The Right Use of the Sacrament

Let us come to the third chief head which we proposed at the beginning of this treatise, that is to the right use, which consists in observing the institution of our Lord with reverence. For whoever approaches this holy sacrament with contempt or indifference, not caring much about following where our Lord calls him, perversely misuses it and thus contaminates it. Now to pollute and contaminate what God has so sanctified is intolerable sacrilege. It is, then, not without reason that Paul passes such grave condemnation on those who take it unworthily. For if there is nothing in heaven or earth of greater value and dignity than the body and blood of our Lord, it is no small fault to take it inconsiderately and without being well prepared. Therefore he exhorts us to examine ourselves well, in order to use it properly. When we understand what kind of examination this should be, we shall know the use for which we seek.

Now we must here be well on our guard. For, as we cannot take too great diligence in examining ourselves, as our Lord commands, so on the other hand doctors of sophistry have brought poor consciences into perilous perplexity, or rather into an awful hell, by demanding I know not what kind of examination, which they cannot possibly get through. To rid ourselves of all these troubles, we must reduce the whole, as I have already said, to the ordinance of our Lord, as to a rule which will not permit us to err if we follow it. In following it, we have to examine whether we have a true repentance in ourselves and a true faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. These two things are so joined that the one cannot stand without the other. For if we think our life to be located in Christ, we must acknowledge that in ourselves we are dead. If we seek in him our strength, we must understand that in ourselves we are weak. If we judge all our felicity to be in his grace, we ought to understand how great is our misery without it. If we have our rest in him, we must by ourselves feel tormented and unquiet. Now such feeling cannot exist without producing first a distaste of all our life; then anxiety and fear; and finally a desire and love of righteousness. For he who knows the baseness of his sin and the unhappiness of his state and condition while alienated from God, is so ashamed of it, that he is constrained to discontent with himself, to self-condemnation, and to groaning and sighing with a great sadness. Moreover, the judgment of God presents itself forthwith, to oppress the sinful conscience with remarkable anxiety, since it has no way of escape and nothing to answer in its defence. When, with such a realization of our misery, we can taste the goodness of God, then we desire to order our life by his will, and to renounce all our earlier life, in order to be made new creatures in him.

If we wish, then, to communicate worthily in the sacred Supper of our Lord, we must hold in firm and hearty confidence the Lord Jesus Christ as our sole righteousness, life and salvation, receiving and accepting the promises which are given us by him as certain and assured; renouncing on the other hand all other confidence, in order that, distrusting ourselves and all other creatures, we may rest fully in him and content ourselves with his grace alone. Now because this cannot be, unless we recognize the need for him to assist us, it is of importance that we be also sharply touched to the very heart with a true feeling of our misery, to make us hunger and thirst after him. In fact, what a mockery it would be to come without appetite to look for food. Now to have a good appetite, it is not enough that the stomach be empty; it is necessary that it be in good order and capable of receiving nourishment. Hence then it follows that our souls ought to be oppressed by famine and to have desire and ardent longing to be fed, in order to find their proper nourishment in the Supper of the Lord. Moreover, it is to be noted that we cannot desire Jesus Christ without aspiring to the righteousness of God, which consists in self-denial and obedience to his will. For it is absurd to pretend to be of the body of Christ while we abandon ourselves to all licence and lead a dissolute life. Since in Christ there is nothing but chastity, benignity, sobriety, truth, humility and all like virtues, if we desire to be his members, all uncleanness, arrogance, intemperance, falsehood, pride and like vices must be put far from us. For we cannot mingle these things with him, without doing him grave dishonour and affront. We must always remember that there is no more agreement between him and iniquity than between light and darkness. Here, then, is how we should come to him in true repentance, in the remembrance that our life is to be conformed to the example of Jesus Christ. While this should be general in all parts of our life, yet it has a special application to charity, which is above all recommended to us in this sacrament; for which reason it is called the bond of charity. For as the bread, which is there sanctified for the common use of us all, is made of many grains so mixed together that one cannot be discerned from the other, so ought we to be united among ourselves in one indissoluble friendship. What is more: we all receive there the same body of Christ, in order that we be made members of it. If we have, then, dissensions and discords among us, it is not our fault if Jesus Christ is not rent in pieces; and we shall be guilty of a like sacrilege, as if we had done it. We must then not at all presume to approach, if we bear any hatred or rancour against living man, and especially any Christian who may be within the unity of the Church. To fulfil completely the order of our Lord, we must bring another disposition. It is to confess with the mouth and to testify how much we are indebted to our Saviour, and to render thanksgiving to him, not only that his name be glorified in us, but also that others be edified and instructed by our example, what they ought to do.

But because not a man will be found on earth, who has so advanced in faith and sanctity of life, that he does not still have much infirmity in one or other, there might be a danger that some good consciences be troubled by what has been said, if one did not obviate it by moderating the commands which we have imposed concerning both faith and repentance. It is a perilous method of teaching that some adopt, to demand a perfect confidence of heart and a perfect penitence, and to exclude all who do not have them. For in so doing, all are excluded without exception. Were it so, who can boast of being untouched by all mistrust? or of being subject to no vice or infirmity? Truly the children of God have only such faith, that they have always need to pray that the Lord help their unbelief. For it is a malady so rooted in our nature that we are never quite cured until we are delivered from this prison of our body. Moreover, they walk in purity of life of such a kind that they need to pray daily both for remission of sins and for grace to make better progress. Though some be more imperfect and others less, yet there is no one who does not fail in many respects. Hence the Supper would be not only useless to us all, but also pernicious, if we had to bring an integrity of faith or life in which there was nothing with which to find fault. This is contrary to the intention of our Lord, for there is nothing given to his Church that is more salutary. Therefore, when we feel our faith to be imperfect, and our conscience not so pure as not to accuse us of many vices, this must not hinder us presenting ourselves at the Holy Table of our Lord; provided that amid this infirmity we feel in our heart that, without hypocrisy and deceit, we hope for salvation in Christ, and desire to live according to the rule of the gospel. I say expressly that there be no hypocrisy; for there are many who deceive themselves by vain flatteries, making themselves to believe that it is enough to condemn their vices, though they continue in them; or rather leave them for a time, in order to return immediately after. Now true repentance is firm and constant; therefore it makes us battle against the evil which is within us, not for a day or a week, but without end or intermission.

