Family did officiate among his Houshold Luke 22.19 1 Cor. 11.23 that it was very Natural to them to understand all that our Saviour said or did according to those Forms with which they were acquainted There were after Supper upon a new covering of the Table Loaves of Unleavened Bread and Cups of Wine set on it in which though the Bread was very unacceptable yet they drank liberally of the Wine Christ took a Portion of that Bread and brake it and gave it to his Disciples and said This is my body which is broken for you Do this in remembrance of me He did not say only this is my body but this is my body broken so that his Body must be understood to be there in its broken State if the Words are to be expounded literally And no reason can be assigned why the Word Broken should be so separated from Body or that the Bread should be literally his Body and not literally his Body broken The whole Period must be either literally True or must be understood mystically And if any will say that his Body cannot be there but in the same state in which it is now in Heaven and since it is not now broken nor is the Blood shed or separated from the Body there therefore the Words must be understood thus This is my Body which is to be broken But from thence we argue that since all is one Period it must be all understood in the same Manner And since it is impossible that Broken and Shed can be understood literally of the Body and Blood that therefore the whole is to be mystically understood and this appears more evident since the Disciples who were naturally slow at understanding the easiest Mysteries that he opened to them must naturally have understood those Words as they did the other Words of the Paschal Supper This is the Lord 's Passover That is this is the Memorial of it And that the rather since Christ added these Words Do this in remembrance of me If they had understood them in any other Sense that must have surprized them and naturally have led them to ask him many Questions Which we find them doing upon Occasions that were much less surprizing as appears by the Questions in the 14th of St. Iohn that discourse coming probably immediately after this Institution Whereas no Question was asked upon this so it is reasonable to conclude that they could understand these Words This is my Body no other way but as they understood that of the Lamb This is the Lord 's Passover And by consequence as their celebrating the Pascha was a constant Memorial of the Deliverance out of Egypt and was a Symbolical Action by which they had a Title to the Blessings of the Covenant that Moses made with their Fathers it was natural for them to conclude that after Christ had made himself to be truly that which the first Lamb was in a Type the true Sacrifice of a greater and better Passover they were to commemorate it and to communicate in the Benefits and Effects of it by continuing that Action of taking blessing breaking and distributing of Bread Which was to be the Memorial and the Communion of his Death in all succeeding Ages This will yet appear more Evident from the Second Part of this Institution he took the Cup and blessed it and gave it to them saying This Cup is the New Testament or New Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it Or as the other Gospels report it This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of Sins As Moses had enjoined the sprinkling of the Blood of the Lamb so he himself sprinkled both the Book of the Law and all the People with the Blood of Calves and of Goats Hâ—b 9.20 saying This is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant which God had enjoined you The Blood of the Paschal Lamb was the Token of that Covenant which God made then with them The Iews were under a very strict Prohibition of eating no Blood at all But it seems by the Psalms that when they payed their Vows unto God they took in their Hands a cup of Salvation that is Psal. 116. of an acknowledgment of their Salvation and so were to rejoice before the Lord. These being the Laws and Customs of the Iews they could not without Horror have heard Christ when he gave them the Cup say This is my Blood The Prohibition of Blood was given in such severe Terms as that God would set his face against him that did eat blood Levit. 7.26 27. Levit. 17.14 and cut him off from among his people And this was so often repeated in the Books of Moses that besides the natural Horror which Humanity gives at the mention of drinking a Man's Blood it was a special Part of their Religion to make no use of Blood yet after all this the Disciples were not startled at it Which shews that they must have understood it in such a way as was agreeable to the Law and Customs of their Country and since St. Luke and St. Paul report the Words that our Saviour said when he gave it differently from what is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark it is most probable that he spake both the one and the other that he first said This is my Blood and then as a clearer Explanation of it he said This cup is the New Testament in my Blood The one being a more easy Expression and in a style to which the Iews had been more accustomed They knew that the Blood of the Lamb was sprinkled and by their so doing they entred into a Covenant with God And tho' the Blood was never to be sprinkled after the first Passover yet it was to be poured out before the Lord in remembrance of that sprinkling in Egypt In remembrance of that deliverance they drank of the Cup of Blessing and Salvation and rejoiced before the Lord. So that they could not understand our Saviour otherwise than that the Cup so blessed was to be to them the Assurance of a New Testament or Covenant which was to be established by the Blood of Christ and which was to be shed In lieu of which they were to drink this cup of Blessing and Praise According to their Customs and Phrases the Disciples could understand our Saviour's Words in this Sense and in no other So that if he had intended that they should have understood him otherwise he must have expressed himself in another Manner And must have enlarged upon it to have corrected those Notions into which it was otherwise most Natural for Iews to have fallen Here is also to be remembred that which was formerly observed upon the word Broken that if the Words are to be expounded literally then if the Cup is literally the Blood of Christ it must be his Blood shed poured out of his Veins and separated from his Body And if it is impossible to understand it so we conclude that we are in the Right to understand the whole Period in a mystical and figurative Sense And therefore since a Man born and bred a Iew and more particularly accustomed to the Paschal Ceremonies could not have understood our Saviour's Words chiefly at the time of that Festivity otherwise than of a New Covenant that he was to make in which his Body was to be broken and his blood shed for
Isa. 12.3 ye shall receive a new Doctrine with joy from some select Persons Since then the Figure of eating and drinking was used among the Iews for receiving and imbibing a Doctrine it was no wonder if our Saviour pursued it in a Discourse in which there are several hints given to shew us that it ought to be so understood It is further observable that our Saviour did frequently follow that common way of Instruction among the Eastern Nations by Figures that to us would seem strong and bold These were much used in those Parts to excite the Attention of the Hearers and they are not always to be severely expounded according to the full Extent that the words will bear The Parable of the unjust Judge of the unjust Steward of the ten Virgins of plucking out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand or Foot and several others might be instanced Our Saviour in these considered the Genius of those to whom he spoke So that these Figures must be restrained only to that Particular for which he meant them and must not be stretched to every thing to which the Words may be carried We find our Saviour compares himself to a great many Things to a Vine a Door and a Way And therefore when the Scope of a Discourse does plainly run in a Figuâ—e we are not to go and descant on every Word of it much less may any pretend to say that some Parts of it are to be understood literally and some Parts figuratively For instance if that Chapter of St. Iohn is to be understood literally then Christ's Flesh and Blood must be the Nourishment of our Bodies so as to be meat indeed and that we shall never hunger any more and never die after we have eat of it If therefore all do confess that those Expressions are to be understood figuratively then we have the same reason to conclude that the whole is a Figure For it is as reasonable for us to make all of it a Figure as it is for them to make those Parts of it a Figure which they cannot conveniently expound in a literal Sense From all which it is abundantly clear that nothing can be drawn from that Discourse of our Saviour's to make it reasonable to believe that the words of the Institution of this Sacrament ought to be literally understood On the contrary our Saviour himself calls the Wine after those Words had been used by him the Fruit of the Vine which is as strict a Form of Speech as can well be imagined to make us understand that the Nature of the Wine was not altered And when St. Paul treats of it in those two Chapters in which all that is left us besides the History of the Institution concerning this Sacrament is to be found he calls it five times Bread and never once the Body of Christ. 