for the former their representing Baptism as the laver (k) Tit. 3.5 of Regeneration which is a thing we must have from God (l) Joh. 3.5 and as a thing by which we must obtain forgiveness of sins (m) Act. 2.38 which is as undoubtedly (n) Expl. of the Lords Pr. forgive us c. another For the latter the same Scriptures requiring us to look upon the elements thereof as that body of Christ which was (o) Luk. 22.19 given for us and that blood which was shed for many (p) Matt. 26.28 for the forgiveness of sins For as these and the former benefits are such as manifestly come from God so they are alike manifestly represented as the consequents of the former Sacraments and a Sacrament therefore as such to be looked upon as having a relation to that which flows from God to us The only difficulty in my opinion is to shew a Sacrament to relate equally to that which passeth from us to God and imports our duty and service But besides that the Antients apprehended no such difficulty in it because giving it the title of a Sacrament in respect of that Obligation * See the prec Disc which it lays upon the Receivers of it The Scriptures have said enough concerning Baptism and the Lords Supper to confirm us in the belief of this relation of them Only because I would not too much anticipate my Discourse concerning those Sacraments and beside that may have another occasion to speak more largely to this Argument I will content my self at present with what St. Peter hath observ'd of Baptism (q) 1 Pet. 3.21 and which I have elsewhere (r) Explic. of the Prel Quest and Answers c. given a more particular account of For if as that Apostle insinuates and hath accordingly been more largely confirmed the stipulation or answer of a good conscience toward God be a considerable part of Baptism If it be so considerable a part of it as to give it much of that savingness which it hath Then must that Sacrament be thought because the stipulation of a good Conscience is of that nature to relate to something that must come from us as well as to those things which flow from God to us It is true indeed that our Church where it sets it self to define a Sacrament takes no notice of this object of it Whether it were through a simple inadvertency and from which our Church doth no where pretend it self to be free or which I rather think that it might give so much the more particular an account of that other and more considerable object of it even that inward and Spiritual Grace which it was intended to signifie and exhibit and assure For that our Church did not wholly forget this second object of a Sacrament even that duty and service of ours which it doth equally signifie and prompt us to declare is evident from its before minding the Catechumen of his Baptismal vow (ſ) Prelim. Quest and Answ of the Cat. and from the declaration it elsewhere (t) Office of Publ. Bapt. makes that they who are to be baptized must also for their parts promise the renouncing of the Devil and his works and both Faith and Piety toward God That as it shews her to have looked upon Baptism as a federals rite or ceremony so that she equally believed it to relate to our duty and service as well as to those divine benefits we receive from the Author of it Let it remain therefore for an undoubted truth and the acknowledged Doctrine of our Church that a Sacrament relates as well to what is to pass from us to God as to what is to come from God to us and that accordingly it may be so far forth defined such an outward and visible sign whereby we make a declaration of our piety toward God as Mr. Calvin (u) Instit li. 4. c. 14. §. 1. hath very well observed I may not forget to add for the farther clearing of this head that as a Sacrament relates first and chiefly to that which passeth from God to us so we are to conceive of that to which it so relates under the notion of a Grace given unto us yea of an inward and spiritual one That we ought to conceive of it under the notion of a grace given unto us is evident from those Texts which I but now made use of to shew that a Sacrament relates to that which passeth from God to us For instancing in such things as have the nature of benefits and so far forth therefore are to be looked upon as Graces or Favours instancing moreover in such benefits as are manifestly the issues of the Divine Goodness yea which the Scripture expresly affirms to be given to us by him for so it doth as to that (w) Luk. 22.19 Body of Christ which is the foundation of them all they must consequently oblige us to conceive of that to which a Sacrament relates as a Grace given unto us But neither will there be less evidence from thence if those Texts be well considered that that Grace to which a Sacrament relates is an inward and Spiritual one For as our Church means no other by an inward and Spiritual Grace than that which conduceth in an especial manner to the welfare of our inward man or Spirit as is evident from its making the Body and Blood of Christ the inward and Spiritual Grace of the Lords Supper and which it cannot be in any other sense than that it hath such an effect upon us so the Texts before alledged attribute such Graces to the Sacraments as are in that sense at least inward and Spiritual ones Witness their attributing to them the Graces of regeneration and forgiveness which are as it were the formal causes of our welfare and the grace of Christs Body and Blood which is the meritorious cause thereof and under God and by his acceptation in the place of an Efficient also I observe farther that as a Sacrament relates to such things as have the nature of divine Graces or humane duties so those graces and duties being parts of the New Covenant and receiving all their force from it a Sacrament must consequently relate to that New Covenant to which they do belong and from which they receive all their force Of which yet if there remain any doubt it will not be difficult to clear it from what the Scripture assures us concerning Baptism and the Lords Supper St. Peter (x) 1 Pet. 3.21 representing the former under the notion of a Stipulation or Contract as our Saviour the Cup of the other (y) Luk. 22.20 Matt. 26.28 as the New Covenant in his Blood for the remission of those sins for which it was shed For that that is in truth the meaning of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not as we usually render it the New Testament in it is not only evident from the word 〈◊〉
of the death of the same Mediators In fine that I render the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it is never of force whilst he who so makes it lives is because those words as the former are a continuation and confirmation of the foregoing Argument and so still to be understood with reference to the same Mediator All which things I have laid together not so much out of a desire of being thought the Author of a new Interpretation from which no man is more averse where there is not some kind of necessity for it but to clear up an acknowledged and important truth and which the Text I have so long insisted upon hath helped more than any thing to obscure For as there is nothing more certain from the Scripture nor more attested to by our own Translators than that the dispensation of the Gospel ought to be looked upon under the notion of a Covenant As there is nothing in like manner of more importance to us to know and consider because it will prompt us to the doing of our part in the Covenant if we mean that God should do his so setting aside this Text of the Hebrews there is not one where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mentioned which will not as commodiously or more be interpreted of a Covenant than it can be thought to be of a Testament Only if some men swayed by their former prejudices or by the Latins giving the Codex of the Old and New Law the title of the Old and New Testament †Tertull. de jejun c. 11. Secundum utriusque Testamenti paraturam though they also give them the more general title of Instrumenta * Idem Apol. c. 19. Primam Instrumentis istis auctoritatem summa Antiquitas vindicat Ib. c. 21. Sed quoniam edidimus antiquissimis Judaeorum Instrumentis sectam istam esse suffultam Adv. Marc. li. 1. c. 13. Quantas autem foveas in ista vel maxime epistola ad Romanos nempe Marcion fecerit auferendo quae voluit de nostri Instrumenti integritate parebit But if some men I say swayed by the one or the other think fit to continue to the former Text and some others the notion of a Testament As I shall not contend with them about it for the reverence I my self bear to the judgment of the Antients so I shall ask as is but reason their acknowledging in like manner that the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do equally import a new Covenant and particularly where mention is made of the Cup of the Lord's Supper being the blood of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it Partly because that old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which it was opposed had the nature of a Covenant and could not unless very improperly be stiled a Testament And partly because it was not only sealed with blood but that blood also stiled the blood of (k) Exo. 24.8 the Covenant For that is enough to perswade especially when we otherwise know that the dispensation of the Gospel is undoubtedly a Covenant that our Saviour when he represented the Cup of his Last Supper as the blood of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant the blood of the New Covenant and consequently that that Sacrament and the other have a relation to it I will conclude what I have to say concerning those things to which a Sacrament relates when I have taken notice of its relating to that body of men with whom this New Covenant is made as well as to the Covenant it self For that it doth so we have the former instances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to assure us or rather what we learn from the Scriptures concerning them St. Paul giving us to understand that it is into that body that we are baptized (l) 1 Cor. 12.13 as in like manner that though we be many yet we become one bread and that one body (m) 1 Cor. 10.17 by partaking of the bread of the other Sacrament II. It appearing from the premises what those things are to which a Sacrament relates and the way therefore so far plained toward the discovery of the properties thereof enquire we in the next place into the nature of that relation which I have affirmed it to bear unto the other For my more advantageous discovery whereof I will resume each of those things to which it doth relate and shew what kind of relation it beareth to them Now as the first of those things is an inward and Spiritual Grace that is to say such a one as conduceth in an especial manner to the welfare of our inward man or spirit so we shall find a Sacrament as to it to have the nature of a sign or visible representation of it A thing so acknowledged by all by whom the Sacraments are acknowledged in any measure that it will hardly be worth our while to insist upon it It may suffice here to say that as a sign is so much of the Essence of a Sacrament that it is the very Genus of it and must therefore be supposed to be such as to all those things to which it relates so we shall find the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to represent even to our eyes those inward and spiritual graces which are attributed to them For thus the water of Baptism doth by that cleansing quality which is natural to it and which as such is a representation of that spiritual Grace which purgeth (n) Heb. 9.14 the Conscience from dead works which are as it were the filth (o) 2 Cor. 7.1 and pollution of it And thus too the Elements of the Lord's Supper do as by other ways and means so by that which is done unto them The breaking of the one serving to set forth the breaking of Christs body upon the Cross as the pouring out of the other doth the shedding of his blood at those passages which were made for it by the Nails and Spear that pierced him But beside that a Sacrament hath the relation of a sign to that inward and spiritual Grace which belongeth to it it hath also the relation of such a sign as is moreover an apt instrument to convey that grace which is signified by it I instance for the proof hereof in the Scriptures attributing such effects to Baptism and the Lord's Supper as are the immediate issues of those graces which are signified by them For if it attribute such effects to them it must consequently intimate them to be the conveyers of those Graces from whence they result as which otherwise they could not be in a condition to produce Now that the Scriptures attribute such effects to the Sacraments before remembred as are the immediate issues of those graces which are signified by them will appear as to Baptism by their attributing to it a power of washing away (p) Acts 22.16 the sins of men For whether we understand thereby the
Disciples and requiring them to take and eat of it The words This is my body next taken into consideration and more particularly and minutely explain'd Where is shewn at large that by the word This must be meant This Bread and that there is nothing in the gender of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder it That by body must be meant that body which Christ now carried about him and was shortly after to suffer in and that the sigurativeness of the proposition lies in the word is Vpon occasion whereof is also shewn that that word is oftentime figuratively taken that it ought to be so taken here and that accordingly it imports the Bread to be a sign and a memorial and a means of partaking of Christ's body This part of the Institution concluded with an explication of the words which is given or broken for you and a more ample one of Christ's commanding his Disciples to do this in remembrance of him Where the precept Do this is shewn to refer to what Christ had before done or enjoyned them to do And they enjoyn'd so to do to renew in themselves a grateful remembrance of Christ's death or prompt other Men to the like remembrance of it That part of the Institution which respects the Cup more succinctly handled and enquiry made among other things into the declaration which our Saviour makes concerning its being his Blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in it Where is shewn What that is which our Saviour affirms to be so what is meant by his Blood of the New Testament or The New Testament in it and how the Cup or rather the Wine of it was that Blood of his or the New Testament in it pag. 173. The Contents of the Fourth Part. Of the outward Part or Sign of the Lord's Supper BRead and Wine ordinarily the outward Part or Sign of the Lord's Supper and the Heresie of the Aquarii upon that account enquir'd into and censur'd The kind of Bread and Wine enjoin'd in the next place examin'd and a more particular Enquiry thereupon Whether the Wine ought to be mix'd with Water and what was the Ground of the Antients Practice in this Affair The same Elements consider'd again with respect to Christ's Body and Blood whether as to the Vsage that Body and Blood of his receiv'd when he was subjected unto Death or as to the Benefit that was intended and accru'd to us by them In the former of which Notions they become a Sign of Christ's Body and Blood by what is done to them before they come to be administred and by the separate administration of them In the latter by the use they are of to nourish and refresh us Of the Obligation the Faithful are under to receive the Sacrament in both kinds and a resolution of those Arguments that are commonly alleg'd to justifie the Romish Churches depriving them of the Cup. pag. 197. The Contents of the Fifth Part. Of the inward Part of the Lord's Supper or the thing signified by it THE inward Part of the Lord's Supper or the thing signified by it is either what is signified on the part of God and Christ or on the part of the Receiver of it The former of these brought under Consideration and shewn to be the Body and Blood of Christ not as they were at or before the Institution of this Sacrament or as they now are but as they were at the time of his Crucifixion as moreover then offered up unto God and offer'd up to him also as a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World The Consequences of that Assertion briefly noted both as to the presence of that Body and Blood in the Sacrament and our perception of them The things signified on the part of the Receiver in the next place consider'd and these shewn to be First a thankful Remembrance of the Body and Blood of Christ consider'd as before described Secondly our Communion with those who partake with us of that Body and Blood Thirdly a Resolution to live and act as becomes those that are partakers of them The two latter of these more particularly insisted on and that Communion and Resolution not only shewn from the Scripture to be signified on the part of the Receiver but confirmed by the Doctrine and Practice of the Antient Church pag. 213. The Contents of the sixth Part. What farther relation the Sign of the Lord's Supper hath to the Body and Blood of Christ THE outward Part or Sign of this Sacrament consider'd with a more particular regard to the Body and Blood of Christ and Enquiry accordingly made what farther relation it beareth to it That it is a Means whereby we receive the same as well as a Sign thereof shewn from the Doctrine of our Church and that Doctrine confirm'd by Saint Paul's entitling it the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood and by his affirming Men to be made to drink into one Spirit by partaking of the Cup of it Enquiry next made what kind of Means this Sign of the Lord's Supper is how it conveys to us the Body and Blood of Christ and how we receive them by it To each of which Answer is made from the Doctrine of our Church and that Answer farther confirm'd by the Doctrine of the Scripture The sum of which is that this Sign of the Lord's Supper is so far forth a Mean spiritual and heavenly That it conveys the Body and Blood of Christ to us by prompting us to reflect as the Institution requires upon that Body and Blood of his and by prompting God who hath annex'd them to the due use of the Sign to bestow that Body and Blood upon us In fine that we receive them by the Sign thereof when we take occasion from thence to reflect upon that Body and Blood of Christ which it was intended to represent and particularly with Faith in them What Benefits we receive by Christ's Body and Blood in the next place enquir'd and as they are resolv'd by our Catechism to be the strengthening and refreshing of the Soul so Enquiry thereupon made what is meant by the strengthening and refreshing of the Soul what Evidence there is of Christ's Body and Blood being intended for it and how they effect it The Sign of the Lord's Supper a Pledge to assure us of Christ's Body and Blood as well as a Means whereby we receive them pag. 219. The Contents of the Seventh Part. Of Transubstantiation THE Doctrine of Transubstantiation briefly deduc'd from the Council of Trent and digested into four capital Assertions Whereof the first is that the whole substance of the Bread is chang'd into the substance of Christ's Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood The grounds of this Assertion examin'd both as to the possibility and actual being of such a change What is alledgâ—d for the former of these from the substantial changes mention'd in the Scripture of no force in this
words Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who createst the Fruit of the Vine Which said he first of all tasted of it himself and then reach'd it out to all that sate with him Presently after he took a Loaf of Bread and holding it with both his hands consecrated it in these words Blessed be thou O Lord our God who bringest Food out of the Earth Which said he brake it and after he had eaten a piece of it himself gave the like to each that sate with him Thus that Learned Man informs us that the Father of the Family did at their sitting down at their more solemn Feasts As after the Feast was over that he or some other person to whom he committed it taking a second time a Cup full of Wine into both his hands prayed Let us bless him who hath fed us of his own and by whose goodness we live Passing on from thence to other Blessings and Prayers and particularly to bless God for the Food which he had afforded to them all and for all the Benefits bestow'd either on their Fathers or themselves and to pray unto him in like manner for the state of their Nation for the restoring of Jerusalem for the coming of Elias and the Messiah and particularly for their Domesticks and Kindred After which the same person began as before Blessed be thou O Lord our God King of the World who createst the Fruit of the Vine and thereupon again drank a little of the Wine himself and then gave it in order to his Guests Now as it is easie to guess by the likeness there is between our Sacrament and this Usance that our Sacrament or rather the Author thereof took his Pattern from thence if that Usance be ancienter than the Sacrament it self So there is just ground to believe it was both from what we find in St. Luke's account of Christ's celebration of the Passover and this Sacrament and from the manner wherewith this Sacrament was celebrated in the first Ages of Christianity For St. Luke in his account of the former Solemnities takes notice of our Saviour's taking a Cup giving thanks over it and distributing it among his Disciples (d) Luke 22.17 18. with this farther Remark that he said he would not drink any more of the fruit of the vine the particular title here us'd until the kingdom of God should come And the Ancients in their mention of the celebration of the Lord's Supper speak of the Symbols thereof as alike intended for memorials of their thankfulness to God for the Blessings of this World as well as for the Blessing of their Redemption For thus Justin Martyr first affirms the Bread of the Eucharist to have been given by our Saviour to us (e) Dial. cum Tryph. pag. 260. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we might at the same time give thanks to God for having made the World with all things in it for the sake of Man and for delivering us from the evil in which we sometime were by him whom he made passible for us As Irenaeus (f) Adv. haeres lib. 4. c. 32. Sed suis discipulis dans consilium primitias deo offerre ex suis creaturis non quasi indigenti sed ut ipsi nec infructuosi nec ingrati sint eum qui ex creatura panis est accepit gratias egit dicens Hoc est corpus meum Et calicem similiter qui est ex ea creatura quae est secundum nos suum sanguinem confessus est novi Testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert deo ei qui alimenta nobis praestat primitias suorum munerum in novo Testamento in like manner that Christ giving his Disciples counsel to offer to God the First-fruits of his Creatures not as to one that wanted them but that they themselves might not be ungrateful or unfruitful he took Bread and gave thanks saying This is my Body And the Cup in like manner which is of that Creature which is according to us he confessed to be his Blood and taught a new oblation of the New Testament Which Oblation the Church receiving from the Apostles offers in all the World to God even to him who gives us Food the First-fruits of his Gifts in the New Testament Agreeable hereto is that of Origen though not so clearly express'd as the former passages were For these Reasons saith he (g) Contr. Cels lib. 8. p. 399. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let Celsus who knows not God pay the testimonies of his thanks to Devils even for the Benefits of this World But we being desirous to please the maker of the Vniverse eat even those Loaves which are offered with Thanksgiving and Prayer over the things bestow'd upon us being now made by Prayer a certain Holy Body and one which sanctifies those who use it with a good intention Plainly intimating by the opposition he there makes between Celsus's paying the testimonies of his thanks to Devils for the Benefits of this World and our eating of the Eucharistical Bread with respect to the maker of the Vniverse that the Christians of old ate of it with regard to the Creation of the World and the Benefits thereof as well as with respect to the redemption of it by the Body of his Son Now from whence I pray considering the no intimation there is of any such thing in the Institution of Christ or Saint Paul's rehearsal of it from whence I say that regard to the Creation of the World and the Benefits thereof but from those Thanksgivings which from old descended to them from the Jews together with the Institution of Christ And which being so will prove the Usance before remembred not to have been the Usance of the latter Jews only but of those who were as old as our Saviour's time and that Passover which he celebrated among them Add hereunto what is apparent from the Ancient Liturgies of the Church the Prayers of the Eucharist descending to such Intercessions for all sorts of men as the Prayers of the Jews over their Eucharist appear to have done For these are a yet farther proof of the Antiquity of that Jewish Service and that our Saviour copied his own Institution by it What use these Observations may be of will be more fit to declare elsewhere neither shall I therefore at this time set my self to the investigation of it At present I desire only it may be remembred that in this Exemplar of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper both the one and the other Element thereof were consecrated with Thanksgivings and the Bread of it though consecrated in the mass or lump was yet carefully broken off from it in order to a distribution of it That as the Cup as well as the Bread had a place in that Eucharist so it was alike distributed among the Communicants yea distributed at the end as well as at