When we feel within us a strong distaste and hatred of all vices, proceeding from the fear of God, and a desire to live well in order to please our Lord, we are fit to partake of the Supper, notwithstanding the vestiges of infirmity which we carry in our flesh. If indeed we were not weak, subject to mistrust, and imperfect in life, the sacrament would be of no service to us, and it would have been superfluous to institute it. Since then it is a remedy which God has given us to assist our frailty, to fortify our faith, to augment our charity, and to further us in all sanctity of life, so far from this making us abstain, we ought the more to make use of it, the more we feel oppressed by the disease. For if we allege as pretext for not coming to the Supper, that we are still weak in faith or in integrity of life, it is as if a man excuse himself from taking medicine because he is sick. This then is how the frailty of the faith which we feel in our heart, and the imperfections which persist in our life, ought to incite us to come to the Supper, as to a remedy designed to correct them. Only let us not come without faith or repentance. Of these, the former is hidden in the heart, and therefore our conscience must testify concerning us before God. The second manifests itself by works, and therefore must be somehow apparent in our life.

As to the time of using it, there can be no certain rule for all. For there are certain particular impediments which excuse a man for absenting himself. And besides we have no express command, constraining Christians to make use of it every day it is offered to them. However, if we have careful regard to the end for which our Lord intended it, we should realize that the use of it ought to be more frequent than many make it. For the more infirmity oppresses us, the more frequently we need to have recourse to that which is able and ought to serve to confirm our faith and further us in purity of life. Therefore, the custom ought to be well established in all Churches, of celebrating the Supper as frequently as the capacity of the people will allow. And each individual in his own place ought to prepare himself to receive it whenever it is administered in the congregation, unless there be some grave hindrance which compels him to abstain. Though we have no express command defining the time and the day, it should be enough for us to know that the intention of our Lord is that we use it often; otherwise we shall not know well the benefit which it offers us.

The excuses which some allege on the other hand, are very frivolous. Some say that they feel themselves unworthy, and under cover of this abstain from it for a whole year. Others, not content with wondering about their worthiness, pretend that they cannot communicate with persons whom they see coming without good preparation. Some again think it is superfluous to use it often, since, if we have once received Jesus Christ, there is no need to return so often afterwards to receive him. I ask the first, who make a cover of their unworthiness, how their conscience can allow them to remain more than a year in so poor a state, that they dare not invoke God directly. For they will confess that it is audacity to invoke God as our Father, if we are not members of Jesus Christ. This we cannot be, unless the substance and reality of the Supper be fulfilled in us. Now if we have the reality, we are, a fortiori, capable of receiving the sign. It is evident, then, that he who would exempt himself from receiving the Supper because of unworthiness, bars himself from praying to God. For the rest, I have no intention of forcing consciences that are tormented with certain scruples that suggest themselves, they know not how; I rather advise them to wait till the Lord deliver them. Similarly, if there is a legitimate cause of hindrance, I do not deny that it is lawful to defer coming. Only I would point out that no one ought to remain content for long to abstain from the Supper because of his unworthiness, seeing that to do so deprives him of the communion of the Church in which all our good consists. Rather let him strive to contend against all the impediments which the devil puts before him, in order not to be excluded from so great a benefit, and consequently from all the gifts of which absence would deprive him.

The second class have some plausibility, for they employ the following argument. If it is not allowed to eat the common bread with those who call themselves brothers but lead a dissolute and wicked life, a fortiori, we ought to abstain from communicating with them in the bread of our Lord, which is sanctified to represent and dispense to us the body of Christ. But the reply is not very difficult. It is not the office of each individual to judge and discriminate, in order to admit or reject as seems to him good; seeing that this prerogative belongs generally to the Church as a whole, or rather to the pastor with the elders whom he ought to have for assisting him in the government of the Church. For Paul does not command us to examine others, but each is to examine himself. It is very true that our duty is to admonish those whom we see to live disorderly, and, if they will not listen, to advise the pastor of them, in order that he take proceedings on the authority of the Church. But the right way of withdrawing from the company of the wicked is not to quit the communion of the Church. Moreover, it will most frequently happen that sins are not so notorious as to justify going the length of excommunication. For though the pastor in his heart judge some man unworthy, yet he has not the power of pronouncing him to be so, or of interdicting him from the Supper, unless he can prove it by an ecclesiastical judgment. In this case, we have no other remedy than to pray to God, that he would deliver his Church more and more from all scandals, and to await the Last Day, when the chaff will be manifestly separated from the good grain. The third class have no semblance of plausibility. For this spiritual bread is not given us in order that on the first occasion we eat our fill of it; but rather that, having had some taste of its sweetness, we may long for it the more, and use it when it is offered us. This is what we have expounded above, that while we remain in this mortal life, Jesus Christ is never communicated to us in such a way that our souls are wholly satisfied with him, but he desires to be our continual nourishment.