1 Cor. 10.16 In one Place he calls it the Communion of the Body as the Cup is the Communion of the Blood of Christ. Which is rather a saying that it is in some sort and after a manner the Body and the Blood of Christ than that it is so strictly speaking If this Sacrament had been that mysterious and unconceivable Thing which it has been since believed to be we cannot imagine but that the Books of the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles should have contained fuller Explanations of it and larger Instructions about it There is enough indeed said in them to support the plain and natural Sense that we give to this Institution and because no more is said and the design of it is plainly declared to be to remember Christ's death and to shew it forth till he come we reckon that by this natural Simplicity in which this Matter is delivered to us we are very much confirmed in that plain and easy Signification which we put upon our Saviour's words Plain things need not be insisted on But if the most sublime and wonderful Thing in the World seems to be delivered in Words that yet are capable of a lower and plainer Sense then unless there is a concurrence of other Circumstances to force us to that higher meaning of them we ought not to go into it for simple Things prove themselves Whereas the more extraordinary that any thing is it requires a fulness and evidence in the Proof proportioned to the uneasiness of conceiving or believing it We do therefore understand our Saviour's Institution thus that as he was to give his body to be broken and his blood to be shed for our Sins so he intended that this his Death and Suffering should be still commemorated by all such as look for remission of sins by it not only in their Thoughts and Devotions but in a visible Representation Which he appointed should be done in Symbols that should be both very plain and simple and yet very expressive of that which he intended should be remembred by them Bread is the plainest Food that the Body of Man can receive and Wine was the common nourishing Liquor of that Countrey So he made choice of these Materials and in them appointed a Representation and Remembrance to be made of his body broken and of his blood shed that is of his Death and Sufferings till his Second coming And he obliged his Followers to repeat this frequently In the doing of it according to his Institution they profess the Belief of his Death for the Remission of their Sins and that they look for his Second coming This does also import that as Bread and Wine are the simplest of bodily Nourishments â—o his Death is that which restores the Souls of those that do believe in him As Bread and Wine convey a vital Nourishment to the Body so the Sacrifice of his Death conveys somewhat to the Soul that is vital that fortifies and exalts it And as Water in Baptism is a natural Emblem of the Purity of the Christian Religion Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are the Emblems of somewhat that is derived to us that raises our Faculties and fortifies all our Powers St. PÃ ul does very plainly tell us that unworthy receivers that did neither examine nor discern themselves nor yet discern the Lord's Body were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord 1 Cor. 11.27 29. and did eat and drink their own damnation That is such as do receive it without truly believing the Christian Religion without a grateful acknowledgment of Christ's Death and Sufferings without feeling that they are walking suitably to this Religion that they profess and without that decency and charity which becomes so Holy an Action but that receive the Bread and Wine only as bare bodily Nourishments without considering that Christ has instituted them to be the Memorials of his Death such Persons are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ That is they are guilty either of a Prophanation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood or they do in a manner Crucify
their joining to the Idol Feasts for an Idol was nothing and so that wstich was offered to an Idol could contract no defilement from the Idol it being nothing Now if the meaning of their being partakers with Devils imports only their joining themselves in Acts of Fellowship with Idolaters then the Sin of this would have easily appeared without such a re-inforcing of the Matter For tho' an Idol was nothing yet it was still a great Sin to join in the Acts that were meant to be the Worship of this nothing This was a dishonouring of God and a debasing of Man But St. Paul seems to carry the Argument farther that how true soever it was that the Idol was nothing that is a dead and lifeless thing that had no Vertue nor Operation and that by consequence could derive nothing to the Sacrifice that was offered to it Yet since those Idols were the Instruments by which the Devil kept the World in Subjection to him all such as did partake in their Sacrifices might come under the Effects of that Magick that might be exerted about their Temples or Sacrifices By which the Credit of Idolatry was much kept up And though every Christian had a sure defence against the Powers of Darkness as long as he continued true to his Religion yet if he went out of that Protection into the Empire of the Devil and joined in the Acts that were as a Homage to him he then fell within the reach of the Devil and might justly fear his being brought into a Partnership of those magical Possessions or Temptations that might be suffered to fall upon such Christians as should associate themselves in so detestable a Service In the same Sense it was also said 1 Cor. 10.18 that all the Israelites who did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar That is that all of them who joined in the Acts of that Religion such as the Offering their Peace-Offerings for of those of that kind they might only eat all these were partakers of the Altar That is of all the Blessings of their Religion of all the Expiations the Burnt-offerings and Sin-offerings that were offered on the Altar for the sins of the whole Congregation For that as a great Stock went in a common Dividend among such as observed the Precepts of that Law and joined in the Acts of Worship prescribed by it Thus it appears that such as joined in the Acts of Idolatry became partakers of all that Influence that Devils might have over those Sacrifices and all that continued in the Observances of the Mosaical Law had thereby a partnership in the Expiations of the Altar so likewise all Christians who receive this Sacrament worthily have by their so doing a share in that which is represented by it the Death of Christ and the Expiation and other Benefits that follow it This seemed necessary to be fully explained For this Matter how plain soever in it self has been made very dark by the ways in which some have pretended to open it With this I conclude all that belongs to the first Part of the Article and that which was first to be explained of our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament By which we assert a real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ but not of his Body as it is now glorified in Heaven but of his Body as it was broken on the Cross when his blood was shed and separated from it That is his Death with the merit and effects of it are in a visible and federal Act offered in this Sacrament to all worthy Believers By Real we understand True in opposition both to Fiction and Imagination And to those Shadows that were in the Mosaical Dispensation in which the Manna the Rock the brazen Serpent but most eminently the Cloud of Glory were the Types and Shadows of the Messias that was to come With whom came Grace and Truth that is a most wonderful Manifestation of the Mercy or Grace of God