because Ite Missa est is the conclusion of the Mass even now and which considering the place it hath in this service as well as the word Ite to which it is joyn'd cannot be thought to denote any other thing than that the Deacon doth by those words of his Missam or Missionem facere give leave to the people to depart and so justifie yet more the account we have before given of the title of that service For when it is evident from the story of the Church and particularly from Dionysius the Areopagite * Eccl. Hierarch c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Catechumens and others were formally dismist the congregation upon the finishing their respective service When it is farther evident from the present Canon of the Mass that the faithful were alike dismist after that their service was over and not only so but by these very words Ite Missa est Depart you for you have now a dismission or free leave to do so What can be more clear than that the word Missa or Mass had its original from that dismission and that the several services of the Church and this of the faithful in particular had that name because they who pertained to it and attended on it were at the end thereof solemnly dismist and sent away to their own home Only if any be fond of that Rabbinical notion which makes it to import a voluntary oblation because of the near cognation it may seem to have to that sacrifice which they are willing to advance Let them in God's name enjoy it provided they look upon it as only an Eucharistical one of which nature the Missah in Deuteronomy was or a commemoration of that voluntary oblation which Christ made of himself upon the Cross For whatever may be said against that Etymology of the word nothing can be said from Antiquity against the supposed sense of it Because all Antiquity acknowledg'd that which hath the title of the Mass to be either an Eucharistical or commemorative Oblation PART III. Of the Institution of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper The Contents The Story of the Institution first set down out of the Evangelists and St. Paul and animadverted upon in the several parts of it Where after an account of the time of it the consequents whereof are also declar'd entrance is made with the consideration of the Bread and both the quality of that Bread and Christ's taking it explain'd This followed by a more ample declaration of Christ's blessing it and that Blessing both shewn to have the Bread for its object and to consist in making it useful for the purposes of a Sacrament or rather in Christ's addressing himself to his Father to make it such That address of his thereupon carefully enquir'd into and because it appears from St. Luke and St. Paul to have been by Thanksgiving enquiry also made what benefits he so gave thanks for what use that Thanksgiving was of toward the procuring of the blessing desir'd and whether it did not also contain some express request to God for the granting of it Of Christ's breaking the Bread its signification and momentousness as also of his giving it to his Disciples and requiring them to take and eat of it The words This is my body next taken into consideration and more particularly and minutely explain'd Where is shewn at large that by the word This must be meant This Bread and that there is nothing in the gender of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder it That by body must be meant that body which Christ now carried about him and was shortly after to suffer in and that the figurativeness of the proposition lies in the word is Vpon occasion whereof is also shewn that that word is oftentime figuratively taken that it ought to be so taken here and that accordingly it imports the Bread to be a sign and a memorial and a means of partaking of Christ's body This part of the Institution concluded with an explication of the words which is given or broken for you and a more ample one of Christ's commanding his Disciples to do this in remembrance of him Where the precept Do this is shewn to refer to what Christ had before done or enjoyned them to do And they enjoyn'd so to do to renew in themselves a grateful remembrance of Christ's death or prompt other Men to the like remembrance of it That part of the Institution which respects the Cup more succinctly handled and enquiry made among other things into the declaration which our Saviour makes concerning its being his Blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in it Where is shewn What that is which our Saviour affirms to be so what is meant by his Blood of the New Testament or The New Testament in it and how the Cup or rather the Wine of it was that Blood of his or the New Testament in it IT is very observable Question Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordain'd Answer For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ and of the benefits we receive thereby and was accordingly long since taken notice of by Isaac Casaubon * Exercit. 16. s. 28. That when Baronius was to give an account of the Institution of this Sacrament which three Evangelists and St. Paul had carefully describ'd instead of producing the words of those Scriptures as he often doth upon less occasions and bestowing as was but reasonable a just Commentary upon them he slubbers it over with this imperfect story †Baron Annal. Eccl. ad Ann. Christi 34. num 45. shall I say or rather with this perverse interpretation of it In which Supper speaking of that of the Paschal Lamb that ineffable Sacrament was instituted whereby Transubstantiation was made of Bread and Wine into the Flesh and Blood of Christ into the very body of Christ entire under both species Then also the Apostles when the Lord commanded them to do the very same thing in remembrance of him were made Priests and that very sacrifice which they should offer was ordain'd A Man would have thought that whatever interpretation he had afterwards made of it one who pretended to be an Historian should at least have given a more particular and perfect account of that whole action and as near to as might be in the words of some of those Holy Men that had transmitted it to posterity And so no doubt this Historian would have done if there had not been somewhat in the words of the Institution to which the practice of his Church had made a non obstante to be necessary But as he saw but too well how ill the practice of his Church answer'd what was then done and enjoyn'd by our Saviour so he therefore chose rather to give that imperfect as well as insincere account of it and endeavour to supply what was wanting by an account of those names which were antiently given to
this Sacrament with the declarations of the Antient Fathers concerning them God be thanked we of the Church of England are under no such necessity of either slightly passing over or any way perverting the Story of this Holy Sacrament And therefore being now by the order of my discourse to entreat of the Institution of it I will set down the Story thereof in the words of those that first deliver'd it and bound my Observations by them Mat. 26. Mark 14. Luke 22. 1 Cor. 11. 26. And as they were eating Jesus took Bread and blessed it and brake it and gave it to the disciples and said Take Eat This is my body 22. And as they did eat Jesus took Bread and blessed and brake it and gave to them and said Take Eat This is my body 19. And he took Bread and gave thanks and brake it and gave unto them saying This is my body which is given for you This do in remembrance of me 23. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took Bread    24. And when he had given thanks he brake it and said Take Eat This is my body which is broken for you This do in remembrance of me 27. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying Drink ye all of it 23. And he took the cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them and they all drank of it 20. Likewise also the cup after Supper saying 25. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying 28. For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins 24. And he said unto them This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many This cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you This cup is the New Testament in my blood This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me 29. But I say unto you I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom 25. Verily I say unto you I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day I drink it new in the kingdom of God   Now the first thing I shall take notice of in the History of this Sacrament is the Time of the Institution of it Which we learn from St. Paul to have been the same night in which he was betray'd from the context of the several Evangelists at the Celebration of the Feast of the Passover or rather toward the close of it It being whilst they were yet eating that two of them affirm that he took the Bread of it and bless'd and brake and gave it but so near the conclusion of that Feast that St. Luke and St. Paul tell us that it was after Supper before he took the Cup and gave thanks over it and gave it to his Disciples And though I do not pretend to affirm neither do I know any sober Man that doth that there is any obligation upon us for celebrating it after Supper or any other Meal Our Saviour's celebrating it then being in compliance with those Jews whose Institution he now transcrib'd and reform'd and probably also to intimate its succeeding to that solemnity Tho I acknowledg it to have been an antient usage * Tert. de Cor. cap. 3 in the Church to celebrate it at their Meetings before day and where it was not so soon yet before †Aug. Epist 119. ad Janu. their eating of any thing else as that too out of respect to that Sacrament Yet I see as little reason to grant that there is any more of religion in receiving it fasting than what the custom of the Church or the Laws of decency give it It being not otherwise to be thought that our Saviour would have instituted it at Supper time or rather presently after it And much less that St. Paul would have given it in command to the Corinthians (a) 1 Cor. 11.34 that if any Man hungred he should eat at home before he came to the participation of it and of those Agapae that attended it From the Time of the Institution pass we to the Institution it self and the several things done and said in it Where the first thing I am to take notice of is Christ's taking Bread to wit into his hands and probably from off that table on which it was plac'd Agreeably to that usance of the Jews which he fram'd his own Eucharist by and where as was before * Part 1. observ'd the Father of the Family held it in both his hands whil'st he us'd the words of Consecration or Blessing over it However he so took it to be sure as to separate it from what other Bread then was upon the Table as which the word took in the most simple notion of it will oblige us to believe This importing the choice of some particular Bread from out the rest and leaving the other to the ordinary uses of it Now the Bread which our Saviour thus took was either some whole Loaf of Bread answerably to the former usance or at least some larger but entire piece of one as appears by the breaking of it into several pieces answerably to the several persons that were to partake of it And it was also agreeably to the time when it was made use of unleavened Bread as the Latines have truly observ'd against the Greeks It being upon the first day of the feast of unleavened Bread as three of the Evangelists †Mat. 26.17 Mark 14.12 Luke 22.7 have observ'd that that Passover which immediately preceded this Sacrament was celebrated and consequently that this Sacrament also was But why it should be so far urged against the Greeks as to make it the matter of a quarrel is a very unaccountable thing unless there were somewhat either in the words or in the rites of the Institution which directed to the use of unleavened Bread only For leavened or unleavened matters not after the taking away of that Law which made the difference And much less where the present Law requires only (a) 1 Cor. 5.8 the laying aside of the leaven of malice and wickedness and keeping our Passover feast with the unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth It followeth in the Story And Jesus took Bread and blessed as St. Matthew and St. Mark deliver it or as St. Luke and St. Paul after him gave thanks A thing which will require a more accurate consideration because of the momentousness thereof It being to that Blessing or Thanksgiving probably that we are to assign that both change in it and effects of it which are afterwards attributed to it That therefore we may the better understand this whether Blessing or Thanksgiving we will consider
they were first to mention even our Saviour's taking it and giving it to his Disciples because liquid things cannot well be taken by our selves or convey'd to others but by a Cup or by an usual Metonymy of the continent for the thing contained in it set to denote the Wine wherewith it was replenished This Cup as we shall afterwards understand being given them to drink of and as appears from what our Saviour subjoins in the close of St. Matthew's and St. Mark 's account of this matter of the Fruit of the Vine or Wine Now this Cup as he had done before with the Bread he in like manner (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 22.20 1 Cor. 11.25 after he had supp'd took into his Hand or Hands as the fashion was in the Eucharistical Cup of the Jews but however so took as was before observed concerning the Bread as to separate it from what other Wine then was upon the Table and appropriated it to his own purposes The Cup being thus taken by our Saviour into his Hands and held by him there till he gave it to his Disciples Two of the Evangelists tell us he gave thanks over it and as appears by what was said before in the matter of the Bread and by St. Paul's elsewhere (g) 1 Cor. 10.16 entitling it the Cup of blessing which we bless by that Thanksgiving and Prayer blessed it or rather recommended it to the Father to be blessed by him and made useful for those purposes for which it was design'd and particularly for the Communion of his Blood Which Blessing there is no doubt the Father granted thereupon and fitted it for that for which it was so separated and recommended to him As because he readily promis'd the like or a greater Blessing to the Blessing (h) Num. 6.23 c. of the Jewish Priests and may therefore be presum'd as ready to grant this to the Blessing of his well beloved Son So because our Saviour when he gave this Cup to his Disciples told them even then that it was his Blood of the New Testament and St. Paul that being blessed by such as himself it was the Communion of Christ's Blood which it could not have been in either instance without the Blessing of the Father Our Saviour having thus taken and given thanks over the Cup or blessed it gave it to his Disciples saying Drink ye all of it But whether as was said before in the matter of the Bread he gave it into each of his Disciples Hands or to him only that sat next to him and by him to be handed to the next is not material neither will I therefore concern my self about it Sure it is that by the words accompanying that Gift he signified it to be his Mind that they should all drink of it and St. Mark in particular tells us that they all drank of it Upon the strength of what Motive is in the next place to be enquir'd but which we shall not need to go farther than St. Matthew for or at least not for the general notion of it For this saith he in our Saviour's name is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins The thing which I now offer you is my Blood of the New Testament and it is upon that account I both invite and oblige you all to drink of it And if it was even when he offer'd it to them to drink his Blood of the New Testament one would think it should need no new Blessing or Consecration to make it such and much less that those words by which he declar'd it to be so should be that blessing or Consecration it self But be that as it will at present for the fuller discussion of these things belongs to another place most certain it is from the other Evangelists and from St. Paul that our Saviour when he gave the Cup to the Disciples made use of these or the like words upon what occasion soever they were employed by him And as certain it is from the Controversies now on foot that the words consider'd in themselves will require an explication to which therefore I shall now address my self In order thereunto as I did before in the matter of the Bread enquiring what the subject of this Proposition is what the thing predicated of it and what the importance of the word Is which is made use of to joyn them together And here in the first place it is easy to see that whatever difficulties the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or This may be encumbred with when set to denote the Bread because of a different Gender from it both in the Greek and the Latin yet it is encumbred with no such difficulties here Because even in St. Matthew and St. Mark where it hath no Substantive affixed to it it is of the same Gender with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cup before spoken of and which they were also commanded to drink of as well as with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Blood that follows it It is alike easy to see secondly that whatever pretence may be made for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or This in the former Proposition having respect to some individuum vagum yet there is not the like pretence here Because though St. Matthew and St. Mark add no Substantive to it yet St. Luke and St. Paul in their History of the Institution add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to it and so shew This Cup even the Cup before spoken of to be the thing whereof our Saviour spake And indeed as the rules of Construction require us so to understand it even where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cup is not express'd and much more where This is my Blood is assign'd as a motive to the Disciples drinking of the Cup For how could it otherwise be any motive to it if that Cup were not the Blood here spoken of So our Saviour's commanding his Disciples to drink of that Cup in order to their partaking of his Blood and his afterwards describing it by the title of the Fruit of the Vine shews the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cup to be set to denote the liquor that was contained in it and particularly the Blood of the Grape Which is a proof that figurative expressions are no such strangers to the Doctrine of a Sacrament because one is of necessity to be allow'd in the subject of this important Proposition and is accordingly allow'd by the Romanists themselves The subject of the present Proposition being thus found out and shewn to be no other than the Cup before spoken of or rather the Wine of it Let us in the next place take a view of the thing affirmed of it and wherein indeed there is some variety even between those who give an Historical account of this affair St. Matthew and St. Mark representing the Cup here spoken of as Christ's Blood of the New Testament or
Covenant which was shed for many for the remission of fins but St. Luke and St. Paul as the New Testament or Covenant in his Blood which was shed for them For which cause I will consider the thing here affirmed under each of these notions and first as Christ's Blood of the New Testament or Covenant which I conceive to be the clearest and most proper declaration of it Because it appears even by that St. Paul who makes use of the other expression that the Blood of Christ is the principal thing signified by it even in that very Chapter where he entitles it the New Testament in his Blood For not only doth he before (i) 1 Cor. 10.16 entitle the Cup the Communion of his Blood as he doth the Bread in the same verse the Communion of his Body but immediately after the words of the Institution declare him who eateth that Bread and drinketh that Cup with due preparation to shew forth the Lord's Death till he come as him who eateth and drinketh unworthily to be guilty of his Body and Bloody The Blood of Christ therefore being the thing principally signified and consequently the principal thing predicated of the Cup by the one and the other reason would that we should enquire what our Saviour meant by it that is to say whether that Blood which now ran in his Veins and was shortly after to be shed or only a memorial of it A Question which will soon be voided not only by what I have before said concerning the Notion of Christ's Body but by the Adjuncts of that very Blood whereof we speak The Blood of the New Testament or Covenant as appears by a Text of the Author to the Hebrews (k) Heb. 9.14 c. and by what I have elsewhere (l) Expl. of the Sacrament in general Part 2. discours'd upon it being no other than that Blood which the Mediator of it shed at his Death For that Author tells us that neither that nor any other Testament or Covenant can be firm without it And the Blood that was shed for remission of Sins the very same It being by means of the same Death that the Redemption of Sins against the First Testament or Covenant is procur'd which is but another Name for the Remission of them And I shall only add for the better explanation of those words even the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant that as of old God would not enter nor did enter into the First Covenant with the Israelites till he was aton'd and they sprinkled by the Blood of their Sacrifices So neither would he enter into the New till he was first aton'd and we sprinkled by the Blood of the Sacrifice of his Son and that Blood therefore conformably to what was said of the Blood of the First Covenant stiled the Blood of the New There will be no great difficulty after what I have said of the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant as to the meaning of that New Testament or Covenant in Christ's Blood which St. Luke and St. Paul bring in our Saviour as affirming the Cup to be Because thereby must consequently be meant that New Covenant which was brought about by the Bloud of his Cross even that by which the same Saint Paul elsewhere (m) Col. 1.20 tells us that Christ made Peace between us and God Which will consequently leave nothing more to us to enquire into upon this Head than the importance of that is which joyns the subject and the foregoing predicates together and how the Cup of this Sacrament was and is his Blood of the New Testament or Covenant and how the New Testament or Covenant in his Blood For the understanding whereof though it may suffice to remit my Reader to what I before said upon the account of the Bread's being Christ's Body because that mutatis mutandis may be apply'd to the Particle Is here Yet I shall add ex abundanti that there cannot well be any doubt of its being taken figuratively here either in the one or the other predication concerning it Because the Cup of this Sacrament cannot literally and properly be both his Blood of the New Testament or Covenant and the New Testament or Covenant in it which yet in some or other of the Sacred Writers it is affirm'd to be Which as it will make it so much the more reasonable to allow of that figurative Sense here which we have attributed to the same Particle Is in This is my Body So consequently make it reasonable to understand by This is my Blood of the New Testament which answers directly to the other This is a Sign and a Memorial and a Means of its conveyance as well as the Bread is of my Body And indeed as the Cup or rather the Wine of it may well pass for a Sign of that Blood as for other Reasons so for that effusion which is attributed to it So that it is both a Memorial and a Means of its conveyance is evident from St. Paul's bringing in our Saviour subjoining the words Do this as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me to the Story of the Cup and elsewhere representing the same Cup as the Communion of his Blood This I take to be a fair account of the Particle Is as it is made use of to connect the Cup and Christ's Blood of the New Tescament or Covenant And it will be no less easie to give as clear an account of it as it is made use of to connect the same Cup and the New Testament or Covenant in his Blood That Cup representing to us God's exhibiting together with it Christ's Blood and the Merits of it and our receiving that Blood and the Merits of it with that thankfulness which doth become us and a Mind resolv'd to walk worthy of those Benefits we receive by it I will conclude this long Discourse concerning the Institution of this Sacrament when I have lightly animadverted upon that which St. Matthew and St. Mark bring in our Saviour subjoining to all he had said concerning the Elements thereof To wit that he would not any more drink of this Fruit of the Vine for so St. Matthew expresseth it until he should drink it new with them in his Father's Kingdom For though it should be granted what Grotius contends for out of St. Luke that these words were spoken just before the Institution of this Sacrament and only plac'd here upon the account of Christ's being again to speak of the Cup Yet thus much must be granted to St. Matthew and St. Mark 's placing it here that it was the Fruit of the Vine that our Saviour gave them and they accordingly drank of even in this Sacrament of the Lord's Supper There being no more reason nor so much neither considering that that is the immediate Antecedent to deny this Fruit of the Vine's referring to what our Saviour gave his Disciples and they all drank of than there would be to deny
