'That faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy communion': reading Taylor's 'Worthy Communicant' in Lent

Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort ...

The Prayer Book's invitation to communicants culminates with this call to approach the Sacrament "with faith". This, of course, gives liturgical expression to Article XXIX, a statement of a distinctive of Reformed eucharistic theology:

The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.

The doctrine is also central to the Catechism's understanding of what is required of communicants:

What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper? To ... have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death.

What, however, does it mean to "Draw near with faith", to receive the holy Sacrament with "a lively faith"?

In The Worthy Communicant (1667), Taylor emphasises that such "lively faith" cannot be mere "assent to an article". It is not the assent of reason but, rather, reason moved by the affections, by love of and trust in God's promises in Christ:

Faith assents to the revelations of the Gospel, not only because they are well proved, but because they are excellent things; not only because my reason is convinced, but my reason yields upon the fairer terms, because my affections are gained. For if faith were an assent to an article but just so far as it is demonstrated, then faith were no virtue, and infidelity were no sin: because in this there is no choice, and no refusal. But where that which is probable, is also naturally indemonstrable, and yet the conclusion is that in which we must rejoice, and that for which we must earnestly contend, and that in the belief of which we serve God, and that for which we must be ready to die: it is certain, that the understanding observing the credibility, and the will being pleased with the excellency, they produce a zeal of belief, because they together make up the demonstration. For a reason can be opposed by a reason, and an argument by an argument: but if I love my religion, nothing can take me from it, unless it can pretend to be more useful and more amiable, more perfective and more excellent, than heaven and immortality, and a kingdom and a crown of peace, and all the things, amid all the glories of the eternal God.

This "lively faith" required of those who partake of the Lord's Supper will necessarily be "faith working by charity" - it cannot be a mere appeal to 'faith' without the inherently necessary fruits of "lively faith":

But then here we may consider, that no man, in this case, can hope to be excused from the necessities of a holy life, upon pretence of being saved by his faith. For if the case be thus, these men have it not. For he that believes in God, believes his words, and they are very terrible to all evil persons; for "in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature, nothing but keeping the commandments of God, nothing but faith working by charity," they are the words of God. Wicked men, therefore, can never hope to be saved by their faith, or by their faith to be worthy communicants, for they have it not. 

Faith without charity, therefore, is not faith. This is also reflected in the Prayer Book invitation to communicants:

are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways ...

As Taylor goes on to expound, such "lively faith" - "that faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy communion" - will be "the rule of our lives":

That faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy communion, must be the actual principle and effective of a good life; a faith in the threatenings and in the commandments of God. Who can pretend to be a Christian, and yet not believe those words of St. Paul? "Follow after peace, with all men, and holiness; without which, no man shall see God." And yet if we do believe it, what do we think will become of us, who neither 'follow peace nor holiness,' but follow our anger, and pursue our lust? If we do believe this, we had need look about us, and live at another rate than men commonly do. But we still remain peevish and angry, malicious and implacable, apt to quarrel, and hard to be reconciled, lovers of money and lovers of pleasures, but careless of holiness and religion; as if they were things fit only to be talked on, and to be the subject of theological discourses, but not the rule of our lives, and the matter of our care. It is expressly said by St. Paul; "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself." 

Against the background of this Apostolic declaration of the need for "lively faith", Taylor then points to how the Apostle's teaching was disregarded in the mid-17th century - words that have even greater relevance in the aftermath of the triumph of the Parish Communion movement:

Now if we observe what crowds of people, in great cities, come to the holy communion; good and bad, penitent and impenitent, the covetous and the proud, the crafty merchant from yesterday's fraud, and the wanton fool from his last night's lust, we may easily perceive, that not many men believe these words.

And Taylor then offers his most solemn and sobering exhortation about the requirement of "lively faith" in those who partake of the holy Sacrament:

For the passion of our Redeemer, the intercession of our high priest, the sacraments of the church, the body and blood of Christ, the mercies of God, the saying, 'Lord, Lord,' the privileges of Christians, and the absolution of the priest, none of all this, and all this together, shall do him no good that remains guilty; that is, who is impenitent, and does not forsake his sin. If we had faith we should believe this, and should not dare to come to the holy communion with an actual guiltiness of many crimes, and in confidence of pardon, against all the truth of divine revelations, and, therefore, without faith.

It is this which we also hear in the Prayer Book's invitation to communicants:

Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sin ...

To come to the Lord's Table with an impenitent heart is not to come with "lively faith"; it is to place ourselves amongst those whom Article XXIX describes as "The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith".

The whole point of Taylor's exposition of "That faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy communion", is that it is such "lively faith" which feeds upon Christ in the Sacrament. Without such "lively faith", there is no feeding upon Christ. We see the significance of this for doctrine and piety in Taylor's 1654 work, The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. In it, he clearly sets forth the centrality of the teaching of Article XXIX in the Church of England's Reformed eucharistic theology:

The doctrine of the church of England, and generally of the Protestants, in this article, is, that after the minister of the holy mysteries hath rightly prayed, and blessed or consecrated the bread and the wine, the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual real manner: so that all that worthily communicate, do by faith receive Christ really, effectually, to all the purposes of his passion: the wicked receive not Christ, but the bare symbols only; but yet to their hurt, because the offer of Christ is rejected, and they pollute the blood of the covenant, by using it as an unholy thing.

In no other way is Christ present or received in the Sacrament but by "lively faith":

Christ is not present to any other sense but that of faith or spiritual susception ... We, by the real spiritual presence of Christ, do understand Christ to be present, as the Spirit of God is present in the hearts of the faithful, by blessing and grace.

Not only, then, is Taylor's teaching in The Worthy Communicant about "that faith which is a worthy preparatory to the holy Communion" a faithful exposition of the teaching of the Prayer Book and Article XXIX. While his teaching is certainly challenging, even uncomfortable, for those of us who live in an ecclesial context almost entirely shaped by the presuppositions and practices of the Parish Communion movement, it has immense spiritual riches precisely because it expounds how it is and by what means we, in the words of the Catechism, partake of "the benefits" of the Lord's Supper. Taylor, in other words, teaches us how we offer a meaningful 'Amen' to the post-Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving:

Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son ...