526. Is there anything better known throughout the Christian world than that a person ought to examine himself? Everywhere in the empires and kingdoms of Roman Catholic as well as Evangelical religion, people are taught and warned, before coming to the Holy Supper, to examine themselves, to recognise and acknowledge their sins, and to start a new life. This is accompanied by terrifying threats in English lands, where the exhortation read before communion by the priest standing at the altar contains the following declaration:
The way and means to become a worthy partaker of the Holy Supper is first to examine your lives and conversations by the rule of God's commandments, and whereinsoever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either by will, word or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness and to confess yourselves to Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life. And if ye shall perceive your offences to be such as are not only against God, but also against your neighbours, then ye shall reconcile yourselves unto them; being ready to make restitution and satisfaction according to the uttermost of your powers, for all injuries and wrongs done by you to any other; and being likewise ready to forgive others that have offended you, as ye would have forgiveness of your offences at God's hand; for otherwise the receiving of the holy communion doth nothing else but increase your damnation. Therefore, if any of you be a blasphemer of God, a hinderer or slanderer of His Word, an adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to that holy table; lest, after the taking of that holy sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquity, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul.*
* This quotation from The Book of Common Prayer is given in Latin translation in the original
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