thing enjoin'd to perswade it For as there is no difference so far as we can see between Take Eat the Bread and drink ye all of the Cup that we should think one to respect the Clergy any more than the other So one would think the reason assign'd by our Saviour in St. Matthew for their drinking all of it even because it was his Blood of the New Testament which was shed for many for the remission of Sins should concern the Laity as well as the Clergy that consecrate and consequently that Precept also which it was intended to enforce Unless we should think or indeed could that the Laity and fuch of the Clergy as do not consecrate have no interest in Christ's Blood or the Benefits thereof or at least that they were no way oblig'd with due thankfulness to remember it But beside that our Saviour's Disciples had no interest in consecrating that Eucharist which he celebrated with them and were therefore so far forth to be look'd upon rather as Lay-men than Clergy-men and consequently Representers of those that were such where there was nothing enjoin'd upon them that was not manifestly peculiar to them as Priests St. Paul where he repeats the same Institution of Christ doth not only make no difference between Priest and People as to this particular but rather suppose the Cup to be common to all and accordingly both warns all to beware of such an unworthy receiving of it as they had been before guilty of and exhorts them as indifferently after they had well examin'd themselves to drink of the Cup as to eat of the Bread Thereby farther intimating that they were all alike concern'd in the thing it self I mean as to the receit of it So that for ought that hitherto doth appear we must not only look upon the receit of the Cup as a thing under Command but under such a Command too as respects People as well as Priest yea as well as that very Priest that consecrates it and the other Element Which will consequently leave nothing more to enquire upon this head than whether as the receit of the Cup even by the Faithful be a thing under Command so those Faithful are under the obligation of it and bound by it to the receiving of the Cup. Now though a Command as such doth naturally oblige and consequently they that are under it are obliged by it and to that which is the matter of it Yet because question may seem to have been made by the Council of Trent rather concerning Men's being bound by any Precept of Christ to receive the Cup than concerning the Precept it self therefore I will set my self more particularly to the resolution thereof and together with that of those Objections that are made against it In order thereunto asserting first that if there be such a Command as we have before evinc'd they for whom that Command was intended are generally obliged by it to that which is the matter of it This being no more than what the very nature of a Command enforceth and the Credit of the Author of it perswades For as it is of the nature of a Command to oblige and consequently they that are under it generally obliged by it as without which otherwise that Command would not have its end So it is not for the Credit of him that gave it either to prescribe that which cannot generally be observed or not to hold those that can to the obligation of it This opening a way to the contempt of his Authority and not only to reject this or that particular Command but all From whence as it will follow that it must be only as to some Persons and some Cases that the Precept of the Cup must be thought not to oblige if indeed it do not So that alone being granted the depriving of whole Towns and Provinces and Kingdoms of the Cup will admit of no Excuse which will be enough to justifie us for separating from the Church of Rome in this Affair and to condemn the Church of Rome for usurping so much upon the World against a Divine Institution and Command Only to dispense with a Law as to the Major part being rather to destroy than dispense with it How much more then to hinder the Major part from the observance of it by contrary Decrees and by Anathema's upon those who shall not acquiesce in them But because all we have hitherto said tends only to shew that the generality of Christians are oblig'd to the receit of the Cup which is an intimation unless we proceed farther that some Persons and in some Cases may be exempted from the Obligation And because the Church of Rome pretends that she is not without reasons to shew that there is no Obligation upon all and singular the Faithful to receive it Therefore I will now proceed to consider the reasons of that Pretence and shew whether or no and how far they ought to be admitted And first it is pretended that there are some Countries in the World which are not furnished with Wine nor can it may be with any Conveniency furnish themselves from other places or at all for publick and general Communions And I will not deny but such places there may be and that they cannot therefore because no one can be ty'd to that which is impossible be oblig'd either to celebrate or receive the Eucharist in it But as this signifies nothing to the defence of those who forbid it where it may be had and is therefore very frivolously alledged in the present Case So I shall upon the strength of what I have before said refer it to Consideration whether some other generous Liquor which I suppose few Nations want may not be substituted in the place of Wine and so the Cup be preserved though that specifical Liquor cannot It is pretended secondly which I doubt not might give the first occasion to the taking of it away that there would be great danger of irreverence otherwise by shedding the Liquor of it either in the Church by carrying it to the Communicants there or in carrying of it especially over the Mountains in Winter to sick Persons By the hanging of some part of it in the Beards of the Laicks wheresoever it was delivered to them or by its growing sowre by being kept For to these and the like Purposes did some of the Fathers of the Council of Trent discourse (q) Hist of the Council of Trent li. 6. p. 521. and as it should seem too out of Gerson the learned Chancellor of Paris But a Man would wonder first that if these were just Reasons for abridging the Laity of the Cup they should not have prevail'd with our Saviour who certainly knew all that might hereafter happen not to admit them to it at the first but however that they should not have taken him off from enjoining them to drink of it A Man would wonder as much secondly why there should be thought to be so great
a danger of shedding in carrying about the Cup in the Church when among us who practise it in great Congregations no such danger doth appear and when that danger may in a great measure be prevented by bringing those that are to receive to the Rails of the Communion Table to take it from the Priest there And a Man would wonder no less thirdly why so much ado should be made about the carrying of it to sick Folks and the danger that attends it especially when it is over Mountains Because if Men were prompted as they ought to a frequent Communion in the publick Assemblies there would be the less need of carrying it to them when sick Or if it were thought meet however that they should receive the Communion when sick it might be consecrated as well as administred to them at home and a reasonable number of Communicants provided to receive with them as it is with us Or if that were not thought fit neither but that they must by all means be debar'd the Cup because of the danger of the Liquors growing sowre by being kept for them or of its shedding in the carriage yet is there no imaginable reason why they that are whole and come to it instead of expecting its being brought to them should be therefore deprived of it even in the Church because it may not be convenient to be brought to their Houses it may be once These things I say a Man might well wonder at but especially when they are urg'd as they are for a total removing of the Cup. But a Man would more than wonder fourthly if he did not know the force of Prejudice and Custom that the hanging of the Liquor in the Lay-men's Beards should be made so great a difficulty and danger as to debar them of the use of it For not to say that it is strange that if that were so considerable a thing neither our Saviour should be aware of it when he instituted the Cup nor the Church in so many Centuries of Years take care to prevent it especially when Beards were more in Fashion than they have been of late A Man would think that if the Blood of Christ and the observation of a Command of his were a matter of as great moment as the fear of the loss of any of that Blood in the Lay-mens Beards A Man would think I say that in such a Case both the Priests should have enjoin'd the Laity and the Laity for that time have willingly submitted to the shaving of their Beards rather than have suffered themselves for the sake of such an excrement to be robb'd of Christ's Blood or go against his Institution and Command To take away the Cup of the Sacrament for such like Fears as these being somewhat more extravagant than Lycurgus King of Thrace's cutting down all the Vines of his Kingdom for fear of the ill use that might be made of the Fruit of them In fine a Man might wonder if such like things as these were an affront to the Holy Sacrament and as such of sufficient force to remove the use of the Cup why our Saviour should not have found out some more decent place than the Stomach of the Faithful to bestow one Element of the Sacrament in or than the Stomach of the Priest to bestow them both They who are acquainted with the inside of that knowing it in that respect to be a more unseemly place for one or the other Element to be lodged in than many of those which they seem to be so jealous of and for fear of any pollution by which they deprive the Faithful of the benefit of the Cup and of that whether Wine or Blood that is contained in it The third thing pretended for depriving the Faithful of the Cup is that whole and entire Christ is contained under one only Species (r) Trid. Conc. Sess 21. cap. 3. Which the Council of Trent doth so peremptorily affirm that it pronounceth an Anathema upon any one that shall deny (s) ib. Can. 3. that whole and entire Christ the Fountain and Author of all Graces is receiv'd under the only Species of Bread For if that be true what need is there of the receit of the Cup by them or indeed what presumption of Christ's having given any Command concerning it But are they so sure as they would be thought to be that whole and entire Christ is contain'd under the sole Species of Bread Or if it were that it were therefore indifferent whether we receiv'd the Cup or no Nay is there not sufficient reason to believe that whole and entire Christ is not contained under it but under the one and other Species For beside that our Saviour by making choice of two distinct Elements to become them made as manifest a separation between his Body and Blood in the Sacrament as he did upon the Cross and may therefore be presum'd to give them if he gave them at all in their sense not conjunctly but apart and in that separate estate in which he had put them Beside that he requir'd not only two distinct and separate Acts those of eating and drinking I mean but two Acts that were distant in time toward the partaking of that Body and Blood and may therefore be yet more presum'd to give them not conjunctly but apart and agreeably to those Acts which he enjoin'd for the partaking of them If the Body and Blood of Christ are contained under and received with the sole Species of Bread as to be fure they must if whole and entire Christ be It must be either by vertue of those words Hoc est corpus meum This is my Body or by vertue of those words and the words that follow even This is my Blood of the New Testament As one would think that they who lay so much stress upon those words should readily grant either the one or the other or by vertue of that natural Connexion and Concomitancy to speak the words (t) Sess 13. cap. 3. of the Trent-Council whereby the parts of the Lord Christ who is now risen from the dead no more to die again are joined together between themselves If they who maintain whole Christ and consequently his Body and Blood to be contained under the Species of Bread affirm that to be by the sole vertue of those words Hoc est corpus meum or This is my Body They must consequently make them signifie This is my Blood as well as my Body as without which even in their own opinion so omnipotent an Effect is not to be produc'd Which suppos'd I would fain know whether they signifie so much always or only when the Sacrament is administred in one kind and to those alone to whom it is so administred If the words Hoc est corpus meum signifie so always and the like will follow if the Body and Blood of Christ be by any means brought together under the Species of Bread then is there no
her But as if any thing be of the substance of the Sacrament the doing of that must be which tends most apparently to set forth the Sacrifice of Christ's Death upon the Cross as which was one great end of its Institution and the most clearly expressed in it So nothing doth or can tend more apparently to the setting forth of that than Men's partaking of that Cup which was by our Saviour himself intended to represent the Blood of that Sacrifice of his as poured out for our Expiation and Remission PART V. Of the inward Part of the Lord's Supper or the thing signified by it The Contents The inward Part of the Lord's Supper or the thing signified by it is either what is signified on the part of God and Christ or on the part of the Receiver of it The former of these brought under Consideration and shewn to be the Body and Blood of Christ not as they were at or before the Institution of this Sacrament or as they now are but as thâ—y were at the time of his Crucifixion as moreover then offered up unto God and offer'd up to him also as a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World The Consequences of that Assertion briefly noted both as to the presence of that Body and Blood in the Sacrament and our perception of them The things signified on the part of the Receiver in the next place consider'd and these shewn to be First a thankful Remembrance of the Body and Blood of Christ consider'd as before described Secondly our Communion with those who partake with us of that Body and Blood Thirdly a Resolution to live and act as becomes those that are partakers of them The two latter of these more particularly insisted on and that Communion and Resolution not only shewn from the Scripture to be signified on the part of the Receiver but confirmed by the Doctrine and Practice of the Antient Church II. THE outward Part or Sign of the Lord's Supper being thus accounted for Question What is the inward part or thing signified and that shewn to be no other than Bread and Wine which the Lord hath commanded to be receiv'd Reason would as well as the Method before laid down that I should entreat of the inward part thereof or the thing signified by it Answer The Body and Blood of Crhist which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper Which on the part of God and Christ is that Christ's Body and Blood As on our part a thankful Remembrance of them our Communion with those who partake with us thereof and a Resolution to live and act as becomes those that are partakers of them That which our Catechism obligeth us especially to consider is that which is signified on the part of God and Christ and which accordingly it declares to be that Christ's Body and Blood A thing which consider'd in the general admits of no dispute because the plain Assertion of the Scripture as well as the Acknowledgment of all sorts of Men however otherwise divided about the Sacrament thereof or the presence of that Body and Blood in it They all agreeing as they must that the Body of Christ is that which is signified by one of its Signs and the Blood of Christ which is signified by the other But as it is not so well agreed under what Notion we are to consider that Body and Blood nor for ought that I have observ'd much attended to which is it may be the principal Cause of all the Controversie in this Particular So I shall therefore for the farther clearing of the thing or things signified by this Sacrament enquire under what Notion we ought to consider them which if we have a due regard to the words of the Institution will not be so difficult to unfold For from thence it will appear first that we ought to consider Christ's Body and Blood here not in the state wherein they were at or before the Institution of this Sacrament or in that more happy one to which they are now arriv'd but as they were at the time of our Saviour's Crucifixion To wit the one as given to Death or broken and the other as shed for us Which St. Paul farther confirms when he tells his Corinthians * 1 Cor. 11.26 that as often as they ate the Bread of this Sacrament and drank the Cup of it they did shew forth the Lord's death till he came The consequent whereof will be secondly because that Death of Christ is represented by the Scriptures as a Sacrifice that we ought to look upon that Body and Blood of Christ which we have said to be signified by this Sacrament as offer'd unto God by him and as such to be consider'd in it Which they of all Men have the least reason to refuse who do not only affirm †Conc. Trid. Sess 22. cap. 1. with us that this Sacrament was intended for a Memorial of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross but that the Body and Blood of Christ is even now * Ibid. offer'd up to God in it under the respective Species thereof It is as little to be doubted thirdly That as we ought to consider the Body and Blood of Christ here as offer'd up to God for us so we ought to consider them as offer'd up as a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of those Persons for whom it is offer'd Which is not only evident from the words of the Institution because representing the Cup of this Sacrament as the Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of Sins but abundantly confirm'd by the suffrage of those Men with whom we have most to do in this Affair They not only representing the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are pleas'd to call this Sacrament as one and the same Sacrifice with that which our Saviour offer'd upon the Cross but as a truly propitiatory one (a) Ib. cap. 2. and which accordingly is of force for the sins of the quick and the dead and tends to the remission of them Of what use these Considerations are will more fully appear when I come to entreat of that relation which the outward Signs of this Sacrament have to the inward part thereof or the things signified by them At present it may suffice briefly to note that the Body and Blood of Christ consider'd as broken and shed upon the Cross having now no Existence in the World nor any more capable of having such an Existence than that which is past can be recall'd They cannot be substantially present either to the Sacramental Elements or to the Person that receiveth them nor be substantially eaten and drunken by him that eats and drinks the other That they must therefore be present to the Sacramental Elements in a Figure or Mystery and to the Receiver by their respective Vertue and Efficacy That being as was before said to be consider'd as offer'd up to
Blood by the separate administration of them when they are For as our Saviour's Body and Blood were parted by Death and accordingly requir'd to be consider'd the one as broken and mortifi'd the other as shed or poured out of it So our Saviour did not only appoint divers Symbols to represent them but administred them apart and by themselves and if there be any force in Do this in remembrance of me commanded them to be so administred afterwards By which means they become even by that separate administration a yet more perfect and lively Representation of Christ's Body and Blood as to the usage they receiv'd when he whose they were was subjected to Death for us But because the Body and Blood of Christ are consider'd in this Sacrament as to the Benefit that was intended and accru'd to us by them as well as to the usage they receiv'd For This is my Body which is given or broken for you say St. Luke and St. Paul and This is my Blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in it which is shed for you say all the Evangelists upon this Argument Therefore enquire we wherein the Elements of Bread and Wine are a sign of his Body and Blood as to that Benefit they were so intended and given for Which will soon appear if we consider what the proper use of those Elements is what we are requir'd to do with them and what is elsewhere said concerning that Body and Blood when consider'd with respect to our welfare and advantage These several things making it evident that they become a sign of Christ's Body and Blood by the use they are of to nourish and refresh us For as we cannot lightly think but that when our Saviour made choice of such things as those to represent the usefulness of his Body and Blood to us he made choice of them for that purpose with respect to their proper usefulness as which is both most notorious in them and most apt to affect the Mind of him to whom they are suggested So much less can we think otherwise of them when he moreover requires us to eat of the one and drink of the other which are the ways by which we are to receive that nourishment and refreshment which we have said them to be so useful for Otherwise any thing else might have been as proper for the purpose as Bread and Wine Or if God who may no doubt make use of what Methods he pleaseth thought good however to make choice of Bread and Wine to represent Christ's Body and Blood yet he might have contented himself to have enjoyn'd upon us the casting our Eyes upon them and not as we find he doth prompted us to eat and drink of them as that too in remembrance of him and them For what need would there be of eating and drinking those Elements in remembrance of his Body and Blood or indeed what aptness in so doing to call them to our own Minds or the Minds of others were it not that there were somewhat in them to represent the usefulness of Christs Body and Blood which was not to be drawn from them or so sensibly perceiv'd in them as by eating and drinking of them This I take to be a competent evidence of Bread and Wine 's becoming a sign by the use they are of to nourish and refresh us But I am yet more convinced of it by what is elsewhere said concerning Christ's Body and Blood when consider'd as they are here as to our Benefit and advantage Even that his Flesh or Body was food * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed and his Blood drink indeed (g) Joh. 6.55 and that accordingly except his Disciples ate that Flesh of his and drank his Blood (h) Joh. 6.53 they could have no life in them but if they did (i) Joh. 6.54 they should have eternal Life In fine that the flesh (k) Joh. 6.51 which he should give for the life of the World was in the nature of Bread to them and so represented by him throughout that whole Discourse For if Christ's Body and Blood be in the nature of Food and drink to us If they be so far such that we are requir'd to eat and drink of them and so also that we cannot promise our selves life without them That Bread and Wine which in the present Sacrament are appointed to signifie and represent them cannot be thought by any more proper way to be a Sign or Representation of them than by their usefulness as Bread and Drink to nourish and refresh our Bodies to maintain them in their present beings and fill them with joy and gladness 4. The fourth thing to be enquir'd as concerning the Bread and Wine of this Sacrament is what evidence there is of Christ's commanding us to receive them A question which one would think might soon be voided by the words of the Institution it self Take Eat This is my Body being the voice of our Saviour concerning the Bread and Drink ye all of it and This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me being the words of the same Jesus in St. Matthew and St. Paul concerning the Cup which one would think to be sufficient expresses of Christ's command concerning it But as nothing is enough to those who are prejudic'd against any Doctrine as it is apparent that the Church of Rome was against the use of the Cup when this business came to be debated in the Council of Trent So that Council did not only determine that whole and entire Christ is contained under either species and particularly under the species of Bread (l) Sess 13. cap. 3. but that the faithful are not oblig'd by any command of the Lord to receive both species (m) Sess 21. cap. 1. and that accordingly if any shall say that all and singular the faithful people of Christ are oblig'd to take both species either by vertue of any command from God or as of necessity to Salvation (n) ib. Can. 1. he ought to be anathematiz'd for it or rather hath already incurr'd it For which cause it will be necessary for us to shew that the faithful are obliged by the Command of Christ to receive the Cup and then answer the principal reasons that are brought against it And here in the first place I would gladly know whether there be or ever were any command from Christ for the receiving of the Cup whether by the Apostles at first or the Priest that consecrates now whatsoever become of simple Laymen or the Priests that do not officiate and are therefore so far forth reckoned in the number of the other The ground of which question is because the Council of Trent doth not say that there is no command from Christ for the faithful's receiving the Cup but that the faithful are not bound by any command of his to the taking of both species and again that if any shall say that all the faithful