and a verifying of the Promises made under the Law In this Sense we acknowledge a real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament Though we are convinced that our first Reformers judged right concerning the use of the Phrase real Presence that it were better to be let fall than to be continued since the Use of it and that Idea which does naturally arise from the common acceptation of it may stick deeper and feed Superstition more than all thoâ—e larger Explanations that are given to it can be able to cure But howsoever in this Sense it is innocent of it self and may be lawfully used though perhaps it were more cautiously done not to use it since advantages have been taken from it to urge it farther than we intend it and since it has been a snare to some I go in the next Place to explain the Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning this Sacrament Transubstantiation does express it in one Word but that a full Idea may be given of this Part of their Doctrine I shall open it in all its Branches and Consequences The Matter of this Sacrament is not Bread and Wine For they are annihilated when the Sacrament is made They are only the remote Matter out of which it is made But when the Sacrament is made they cease to be And instead of them their outward Appearances or Accidents do only remain Which though they are no Substances yet are supposed to have a Nature and Essence of their own separable from Matter And these Appearances with the Body of Christ under them are the Matter of the Sacrament Now though the Natural and Visible Body of Christ could not be the Sacrament of his Body yet they think his real Body being thus veiled under the Appearances of Bread and Wine may be the Sacrament of his glorified Body Yet it seeming somewhat strange to make a true Body the Sacrament of it self they would willingly put the Sacrament in the Appearances but that would sound very harsh to make Accidents which are not Matter to be the Matter of the Sacrament Therefore since these words This is my Body must be literally understood the Matter must be the true Body of Christ so that Christ's Body is the Sacrament of his Body Christ's Body though now in Heaven is as they think presented in every Place where a true Consecration is made And though it is in Heaven in an extended State as all other Bodies are yet they think that Extension may be separated from Matter as well as the other Appearances or Accidents are believed to be separated from it And whereas our Souls are believed to be so in our Bodies that though the whole Soul is in the whole Body yet all the Soul is believed to be in every Part of it but so that if any Part of the Body is separated from the rest the Soul is not divided being one single Substance but retires back into the rest of the Body They apprehend that Christ's Body is present after
in that time From the Institution and Command which are express and positive we go next to consider the nature of Sacramental Actions They have no virtue in them as Charms tyed either to Elements or to words they are only good because commanded A different state of things may indeed justifie an alteration as to Circumstances The danger of dipping in cold Climates may be a very good reason for changing the Form of Baptism to Sprinkling and if Climates were inhabited by Christians to which Wine could not be brought we should not doubt but that whensoever God makes a real necessity of departing from any Institution of his he does thereby allow of such a change as that necessity must draw after it So we do not condemn the License that is said to have been granted by Pope Innocent the Eighth to celebrate without Wine in Norway nor should we deny a Man the Sacrament who had a natural and unconquerable aversion to Wine or that Communicated being near his last Agonies and that should have the like aversion to either of the Elements When those things are real and not pretended Mercy is better then Sacrifice The punctual observance of a Sacramental Institution does only oblige us to the essential parts of it and in ordinary Cases The pretence of what may be done or has been done upon extraordinary occasions can never justifie the deliberate and unnecessary alteration of an essential part of the Sacrament The whole Institution shews very plainly that our Saviour meant that the Cup should be considered every whit as essential as Bread and therefore we cannot but conclude from the nature of things that since the Sacraments have only their effects from their Institution therefore so total a change of this Sacrament does plainly evacuate the Institution and by consequence destroy the effect of it All reasoning upon this Head is an arguing against the Institution as if Christ and his Apostles had not well enough considered it but that 1200 years after them a Consequence should be observed that till then had not been thought of which made it reasonable to alter the manner of it The Concomitance is the great thing that is here urged since it is believed that Christ is intirely under each of the Elements and therefore it is not necessary that both should be received because Christ is fully received in any one But this subsists on the Doctrine of Transubstantiation so if that is false then here upon a controverted opinion an uncontroverted piece of the Institution is altered And if Concomitance is a certain consequence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation then it is a very strong Argument against the Antiquity of that Doctrine that the World was so long without the notion of Concomitance and therefore if Transubstantiation had been sooner received the Concomitance would have been more early observed The Institution of the Sacrament seems to be so laid down as rather to make us consider the Body and Blood as in a state of Separation than of Concomitance the Body being represented apart and the Blood apart and the Body as broken and the Blood as shed Therefore we consider the design of the Sacrament is to represent Christ to us as dead and in his Crucified but not in his Glorified state And if the opinion be true that the Glorified Bodies are of another Texture than that of flesh and Blood which seems to be very plainly asserted by St. Paul in a Discourse intended to describe the nature of the Glorified Bodies then this Theory of Concomitance will fail upon that account But whatsoever may be in that an Institution of Christ's must not be altered or violated upon the account of an Inference that is drawn to conclude it needless He who instituted it knew best what was most fitting and most reasonable and we must choose rather to acquiesce in his Commands than in our own reasonings If next to the Institution and the Theory that arises from the nature of a Sacrament we consider the practice of the Christian Church in all Ages there is not any one point in which the Tradition of the Church is more express and more universal than in this particular for above a thousand years after Christ. All the accounts that we have of the Antient Rituals both in Iustin Martyr Cyril of Ierusalem the Constitutions Apol. 2. Catech. Mist. 4ta Const. Apost l. 2. c. 57. Eccles. Hiera c. 3. and the pretended Areopagite do expresly mention both kinds as given separately in the Sacrament All the Antient Liturgies as well these that go under the Names of the Apostles as those which are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom do mention this very expresly all the Offices of the Western Church both Roman and others the Missals of the latter Ages I mean down to the Twelfth Century even the Ordo Romanus believed by some to be a work of the Ninth and by others of the Eleventh Century are express in mentioning the distribution of both kinds All the Fathers without excepting one do speak of it very clearly as the universal practice of their Time They do not so much as give a hint of any difference about it So that from Ignatius down to Thomas Aquinas Aquin. Com. in 6. Johan v. 53. In Summa par 9. quast 80. art 12. there is not any one Writer that differs from the rest in this point and even Aquinas speaks of the taking away the Chalice as the practice only of some Churches other Writers of his time had not heard of any of these Churches for they speak of both kinds as the Universal practice But besides this general concurrence there are some Specialties in this matter in St. Cyprian's time some thought it was not necessary to use Wine in the Sacrament they therefore used Water only and were from thence called Aquarii It seems they found that their Morning Assemblies were smelt out by the Wine used in the Sacrament and Christians might be known by the smell of Wine that was still about them they therefore intended to avoid this and so they had no Wine among them which was a much weightier reason than that of the Wine sticking upon the Beards of the Laity Yet St. Cyprian condemned this very severely Cyp. Ep. 63. ad Cecil in a long Epistle writ upon that occasion He makes this the main Argument and goes over it frequently and that we ought to follow â—hrist and do what he did And he has those memorable words If it be not lawful to loose any one of the least Commands of Christ how much more is it unlawful to break so great and so weighty a one that does so very nearly relate to the Sacrament of our Lord's Passion and of our Redemption or by any Human Institution to change it into that which is quite different from the Divine Institution This is so full that we cannot express our selves more plainly Among the other Profanations of the Manicheans
