'The best ways of entering into the secret': Taylor on the mystery of the Eucharist

In a recent post, laudable Practice drew attention to the Hookerian reverence for mystery and gift in Jeremy Taylor's understanding of the holy Eucharist in The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654). Today's extract from The Worthy Communicant (1660) provides another example of Taylor's emphasis on the mystery of the Sacrament.  

Taylor evokes Eastern piety and liturgy, particularly the Liturgy of Saint James. This is one of the most significant and beautiful aspects of the passage, seeing the eucharistic mystery as celebrated in the ancient liturgies of the great Churches of the East in the Prayer Book Holy Communion and the eucharistic theology of the Articles.

Whatever propositions any man shall entertain in his manner of discoursing of these mysteries, let him be sure to take into his notice and memory those great appellatives with which the purest ages of the church, the most ancient liturgies, and the most eminent saints of God use to adorn and invest this great mysteriousness. In the Greek liturgy attributed to S. James, the sacramental symbols are called 'sanctified,' 'honourable,' 'precious,' 'celestial,' 'unspeakable,' 'incorruptible,' 'glorious,' 'fearful,' 'formidable,' 'divine ;' in the use of which epithets, as we have the warranty and consent of all the Greek churches since they ever had a liturgy, so we are taught only to have reverend usages and religious apprehensions of the divine mysteries; but if by any appellative we can learn a duty, it is one of the best ways of entering into the secret.