in the Eucharist yet they specifie nothing as to the modus of it and much less intimate any thing concerning their being under the Species thereof That that Body and Blood which is the fourth Capital Assertion in this Matter are truly really and substantially under the Sacramental Species shewn to be as groundless and Evidence made of the contrary by such Arguments from Sense and Reason as are moreover confirmed to us by the Authority of Revelation Some brief Reflections in the close upon the Worship of Christ in the Sacrament and more large ones upon what the Romanists advance concerning the real eating of him in it Where is shewn that that which they call a real eating is a very improper one that it is however of no necessity or use toward our spiritual nourishment by him and not only no way confirm'd by the discourse of our Saviour in the sixth of St. John's Gospel but abundantly confuted by it BUT because whatever Sacramental Relations our Church may content it self with yet it is certain that that which calls it self Catholick hath advanc'd one of a far different nature and those of Luther's Institution another before I pass any farther I will examine both the one and the other the grounds upon which they are built and the supposed Reasonableness thereof That which I intend to examine here is the relation which the Church of Rome advanceth by which as the Council of Trent * Sess 13. c. 4. instructeth us the whole substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of Christ's Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood There remaining no more after that †Can. 2. of the Bread and Wine saving only the Species thereof and the Body and Blood of Christ together with his Soul and Divinity coming in the place of those Elements and truly really and substantially * Can. 1.3 contained under the Species of them By which means the same Christ comes to be worshipped with divine Worship in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (a) Can. 6. and to be really (b) Can. 8. eaten in it as well as either Spiritually or Sacramentally Now as such Assertions as these had need to be well prov'd because apparently contrary to Sense and Reason So especially such of them as are the Foundations of Transubstantiation which are these following ones 1. That the whole substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of Christ's Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood 2. That those Substances of Bread and Wine are so changed into the substances of Christ's Body and Blood as to retain nothing of what they were before save only the Species thereof 3. That the true Body and true Blood of Christ together with his Soul and Divinity are under the Species of those Elements 4. That they are truly really and substantially contain'd in or under them Which four Assertions I will consider in their order and after I have examin'd the grounds upon which they stand oppose proper Arguments to them 1. That which is first to be consider'd is that the whole substance of the Bread is chang'd into the substance of Christ's Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood An Assertion which though it require as substantial a Proof yet hath nothing of moment to support it whether as to the Possibility or actual Existence of it For though the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament make mention of substantial changes and from which therefore we may infer a Possibility of the like For thus we read of Moses's Rod being changed by the Divine Power (c) Exod. 4.3 into a Serpent and from a Serpent again (d) Exod. 4.4 into a Rod of Lot's Wife being turn'd (e) Gen. 19.26 into a Pillar of Salt and of Water (f) Joh. 2.9 into Wine Yet is there no appearance of their being chang'd into things that had an actual Existence at the instant when they were chang'd into them which is the change that Transubstantiation imports If there be any change of that Nature to make out the Possibility of this it must be that which is made of the Nourishment we receive into the substance of our Body and Blood But beside that this is a change by augmentation and must consequently be either preceded by an impairing of Christ's glorious Body which is not so consistent with that estate or make it in time grow into a monstrous one It is a change which will not do the Business of Transubstantiation even to bring whole and entire Christ (g) Conc. Trid. Sess 13. cap. 3. under either Species A change by augmentation being a change of the Object of it not into the whole substance of that into which it is chang'd but only into a part of it But it may be there is better proof of the actual being of the change we speak of than there is in any thing else of the possibility thereof As indeed such a stupendous change as this ought to be without Example Be it so But let us at least see so clear and express a Proof that our Faith may acquiesce in it if our Reason cannot let us see it affirm'd by him to whom so great a change is ascrib'd And neither are we without one if the words This is my Body and This is my Blood may pass for such a Proof as they have been hitherto represented to us I will not now say because I have elsewhere shewn it (h) Parts 3-8 that there is much more reason to believe that they ought to be figuratively taken and cannot therefore be any ground for such a change as is sought to be established by them I shall choose rather for once to allow that they may be literally taken and leave it to those that can to inferr such a change from them For whether by the word This in This is my Body be meant the Bread before spoken of As indeed how the change of the substance of the Bread into the substance of Christ's Body can be proved from those words which profess not to speak of that Bread is as hard to conceive as Transubstantiation it self But whether I say be thereby meant the Bread before spoken of or The thing which I now give you there is no appearance in the proposition of any substantial change and much less of such a substantial change as is intended to be inferred from them All that the words profess to say supposing them to mean Bread by the Particle This is that one thing is the other but in what manner or by what kind of change they do not in the least pretend to affirm And if the Text do not determine either where is that clear and express proof of such a substantial change as they profess to speak of Or where our either stupidity or infidelity for not being convinced by it But it
occasion of those words of our Saviour This is my Blood of the New Testament or The New Testament in it which is shed for many for the remission of Sins For since it should seem by those expressions that that Sacrament was instituted under the form of a Testament the words whereof ought in reason to be taken in the literal sense as without which all Testaments would be very uncertain and litigious Therefore the words of this Sacrament and particularly such of them as respect the principal Legacies in it ought to be taken in the literal sense and not in a figurative one If a Man should make answer as I have elsewhere (a) Expl. of the â—â—â—r in Gen. Part â— done and I think too not without great reason that what we render Testament ought to be rendred a Covenant all that argument would be spon'd and whatever the promoters of it have brought concerning Testaments out of the Body of the Civil Law or the Interpreters thereof But I will however allow for once the usual rendring of the Word and answer directly to that Argument which is formed from it As indeed what should hinder me when those very Laws which they pretend to do not prove what they are designed for For such I look upon that (b) Ille aut ille D. de legat fidei commiss which saith that when there is no ambiguity in the words there ought to be no question made concerning the Will of the Testatour For who will allow these Men to suppose that there is no ambiguity in the words of the present Testament strictly and literally understood and particularly in those words that are the subject of the present controversie As little force is there in that Law (c) L. Non aliter D. de legatis c. which saith that we ought not otherwise to depart from the natural signification of words than when it is manifest that the Testatour meant somewhat else than what seems to have been expressed in them For one would think that should consider what impossibilities and contradictions the literal sense of This is my Body and This is my Blood involves one would think I say that those alone should make it manifest enough that the Testatour meant somewhat else than what the literal sense of the words will necessarily lead Men to So little reason is there to believe that there is any thing even in the Civil Law to persuade a strict and literal interpretation of all that a Testament contains And they who produce the two former Laws to persuade such an Interpretation are the more inexcusable in it because if they had pleas'd to read on to the paragraph Titius in the latter of them they would have seen enough to make them asham'd of their pretensions Because it is there affirm'd in express terms that we are not in a cause of Testaments to descend to a strict definition of words since for the most part Testatours speak abusively neither do they always use proper Names and Titles All which things I have said not as constrain'd thereto by the force of the present Argument For I know no reason why the sense of the New Testament should be judg'd of by the niceties of the Law but to let the World see how partial Men are in the allegations of such proofs as they think to be of use to them For beside what was before quoted from the Law concerning Testatours speaking abusively and improperly the same Law gives us to understand (d) L. ex facto D. de haered institu Paragr Rerum aubem Italicarum that the will of the deceased doth all and that (e) L. Siquis â—ta D. de adimendis vel tâ—ansferendis c. Par. Condit Legati his sense is more to be regarded than the words Which could have no sense in it if Legitimate Testaments were alway to be taken in the strictness of the letter For then the will or sense of the Testatour and the words of his Testament would be perfectly the same The next argument for the literal sense of the words in question is taken from the Majesty of him that instituted this Sacrament and from all those glorious Attributes that make it up Such as are his Truth and the place he holds under God of our Instructer his being the very wisdom of the Father and omniscient his being nigh unto death when he instituted this Sacrament and so much the more likely still to weigh all the words he utter'd in this important affair as in fine his being so far from giving any indication of other than a literal Interpretation of the present words that when he was advanced to Heaven he reveal'd the Doctrine of the Eucharist in the very same words wherein he had before exhibited it Things which for the most part must be acknowledg'd to be duly attributed to Christ but which have no force at all to conclude the thing in question For what if Christ be true and appointed by God to be our Instructer Will it therefore follow that we must understand all he saith in the Letter though we want not sufficient Indications even from some of his own words that we ought to understand him in a figurative sense All that they who press us with Christ's Truth and the Place he holds under God seem to pretend to is that we ought to hear him and be guided by him in our Belief Which I suppose they do to very good purpose who submit their Belief to that which all things consider'd they are firmly perswaded to be his Mind and Will But it is farther alledg'd that Christ is the very Wisdom of the Father and one who could therefore express his Mind clearly and plainly and in proper and literal Expressions as well as in figurative ones And whoever doubted of it or could doubt of it who look'd upon him but as an ordinary Prophet and not as one who was also of the same Essence with the Father But as the Question is not What Christ could do but What he hath done So we find no reason to grant but that our Saviour hath spoken plainly enough to those that are willing to understand him The Argument goes on to alledge that our Saviour was omniscient and as he could not therefore but know what Contentions would arise about this part of heavenly Doctrine to the certain destruction of Souls So it is not at all likely that he would so far contribute to it as of set purpose to wrap the true and certain meaning of this holy Mystery in the dark coverings of figurative words But as I do not find any necessity to grant that Christ was bound to do all he could to prevent the Contentions that might afterwards happen because as St. Paul spake (f) 1 Cor. 11.19 concerning Heresies this Good might accrue by them that they that were approved might thereby be made manifest So I see as little reason to grant that Christ did
the Heathen can expect the whole of our Victime upon them which is expresly contrary to the Doctrine of the Romanists So supposing the similitude between them not to be exact as no similitude they say runs upon all four there may be place for partaking of our Victime by means of that Bread and Wine which is prepared for us as well as for the Heathens partaking of their Victimes by means of those parts thereof that were set before them Because how far soever that Bread and Wine may be in themselves from being parts of our Victime or Sacrifice or possessing us of the Benefits thereof Yet they may by the appointment of God become a means of exhibiting that Victime or Sacrifice to our Souls and possessing us of the happy Fruits of it I know not whether I ought to take notice of what is added in the close That this is that Oblation which is figur'd by the several Oblations of former days as well those which prevail'd in the time of Nature's Law as those which were in use under that of Moses Because it doth not appear to me which is the proof the Council of Trent gives of it that it contains in it all those good things that are signified by the other as the consummation and perfection of them For neither for ought that doth appear from the Roman Missal doth it any way contain in it an Atonement for the unconverted World Neither doth it contain in it what it doth as the consummation and perfection of those Sacrifices or Oblations which were made in antient times This as I shall by and by shew being the Priviledge of that Sacrifice which our Saviour made of himself upon the Altar of the Cross and no other way belonging to the Eucharist than as a means appointed by God to convey to us the Benefits of the other 3. Now to make it appear to the World that we are no more without Arguments against this pretended Sacrifice than we are unprovided of Answers to what the Romanists alledge in its behalf I will make it my Business to shew 1. That this Sacrifice as explain'd by them is inconsistent with it self 2. That it is contrary to the present state of our Lord and Saviour 3. That it is extreamly derogatory to the dignity of that Sacrifice which Christ made of himself upon the Altar of the Cross That this Sacrifice as explain'd by those that advance it is inconsistent with it self will need no other proof than that unbloody Immolation or Offering which is attributed to it For how is that an Immolation or Offering understanding it as they do of a propitiatory Sacrifice which is without any shedding of Blood when both the Old and the New Testament assure us that it was the Blood which was to make the Atomement and that without shedding of Blood there is no Remission For what is this but to say that it is a Sacrifice and no Sacrifice that it is a truly propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and dead and yet hath nothing of that which is to make a Propitiation for them It is true indeed that an unbloody Immolation or Offering is an Expression that may pass well enough where it is attributed to that which is rather the Commemoration of a Sacrifice than any true and proper one But to attribute such an Immolation or Offering to a Sacrifice properly so call'd is to deny it to be what we affirm it and indeed rather a piece of nonsense than any legitimate Predication or so much as a witty one But beside that this Sacrifice as explain'd by the Romanists themselves is inconsistent with it self and as such therefore might be reasonably rejected We shall find it to be as inconsistent with the present state of our Lord and Saviour and indeed directly contrary to it For if there be any kind of Propriety in the Immolation that is offer'd to it it must betoken some kind of violence to be offer'd to that Body which is the subject of it and consequently of a glorious Body make it an inglorious one Which they of all Men ought not to refuse who do sometime tell us of the bleeding of the Host and so turn this unbloody Immolation into a bloody one Neither will it avail to say as the Council of Trent doth and their Authors commonly gloss this Immolation That this Body of Christ is offer'd under the Species of Bread and Wine and again under the visible Signs For whether under the Species or no yet still according to them Christ is truly immolated Neither is there any more difference between the Immolations than there would have been between the murdering of an Infant covered over with Meal as the Heathen in Minutius Felix chargeth the Primitive Christians to have done and the murdering of one under no such disguise For as the Murder is the same in both so the Immolation must be so too and those Species can no more priviledge our Saviour's Body from violence than the Meal wherewith an Infant is covered can hinder the violence that is offer'd to it to be really a Murder or those that offer it from being really guilty of one But that which is most to be consider'd in this Affair and is in truth the greatest prejudice against this pretended Sacrifice is that it is extreamly derogatory to the dignity of that Sacrifice which Christ made of himself upon the Altar of the Cross For whereas it is the peculiar Priviledge of this Sacrifice to be so perfect as not to need to be repeated whilst those of the Levitical Law daily were For every Priest saith the Author to the Hebrews (s) Heb. 10.11 c. standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away Sins But this Man after he had offer'd one Sacrifice for Sin for ever sat down on the right hand of God From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool The Sacrifice of the Mass doth at the best pretend to repeat that Sacrifice and though in another way to offer it up again yea makes our Saviour himself to do it by the Ministry of his Priests Whereas again it is the Priviledge of that Sacrifice which our Saviour made of himself upon the Cross to procure eternal Redemption for us (t) Heb. 9.12 and such a Redemption too (u) Heb. 9.15 as should draw after it the receit of an eternal Inheritance in the mean time so perfecting for ever them that are sanctified (w) Heb. 10.14 that they should not only not need any more offering for Sin but have boldness by the Blood of it to enter into the Holiest The sacrifice of the Mass by pretending to be a truly propitiatory one makes the redemption of that former Sacrifice to be imperfect as without which there could have been no need of a farther propitiatory one and much less of the frequent offering of it Neither will it suffice to argue as the Council of Trent
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being alway so used by the Greek Translatours of the Old Testament and whom the Writers of the New Testament generally follow but from the opposition which the Scriptures of both Testaments (z) Jer. 3 31. c. Heb. 8.8 c. make between the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even where * Heb. 9 15-18 there is the greatest appearance of its being to be translated a Testament For the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being certainly a Covenant and accordingly expressed by the Hebrews by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is never used in any other sense it is but reasonable to believe that that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is opposed to it is of the same nature Because as it hath the same word to express it and is therefore in reason to be looked upon as so far the same so it would otherwise be different from the Old as to its general nature as well as particular quality which the sole mention of its newness forbids us to believe Oppositions like exceptions from a general rule supposing an identity there where no opposition is taken notice of And indeed though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may seem in one place to require a different rendering even there †Heb. 9.17 where mention is made of its being of no force till he by whom it was made was dead Yet as even that did not hinder our Translatours from rendering it a Covenant both in the foregoing * Heb. 8.9 c. and following (a) Heb. 10.29 Chapters so that place will not only admit of the notion of a Covenant but be found all things considered to require it of us For with what sense first of all can our Saviour be said to be the Mediatour of the New (b) Heb. 9.15 Testament upon the sense of which expression the following periods do depend And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the Transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance For shall we say that Christ may be stiled the Mediator of the New Testament because interposing himself between two persons that concurr to the making of it But as a Testament is the Act of one and not of more and therefore admitteth not of any such mediation so the New Testament is supposed to be the Act of Christ and he therefore rather the Maker than the Mediatour of it Shall we then say that Christ is the Mediator of the New Testament because interposing between the maker of that Testament and those who are the Legatees in it But by this means God the Father shall become the Testator which if death be required to make him such he can by no means be Shall we say lastly that Christ may be looked upon as a Mediator of the New Testament because by means of that Testament of his taking up the difference between God and Man But that is rather to make him a Mediator by a Testament than of one which Christ is here affirmed to be So difficult will it be found to make any tolerable sense of those words if we understand them as our Translators prompt us of the Mediator of a Testament Whereas if we understand them of the Mediator of a Covenant the sense will be clear and plain Because as there are two parties required to the making of a Covenant and such who do for the most part need a Mediator to bring them to it so God and Man are manifestly the Parties of the New Covenant and brought to enter into it by the mediation of Christ If it be also said as it is that the Mediator of the New Covenant brings the Parties concerned to it by his death it is no more than will be found to be agreeable to the Eastern mode of making Covenants and particularly to the manner of making that Covenant which was of old between God and the Israelites For as that Covenant and indeed all the kindness that passed between them was brought about by the mediation of Sacrifices (c) Exo. 24.5 and the blood of those Sacrifices therefore stiled the blood of the Covenant (d) Exo. 24.8 so Christ by the blood (e) Col. 1.19 of his Cross brought about this New Covenant between God and us and so as the Author to the Hebrews speaks became the Mediator of it If it be said yet farther that Christ became the Mediator of the New Covenant that they who were called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance That also will be found to be as agreeable to the notion of a Covenant as it is to that of a Testament Because as an inheritance may pass by other means beside that of a Testament so the Children of Israel came to the inheritance of the Land of Canaan by a Covenant (f) Gen. 15.7 8 18. between God and their Progenitor Abraham yea by such a Covenant as was conciliated by the mediation (g) Gen. 15.9 of a Sacrifice That therefore being the sense of those words of the Apostle and so as I think evinced to be by no contemptible proofs it will be but reasonable to give a like sense to the following ones (h) Heb. 9 16 17 18. because but a proof of the former if it may be made appear that they are capable of it Which that they are will appear from the Translation I shall now subjoyn and which if it be duly considered will be found to be no forced one For * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. where a Covenant is there must of necessity even by that necessity which arose from the Antient mode of making Covenants be the death of that Mediator that made it For a Covenant becomes firm after those Mediators that made it are dead for it is never of force whilst he who so makes it lives Whereupon neither the first Covenant was dedicated without blood For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the Law he took the blood of Calves and of Goats with water and scarlet Wool and Hyssop and sprinkled both the Book and all the people saying This is the blood of the Covenant (i) Exo. 24.8 which God hath enjoyned unto you That I render the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the death of the Mediator that makes the Covenant is because the Apostle speaks in the verse before of him who makes the Covenant not as a Party but as a Mediator and what is here said therefore of the Maker of a Covenant to be understood of such a Maker of it That I render those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Covenant becomes firm after those Mediators who made it are dead is be cause those words are intended as a confirmation of the former ones and so in reason to be understood