him again and put him to an open shame when they are so faulty as the Corinthians were in observing this Holy Institution with so little Reverence and with such scandalous Disorders as those were for which he reproached them Of such as did thus Prophane this Institution he says farther that they do eat and drink their own Damnation or Iudgment that is Punishment for the word rendred Damnation signifies sometimes only temporary Punishments So it is said 1 Pet. 4.17 that Iudgment the Word is the same must begin at the House of God God had sent such Judgments upon the Corinthians for those disorderly Practices of theirs that some had fallen sick and others had died perhaps by reason of their drinking to excess in those Feasts But as God's Judgments have come upon them so the words that follow shew that these Judgments were only Chastisements in order to the delivering them from the Condemnation under which the World lies It being said that when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord 32. v. that we should not be condemned with the World Therefore though God may very justly and even in great Mercy punish Men who prophane this Holy Ordinance yet it is an unreasonable Terrour and contrary to the Nature of the Gospel Covenant to carry this so far as to think that it is an impardonable Sin which is punished with eternal Damnation We have now seen the ill Effects of unworthy Receiving and from hence according to that Gradation that is to be observed in the Mercy of God in the Gospel that it not only holds a Proportion with his Justice but rejoyceth over it we may well conclude that the good Effects upon the worthy receiving of it are equal if not superiour to the bad Effects upon the unworthy receiving of it And that the Nourishment which the Types the Bread and the Wine give the Body are answered in the Effects that the thing signified by them has upon the Soul In explaining this there is some diversity Some teach that this Memomorial of the Death of Christ when seriously and devoutly gone about when it animates our Faith encreases our Repentance and inflames our Love and Zeal and so unites us to God and to our Brethren that I say when these follow it which it naturally excites in all holy and good Minds then they draw down the returns of Prayer and a farther increase of Grace in us according to the Nature and Promises of the New Covenant And in this they put the Vertue and Efficacy of this Sacrament But others think that all this belongs only to the inward Acts of the Mind and is not Sacramental And therefore they think that the Eucharist is a federal Act in which as on the one Hand we renew our Baptismal Covenant with God so on the other Hand we receive in the Sacrament a visible Consignation as in a Tradition by a Symbol or Pledge of the blessings of the New Covenant which they think is somewhat superadded to those returns of our Prayers or of our other inward Acts. This they think answers the nourishment which the Body receives from the Symbols of Bread and Wine and stands in opposition to that of the unworthy Receivers being guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and their eating and drinking that which will bring some judgment upon themselves This they also found on these words of St. Paul The cup of blessing that we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ St. Paul considers the Bread which was offered by the People as an emblem of their Unity that as there was one Loaf so they were one Body and that they were all partakers of that one Loaf From hence it is inferred that since the word rendred Communion signifies a communication in fellowship or Partnership that therefore the meaning of it is that in the Sacrament there is a distribution made in that Symbolical action of the death of Christ 2 Cor. 13. last verse Phil. 2.1 Eph. 3.9 and of the benefits and effects of it The Communion of the Holy Ghost is a common sharing in the effusion of the Spirit the same is meant by that if there is any fellowship of the Spirit that is if we do all partake of the same Spirit We are said to have a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ Phil. 3.10 in which every one must take his share The communication or fellowship of the mystery of the Gospel was its being shared equally among both Iews and Gentiles and the fellowship in which the first Converts to Christianity lived was their liberal distribution to one another they holding all things in common In these and some other places it is certain that Communion signifies somewhat that is more real and effectual than merely mens owning themselves to be joined together in a Society which it is true it does also often signify and therefore they conclude that as in Bargains or Covenants the ancient Method of them before Writings were invented was the mutual delivering of some Pledges which were the Symbols of that Faith which was so plighted instead of which the sealing and delivering of Writings is now used among us so our Saviour instituted this in compliance with our frailty to give us an outward and sensible Pledge of his entring into Covenant with us of which the Bread and Wine are constituted the Symbols Others think that by the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ can only be meant the joint owning of Christ and of his Death in the receiving the Sacrament and that no Communication nor Partnership can be inferred from it Because St. Paul brings it in to shew the Corinthians how detestable a thing it was for a Christian to join in the Idols Feasts That it was to be a partaker with devils So they think that the Fellowship or Communion of Christians in the Sacrament must be of the same Nature with the fellowship of devils in Acts of Idolatry Which consisted only in associating themselves with those that worshipped Idols for that upon the Matter was the Worshipping of Devils And this seems to be confirmed by that which is said of the Iews 1 Cor. 10.18 20. that they who did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar which it seems can signify no more but that they professed that Religion of which the Altar was the chief Instrument the Sacrifices being offered there To all this it may be replied that it is reasonable enough to believe that according to the Power which God suffered the Devil to exercise over the Idolatrous World there might be some Inchantment in the Sacrifices offered to Idols and that the Devil might have some Power over those that did partake of them And in order to this St. Paul removed an Objection that might have been made that there could be no harm in
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily
