings.

2. It cannot be thought but the ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction, which, in any case, were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified, and therefore it was that in some old figures we see our blessed Lord described with a table appendent to the fringe of his garment, set full of nails and pointed iron; for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of death and St. Cyprian affirms, that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried, being galled with the iron at his heels, and nailed even before his crucifixion. But this, and the other accidents of his journey, and their malice, so crushed his wounded, tender, and virginal body, that they were forced to lay the load upon a Cyrenian, fearing that he should die with less shame and smart than they intended him. But so he was pleased to take man unto his aid, not only to represent his own need, and the dolorousness of his passion, but to consign the duty unto man, that we must enter into a fellowship of Christ's sufferings, taking up the cross of martyrdom when God requires us, enduring affronts, being patient under affliction, loving them that hate us, and being benefactors to our enemies, abstaining from sensual and intemperate delight, forbidding to ourselves lawful festivities and recreations of our weariness, when we have an end of the spirit to serve upon the ruins of the body's strength, a S. Aug. Tract. 119. in Joan.

bO Carnificinum cribrum quod credo fore,

Ità te forabunt patibulatum per vias

Stimulis, si noster huc revenerit senex.- Plaut. in Mostel.

e Tu ipse patibuli tui bajulus hærebas ligno quod toleras, evectionis et passionis anxietates sustinens et labores.—S. Cypr. de Pass.

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