washing away their guilt or washing away the pollution of them we shall still find it to be the immediate issue of an inward and spiritual Grace It being the blood of Jesus Christ as the Scriptures (q) Explic. of the Creed in the word Dead every where declare that washeth us from sin in the former sense and the sanctifying Graces of God's spirit (r) Expl. of the Creed in the words I believe in the Holy Ghost which purifie us from it in the other If therefore the Sacrament of Baptism may be said so to wash and purifie it must be as it is an Instrument whereby it conveys to us those graces to which that purification doth belong But so the same Scriptures do yet more expresly declare as to that other Sacrament of our Religion even the Supper of the Lord St. Paul telling us (Å¿) 1 Cor. 10.16 of the bread of it that it is the Communion or Communication of Christ's body as of the Cup that goes along with it that it is the Communion of his blood For what other can we well understand by that expression of his than that they are an instrument whereby God conveys and we accordingly come to partake of that body and blood of Christ which is signified by them This only would be added for the clearer Explication of it that when were present the Sacrament as an instrument whereby God conveys to us that grace which is signified by it we do not mean thereby that it is a natural one or such as contains that grace in it as a Vessel doth liquor or a cause its effect but rather as the Judicious Hookes (t) Eccl. Pol. li. 5. sect 57. speaks as a moral instrument thereof That is to say as such a one to the use whereof God hath made a promise of his grace and which accordingly he will accompany with the exhibition of the other I deny not indeed but there are who are otherwise perswaded and who accordingly either attribute a greater efficacy to a Sacrament or deny even that which we have attributed to it Of the former sort are they who not contented to affirm that a Sacrament is an instrument whereby God conveys grace to the worthy receiver of it do moreover represent it under the notion of a Physical one yea of such a Physical one as contains grace in it as a cause doth its effect and accordingly contributes by its own internal force to the producing of it as well as to the possessing us thereof Even as a Chezil for so they (u) Hist of Counc of Trent li. 2. explain themselves contributes to the formation of a Statue or as a Hatchet to that Bed (w) Aquin. sum Part. 3. Qu. 62. Art 1. which is shaped by it But as it appears by Aquinas (x) Ibid. who was it may be the first framer of it that that conceit had its original from the fear of making a Sacrament to be nothing but a bare sign of grace contrary to the opinion of the Holy Fathers so nothing more therefore can be necessary toward the overthrowing of it than to shew the groundlesness of that fear which the doctrine before deliver'd will sufficiently evince For if it be but a moral instrument whereby God conveys his own graces it is certainly more than a sign yea it may in some sense be said to be a cause as well as the instrument thereof For as they who attribute to a Sacrament the efficacy of a cause make it to be no farther a cause of grace than that it produceth in the Soul a disposition (y) Hist of Counc of Trent li. 2. to receive it by which means it is not so much the cause of grace as of our receiving it so such a kind of causality will be found to belong to it though we make a Sacrament to be no other than a means whereby we attain it Because it is so far forth by the force of a Sacrament that grace comes to be in us that without that we cannot ordinarily hope to attain it nor fear to fail of it where the other is duly receiv'd The only difference as to this particular between the one and the other opinion is that whereas the former makes a Sacrament to dispose us to the reception of Grace as well as to convey it The latter supposeth that disposition already produc'd and consequently leaves no place for the former operation In that respect yet more agreeably to the Doctrine of the Scriptures because not only pre-requiring certain qualifications (z) Act. 8.36 37. 1 Cor. 11.20 of those that are to receive it but assuring them that if they come so qualifi'd they shall not fail * Mark 16.16 Act. 2.38 of that grace which the Sacrament was intended to convey These and the like assertions as they suppose the Soul to be before dispos'd so leaving no place for any other causality in a Sacrament than its serving to us as a means of conveying that grace which we are so disposed to receive And indeed as it doth not appear by any thing that Schoolman hath alledg'd that the Antients ever attributed any other causality to a Sacrament for though St. Augustine as he is quoted by him affirms the power of God to work by a Sacrament yet he doth not affirm it to do so as by a Physical instrument As it appears farther even from that Schoolman that St. Bernard was of opinion that Grace is no otherwise conveyed by a Sacrament than a Canonry in his time was by a Book or a Bishoprick by Ring so there is no defect in the Instances of that Father supposing a Book or a Ring to have been as much a means of conveying of those preferments as we affirm a Sacrament to be of the divine Grace For in that case the delivery of a Ring or a Book would not only have been a sign whereby the delivery of those preferments was declar'd as Aquinas argues in the place before but a ceremony by which they were actually made over and without which they could not have been Canonically invested in them I conclude therefore that if a Sacrament be an instrument of Grace it is a moral one and such as contributes no farther toward our partaking of it than as it is a means to which God hath annex'd the promise of it and which accordingly he will not fail where the receiver is rightly dispos'd to accompany with the exhibition of the other But because there are some who are so far from owning a Sacrament to be a physical instrument of grace that they will not so much as allow it to be a moral one And because such a conceit may tend as much to the depretiating of a Sacrament as the other seems to tend to the overvaluing of it Therefore consider we in the next place the pretensions of those that entertain it and the strength or rather weakness of those pretensions There are who have
consider it as a Feast a Supper-feast or a Supper-feast of the Lord Because intended as a Communion of that Body and Blood by which we are to be nourished to eternal life instituted at first at Supper time and both instituted by and intended for a Commemoration of our Lord. Next to the name of the Lord's Supper reckon we that of the Eucharist or Thanksgiving for so the word Eucharist imports A name thought to have been given to it in the time of the Writel of the New Testament but however following close after it For thus they are wont to interpret what we find in St. Paul (g) 1 Cor. 14.16 17. where he disputes against praying in an unknown tongue Else when thou shalt bless with the Spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy Eucharist or giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest For thou verily givest thanks or celebratest the Eucharist well but the other is not edified Where we have not only the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are made use of to denote what our Saviour did to the Elements of this Sacrament but an intimation of that Amen which we shall understand afterwards from Justin Martyr to be return'd to the office of it However that be most certain it is that this name of Eucharist followed presently upon those times as appears by the familiar use of it in Ignatius's Epistles For thus he tells us in one place (h) Ep. ad Smyrn pag. 5. ed Voss That certain hereticks abstain'd from the Eucharist and prayer because they confess'd not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ And presently after (i) ib. pag. 6. Let that Eucharist be accounted firm which is under the Bishop or to whom he shall commit it As without whom as it follows it is not lawful to Baptize or celebrate a Love-feast but only what he shall approve In fine saith the same Ignatius elsewhere (k) Ep. ad Phil. pag. 40. endeavour therefore to use one Eucharist For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one Cup for the union of his Blood Agreeable hereto that I may not now descend any lower was the language of Justin Martyr's time as may appear from these following testimonies Where he doth not only shew this to have been the name of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper but acquaints us with the reasons of their so denominating it After prayers saith he (l) Apol. 2. pag. 97. are done we salute one another Then is offer'd to him who presides over the Brethren Bread and a cup of Water and Wine Which he taking sendeth forth praise and glory to the Father of the Vniverse through the name of the Son and Holy Ghost and maketh a large Thanksgiving unto God for that we have been made worthy of these things by him Having thus completed the prayers and Thanksgiving all the people present signifie their Assent to it by an Amen which in the Hebrew Tongue is as much as So be it After that the President hath thus given thanks and the people answer'd Amen they who among us are called Deacons give to every one that is present of that Bread and Wine and Water over which thanks hath been given and carry it to those that are absent And this Food saith he is among us called the Eucharist to wit because of the Thanksgivings before remembred To the like purpose doth the same Father discourse elsewhere (m) Dial. cum Tryph. Jud. pag. 259 c. speaking still of the same Sacrament of the Lord's Supper And that offering of fine flowre which was delivered to be offered for those that were cleansed from the Leprosy was a type of the Bread of the Eucharist which Jesus Christ our Lord commanded us to celebrate in remembrance of that passion which he suffered for those that are cleansed in their Souls from all the wickedness of Men That we might at the same time give thanks or keep an Eucharist to God both for his having made the World and all things in it for the sake of man and for his having delivered us from that wickedness in which we sometime were and having perfectly dissolv'd Principalities and Powers by him who was made passible according to his will From which places it is evident that as the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had at that time the title of the Eucharist or Thanksgiving so it receiv'd its name from those Thanksgivings which were us'd over the Elements thereof and which what they were I shall in another place have a more fit occasion to enquire All I desire to observe at present is that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper receiving one of its most noted names from those Thanksgivings that were us'd over the Elements thereof we are in reason to think that those Thanksgivings contribute in a great measure to that saving nature and efficacy they put on I may not forget to add because that seems as antient as any that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was also known by the name of breaking of Bread Not only the Syriack version but reason also obliging us so to understand St. Luke where he tells us that the first Converts of the Apostles (n) Acts 2.42 continued stedfast in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in prayer As again of the Disciples of Ephesus (o) Acts 20.7 that they came together on the first day of the week to break Bread For what other breaking of Bread can we understand there where it is joyn'd with the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship and prayers and moreover made the special business of the Assemblies of that day which was from the beginning set apart for the honour and service of Almighty God Agreeable hereto was the language of Ignatius's time as appears by this following testimony He describing those (p) ep ad Ephes pag. 29. who communicate with the Bishop and his Presbytery in the exercises of Religion as breaking that one Bread which is the medicine of immortality an antidote against death and a means of living in Jesus Christ for ever And it had no doubt its original from the Hebrews manner of speaking who as I have elsewhere (q) Expl. of the Lord's Prayer in the words Give us this day out daily Bread shewn under the title of Bread comprehended the whole of their entertainments and from the breaking of the Bread of the Eucharist's being one special ceremony about it and intended as St. Paul remarks (r) 1 Cor. 11.24 to signifie the Breaking of Christ's body After which if any Man can think fit to make use of such like passages to justifie a Communion in one kind he may as well hope to shew that even the Feasts of the Hebrews for of such I have shew'n (ſ) Expl. of the Lord's Prayer ubi supra the word Bread to
for you as St. Luke Yet as they all say enough to shew that this Sacrament of Bread and Wine was intended for a Representation of our Saviour's Passion and the violence that was then offer'd to his crucified Body so they do thereby sufficiently intimate that the breaking of the Bread was intended as a Representation of it There being nothing in the Bread to represent this to us but only the breaking of it This however is evident that our Saviour brake that Bread which he before took and blessed And that Rite of breaking was afterwards look'd upon as so considerable that it gave Name to the Sacrament it self and the whole of it from that one Rite entituled The breaking of Bread Our Saviour having thus taken and blessed and broken Bread for thus far to be sure we have Bread whatever we have beside he proceeds to give it to his Disciples For so the three Evangelists assure us Not that the Original of those Evangelists hath any thing in it to express the thing given but that it speaks of his giving somewhat to them and which considering the connexion of this Act of Christ with the former ones cannot reasonably be understood of any other than the Bread which he had before taken and blessed and broken And though St. Paul take no notice of this Gift of our Saviour's in the rehearsal he makes of this his Institution Yet he sufficiently intimates it when he brings him in saying Take Eat This is my Body c. His willing them to take and eat implying his parting with it that they might partake of it This however is manifest from the Evangelists that what our Saviour before took and blessed and brake he gave to his Disciples and I suppose to each of the Disciples in particular and by reaching it forth unto them The former being the manner of that Eucharist by which he fram'd his own Both the one and the other the Ancient Practice of the Church whether by the Hands of him that blessed it or of those Deacons that ministred to him I will not spend time in animadverting upon the words Take Eat which he us'd with the giving of the Bread It may suffice to say as to the former of these that as it is and always was the manner of Guests to take or receive into their hands or in some plate which they held in them what was given to them by another so the Antients knew no other taking or receiving of this Bread than that which was performed by them As little need to be said concerning that eating which our Saviour subjoin'd to the Command of taking or receiving what he gave them Unless there could be any doubt of that 's being Bread which was now to be eaten by them For as what it is to eat Bread is sufficiently known even after we have put it into our mouths to chew it there and transmit it from thence into our Stomachs for the nourishment of our Bodies So that it was Bread which they were commanded to eat St. Paul plainly shews in the words (m) 1 Cor. 11.26 27. which he subjoins to the Institution of this Sacrament He affirming the worthy Receiver of the Eucharist to eat Bread as well as the most unworthy one To go on therefore to those words which our Saviour subjoyn'd to his Precept of taking and eating even those most noted ones This is my Body Words which the wanton Wits of Men have transform'd into many shapes and those too no less monstrous than what they design'd to inferr from them Whereas if they were consider'd without any sinister Affections they would as Aretius long since observ'd (n) Com. in Mat. 26.26 Quomodo autem verae sint propositiones illae Panis est corpus Christi Vinum est sanguis Christi anxie disputatum est Res tamen sint affectibus simplicem habet intellectum Verae sunt ut aliae sacramentales loquutiones Agnus est transitus Circumcisio est foedus sacrificia sunt remissio peccatorum Baptismus est ablutio peccatorum In quibus nemo est tam stupidus ut nodos sibi quaerat Sed ut symbola sacramentalia hae res nominatae accipiuntur Ita judicandum de his propositionibus etiam puto have receiv'd a plain and simple Vnderstanding and which Men would otherwise no more have bogled at than at other Speeches of the like nature For this is my Body and This is my Blood are true as other sacramental Speeches are A Lamb is the Passover Circumcision is a Covenant Sacrifices are the remission of Sins and Baptism the washing away of them In which no Man is so stupid as to seek to entangle himself or go about to create Scruples to other Men. For these things are taken as sacramental Symbols and so I suppose we ought to judge of the former Propositions also Only because there is no one particle in the words This is my Body which hath not among prejudiced Men ministred matter for Dispute I will be so much the more minute in my Explication of them and first of the word This. This is my Body Now that which unprejudiced Men would undoubtedly think to be intended by the word This was the Bread before spoken of and which our Saviour is said to have taken blessed broken and given to his Disciples with a design they should take and eat of it Partly because that was the thing manifestly intended all along and therefore by the common Rules of Construction to be understood also here And partly because the demonstrative Particle This must by the natural importance of it be thought to point out something certain and apparent to them which hitherto nothing but the Bread of the Sacrament was Thus I say unprejudiced Men would be apt to think of the word This though they had nothing to direct them but the words of the Institution How much more then if they should reflect upon what St. Paul (o) 1 Cor. 11.26 27. subjoyneth to and inferreth from them in the account he gives us of that Affair For as often saith he as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the Lord's Death till he come And again Wherefore whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. For it appearing from the words of the Institution that the word This referrs to that which was given them to eat which St. Paul affirmeth to be Bread it must consequently be thought to denote not this Being or Substance in common or individuum vagum or the like but this Bread as St. Paul doth twice express it Conformable hereto whether the Romanists will or no is their own Opinion of the Bread's being transubstantiated by the words Hoc est corpus meum and that Transubstantiation not effected till the last Syllable of meum is pronounc'd For if that Transubstantiation be not effected till then it must
other words Yet is not that essence or being to be adapted to the nature of that to which it is affixt Now wherein consists the essence or being of such a relative thing as a sacred sign but in the relation which it bears to the thing signified and consequently in its signifying that which it is appointed to mark out And if the essence or being of a sign consists in the relation which it bears to the thing signified may it not as such be said to be that thing which it is intended to signifie For who if ask'd concerning this or that Picture as for instance the Picture of Alexander or Julius Caesar would describe it by a piece of Paper or Cloath or Wood so and so Painted but as such or such a person who did such admirable things in the World Nay who is there that when he sees this or that Picture though he knows them to be but inanimate things doth so much as ask What it is but Who So naturally and almost necessarily do Men take the very being of such a thing to consist in its relation to the person it represents and accordingly do as naturally express themselves in that manner concerning it And if that be the case as to other signs why not in like manner as to this Sacred sign of Christ's Body the Bread Especially if as I shall by and by shew it hath a yet nearer relation to it In order whereunto I will now proceed to shew 3. What the word Is imports in that figurative sense whereof we speak And here in the first place it is easie to observe that the word Is imports that to which it is attributed even the Bread of the Sacrament to be a sign of that Body of Christ which it is affirmed to be Which I do not only affirm upon account of the notion that all Men have of it but upon account of the likeness there is between the Bread broken and the Mortifying of our Saviour's Body and upon account also of the same Body's being affirmed by St. Paul in his History of the Institution to be broken for us There being otherwise no ground for that expression as to the Body of Christ but that the breaking of the Bread was intended to signifie or represent the injury that was offer'd to Christ's Body and consequently that that Bread was so far forth intended as a sign of it Which is no more than the Romanists themselves and particularly Estius have said in this affair and therefore I shall not need to insist upon it I say secondly that as the word Is imports that to which it is attributed to be a sign of Christ's Body so also to be such a sign in particular as was intended to bring Christ's Body and the Crucifixion of it to our own Minds or the Minds of others or in a word to be a memorial of it The former being evident from our Saviour's enjoyning his Disciples presently upon these words to do what he had now taught them in remembrance of himself The latter from St. Paul's telling his Corinthians that as often as they ate that bread and drank that cup they did shew the Lord's death till he came I say thirdly and lastly that the word Is doth likewise import that to which it is attributed to be a means of our partaking of the Body of Christ as well as a sign or a memorial of it Which we shall the less need to doubt when St. Paul (a) 1 Cor. 10.16 doth in express terms represent the Bread which is broken in the Sacrament as the Communion or Communication of the Body of Christ and the Cup of Blessing which is blessed in it as the Communion of his Blood Now if a sign even where it is hardly such may be said to be that which it signifies How much more such a sign as is also by the Institution of Christ a means of its conveyance and of which whosoever doth worthily partake shall as verily partake together with it of the Body of Christ and of the Benefits that accrue to us thereby I may not forget to add what St. Luke and St. Paul have added to the words This is my Body even This is my Body which is given for you as the former which is broken for you as the latter Both to the same purpose though in different expressions even to mark out to us more clearly how we are to consider that Body that is to say as a crucified one The giving of Christ or his Body being sometime express'd by giving him for our sins (b) Gal. 1.4 and at other times by giving him (c) Tit. 2.10 to redeem us from them which we know by the same Scripture to have been compassed by his death As indeed under what other notion can we conceive the giving of his Body when it is not only consider'd apart from his Blood but that Blood afterward affirm'd to be shed for the remission of sins and accordingly so requir'd to be consider'd here The expression of St. Paul which is broken for you is yet more clear because more manifestly pointing out the violence that was offer'd to Christ's Body With this farther advantage as was before said that it doth not obscurely intimate the breaking of the Bread to have been intended to represent what was done unto his Body and under what notion we are to consider it Though to put it farther out of doubt St. Paul after his account of the History of the Institution affirms both the one and the other Element of this Sacrament to relate to our Saviour's Death and consequently to respect his Body as mortist'd as well as his Blood as shed He relling his Corinthians that he that did eat that Bread as well as he that drank that Cup did thereby shew forth the Lord's Death till he came Only if it be enquir'd why our Saviour should even then represent his Body as broken or given when it was not to be so till the day after the Institution of this Sacrament I answer partly because it was very shortly to be so but more especially because he intended what he now enjoyn'd as a prescription for the time after his Death as his willing his Disciples to do this in remembrance of him doth manifestly imply That importing the thing to be remembred to be past and gone as which otherwise could not be capable of being remembred It follows both in St. Luke and St. Paul Do this and Do this in remembrance of me Words which the Romish Church hath pick'd strange matters out of even no less as was before observ'd out of Baronius than the Priesthood of the A postles as which was collated upon them by these words and the Sacrifice of the Mass For then also saith that Author the Apostles when the Lord commanded them to do the very same thing in remembrance of him were made Priests and that very Sacrifice which they should offer was ordain'd By what Alchymie the