26. in Joan. St. Augustin expresses himself in the very Words that are cited in the Article which he introduces with these words He that does not abide in Christ and in whom Christ does not abide certainly does not spiritually eat his Flesh nor drink his Blood tho he may visibly and carnally press with his Teeth the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ But he rather eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a Matter to his Condemnation And in another Place he says Lib 21. de Civ Dei c. 25. Neither are they speaking of vitious Persons to be said to eat the Body of Christ because they are not his Members to which he adds He that says Whoso eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him shews what it is not only in a Sacrament but truly to eat the Body of Christ and to drink his Blood He has upon another Occasion those frequently cited Words speaking of the difference between the other Disciples and Iudas in receiving this Sacrament Tract 54. in Joan. These did eat the Bread that was the Lord panem Dominum but he the Bread of the Lord against the Lord panem Domini contra Dominum To all this a great deal might be added to shew that this was the Doctrine of the Greek Church even after Damascene's Opinion concerning the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ was received among them But more needs not be said concerning this since it will be readily granted that if we are in the Right in the main Point of denying the corporal Presence that this will fall with it ARTICLE XXX Of both Kinds The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to Lay People For both Parts of the Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian Men alike THere is not any one of all the Controversies that we have with the Church of Rome in which the decision seems more easie and shorter than this The words of the Institution are not only equally express and positive as to both kinds but the diversity with which that part that relates to the Cup is set down seems to be as clear a demonstration for us as can be had in a matter of this kind and looks like a special direction given to warn the Church against any corruption that might arise upon this Head To all such as acknowledg the Immediate Union of the Eternal Word with the Human Nature of Christ and the Inspiration by which the Apostles were conducted it must be of great weight to find a Specialty marked as to the Chalice of the Cup it is said Drink ye all of it whereas of the Bread it is only said Take eat so we cannot think the word all was set down without design It is also said of the Cup and they all drank of it which is not said of the Bread We think it no piece of trifling nicety to observe this Specialty The words added to the giving the Cup are very particularly Emphatical Take eat This is my Body which is given for you is not so full an Expression as Drink ye all of this for this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of Sins If the surest way to judg of the extent of any Precept to which a reason is added is to consider the extent of the Reason and to measure the extent of the Precept by that then since all that do communicate need the remission of Sins and a share in the New Covenant the reason that our Saviour joins to the distribution of the Cup proves that they ought all to receive it And if that Discourse in St. Iohn concerning the eating of Christ's Flesh and the drinking his Blood is to be understood of the Sacrament as most of the Roman Church affirm then the drinking Christ's Blood is as necessary to Eternal Life as the eating his Flesh by consequence it is as necessary to receive the Cup as the Bread And it is not easie to apprehend why it should still be necessary to consecrate in both kinds and not likewise to receive in both kinds It cannot be pretended that since the Apostles were all of the Sacred Order therefore their receiving in both kinds is no Precedent for giving the Laity the Cup for Christ gave them both kinds as they were Sinners who were now to be admitted into Covenant with God by the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood They were in that to shew forth his death and were to Take eat and drink in remembrance of him So that this Institution was delivered to them as they were Sinners and not as they were Priests They were not constituted by Christ the Pastors and Governours of his Church till after his Resurrection when he breathed on them and laid his hands on them Joh. 20.22 and blessed them So that at this time they were only Christ's Disciples and Witnesses who had been once sent out by him on an extraordinary Commission but had yet no stated Character fixed upon them To this it is said that Christ by saying Do this constituted them Priests so that they were no more of the Laity when they received the Cup. This is a new conceit taken up by the Schoolmen unknown to all Antiquity There is no sort of Tradition that supports this Exposition nor is there any reason to imagin that Do this signifies any other than a Precept to continue that Institution as a Memorial of Christ's Death and Do this takes in all that went before the taking the giving as well as the blessing and the eating the Bread nor is there any reason to appropriate this to the Blessing only as if by this the Consecrating and Sacrificing Power were conferred on the Priests From all which we conclude both that the Apostles were only Disciples at large without any special characters conferred on them when the Eucharist was instituted and that the Eucharist was given to them only as Disciples that is as Laymen The mention that is made in some places of the new Testament only of breaking of Bread can furnish them with no Argument for it is not certain that these do relate to the Sacrament or if they did it is not certain that they are to be understood strictly for by a Figure common to the Eastern Nations Bread stands for all that belongs to a Meal and if these places are applied to the Sacrament and ought to be strictly understood they will prove too much that the Sacrament may be consecrated in one kind and that the breaking of Bread without the Cup may be understood to be a compleat Sacrament But when St. Paul spoke of this Sacrament he does so distinctly mention the drinking the Cup as well as eating the Bread that it is plain from him how the Apostles understood the words and intent of Christ and how this Sacrament was received
is to be believed  Pr. so also is it to be believed Art 4. MS. Christ did truly arise again  Pr. Christ did truly rise again  MS. until he return to judge all men at the last day  Pr. until he return to judge men at the last day Art 6. MS. to be believed as an Article of the Faith  Pr. to be believed as an Article of Faith  MS. requisite as necessary to Salvation  Pr. requisite or necessary to Salvation  MS. In the name of holy Scripture  Pr. In the name of the holy Scripture  MS. but yet doth it not apply  Pr. but yet doth not apply  MS. Baruch  Pr. Baruch the Prophet  MS. and account them for Canonical  Pr. and account them Canonical Art 8. MS. by most certain warranties of Holy Scripture  Pr. by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture Art 9. MS. but it is the fault  Pr. but is the fault  MS. whereby man is very far gone from his original righteousness  Pr. whereby man is far gone from original righteousness  MS. in them that be regenerated  Pr. in them that are regenerated Art De Gratia non habetur in MS. Art 10. MS. a good will and working in us  Pr. a good will and working with us Art 14. MS. cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety  Pr. cannot be taught without arrogancy and iniquity  MS. we be unprofitable Servants  Pr. we are unprofitable Servants Art 15. MS. sin only except  Pr. sin only excepted MS. to be the Lamb without spot  Pr. to be a Lamb without spot  MS. but we the rest although baptized and born again in Christ yet we all offend  Pr. but all we the rest although baptized and if born in Christ yet offend Art De Blasphemia in Sp. Sanct. non est in MS. Art 16. MS. wherefore the place for Penitence  Pr. wherefore the grant of Repentance Art 17. MS. so excellent a benefit of God given unto them be called according  Pr. so excellent a benefit of God be called according  MS. as because it doth fervently kindle their love  Pr. as because it doth frequently kindle their love Art Omnes Obligantur c. non est in MS. Art 18. MS. to frame his life according to the Law and the light of Nature  Pr. to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature Art 19. MS. congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word  Pr. congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word Art 20. MS. The Church hath Power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of Faith And yet   These words are not in the Original MS.  MS. ought it not to enforce any thing  Pr. it ought not to enforce any thing Art 21. MS. and when they be gathered together forasmuch  Pr. and when they be gathered forasmuch Art 22. MS. is a fond thing vainly invented  Pr. is a fond thing vainly feigned Art 24. MS. in a Tongue not understanded of the People  Pr. in a Tongue not understood of the People Art 25. MS. and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us  Pr. and effectual signs of grace and God's will towards us  MS. and extream annoyling  Pr. and extream unction Art 26. MS. in their own name but do minister by Christ's Commission and authority  Pr. in their own name but in Christ's and do minister by his Commission and authority  MS. and in the receiving of the Sacraments  Pr. and in the receiving the Sacraments MS. and rightly receive the Sacraments  Pr. and rightly do receive the Sacraments Art 27. MS. from others that be not christned but is also a sign  Pr. from others that be not christned but it is also a sign  MS. forgiveness of sin and of our adoption  Pr. forgiveness of sin of our adoption Art 28. MS. to have amongst themselves  Pr. to have among themselves  MS. the bread which we break is a partaking Communion of the body of Christ.  