whence our food comes. It is true, on our table, the holy elements are impregnated with the materials of life; like the first framing of a living creature, or embryo, before it is quickened: but they are quickened with spiritual life, only upon the faith of each receiver, which God hath appointed to be the concurring instrument, or means of this divine quickening. Then they become to us the seeds of glory, and the assured conveyances of spiritual nourishment, and immortal happiness. And as such they come to us from a higher table: and while we are admitted to sit at that table, well may we be content, and well does it become us, to kneel outwardly in the church. While we sit with the church triumphant, well may we be content to kneel with the church militant.

"O Lord, while my body kneels outwardly in thy house, and my soul sits at thy mystical table in thy presence, through thy great favour: (for it is thou, O my most merciful Saviour, hast been pleased to bring me, and seat me there, else how should I have dared to have appeared?) what is the food thou wilt give me from this thy table? It is immortal love, wrapt up in bread. Surely then this is glorious bread, which contains so infinite a treasure, and may well be called thy body, and the pledge of thy love. And is immortal love the mystical food of our souls? O most loving Saviour, who wert content to have thy body broken, that thou mightest nourish and sustain us with this precious food; give us ever of this bread, and be it unto us according to thy gracious intentions. Amen."

His meditations upon the Sacrament are very nu

merous, as I have already said; so that, instead of being inserted in a life, they would make almost a volume themselves. A spirit of primitive piety runs through them and it plainly appears that the author of them spoke from his heart, and was deeply affected with the subject about which he wrote. I shall here give the reader a taste of them; and by these few that here follow, he may make a judgment of the rest.

cause.

"We pray to God, and our Saviour, for pardon by his agony and bitter sufferings; how does this oblige God to pardon us? What right have we to insist on these, and represent them before God? Women indeed expostulate with their husbands, by the common pledges of their love; their children, by their mutual endearments: and sometimes one friend with another, by their common sufferings in the same And it is an argument prevailing upon human nature, to yield to what is so desired. But still there must be something common. We must have a share, and interest ourselves in what we so plead by, if we hope to prevail. When, therefore, we use this sort of expostulation with God as the strongest and highest argument to obtain what we desire, there must be something common in what we plead by, or the argument loseth its force. Because the Son of God endured bitter sufferings, what then? What is that to us, if we are strangers to these sufferings? It is like the case our Saviour himself puts; Thou hast prophesied in our streets, we have eaten and drank in thy presence.' To whom he will reply, What then? Ye are strangers to me, I know you not.' So

that it is not enough, that the Son of God hath suffered for us; we must have a common share in it, and be mutual sufferers with him, and then indeed we have leave to expostulate with God by his sufferings, and shall prevail: we have a kind of right to mention them, and God will graciously be wrought upon by it. But how shall we be mutual sufferers with him? By laying to heart what he hath suffered for us; by being wounded with his wounds, and bruised with his strokes; by having the reproaches of them that reproached him fall on us; by having our souls sorrowful with his soul, even unto death; by trembling at the wrath of God due to our sins, which caused him such amazement, in making atonement for them. Let us go to Mount Calvary, and endeavour to put ourselves in his place. We are they, Lord, who have sinned, let us suffer the pains. Thou hast done nothing amiss, why then should thy holy body suffer these tortures? Thy righteous soul feel this anguish? But since we cannot bring thee down, nor exchange conditions with thee, O that we could give thee one moment's ease! O that we had not so sinned, as to procure these thy tortures! O wretches that we are! to have brought this load upon thee! See, O my soul, what thou hast done! They have brought thy greatest friend, the beloved of God, his only Son, the everlasting Prince, to this sad condition! Canst thou see it without trembling? Canst thou see it and live? It would be grief extraordinary, only to see him in this condition; what heart could not be moved at it, that knows who it is that suffers? But to be thyself the guilty cause of it, oughtest thou not

to wish, that the like pains might fall on thee, and that thou mightest suffer with him a little, to cover thy confusion? For this confusion to an ingenuous soul, that truly stood by our Lord in this condition, would certainly be a torment so great, that one would almost wish to hang on a cross to divert it by a new pain. O my Redeemer, if knowing what I now know, I had stood by thy cross, I hope the confusion of my soul would be nothing less than what I have here described. Since then, I believe thee to have suffered all this, as much as if I had stood by thee, and that thou art pleased to represent thy sufferings often again to us, and to be set forth as evidently crucified among us: O strengthen my imagination and my faith, from mystical representation of bread and wine, broken and poured out, to pass to thy real sufferings, and take up some of those affections, some degree of that confusion (if, alas! I cannot take up the whole of it) which I should be seized with at thy actual crucifixion: then may I have leave, O my Saviour, having suffered with thee, to plead with thy Father by thy sufferings. By the agony of thy soul, when thou didst make atonement for sins, pardon my sins, and have mercy on me. Wherefore didst thou endure that agony, but to obtain remission of sins, that thou mightest distribute, and give it to those that humbly ery unto thee for it; that thou mightest give gifts unto men of the trophies purchased with thy blood? My soul is wounded by thy agony; O let me partake of the fruits of it. David's law was, that those that stayed by the stuff, should share with those that took the spoil: Lord, who is able to bear thee company in

thy grievous conflict? Weak and faint we must be left behind but our soul goes along with thee, is bound up with thine, and is wholly filled with concern for thee. O let us partake of the fruit of thy labours, of the issues of thy sufferings. Thou hast obtained pardon and peace; O bestow some share of it upon thy servants.

"Let me go on, O my Lord, to suffer with thee, while I live in this sinning world. O vouchsafe to let me have a share in thy sufferings, and speak peace to my soul; that I may pass my days in an humble confidence here, and rejoice with thee one day hereafter, in forgetting both thine, and my misery and trouble. Amen."

At another time he offered up the following prayer, with respect to every part of our Saviour's bitter passion; the commemorating of which, is the principal end of the Holy Communion..

"O my Saviour, O my God! By thy lying prostrate on the earth in a cold night; and thy soul's being exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: by thy grievous agony, in which thou didst sweat drops of blood, between thy wonderful love to thy church, and the infirmity of thy human nature, which drew back at the apprehension of those sufferings which thou wert to pass through for us: by thy thrice lifting up strong cries to thy Father, to remove from thee that bitter cup, if it had been his will, and been possible for his justice, otherwise to be satisfied; by the firm resolution which thou didst take up, to go through that great work for our sakes; and by thy meek resigning thyself to thy Father's will, and ready con