Sacramental Purposes to which they are to be appli'd it is a needless superstition to be sollicitous about the kind of it or indeed about any thing else of that nature farther than the Laws of Decency or the general Nature of the Sacrament may seem to exact of us The same is to be said and for the same reasons as to the kind of the Wine though the Wines of Palestine were generally Red (b) Psal 75.8 Prov. 23.31 Isa 27.2 63.2 for which cause it is not improbable that they were stiled the Bloud (c) Deut. 32.14 of the Grape and those therefore the most apt to represent the Blood of our Saviour For whatever the Colour thereof may be they may serve by the Liquidness thereof and the pouring of them from one Vessel to another to denote the shedding of his Blood which is all that the Institution obligeth us to reflect upon Upon which account I shall in this place confine my self to enquire whether it ought to be mix'd with Water or no as which seems to me to be the only material Enquiry in this Affair And here indeed they who think it enough to make use of pure Wine may seem to be hardly press'd whether we do consider the Antiquity of the contrary Usance or the Reason which is alledged for it For it appears from Justin Martyr (d) Apol. 2. p. 97. to have been carefully practis'd in his time And it appears too not only to have been pleaded for by St. Cyprian * Ad Caecil Ep. 63. even where he disputes against the foremention'd Aquarii but to such a degree also as to represent the Sacrament as imperfect without it The mixture of Wine and Water being as he saith (e) Quando autem in calice aqua vino miscetur Christo populus adunatur credentium plebs ei in quem credidit copulatur conjungitur Quae copulatio conjunctio aquae vini sic miscetur in calice domini ut commixtio illa non possit ab invicem separari Nam si vinum tantùm quis offerat sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis si vero aqua sit sola plebs incipit esse sine Christo Quando autem utrumque miscetur adunatione confusâ sibi invicem copulatur tunc Sacramentum spiritale coeleste perficitur intended to signifie the conjunction of Christ and his People and that we can therefore in the sanctifying of the Lord's Cup no more offer Wine alone than we may presume to offer Water only These things to those that have a regard to Antiquity cannot but appear very considerable and I must needs say they weigh so much with me as to believe that the Wine of the Sacrament might have been from the beginning diluted with Water yea that that very Wine might which our Saviour consecrated into it But this rather with respect to the Custom of the Eastern Country and the generousness of their Wines which might be but needful to be temper'd where the same Liquor was to be the Entertainment of their Love-Feasts as well as the Matter of a Sacrament than out of any regard to the Sacrament it self or that particular Mystery in it which St. Cyprian thought to be intended Because there is not any the least hint either in the Evangelists or St. Paul of such a mixture or Mystery but rather an intimation of Christ's employing only the Fruit of the Vine and his having a regard to the sole Properties thereof and of that Blood of his which he shed for our Redemption If there were from the beginning any Mystery in such a mixture it may most probably be thought to have been intended to make so much the more lively a Representation to us of that Blood which it was designed to remember and which we learn from St. John (f) Joh. 19.34 to have issued from his side attended with Water and accordingly particularly remarked by him Upon which account though I cannot press a mixture of Wine and Water as necessary yet neither can I condemn it or those Churches which upon that reason think fit to retain it and enjoin on their respective Members the due observation of it 3. But because there neither is nor can well be a more material Enquiry than wherein the Bread and Wine of this Sacrament were intended as a Sign Therefore it may not be amiss to pass on to the resolution of it and employ all requisite diligence in it For my more orderly performance whereof I will consider those Elements of Bread and Wine with respect to Christ's Body and Blood whether as to the usage that Body and Bloud of his receiv'd when he was subjected to Death for us or as to the Benefit that was intended and accrued to us by them If we consider the Elements of Bread and Wine with respect to Christ's Body and Blood as to the usage they receiv'd when he was subjected to Death for us So we shall find them again to be a Sign of that Body and Blood by what is done to them before they come to be administred or by the separate administration of them when they are For in the former of these Notions the Bread manifestly became a Sign of Christ's Body by our Saviour's breaking of it For which cause as was before observ'd St. Paul in his rehearsal of the Institution attributes that breaking to Christ's Body and describes its crucifixion by it And not improbably the Wine of the Sacrament became a Sign of Christ's Blood by its being poured out of some other Vessel into that Cup which he took and blessed and gave to his Disciples There being not otherwise any thing in it to represent the shedding of Christ's Blood which it appears by the several Evangelists that our Saviour had a particular respect unto Neither will it suffice to say though it be true enough that we do not read either in the Evangelists or St. Paul of our Saviour's before pouring the Wine of the Sacrament out of some other Vessel into that Cup which he made use of for that purpose and consequently cannot with equal assurance make the Wine to be a Sign of Christ's Blood by any such effusion of it For whether we read of it or no such an Effusion must of necessity precede the use of a Cup being not to keep Wine in but to drink out of after it hath receiv'd it by effusion from another and that effusion therefore and the particular mention there is of the effusion of that Blood which is acknowledg'd to be signified by the Wine no unreasonable intimation of that Effusion's being one of those things wherein the Wine of the Sacrament was intended as a Sign or Representation of the other By these means the Bread and Wine become a Sign of Christ's Body and Blood as to what is done to them before they come to be administred And we shall find them in like manner to be a Sign of the same Body and
ought to take both species by vertue of any command of God let him be Anathema For possibly for ought that doth appear from the words of that Council there may have been a Command from Christ for all the faithful's receiving the Cup but which it is in the power of the Church as we are not ignorant of the asserted plenitude thereof to cassate or dispense with it And possibly too there is no command for any either Lay or Clergies receiving either the Cup or the Bread and so if the Church pleaseth we may and ought to bid Farewel to the Sacrament it self as well as to the Cup of it For that I make no unreasonable supposition here is evident from Fisher the Jesuite's (o) See his Answer in White 's Reply on Point 7. pag. 473. questioning whether Christ gave any precept at all in the matter of the Cup and his distinguishing between precept and institution which will avail as well against the Bread as against the Cup. Which things being not first decided it will indeed be to no great purpose to argue with them about the faithful's obligation to receive the Cup or for them to put us upon the proof of it Because the true Question may perhaps be whether there be any Command at all for any sort of Mens receiving the Cup or indeed the Sacrament it self in any part of it Which if it be both Clergy and Laity are under the same Condition and the Question ought to be Whether the whole matter of the Eucharist were not matter of Advice even to the Apostles themselves rather than any thing of a Command But as we cannot but think that Take Eat and Drink ye all of this are express Commands to some Persons or other because they run in the same form with Tell it to the Church and Obey those that have the Rule over you upon which kind of Texts all Ecclesiastical Authority is founded so we shall therefore take it for granted that the matter of the Cup is a Precept and accordingly go on to enquire for whom this Precept was intended and to whom it was directed by our Saviour Now as if this Precept was intended for any to be sure it was intended for our Saviour's Disciples because the Persons to whom it was immediately given So it must consequently be intended for them either in their personal capacity and so that it was to reach no farther than themselves or as they were the Representatives of others also If the Romanists say the former they do not only alter the state of the Question and make the future both Laity and Clergy in the same Condition as to this particular but make it as indifferent too as to any thing of a Command from Christ whether the future Clergy or Laity partake of the Sacrament at all even in the Bread of it Which how unreasonable it is may appear from St. Paul's pressing the Corinthians with the Institution of Christ in the matter of the Eucharist and particularly with the Precept Take Eat and Do this in remembrance of me For by that it should seem that what was enjoin'd upon the Disciples at least as to the Element of Bread was enjoin'd upon them as the Representatives of others also And if the Bread was so why not also the Cup that went along with it and concerning which the words of our Saviour in S. Matthew are as express Drink ye all of this and St. Mark tells us that he alike gave them and they all drank of it And I know of nothing that can look like the shadow of an Objection against this way of reasoning unless it be what some have vainly objected that St. Paul doth not deliver it as a Precept from Christ that the Apostles and after them others should drink of it but that when they did drink of it or as often as they did they should do it in remembrance of him as if there were nothing absolute concerning the Cup. But as the contrary is plain enough from St. Matthew who brings in our Saviour enjoining them to drink all of it and as it happens too without the addition of doing what they did in remembrance of him lest any should satisfie themselves with so vain a subterfuge So there was reason enough for St. Paul after his accurate rehearsal of the whole Institution of the Bread and of our Saviour's Command concerning it to content himself with saying Do this as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me Partly because this form of Speech or Command was enough to confute and discountenance that unworthy partaking of the Lord's Supper which was so rife among the Corinthians and for the discountenancing whereof this account of Christ's Institution was given But especially because that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in like manner the Cup wherewith St. Paul ushers in that part of the Institution which respected it did sufficiently imply Christ's doing alike to and enjoining alike concerning the Cup as he had before affirm'd him to have done to or concerning the Bread so far as the different nature of the Elements did permit Otherwise we must suppose St. Paul to have thought the blessing of the Cup as indifferent a thing as the Romanists make the use of it to be which yet it is evident from this Epistle that he did not He representing that Blessing as a thing of so great concernment as to give denomination to the Cup (p) 1 Cor. 10.16 and not only so but intimating it to be of like use to make it to become the Communion of Christ's Blood The Cup therefore or rather the Command concerning the use of it being manifestly intended for the Disciples of Christ not in their personal capacity only but as they were also Representatives of others Enquire we in the next place whether it was intended for them as Representatives of all the faithful whatsoever or as Representatives of the Clergy only and particularly of such of them as were to consecrate the Bread and it A Question which one would think might easily be answered by considering that when the Sacrament was first instituted the Disciples had no hand at all in the Consecration of the one or the other Element but he by whom it was instituted For our Saviour making no use of their Assistance in consecrating the Cup or Bread they are to be look'd upon rather as Lay-men than Clergy-men as to any thing they were then enjoin'd Unless the thing enjoin'd could be otherwise made appear to be proper to Clergy-men as such Even as it is apparent that the Romanists themselves look upon such of their own Clergy as do not consecrate the Eucharist and accordingly withhold the Cup from them as well as from the meanest Lay-man Now what is there in the receit of the Cup that we should think it to be proper to the Clergy What in the Command of Christ concerning it to intimate any such thing what in the reason of the
necessity nor ever was of any Man 's receiving the Cup whether he be Priest or private Person Consecrater of the Bread and it or only a simple Communicant Then every one too that heretofore did or now doth receive in both kinds doth in one and the same Eucharist receive the Blood twice once in the Species of Bread and again in the Species of Wine In fine by the same Rule and their affirming whole Christ to be contained under either Species Hoc est corpus meum may be as proper to make a Transubstantiation of the Cup as it is a Transubstantiation of the Bread The two former whereof render our Saviour's injunction concerning the receit of the Cup perfectly unnecessary The last gives us occasion to wonder why our Saviour who to be sure affected no change of Phrase did not make use of the same Hoc est corpus meum to make an alteration of the Cup especially when if he had it might have so aptly hinted to us the sufficiency of one only Species to possess us of his Body and Blood These I take to be the natural Consequences of making Hoc est corpus meum to signifie at all times This is my Body and Blood and by vertue thereof to possess the Receivers of that over which they are pronounc'd of whole and entire Christ And if on the other side they with whom we have to do make those words to signifie so only where the Sacrament is administred but in one kind and only to those to whom it is so administred they must consequently make the very same words Hoc est corpus meum to signifie one thing to the Lay-man who receives but in one kind and another to the Priest that consecrates and receives in both Which beside that it will make the signification of those words to be arbitrary and according as the Priest shall intend them will make them vary from the signification they had in the Institution of Christ which is and ought to be the Pattern of all Our Saviour as he both instituted and distributed the Sacrament in both kinds so to be sure making the words Hoc est corpus meum to signifie only This is my Body apart from my Blood as which latter he both appointed a distinct Element for and as they love to speak converted that distinct Element into by words equally fitted for such a Conversion I think I shall not need to say much to shew the Bread of the Sacrament not to be converted into Christ's Body and Blood by the force of the words This is my Body and This is my Blood as if the latter extended to the Species of the former as well as to its own proper Sacrament even the Liquor of the Cup Both because those words are not appli'd even by themselves to the Bread but to the Cup and cannot therefore in reason be thought to have any operation upon the former And because our Saviour in that Eucharist which he consecrated for his Disciples gave them the Bread of it to eat before he proceeded to the Consecration of the Cup and before therefore it could be suppos'd to receive any influence from those words This is my Blood as which were not till some time after pronounced by him One only Device remains to bring Christ's Blood as well as Body under the Species of Bread called by the Schoolmen Concomitancy but ought rather by the Romanists explication of it and indeed by the words natural connexion before us'd by the Council of Trent to be termed a real Vnion By vertue of which if Christ's Blood and Body are brought together under the Species of Bread Christ's Body in the Sacrament even that which the words Hoc est corpus meum produc'd is no more that Body which was broken upon the Cross at least consider'd as such for that to be sure was separated from his Blood but his Body entire and perfect And then farewell not only to the natural signification of Hoc est corpus meum and quod pro vobis frangitur but to the Sacrifice of Christ's Body in the Eucharist which yet they have hitherto so contended for as not to think it to be such only by a Figure or Memorial of it Such reason is there to believe how confidently soever the contrary is affirm'd that Christ's Body and Blood are not contain'd under the single Species of Bread And yet if that could be prov'd it would not therefore follow that it were an indifferent thing whether we receiv'd the Cup or no. For the design of the several Species and our receit of them (u) 1 Cor. 11.26 being to shew forth to others the Lord's Death as well as to possess our selves of his Body and Blood If that be not to be compass'd without the receit of the Cup it will make the use of it to be so far necessary what ever we may gain by the Bread alone He satisfying not his Duty who complies with one end of any thing to the neglect of another as that too which tends apparently to the Honour of the Institutor as to be sure the Commemoration of our Saviour's Death and Passion doth Now that the Death of our Saviour cannot be otherwise shewn forth or at least not as he himself represented it without the receit of the Cup as well as Bread may appear from his own representing his Death as a thing effected by the shedding or pouring out of his Blood For so it is in the several Evangelists as well as by the breaking of his Body Blood shed or poured out of a Body being not to be represented in a Sacrament but by a Species at least distinct from the Species of that Body nor we therefore in a capacity so to represent or shew it forth by our receiving but by the receit of such a distinct one Add hereunto that as it is agreed among all Men that the Death which we are to represent or shew forth hath the nature of a Sacrifice and the Eucharist it self for that reason represented by the Romanists as such So it is alike certain and agreed that there is nothing more considerable in the Sacrifice of Christ's Death than the shedding of his Blood as to which he himself peculiarly attributes the Remission of Sins Which Sacrifice therefore whosoever will shew forth as to that particular by the receit of the Sacrament of it he must do it by the receit of such a Symbol as may represent the Blood of Christ as separated from his Body which nothing but a Symbol distinct from that of the Body can and therefore neither because there is no other here but that Cup whereof we speak I may not forget to represent as a fourth Pretence because suggested by the Council of Trent (w) Sess 21. cap. 2. that the receit of the Cup is not of the substance of the Sacrament and may therefore by the Church be either granted or deny'd as it shall seem most expedient to
Presbyters of those very Churches that differ'd from them about the observation of Easter And the like was done by other Churches as appears by the fourteenth Canon of the Council of Laodicea till it was forbidden by that Council because of the inconveniences thereof The third thing signified on our part by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a Resolution to live and act as becomes those that are partakers of Christ's Body and Blood For the evidencing whereof we are to know that as this Sacrament hath been shewn to be a Sign of the New Covenant (f) Expl. of the Sacraments in Gen. Part 2. which as such implies a Profession of something to be done on the part of God So the taking of this Sacrament must consequently imply our Covenanting to perform whatsoever that New Covenant obligeth us unto Which what it is will need no other Proof than what I have shewn in another place (g) Expl. of the Prelimin Quest and Answ c. to be the importance of that Sacrament whereby we enter into it For if that Sacrament import the Profession of a good Conscience toward God That new Covenant of which it is a Sacrament must consequently have the same good Conscience for the Object of it and therefore also make the like Profession of it to be the Duty of that Man who takes this other Sacrament thereof And though it be true that this part of the signification of the Lord's Supper is not so clearly express'd in the Stories of the Institution of it Yet as they give us to understand that we ought to take the Elements thereof in remembrance of Christs giving his Body and Blood for us so they do consequently imply our taking them also with a Resolution to live and act as becomes those that are partakers of them That Remembrance as it can be no other than a thankful one because the remembrance of such Benefits as do above all others require such a Remembrance of us so connoting as such a readiness to walk well-pleasing unto him by whom those Benefits are bestow'd Agreeable hereto is the both Language and Practice of the Antient Christians as appears by that account which I have before given of them (h) Expl. of the Sacr. in Gen. Part 1. They not only giving this Institution as well as Baptism the Name of a Sacrament in consideration of that Obligation they supposed it to lay upon the Persons that took it but obliging themselves by this Sacrament not as too many have since learn'd to do to the perpetrating of any notorious wickedness but to avoid all Thefts and Robberies and Adulteries the falsifying of their Trusts or the denying of any thing that was committed to their Custody when they were call'd upon by the true Owner to restore it For that those words of Pliny are to be understood of this Sacrament is not only evident from its being represented as a constant Attendant of the Christians publick Assemblies and particularly of their Assemblies before day which the Eucharist is known to have been (i) Tert. de Cor. Mil. c. 3. but from the no mention there is in Ecclesiastical Story of any other Sacrament in them PART VI. What farther relation the Sign of the Lord's Supper hath to the Body and Blood of Christ The Contents The outward Part or Sign of this Sacrament consider'd with a more particular regard to the Body and Blood of Christ and Enquiry accordingly made what farther relation it beareth to it That it is a Means whereby we receive the same as well as a Sign thereof shewn from the Doctrine of our Church and that Doctrine confirm'd by Saint Paul's entitling it the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood and by his affirming Men to be made to drink into one Spirit by partaking of the Cup of it Enquiry next made what kind of Means this Sign of the Lord's Supper is how it conveys to us the Body and Blood of Christ and how we receive them by it To each of which Answer is made from the Doctrine of our Church and that Answer farther confirm'd by the Doctrine of the Scripture The sum of which is that this Sign of the Lord's Supper is so far forth a Mean spiritual and heavenly That it conveys the Body and Blood of Christ to us by prompting us to reflect as the Institution requires upon that body and Blood of his and by prompting God who hath annex'd them to the due use of the Sign to bestow that Body and Blood upon us In fine that we receive them by the Sign thereof when we take occasion from thence to reflect upon that Body and Blood of Christ which it was intended to represent and particularly with Faith in them What Benefits we receive by Christ's Body and Blood in the next place enquir'd and as they are resolv'd by our Catechism to be the strengthening and refreshing of the Soul so Enquiry thereupon made what is meant by the strengthening and refreshing of the Soul what Evidence there is of Christ's Body and Blood being intended for it and how they effect it The Sign of the Lord's Supper a Pledge to assure us of Christ's Body and Blood as well as a Means whereby we receive them III. WHat the outward Part or Sign of the Lord's Supper is and what the inward Part or thing signified by it enough hath been said to shew neither shall I need to resume the Consideration of them That which will more concern me to intend is What farther relation beside that of a Sign that outward Part or Sign of the Lord's Supper hath to the inward part or thing signified and particularly to the Body and Blood of Christ Where first I will declare and confirm the Doctrine of our own Church concerning it and then enquire into the truth of those Relations which the Church of Rome hath advanced on the one hand and the Lutheran Churches on the other Now as our Church hath defin'd a Sacrament to be such an outward and visible Sign of an inward and Spiritual Grace as is also ordain'd as a means whereby we receive the same and must therefore be suppos'd to have the same opinion of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper So it hath said enough both in its Catechism and elsewhere concerning that Sacrament to shew this to have been its opinion of it For it gives us to understand * Catechism that the Faithful for whom to be sure this Sacrament was principally ordain'd do verily and indeed receive the thing signified even the Body and Blood of Christ as well as the Signs of them and that they do verily and indeed receive that Body and Blood in the Lord's Supper which one would think were a competent Evidence of that 's being a Means whereby we receive them It consequently thereto teacheth us to pray †Pray of Cons in the Commun Service which one would think to be of equal force as to this Particular that we