Pr. the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Thrist  MS. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking Communion of the blood of Christ.  Pr. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.  MS. or the change of the Substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood cannot be proved by holy Writ but is repugnant  Pr. or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy Writ but it is repugnant  MS. but the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  Pr. and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  MS. lifted up or worshipped  Pr. lifted up and worshipped Art 31. MS. is the perfect redemption  Pr. is that perfect redemption  MS. to have remission of pain or guilt were forged Fables  Pr. to have remission of pain and guilt were blasphemous Fables Art 33. MS. that hath authority thereto  Pr. that hath authority thereunto Art 34. MS. diversity of countries times and mens manners  Pr. diversity of countries and mens manners  MS. and be ordained and appointed by common autority  Pr. and be ordained and approved by common authority  MS. the consciences of the weak brethren  Pr. the consciences of weak brethren Art 35. MS. of Homilies the Titles whereof we have joined under this Article do contain  Pr. of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain  MS. wholesome Doctrine and necessary for this time as doth the former book which was set forth  Pr. wholesome Doctrine necessary for these times as doth the former book of Homilies which were set forth MS. and therefore are to be read in our Churches by the Ministers diligently plainly and distinctly that they may be understanded of the people  Pr. and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the people  MS. ministred in a tongue known  Pr. ministred in a known tongue Art De Libro Precationum c. non est in MS. Art 36. MS. in the time of the most noble K. Edward the Sixth  Pr. in the time of Edward the Sixth  MS. superstitious or ungodly  Pr. superstitious and ungodly Art 37. MS. whether they be Ecclesiastical or not  Pr. whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil  MS. the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended  Pr. the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended  MS. we give not to our Princes  Pr. we give not our Princes  MS. or of Sacraments  Pr. or of the
the design and effect of the Sin and Trespass-Offerings among the Iews and more particularly of the Goat that was offered up for the Sins of the whole People on the day of Atonement This was a piece of Religion well known both to Iew and Gentile that had a great many Phrases belonging to it such as the Sacrifices being offered for or instead of Sin and in the name or on the account of the Sinner it s bearing of Sin and becoming Sin or the Sin-offering it s being the Reconciliation the Atonement and the Redemption of the Sinner by which the Sin was no more imputed but forgiven and for which the Sinner was accepted When therefore this whole set of Phrases in its utmost extent is very often and in a great variety applied to the Death of Christ it is not possible for us to preserve any Reverence for the New Testament or the Writers of it so far as to think them even honest men not to say Inspired men if we can imagine That in so Sacred and Important a Matter they could exceed so much as to represent that to be our Sacrifice which is not truly so This is a Point that will not bear Figures and Amplifications it must be treated of strictly and with a just exactness of Expression Christ is called the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world he is said to have born our sins on his own body to have been made sin for us John 1.29 1 Pet. 2.24 2 Cor. 5.21 Matth. 20.28 Rom. 3.25 1 Joh 2.1 Eph 1.7 Col. 1.14 20 21. Heb. 9.11 12 13 14 26 28. it is said That he gave his life a ransom for many That he was the propitiation for the sins of the whole world and that we have redemption through his blood even the remission of our sins It is said That he hath reconciled us to his Father in his cross and in the body of his flesh through death That he by his own blood entred in once into the Holy place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us That once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself That he was once offered to bear the sins of many That we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ once for all And That after he had offered one sacrifice for sin he sate down for ever at the right hand of God It is said That we enter into the holiest by the blood of Christ That is the blood of the New Covenant Heb. 10.10 12 14 19 29. Heb. 13.12.20 1 Pet. 1.19 1 Pet. 2.24 1 Pet. 3.18 by which we are sanctified That he hath sanctified the people with his own blood and was the great shepherd of his people through the blood of the everlasting Covenant That we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And That Christ suffered once for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God In these and a great many more passages that he spread in all the parts of the New Testament it is as plain as words can make any thing That the Death of Christ is proposed to us as our Sacrifice and Reconciliation our Atonement and Redemption So it is not possible for any man that considers all this to imagine That Christ's Death was only a Confirmation of his Gospel a Pattern of a holy and patient suffering of Death and a necessary preparation to his Resurrection by which he gave us a clear proof of a Resurrection and by consequence of Eternal Life as by his Doctrine he had shewed us the way to it By this all the high commendations of his Death amount only to this That he by dying has given a vast Credit and Authority to his Gospel which was the powerfullest mean possible to redeem us from Sin and to reconcile us to God But this is so contrary to the whole design of the New Testament and to the true Importance of that great variety of Phrases in which this Matter is set out that at this rate of Expounding Scripture we can never know what we may build upon especially when the great Importance of this thing and of our having right Notions concerning it is well considered St. Paul does in his Epistle to the Romans state an opposition between the Death of Christ Rom 5.12 to the end and the Sin of Adam the ill effects of the one being removed by the other but he plainly carries the Death of Christ much further than that it had only healed the Wound that was given by Adam's Sin for as the judgment was of one sin to Condemnation the free gift is of many offences to justification but in the other places of the New Testament Christ's Death is set forth so fully as a Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World that it is a very false way of arguing to inferr That because in one place That is set in opposition to Adam's Sin that therefore the virtue of it was to go no further than to take away that Sin It has indeed removed that but it has done a great deal more besides Thus it is plain That Christ's Death was our Sacrifice The meaning of which is this That God intending to reconcile the World to himself and to encourage Sinners to repent and turn to him thought fit to offer the pardon of Sin together with the other Blessings of his Gospel in such a way as should demonstrate both the Guilt of Sin and his Hatred of it and yet with that his love of Sinners and his compassions towards them A free Pardon without a Sacrifice had not been so agreeable neither to the Majesty of the Great Governor of the World nor the Authority of his Laws nor so proper a method to oblige men to that strictness and holiness of Life that he designed to bring them to And therefore he thought fit to offer his Pardon and those other Blessings through a Mediator who was to deliver to the World this new and holy Rule of Life and to confirm it by his own unblemisht Life And in conclusion when the Rage of Wicked men who hated him for the Holiness both of his Life and of his Doctrine did work them up into such a fury as to pursue him to a most Violent and Ignominious Death he in compliance with the secret design of his Father did not only go through that dismal series of Sufferings with the most intire Resignation to his Father's Will and with the highest Charity possible towards those who were his most Unjust and Malicious Murderers but he at the same time underwent great Agonies in his Mind which struck him with such an Amazement and Sorrow even to the Death that upon it he did sweat great drops of Blood and on the Cross he felt a withdrawing of those comforts that till then had ever supported him when he cried out