receiving God's Creatures of Bread and Wine according to his Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy Institution may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood In fine it gives us to understand * Art of Rel. 28. which is yet more express that to such as rightly worthily and with a true Faith receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Bread which we break is the partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing a partaking of the Blood of Christ For what more could have been said unless it had made use of that particular Expression which yet it doth use where it declares the general nature of a Sacrament what more I say could have been said to shew that this Sacrament is no naked or ineffectual Sign of the Body and Blood of Christ but such a Sign as is also ordained as a Means whereby we receive the same and so sure and certain a one that if we rightly and worthily receive that Sign we do as verily receive the Body and Blood of Christ as we do the Sacrament thereof How well the Scripture agrees with the Doctrine of our Church in this Particular will not be difficult to shew whether we do consider its making use of the most emphatical Phrase which our Church doth concerning this Sacrament or the Effects which it attributeth to it For it is St. Paul (a) 1 Cor. 10.16 as well as our Church that affirms that the Bread which we break is the Communion of the Body of Christ and that the Cup which we bless is the Communion of his Blood Words which considering the place they have in that Chapter from whence they are borrowed cannot admit of a lower sense than that the elements of this Sacrament are at least a Means of that Communion because alledged by him as a proof or at least as an illustration of their really having fellowship with Devils that partook of the Sacrifices that were offer'd to them For if the Bread and Wine of the Sacrament were not a Means as well as a sign of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ Neither could the Gentiles Sacrifices be a Means of their or other Men's Communion with those Devils to whom they were offer'd and therefore neither charge them with any real fellowship with Devils but only with a sign or semblance of it Which how it agrees with St. Paul's charging the partakers of those Sacrifices with having fellowship with Devils as that too upon the account of the Gentiles Sacrificing to Devils and not to God I shall leave all sober Men to judge Such evidence there is from that one place of St. Paul concerning the Lords Supper being a Means as well as a Sign whereby we come to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ And we shall find it no less confirm'd by an effect which the Scripture attributes to one of its Symbols and which is in that place by an usual Synecdoche set to denote the whole Sacrament That I mean where St. Paul affirms (b) 1 Cor. 12.13 that we have been all made to drink into one Spirit For as the foregoing mention of Baptism makes it reasonable to believe that these words ought to be understood of the Cup or Wine of the Lord's Supper So we cannot without great violence to the words understand less by being made to drink into one Spirit than our partaking by Means of that Cup of the Blood of Christ and the Benefits thereof of which the Spirit of God is no doubt one of the principal ones To be made to drink into that Blood or the Spirit of God importing somewhat more even in common understanding than to receive a naked sign of them And though I know that some of the Reformed Churches and particularly those of Zuinglius and Oecolampadius's institution have been charg'd with meaner thoughts concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Yet whosoever shall take the pains to peruse what our Cosins (c) Hist Transubstant Papal cap. 2. hath collected upon this Argument and particularly what he quotes from Bucer (d) ibid. will find that they always thought or at least now do that Christ's true Body and Blood are truly exhibited given and taken together with the visible signs of Bread and Wine as well as signified by them But because the question is not so much at present concerning this Sacrament's being a Means whereby we receive the Body and Blood of Christ as what kind of Means it is how it conveys to us the Body and Blood of Christ and how we receive them by it Therefore enquire we so far as we may what our Church delivers in these particulars and what evidence there is from the Scripture of our Churches Orthodoxy therein Now though we may not perhaps find in any Monument of our Church a distinct and particular Answer to the questions before propos'd Yet we may find that in the eight and twentieth Article of our Church which may serve for a general Answer to them all and for a particular answer too to the last of them The Doctrine thereof being that the Body of Christ and the same mutatis mutandis must be said of his Blood is given taken and eaten in the Supper after an heavenly and spiritual manner only and again that the mean whereby the Body of Christ is receiv'd and taken in the Supper is Faith For if the Body and Blood of Christ be given taken and eaten or drunken in the Supper after a heavenly and spiritual manner only that Supper must so far forth be a means purely heavenly and Spiritual the conveyance thereof of the same heavenly and spiritual nature and the reception of it also And if again the Mean whereby the Body and Blood of Christ are receiv'd and taken in the Supper is Faith then do we in the opinion of our Church receive them by Faith which will serve for a particular answer to the last of the questions propos'd To all which if we add our Churches teaching us to pray to God even in the prayer of Consecration that we receiving the Creatures of Bread and Wine according to our Saviour Jesus Christ's Holy Institution may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood so we shall be able to make out a more particular answer to the questions propos'd and such as we shall find reason enough to allow For it appears from the premisses and particularly from the prayer of Consecration that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is such a spiritual Mean as depends for the force of it not upon any vertue that is infus'd into it and much less upon any natural union there is between that and the Body and Blood of Christ but upon our receiving it on the one hand according to our Saviours Holy Institution and God's bestowing on the other hand Christ's Body and Blood upon such a reception of it It appears therefore that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
that strengthening and refreshing of the Soul which it is said to receive by the Body and Blood of Christ Enquire we in the next place what Evidence there is of their being intended for it Which will soon appear from their being intended by Christ as the Meat and Drink of the Soul and particularly as such Meat and Drink as Bread and Wine are to the Body For Meat and Drink being intended for the strengthening and refreshing of Men's Bodies and particularly such Meat and Drink as are the outward part of the present Sacrament If the Body and Blood of Christ were intended as such to the Soul they must be consequently intended for its strengthening and refreshing Now that the Body and Blood of Christ were intended as Meat and Drink to the Soul and particularly as such Meat and Drink as Bread and Wine are to the Body is evident for the former of these from several passages of the sixth of St. John's Gospel * See Part 3. where it is so declar'd in express terms and for the latter from our Saviour's making use of Bread and Wine to represent them and which is more calling upon us to eat and drink of them in remembrance of Christ's giving that Body and Blood of his for us This as it farther shews them to have been intended as our Spiritual Meat and Drink so to have been intended too in a Spiritual manner to be eaten and drunken by us and so made yet more subservient to our strengthening and refreshment 3. Now this the Body and Blood of Christ effect first and chiefly as the meritorious cause of that Grace by which that strengthening and refreshing is immediately produc'd Or secondly as stirring up the Minds of the Faithful to contemplate the meritoriousness thereof and in the strength of that to grapple with all Difficulties and bear up under all Troubles and Disquiets For beside that the Body and Blood of Christ as was before observ'd (m) Part 5. are to be consider'd in this Sacrament under the Notion of a propitiatory Sacrifice and which as such doth rather dispose God to grant us that strength and refreshment which we desire than actually collate them on us There is nothing more evident from the Scriptures than that it is the Spirit of God (n) Eph. 3.15 and his Graces by which we must be immediately strengthened with might in the inner Man and that it is by him (o) Acts 9.31 that we receive comfort and consolation For which cause our Saviour gives him the title of the Comforter and professeth to send him to supply his own place in that as well as in other particulars From whence as it will follow that it is to the Spirit of God and his Graces that we are immediately to ascribe that strength and refreshment which we expect So that we ought therefore to look upon Christ's Body and Blood as conferring to it not so much by any immediate influence thereof upon the Soul as by their disposing God to grant that Spirit by which both the one and the other are produc'd Upon which account we find St. Paul where he attributes the several Graces of a Christian to the immediate Influences of that Spirit affirming those that partake of this Cup to be made to drink into the same Spirit as that which is the immediate Author of them This I take to be in an especial manner that strengthning and refreshing which our Catechism and the Scripture prompts us to ascribe to the Body and Blood of Christ Neither can I think of any other than what the contemplation of the meritoriousness thereof may infuse into the Soul of him who seriously reflects upon it That I mean whereby the Soul becomes so confident of the Divine Assistance and Favour as neither to doubt of his enabling it to do what he requires nor despair of his delivering it from all its fears and troubles I will close this Discourse when I have added that as the Sign of this Sacrament hath the relation of a Means whereby God conveys and we receive the Body and Blood of Christ So it hath also the Relation of a Pledge to assure us thereof or as our Church elsewhere expresseth it (p) Art 19. a certain sure Witness of it A Relation which is not more generally acknowledg'd than easie to make out from the former one For what is ordained by Christ as a Mean for the conveying of his Body and Blood being as sure to have its effect if it be received as it ought to be He who so receives what Christ hath thus ordain'd will need no other Proof than that of his receiving that Body and Blood of Christ which it was so ordained to convey PART VII Of Transubstantiation The Contents The Doctrine of Transubstantiation briefly deduc'd from the Council of Trent and digested into four capital Assertions Whereof the first is that the whole substance of the Bread is chang'd into the substance of Christ's Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood The grounds of this Assertion examin'd both as to the possibility and actual being of such a change What is alledg'd for the former of these from the substantial changes mention'd in the Scripture of no force in this particular because there is no appearance of the actual existing of those things into which the change was made at the instant the other were chang'd into them As little force shewn to be in the words This is my Body and This is my Blood to prove the actual change of the Sacramental Elements whether we consider the word This in the former words as denoting the Bread and Wine or The thing I now give you That supposed change farther impugned by such Scriptures as represent the Bread of the Eucharist as remaining after Consecration by the concurrent Testimony of Sense and the Doctrine of the Antient Fathers Enquiry next made into that Assertion which imports that the substances of the Sacramental Elements are so chang'd as to retain nothing of what they were before save only the Species thereof Where is shewn that if nothing of their respective Substances remain there must be an annihilation rather than a change and that there is as little ground for the remaining of the Species without them either from the nature of those Species the words of Consecration or the Testimony of Sense That the true Body and true Blood of Christ together with his Soul and Divinity are under the Species of the Sacramental Elements a third Capital Assertion in this Matter but hath as little ground in the words of Consecration as either of the former First because those words relate not to Christ's glorified Body and Blood which are the things affirmed to be contain'd under the Species of the Sacramental Elements but to Christ's Body as broken and to his Blood as shed at his Crucifixion Secondly because however they may import the being of that Body and Blood
Reason and Nature and manifestly prescrib'd by the dictates of it not only we but all Christians whatsoever think themselves licensed if not oblig'd to put a figurative sense upon those words which command the pulling out an offending eye or cutting off an offending hand yea though there should not be as perhaps there is not any so express precept of Scripture against the mutilation of our selves But let us examine yet more nearly the purport of the former Argument as it relates to such divine precepts and promises as may seem to have a more particular regard to the life to come and so may be rather reckoned to supernatural truths than moral ones For neither here is it so clear that the literal sense is to prevail unless some text be produced which shall oblige us to the contrary Neither if it were would it be of force to conclude against a figurative interpretation of those words for which this Argument is alledged I instance for the former of these in what was but even now †Part 7. quoted out of St. Augustine concerning our looking upon that as a figurative expression which enjoyns the eating of Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood in order to eternal life For as that Father thought it enough to prove that expression to be such because it seem'd to command a great wickedness without so much as taking notice of any Scripture that represented it as such so I do not see what text can be produc'd that is so express against the eating of humane Flesh and drinking humane Blood as this is for the eating and drinking them in the present instance In which case that wickedness which St. Augustin affirms the former precept to lead to in the literal sense must be pronounc'd as such by the law of Reason and Nature and no necessity therefore of sticking to the literal sense of any Scripture till we can find as express a text elsewhere to take us off from the embracing of it But let us suppose that the literal sense is to prevail till some text of Scripture can be produc'd which shall oblige us to a contrary one Yet will it not therefore follow but that the words we are now upon may and ought to be figuratively taken because there is enough in those that follow to oblige us to it I alledge for this purpose our Saviour's representing the things he gave as his Body broken and Blood shed which his natural Body and Blood were not at the Institution of this Sacrament nor can now be since his Resurrection from the dead For if the Body and Blood of Christ were not then broken or shed nor can be so since his Resurrection from the dead what our Saviour then gave or we now receive cannot be that Body and Blood and therefore to be understood rather as Signs and efficacious Means of conveying the Merit of that Body and Blood to us than as the letter of the words seems to import that Body and Blood it self The same is yet more evident from our Saviour's requiring his Disciples to do that whole action and particularly to eat and drink the things given in remembrance of him and of his death That which is design'd as a memorial of any thing being in reason to be look'd upon as a thing distinct from that which it was intended as a memorial of and design'd to supply the place of Neither will it avail to say as it is in my opinion idly enough that if the last suggestion were true Christ's Body and Blood must have been absent from that Sacrament which our Saviour celebrated with his Disciples which it is certain from the Story that they were not For as that Sacrament it self was principally design'd for the times succeeding our Saviour's passion and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or remembrance in all probability made use of with a particular relation to them So Christ's Body broken and Blood shed were as much absent from that Table and Sacrament as they are from our Sacramental Tables or any other Those general Arguments of the Lutherans being of no more force let us cast our eyes upon their special ones or at least upon such of them as seem most worthy of our regard Whereof the first that occurs is taken from the nature of a Sacrament which as they say being a thing perfectly new and accordingly unknown to all Men till it come to be reveal'd is in reason to be delivered in proper and literal expressions as concerning which otherwise there can be no certain knowledg Which suppos'd the words that declare this Sacrament must be concluded to be such and as such understood and asserted A Man would wonder to hear Learned Men argue at this rate concerning the Sacraments of our Saviour when it appears by what I have elsewhere (‖) Expl. of the Sacr. in Gen. Part 4. said that there were several such things before and by which St. Paul tells us that the Jews did all eat the same spiritual meat with us and drank the same spiritual drink even Christ Yea though the natural Body and Blood of Christ were not then in being and consequently could not literally be eaten or drunken For how come our Sacraments to be such new and unknown things when there were the like long before Or how under a necessity of being deliver'd in literal and proper expressions when there were not only such like Sacraments to give light to them though figuratively delivered but the Doctrine of those Antient Sacraments deliver'd even by St. Paul in those very figurative expressions which are thought to be such absurdities in ours For however we may be thought literally to eat and drink Christ's Body and Blood yet they to be sure cannot be thought to have done so who liv'd before that Body and Blood of Christ were in being Though granting that our Sacraments were at first as new and unknown as it is pretended that they are Yet will it not therefore follow but that they might be delivered in figurative as well as in literal expressions Because figurative expressions according to themselves may be easily enough understood if there be but a Key to open them Now whether there be not such a Key to open the figurative expressions of the present Sacrament I shall leave to those to judge who shall reflect upon our Saviour's representing the Symbols of this Sacrament as his Body broken and Blood shed and willing us moreover to eat and drink of them in remembrance of him and of his crucifixion Those two things being enough to assure us that the things given by our Saviour were rather Memorials of that Body and Blood of his and conveyers of the Merits of them than either the substance of that Body and Blood or the Means of communicating it to the Mouths and Stomachs of those who were to partake of them But it may be there is more force in what they argue from the nature of a Testament upon
that Body and Blood to us and a Pledge to assure us thereof If we consider the Sacramental Elements as being to become a Sign of Christ's crucified Body and Blood and accordingly to represent them both to our own Minds and those of others So it cannot but be thought necessary to declare whether by the words of the Institution or others for what purposes they are design'd and what they were intended to represent For those Elements (e) Expl. of the Sacr. in Gen. Part 2. being not so clear a representation of the things intended by them as by their own force to suggest them to the Minds of those for whom they were intended Being much less so clear a representation of them as to invite those to reflect upon them who are either slow of understanding or otherwise indisposed to contemplate them such as are the generality of Men It cannot but be thought necessary even upon that account to call in the assistance of such words as may declare to those that are concern'd for what ends and purposes they were appointed Otherwise Men may either look upon the whole of that Sacrament as a purely civil Action or if the Person that administreth it and other such like Circumstances prompt them to conceive of it as a religious one yet fancy to themselves such ends and purposes as are either different from or contrary to the due intendment of it And though it be true that in that Eucharist which our Saviour celebrated with his Disciples there appears no such declaration of the ends of Christ in it till he comes to admonish them to take what he gave as his Body and Blood which supposeth them to have been made so before Yet as it is clear from thence that he thought such a declaration to be necessary to manifest his ends in it so it is no way unlikely but rather highly probable that he interlaid that Thanksgiving and Prayer wherewith he is said to have bless'd the Elements of this Sacrament with a declaration of those ends for which they were designed by him It appearing not otherwise how that Thanksgiving and Prayer could have fitted the matter in hand or stirred up the Minds of his Disciples to intend it with that devotion which the importance thereof requir'd On the other side if we consider the Sacramental Elements as being to become a Means of communicating that Body and Blood to us and which is but consequent thereto a Pledge to assure us thereof So it is as little to be doubted but that it must be brought about by Thanksgiving to God on the one hand for giving him to die whose crucified Body and Blood this Sacrament was intended to convey and by Prayer to him on the other to make those Elements become the Communion of them The former because Thanksgiving appears to have been the Means by which our Saviour blessed them and moreover the principal design of this Sacrament toward God and which therefore unless we comply with we cannot reasonably hope for the Benefits of The latter because as hath been elsewhere shewn Prayer was a part of that Thanksgiving and because it is undoubtedly the general Means appointed by Christ for the obtaining of all Benefits whatsoever Which things how momentous soever I have thus lightly passed over because I have spoken to them sufficiently elsewhere and particularly where I intreated of the Institution of this Sacrament and of that Thanksgiving by which our Saviour is affirmed to have bless'd it That which in my opinion ought more especially to be considered is the usefulness of the former Resolution to compromise those Quarrels which have for some time been raised in this Argument For whilst some contend earnestly for Consecration by Thanksgiving and Prayer as they have reason enough to do upon the account of our Saviour's being affirmed to consecrate by it and of Justin Martyr Origen and several others representing the Elements of this Sacrament as becoming what they were intended by the force of those Thanksgivings and Prayers which were made over them And whilst others again contend as earnestly that they are made such by the words of the Institution and alledge with the same heat Irenaeus his affirming (f) Adv. haeres li. 5. cap. 2. the mixt Cup and broken Bread to become the Eucharist of Christ's Body and Blood by receiving the Word of God and St. Augustine's more celebrated saying that let the Word come to the Element and it becomes a Sacrament They say things which will be easily made to agree with each other if they who alledge them will but hear one another speak For it is the word of the Institution applied as that Institution directs which consecrates the Elements into those several relations which they assume And it is the same word of Institution declar'd which contributes more particularly to the making of those Elements become a Sign of Christ's Body and Blood But then as it is appli'd by Thanksgiving and Prayer because they are a part of its Commands as well as by a declaration of the whole So that Thanksgiving and Prayer contribute to those relations which do most ennoble them even those by which the Elements become the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood and a Pledge to assure us thereof Not by any force which is in the Letters and Syllables thereof as Aquinas makes Hoc est corpus meum and Hic est Calix sanguinis mei to do but by the force of that Institution which prescribes them and by their natural aptitude to dispose God to whom alone such great Effects are to be ascrib'd to give the Elements of this Sacrament those most excellent relations and efficacy PART X. Of the right Administration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper The Contents Entrance made with enquiring How this Sacrament ought to be administred and therein again whether that Bread wherewith it is celebrated ought to be broken and whether he who administers this Sacrament is obliged by the words of the Institution or otherwise to make an offering unto God of Christ's Body and Blood as well as make a tender of the Sacrament thereof to Men. That the Bread of the Sacrament ought to be broken as that too for the better representation of the breaking of Christ's Body asserted against the Lutherans and their Arguments against it produc'd and answered Whether he who administers this Sacrament is obliged by the words of the Institution or otherwise to make an offering to God of Christ's Body and Blood in the next place enquir'd into and after a declaration of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent in this Affair consideration had of those grounds upon which the Fathers of that Council establish it The words Do this in remembrance of me more particularly animadverted upon and shewn not to denote such an Offering whether they be consider'd as referring to the several things before spoken of and particularly to what Christ himself had done or enjoyn'd the Apostles
to do or as referring only to that Body and Blood which immediately precede them In which last Consideration of them is made appear that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may as well and more naturally signifie make That there is nothing in the present Argument to determine it to the notion of Sacrificing or if there were that it must import rather a Commemorative than Expiatory one What is alledg'd by the same Council from Christ's Melchizedekian Priesthood c. more briefly consider'd and answer'd And that Sacrifice which the Council advanceth shewn in the close to be inconsistent with it self contrary to the present state of our Lord and Saviour and more derogatory to that Sacrifice which Christ made of himself upon the Cross The whole concluded with enquiring To whom this Sacrament ought to be administred and particularly whether it either ought or may lawfully be administred to Infants Where the Arguments of Bishop Taylor for the lawfulness of Communicating Infants are produc'd and answer'd and particularly what he alledgeth from Infants being admitted to Baptism though they are no more qualified for it than they are for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper V. THE nature of this Sacrament being thus unfolded and the Minds of Men so far forth imbued with a due apprehension of it I might with the leave of that Catechism which I have taken upon me to explain proceed to that which is the last in order even to shew What is requir'd of them who come to the Lord's Supper But because unless it be rightly administred it cannot be rightly receiv'd or at least not with that advantage which men might otherwise promise to themselves from it And because those with whom we have to do in this Affair differ as much from us about the Administration of this Sacrament as they do about the Nature of it I think it but reasonable so far forth as those differences or the nature of the thing shall lead me to it to make that also the subject of my Discourse and accordingly enquire first how it ought to be administred and then to whom it ought to be so I. Now there are two things again which will be necessary to be enquir'd into as concerning the manner of its Administration 1. Whether that Bread wherewith this Sacrament is celebrated ought to be broken 2. Whether he who administers this Sacrament is oblig'd by the words of the Institution or otherwise to make an Offering unto God of Christ's Body and Blood as well as make a tender of the Sacrament thereof to Men. 1. Whether that Bread wherewith this Sacrament is celebrated ought to be broken is a Question between us and the Lutherans who look upon the breaking of it as no otherwise necessary than as the Bread which we employ may make it to be so for the distribution of it Agreeably to which Opinion of theirs they furnish themselves with such small round Wafers as require no breaking at all and communicate both themselves and their People with them We on the other side led thereto as we suppose by the Institution of Christ have a quite different opinion of it and do not only think it necessary for the distribution of larger Loaves but so far forth at least as a divine Precept can make it such necessary also as a Sacramental Act and for the better representation of the usage of that Body of Christ which it was intended to denote Which Opinion of ours we are farther confirmed in by what we learn from the care that was used by the Jews in the breaking of that Eucharistical Bread of theirs which seems to have been the Exemplar of ours By the Scriptures and the Antients representing the whole of this Sacrament under the title of breaking of Bread and by S. Paul's intimating the Bread which they brake to be as much the Communion of Christ's Body as the Cup of Blessing which they then bless'd was the Communion of his Blood A Man would think that they who stand out against the force of these Arguments should be provided of sufficient Answers to them and not only so but of sufficient Arguments too to strengthen their own Opinion But whether either the one or the other are of that force which they are supposed to be of shall be permitted to judgment after I have taken a view of them To begin with the Answers * Vid. Geâ—â— hard Loc. Theolog. Tract de Sacr. Coen cap. 14. which they return to the former Arguments and particularly with what they answer to what is urg'd from the Institution of Christ Where they tell us in the first place that though Christ brake the Bread and may so far forth perhaps be thought to prescribe the like to those that were to administer the Sacrament after him Yet it was rather in order to the distribution of it the Bread then us'd requiring him so to do than to represent the breaking of his own Body But beside that what they affirm in the former part of it is said without any other proof than that the Bread then us'd requir'd breaking in order to the distribution of it For as to any thing they advance to the contrary Christ might break the Bread for representation as well as for distribution St. Paul hath said enough to shew that Christ brake the Bread of this Sacrament to represent the ill usage of his Body There being not any tolerable reason why St. Paul should in the very History of the Institution attribute so improper a term as that of breaking to Christ's Body but that the breaking of the Bread which was a Figure of it was intended to denote that violence which was offer'd to his crucified one That Answer not succeeding they flie unto another and tell us that the words Do this referr principally to what the Apostles were to do in the present Action amongst which the breaking of Bread being not then to be because the Bread was before broken to their hands the Command of Do this is not to be thought to extend properly and principally to the breaking of the Bread but to the taking and eating of it It is a strange thing to see how Prejudice will cast a mist before wise Mens Eyes and prompt them to say that for the defence of their Opinions in one thing which will do them as much mischief in another For the very same Argument mutatis mutandis will serve alike to overthrow that blessing of the Bread which they as well as we think themselves obliged to maintain as without which indeed it can be no part of the present Sacrament For if the words Do this are to be thought to extend no farther than to what the Apostles were to do in that Sacrament which they celebrated with our Saviour then are they of as little force to conclude the blessing of the Bread before we eat it because the Bread was at that time as much blessed to their hands as it is affirmed to have
been broken to them But beside that that Answer is as much of force against themselves in the blessing of the Bread as it can be suppos'd to be against us in the breaking of it It hath nothing in it which can conclude against the force of those words from which the breaking of the Bread is inferred For whether principally or less principally if the words Do this referr'd to somewhat else than what the Apostles were then to do then might they referr also to the breaking of the Bread and consequently the breaking of the Bread be inferred from them as well as the eating of it And indeed as he who suggests this Answer lays the necessity of blessing the Bread †Gerhard ubi supra cap. 13. Sect. 149. in Christ's commanding us to do the same thing which he did which if he did in any words of the Institution it was in the present ones and thereby shews them to extend to somewhat else beside eating So if they relate to succeeding Sacraments as well as to what our Saviour celebrated with his Disciples as is evident from his adding in remembrance of me they must consequently relate to all that which was necessary to make the Bread which he enjoyned us to eat to become the Sacrament of his Body because the Bread which he commanded his Disciples to eat was represented by him as such From whence as it will follow that somewhat else was referr'd to by the words Do this than that eating which was just before enjoin'd upon the Disciples even that Blessing or Thanksgiving which Christ is said to have premis'd to this whole Action So it is but just to believe that that breaking also was which followed immediately upon it and which appears from what hath been said to represent the breaking of that Body which the Bread they were commanded to eat was intended as a Representation of I say thirdly and lastly that how confidently soever it is affirm'd that the words Do this relate principally to the eating next before enjoin'd yet is there no reason to believe that it related more to eating than to any of the foregoing Actions otherwise than as that eating was the Complement of the whole and consequently presuppos'd all the former Actions to have been perform'd Partly because if eating in it self consider'd had been the principal thing design'd the repetition of the same word eat would have better fitted the end of the Speaker And partly because setting aside those general words Do this there would have been nothing in the Institution to express with any clearness that Blessing and distribution of the Bread which they as well as we think to be enjoin'd upon us in the administration of this Sacrament One other Answer they have if it be lawful so to call it that if we will argue from what Christ did in this particular to what we our selves are to do we must either shew that action to be otherwise necessary or find our selves oblig'd to celebrate this Holy Sacrament in the like posture and time and place wherein we read our Saviour to have done it But beside that we do not argue simply from what our Saviour did in this particular but from that Action of his being plac'd between two that are confessed to be intended by the words Do this and so in all reason to be look'd upon as alike enjoined by them We cannot but think that it hath farther evidence for the necessity of it from its so well representing that ill usage which our Saviour's Body receiv'd that St. Paul when he came to speak of that usage of it as a thing commemorated in this Sacrament expressed it by the breaking of it The Argument from the Institution being thus secur'd and vindicated from the Exceptions of its Adversaries we shall the less need to concern our selves about what the Lutherans answer to those that follow as which we our selves make use of rather to strengthen our Assertion than that we think them of themselves to be a just foundation of it Only that it may appear that even they are not without their weight I shall though very briefly reply to what is answer'd to them Now as that which the Lutherans answer upon all occasions is that that breaking which was made use of by our Saviour and his Apostles was rather for the better distribution of the Bread they us'd than for any significancy in it So when we press them with the Jews breaking their Eucharistical Bread which in all probability gave occasion to the Institution of ours they tell us that as the Bread which the Jews made use of was more easie to be broken than ours as being made not so thick as ours now is but broader and thinner and indeed rather like Cakes than Loaves so the only end of that breaking was to distribute the Bread they us'd among those that were to partake of it But as whatever is to be said concerning the usual Bread of the Jews yet if I can understand the account that is given by Cassander out of Paulus Fagius For I have not Fagius his discourse upon this Argument to consult the Bread the Jews both heretofore and now make use of in their Eucharist was cast into so thick a mass that it could not well be broken in pieces so this Ceremony of breaking was and is so religiously observ'd in the present instance that though they almost cut off from the whole that part which they are to make use of yet they leave so much of it uncut as may serve still for the breaking of it which shews that there was somewhat else in it The next thing alledg'd by us to strengthen the present Assertion is this Sacrament's being describ'd both in the Scripture and the Antients by the Name of breaking of Bread which we suppose it would hardly have been if that had not been accounted a considerable Action in it and much less if it had been accounted so indifferent a one as the Lutherans are willing to have it thought But as where they can they endeavour to turn those Expressions to another sense but with how little reason the places before quoted (a) Part 2. will shew So the burthen of their Song always is that the breaking there mention'd had no other design than the distribution of the Bread among those that were to receive it which few impartial Men will believe who find St. Paul representing the Bread which our Saviour brake as that Body which was broken for his Disciples I find nothing of moment return'd to what is before alledged by us concerning St. Paul's intimating the Bread which we break to be as much the Communion of Christ's Body as the Cup of Blessing which we bless is the Communion of his Blood And therefore I shall only add that though I do not pretend to inferr from thence that the breaking of the Bread ought to be rank'd in the same order with the blessing of the Cup Yet
that Doctrine savours at all of Popery because the signification we give to the breaking of the Bread is of a quite different nature from what the Papists suggest and indeed no other than the Institution it self offers to us For we no more than the Lutherans believe that the Host ought to be broken into just three parts or for the reasons that are given by them for it so I see as little how our Doctrine ministers to Socinianism even in the point that is now before us Because though we declare the breaking of the Bread to have been intended for a representation of our Saviour's crucified Body yet we do not believe as they do that that was the sole intendment of that and other the usances of the present Sacrament but that as Christ meant we should shew forth by them what he suffered in his Body so we should also thereby be made partakers of it and of the Benefits thereof 2. But not any longer to insist upon the breaking of the Bread because as I suppose sufficiently clear'd Let us go on to enquire because a Question of far greater moment whether he who administers this Sacrament is oblig'd by the words of the Institution or otherwise to make an Offering to God of Christ's Body and Blood as well as to make a tender of the Sacrament thereof to Men The Council of Trent as is well known avowing that to be the importance of the words Do this in remembrance of me and that the Apostles were by the same words appointed Priests to offer them For my more advantageous resolution whereof I will shew 1. What they who advance this Offering declare concerning it 2. The vanity of those Grounds upon which it is built and 3. Oppose proper Arguments to it 1. That which the Council of Trent teacheth concerning this pretended Offering is that it hath for the matter of it the Body and Blood of Christ (h) Sess 22. cap. 1 2. Can. 3. or rather Christ himself under the Species of Bread and Wine That the Offering which is made of it is no simple tender of it to the Father but the offering of it up by way of a Sacrifice and accordingly he himself sacrificed or slain in it but after an unbloody manner That this Sacrifice is not only an Eucharistical or Commemorative Sacrifice but a truly propitiatory one for quick and dead and by which God is so far appeas'd as to grant Pardon and Grace to the one and a Refrigerium to the other 2. How well these things agree either with one another or with that Sacrifice which Christ made of himself upon the Cross shall then be considered when I come to oppose proper Arguments to it My present Business shall be to examine the Grounds upon which it is built and shew the vanity thereof Where again I will insist upon no other Grounds than what the same Council of Trent offers for it and which therefore those of the Roman Communion must think themselves obliged either to stand or fall by Now that which the Council of Trent principally founds it self upon in this Affair is on the one hand the conversion of the Bread and Wine of the Sacrament into the Body and Blood of Christ as without which there could be no Pretence for the offering of them up under the Species of the other And on the other hand those known words of Christ to his Apostles and their Successors Do this in remembrance of me These words as that Council tells us having been always understood and declar'd by the Catholick Church as a Command of Christ to them to offer up his Body and Blood But as enough hath been said already (i) Part 7. to shew the unsoundness of the former of these grounds and that therefore no just foundation of the offering of Christ's Body and Blood in the present Sacrament So we shall find there is as little solidity in that supposed Command of Christ to his Apostles and their Successors in the words Do this in remembrance of me For neither can those words be fairly drawn to signifie the offering up of Christ's Body and Blood neither doth it appear whatever is pretended that the Catholick Church hath had that understanding of them That the words themselves cannot be fairly drawn to signifie the offering up of Christ's Body and Blood will appear if we consider them either as referring to the several things before spoken of and particularly to what he himself had done or enjoined them to do or as referring only to that Body and Blood which immediately precede them and in which sense they are suppos'd to signifie the sacrificing or offering of them If we consider the words Do this in remembrance of me as referring to the several things before spoken of even those which Christ himself had done or enjoined them to do So there is no appearance of their being a Command to the Apostles or their Successors to offer up his Body and Blood unless there had been any precedent mention of Christ's offering them up himself or any kind of intimation of his enjoining them to do it The latter of which two as it is not to by affirm'd by those who make the words Do this in remembrance of me to be those which constituted both the Sacrifice and the offerers of it So I see as little reason for the affirming of the former how confidently soever the Church of Rome advanceth it For what mention can we expect for instance of Christ's offering up his Body under the Species of Bread when till he had spoken the words This is my Body which was not till he had done all appertaining to that Element there was no such thing under the Species of Bread for Christ to offer up because not to be till those words had pass'd upon it But it may be there is more force in the words Do this as referring to that Body and Blood which immediately precede them in which sense they are suppos'd to signifie the sacrificing or offering of them And so no doubt there is or they will be found to have little force in them But what if we should say first that there is as little appearance of their referring to the words Body and Blood as what St. Paul subjoineth to them and the very Canon of the Mass perswades For St. Paul inferring upon those words that as oft as they ate that Bread and drank that Cup they did shew forth the Lord's death till he came And again that whosoever should eat that Bread and drink that Cup of the Lord unworthily should be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord He doth not obscurely intimate that when our Saviour said with relation to each Element Do this in remembrance of me his meaning was that they should do what he had before enjoin'd them concerning each in remembrance of himself and particularly that they should eat and drink them with that design Which they of all Men
those two Sacraments which he had before intreated of and which he affirms in the next words the guilt of that sin in Children to be loosed by concerning which the Scripture affirms that no one is free from it though his Life be but of a days continuance PART XI How the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ought to be receiv'd The Contents The receit of this Sacrament suppos'd by the present Question and that therefore first established against the Doctrine of those who make the supposed Sacrifice thereof to be of use to them who partake not Sacramentally of it Enquiry next made How we ought to prepare our selves for it how to demean our selves at the celebration of it and in what Posture to receive it The preparation taken notice of by our Catechism the Examination of our selves whether we truly repent us of our sins stedfastly purposing to lead a new Life c. and the both necessity and means of that Examination accordingly declar'd The examination of our Repentance more particularly insisted upon and that shewn to be most advantageously made by enquiring how we have gain'd upon those sins which we profess to repent of and particularly upon our most prevailing ones which how they are to be discover'd is therefore enquir'd into and the marks whereby they are to be known assigned and explain'd A transition from thence to the examination of the stedfastness of our Purposes to lead a new Life of our Faith in God through Christ our remembrance of his Death and Charity Where the necessity of that Examination is evinced and the means whereby we may come to know whether we have those Qualifications in us discover'd and declar'd How we ought to demean our selves at the celebration of this Sacrament in the next place enquir'd into and that shewn to be by intending that Service wherewith it is celebrated and suiting our Affections to the several parts of it The whole concluded with enquiring in what posture of Body this Sacrament ought to be receiv'd Where is shewn first that the Antients so far as we can judge by their Writings receiv'd in a posture of Adoration and particularly in the posture of standing Secondly that several of the Reformed Churches receive in that or the like posture and that those that do not do not condemn those that do Thirdly that there is nothing in the Example of Christ and his Disciples at the first Celebration of this Supper to oblige us to receive it sitting nor yet in what is alledg'd from the suitableness of that Posture to a Feast and consequently to the present one This as it is a Feast of a different nature from common ones and therefore not to receive Laws from them so the receit thereof intended to express the grateful resentment we have of the great Blessing of our Redemption and stir up other Men to the like resentment of it Neither of which can so advantageously be done as by receiving the Symbols of this Sacrament in such a posture of Body as shews the regard we have for him who is the Author of it VI. THE sixth and last Question proposed to be discoursed of Question What is requir'd of them who come to the Lord's Supper Answer To examin themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins stedfastly purposing to lead a new Life have a lively Faith in God's mercy through Christ with a thankful remembrance of his Death and be in charity with all men is How this Sacrament ought to be receiv'd Which Question I have proposed in those terms partly that it may come so much the nearer to the last Question of our own Catechism and partly because there is no one sort of Men that doth expresly deny that it ought to be receiv'd by all that are qualified for it as well as administred by those who are the proper Stewards of it For though the Socinians out of a belief of Baptism's being proper only to Jewish or Gentile Converts have thrown off that Sacrament altogether and which is more have represented the shewing forth of Christ's Death as the only design of this yet they have thought fit to retain the use of it as a thing enjoin'd by our Lord himself Though the Tridentine Fathers have also in a great measure transform'd this Sacrament into a thing of another nature and accordingly pointed out other ways for Men to receive benefit by it beside their communicating at it Yet they have declar'd an Anathema (a) Sess 13. Can. 9. against any one that shall deny all and singular the faithful People of Christ to be oblig'd when they come to years of discretion to communicate every year at least at Easter according to the Precept of holy Mother the Church Only because those Fathers seem to found even that single Communion upon the Precept of the Church or at least do not represent it as enjoin'd by any Divine Law And because though they elsewhere profess to wish that they who assist at their several Masses did also Sacramentally communicate at them for their receiving greater benefit by them (b) Sess 22. cap. 6. yet they represent even those where the Priest alone Communicates as common to them that do not I think it not amiss to premise something concerning the obligation of the Faithful to receive this Sacrament as well as to assist at the celebration of it and examine what those Fathers alledge for their loosing the Faithful from it That the Faithful are under an obligation of receiving this Sacrament as well as of assisting at the celebration of it is so evident from the words of the Institution that I know not how our Saviour could have more expresly enjoin'd it For Take Eat saith he concerning the Bread of it And Drink ye all of it saith the same Jesus concerning the Cup With this farther Reason as we learn from the Hoc est enim corpus meum and Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei in the Roman Missal because the one is his Body and the other as certainly the Cup of his Blood as that Missal expresseth it So that if a Command with so substantial a Reason annex'd may be concluded to be obligatory the receit of this Sacrament is And we can no more be freed from doing it than we can be freed from believing that it is Christ's Body and Blood that is tender'd to us or believing it than we may reject so signal a Blessing as that is which was either broken or shed for our Redemption For what is this but as the Author to the Hebrews speaks (c) Heb. 10.28 29. to despise not Moses's Law but one the transgression whereof is worthy of a sorer punishment yea to tread under foot the Son of God and count the Blood of the Covenant wherewith we are sanctified an unholy thing and as such contemptuously to reject it Neither will it avail to say as possibly it may be that they cannot be look'd upon as despisers