that very credible For this we have only the Testimony of the Apostles who did all attest that they saw it being all together in an open Field When Christ was Walking and Discoursing with them and when he was Blessing them he was parted from them They saw him Ascend till a Cloud received him and took him out of their sight And then Two Angels appeared to them and assured them Acts 1. â—1 That he should come again in like manner as they had seen him Ascend Here is a very particular Relation with many Circumstances in it in which it was not possible for the Apostles to be mistaken So that there being no reason to suspect their Credit this rests upon that Authority But Ten days after it received a much clearer Proof When the Holy Ghost was poured out on them in so visible a manner and with most remarkable effects Immediately upon it they spoke with divers Tongues and wrought many Miracles and all in the Name of Christ. They did often and solemnly disclaim their doing any of those wonderful things by any power of their own They owned that all that they had or did was derived to them from Iesus of Nazareth Acts 3.12 16. of whose Resurrection and Ascension they were appointed to be the Witnesses Christ's coming again to judge the World at the last day is so often affirmed by himself in the Gospel and is so frequently mentioned in the Writings of his Apostles that this is a main part of his Doctrine So that his Resurrection Ascension together with the Effusion of the Holy Ghost having in general proved his Mission and his whole Doctrine this is also proved by them Enough seems to be said in Proof of all the parts of this Article it remains only that somewhat should be added in Explanation of them As to the Resurrection it is to little purpose to Enquire whether our Saviour's Body was kept all the while in a compleat Organisation that so by this Miracle it might be preserved in a Natural State for his Soul to re-enter it Or whether by the Course of Nature the vast Number of the inward Conveyances that are in the Body were stopt and if all of a sudden when the time of the Resurrection came all was again put in a vital State fit to be animated by his Soul There must have been a Miracle either way So it is to little purpose to enquire into it The former though a continued Miracle yet seemes to agree more fully to these words Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption It is to as little purpose to enquire how our Saviour's new Body was supplied with Blood Since he had lost the greatest part of it on the Cross. Whether that was again by the power of God brought back into his Veins or whether as he himself had formerly said That Man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God Blood was supplied by Miracle Or whether his Body that was then of the Nature of a Glorified Body though yet on Earth needed the supplies of Blood to furnish new Spirits for serving the natural Functions He Eating and Drinking so seldom that we may well believe it was done rather to satisfy his Apostles than to answer the Necessities of Nature These are Curiosities that signify so little if we could certainly resolve them that it is to no purpose to enquire about them since we cannot know what to determine in them This in general is certain that the same Soul returned back to the same Body so that the same Man who died rose again and that is our Faith We need not trouble our selves with enquiring how to make out the Three Days of Christ's being in the Grave Days stand in the common acceptation for a Portion of a Day We know the Iews were very exact to the Rest on the Sabbath so the Body was without question laid in the Grave before the Sun-set on Friday so that was the First day the Sabbath was a compleat one and a good part of the Third day that is the Night with which the Iews began to count the day was over before he was raised up As for his stay on Earth forty days we cannot pretend to give an account of it whether his Body was passing through a slow and Physical Purification to be meet for Ascending or whether he intended to keep a proportion between his Gospel and the Law of Moses that as he suffered at the time of their killing the Passover so the Effusion of the Holy Ghost was fixed for Pentecost and that therefore he â—ould stay on Earth till that time was near not to put his Apostles upon too long an expectation without his Presence which might be necessary to animate them till they should be endued with Power from on high As to the manner of his Ascension it is also questioned whether the Body of Christ as it ascâ—nded was so wonderfully changed as to put on the Subtility and Purity of an Ethereal Body or whether it 〈…〉 same Form in Heaven that it had on Earth or iâ— it puâ— on a new one It is more probable that it did and that the wonderful Glory that appeared in his Countenance and whole Person at his Trâ—â—sâ—â—gurâ—tion was a manifestation of that more permanent Glory to which it was to be afterwards exalted It seems probable from what St. Paul says 1 Coâ— 15.50 That flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God which relates to our glorified Bodies when we shall bear the Image of the second and the heavenly Adam that Christ's Body has no more the modifications of Flesh and Blood in it and that the Glory of the Celestial Body is of another Nature and Texture than that of the Terrestrial It is easily imagined how this may be and yet the Body to be numerically the same Ver. 40. For all Matter being uniform and capable of all sort of Motion and by consequence of being either much grosser or much purer the same Portion of Matter that made a thick and Heavy Body here on Earth may be put into that Purity and Fineness as to be no longer a fit Inhabitant of this Earth or to breath this Air but to be meet to be transplanted into Ethereal Regions Christ as he went up into Heaven so he had the whole Government of this World put into his hands and the whole Ministry of Angels put under his Command even in his Human Nature So that all things are now in subjection to him All Power and Authority is derived from him 1 Cor. 15.27 28. and he does whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth In him all fulness dwells And as the Mosaical Tabernacle being filled with Glory the Emanations of it did by the Urim and Thummim enlighten and direct that People so out of that Fulness that dwelt Bodily in Christ there is a constant Emanation of his
capable of a vast Inflammation and Elevation by which a man's powers might be exalted to much higher degrees of Knowledge and Capacity The Animal Spirits receiving their Quality from that of the Blood a new and a strong Fermentation in the Blood might râ—ise them and by consequence exalt a man to a much greater sublimity of Thought But with that it might dispose him to be easily inflamed by Appetites and Passions it might put him under the power of his Body and make his Body much more apt to be fired at outward Objects which might sink all Spiritual and pure Ideas in him and raise gross ones with much Fury and Rapidity Hereby his whole frame might be much corrupted and that might go so deep in him that all those who descended from him might be defiled by it as we see Madness and some Chronical Diseases pass from Parents to their Children All this might have been natural and as much the Physical effect of Eating the forbidden Fruit as it seems Immortality would have been that of Eating the Fruit of the Tree of Life This might have been in its nature a slow poison which must end in Death at last It may be very easy to make all this appear probable from Physical Causes A very small Accident may so alter the whole Mass of the Blood that in a very few Minutes it may be totally changed so the Eating the forbidden Fruit might have by a natural chain of things produced all this But this is only an Hypothesis and so is left as such All the Assistance that Revealed Religion can receive from Philosophy is to shew That a reasonable Hypothesis can be offered upon Physical Principles to shew the possibility or rather probability of any particulars that are contained in the Scriptures This is enough to sâ—op the mouths of Deists which is all the use that can be made of such Schemes To return to the main Point of the Fall of Adam He himself was made liable to Death But not barely to cease to live for Death and Life are terms opposite to one another in Scripture In Treating upon these Heads it is said That the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Rom. 6.23 And though the addition of the word Eternal makes the Signification of the one more express yet where it is mentioned without that addition no doubt is to be made but that it is to be so meant As where it is said That to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace And believing we have life through his Name Rom. 8.6 Joh. 20.31 Joh. 5.50 Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life So by the rule of Opposites Death ought to be understood as a word of a general Signification which we who have the Comment of the New Testament to guide us in understanding the Old are not to restrain to a natural Death and therefore when we are said to be the servants of sin unto death we undersâ—and much more by it than a natural Death So God's threatning of Adam with Death ought not to be restrained to a natural Death Adam being thus defiled all Emanations from him must partake of that vitiated State to which he had brought himself But then the Question remains How came the Souls of his Posterity to be defiled for if they were created pure it seems to be an unjust Cruelty to them to condemn them to such an Union to a defiled Body as should certainly corrupt them All that can be said in Answer to this is That God has setled it as a Law in the Creation That a Soul should inform a Body according to the Texture of it and either conquer it or be mastered by it as it should be differently made and that as such a degree of Purity in the Texture of it might make it both pure and happy so a contrary degree of Texture might have very contrary effects And if with this God made another general Law that when all things were duly prepared for the propagation of the Species of Mankind a Soul should be always ready to go into and animate those first Threads and Beginnings of Life those Laws being laid down Adam by corrupting his own frame corrupted the frame of his whole Posterity by the general course of Things and the great Law of the Creation So that the suffering this to run through all the Race is no more only different in degrees and extent than the Suffering the folly or madness of a man to infect his Posterity In these things God acts as the Creator of the World by general Rules and these must not be altered because of the Sins and Disorders of men But they are rather to have their course that so Sin may be its own punishment The defilement of the Race being thus stated a Question remains Whether this can be properly called a Sin and such as deserves God's Wrath and Damnation On the one hand an opposition of Nature to the Divine Nature must certainly be hateful to God as it is the root of much malignity and sin Such a Nature cannot be the Object of his Love and of it self it cannnot be accepted of God Now since there is no mean in God between Love and Wrath Acceptation and Condemnation if such persons are not in the first order they must be in the second Yet it seems very hard on the other hand to apprehend how persons who have never actually sinned but are only unhappily descended should be in consequence to that under so great a misery To this several answers are made Some have thought that those who die before they commit any actual Sin have indeed no share in the favour of God but yet that they pass unto a state in the other World in which they suffer little or nothing The stating this more clearly will belong to another Opinion which shall be afterwards Explained There is a further Question made Whether this Vicious Inclination is a Sin or not Those of the Church of Rome as they believe that Original Sin is quite taken away by Baptism so finding that this corrupt Disposition still remains in us they do from thence conclude that it is no part of Original Sin but that this is the Natural State in which Adam was made at first only it is in us without the restraint or bridle of Supernatural Assistances which was given to him but lost by Sin and restored to us in Baptism But as was said formerly Adam in his first state was made after the Image of God so that his bodily powers were perfectly under the command of his mind This Revolt that we feel our Bodies and Senses are always in cannot be supposed to be God's Original Workmanship There are great Disputings raised concerning the meaning of a long Discourse of St. Paul's the 7th of the Romans concerning a constant struggle that he felt within himself which some arguing
Opus operatum it is conveyed to the Souls of those to whom they are applied unless they themselves put a Bar in the way of it by some mortal Sin In consequence of this they reckon that by the Sacraments given to a Man in his Agonies though he is very near past all Sense and so cannot joyn any lively Acts of his Mind with the Sacraments yet he is justified not to mention the common practice of giving Extreme Unction in the last Agony when no appearance of any Sense is left This we reckon a Doctrine that is not only without all Foundation in Scripture but that tends to destroy all Religion and to make Men live on securely in Sin trusting to this that the Sacraments may be given them when they die The Conditions of the New Covenant are Repentance Faith and Obedience and we look on this as the corrupting the Vitals of this Religion when any such means are proposed by which the main Design of the Gospel is quite overthrown The business of a Character is an unintelligible Notion We acknowledge Baptism is not to be repeated but that is not by virtue of a Character imprinted in it but because it being a Dedication of the Person to God in the Christian Religion what is once so done is to be understood to continue still in that State till such a Person falls into an open Apostacy In case of the Repentance of such a Person we finding that the Primitive Church did reconcile but not rebaptize Apostates do imitate that their Practice but not because of this late and unexplicable Notion of a Character We look on all Sacramental Actions as acceptable to God only with regard to the Temper and the inward Acts of the Person to whom they are applied and cannot consider them as Medicines or Charms which work by a Virtue of their own whether the Person to whom they are applied co-operates with them or not Baptism is said by St. Peter to save us not as it is an Action that washes us Not the putting away the filth of the flesh 1 Pet. 3.21 but the answer of a good conscience towards God And therefore Baptism without this Profession is no Baptism but seems to be used as a Charm unless it is said that this Answer or Profession is implied whensoever Baptism is desired When a Person of Age desires Baptism he must make those Answers and Sponsions otherwise he is not truly Baptized and though his outward making of them being all that can fall under Human Cognizance he who does that must be held to be truly baptized and all the outward Priviledges of a baptized Person must belong to him yet as to the effect of Baptism on the Soul of him that is baptized without doubt that depends upon the sincerity of the Professions and Vows made by him The Wills of Infants are by the Law of Nature and Nations in their Parents and are transferred by them to their Sureties the Sponsions that are made on their behalf are considered as made by themselves but there the outward Act is sufficient for the inward Acts of one Person cannot be supposed necessary to give the Sacrament its Virtue in another 1 Cor. 10 1â— In the Eucharist by our shewing forth our Lord's Death till he comes we are admitted to the Communion of his Body and Blood To a share in Partnership with other Christians in the Effects and Merits of his Death But the unworthy Receiver is guilty of his Body and Blood and brings thereby down Judgments upon himself so that to fancy a Virtue in Sacraments that works on the Person to whom they are applied without any inward Acts accompanying it and upon his being only Passive is a Doctrine of which we find nothing in the Scriptures which teach us that every thing we do is only accepted of God with regard to the Disposition of Mind that he knows us to be in when we go about it Our Prayers and Sacrifices are so far from being accepted of God that they are Abomination to him if they come from wicked and defiled Hearts The making Men believe that Sacraments may be effectual to them when they are next to a State of Passivity not capable of any sensible thoughts of their own is a sure way to raise the Credit of the Clergy and of the Sacrament but at the same time it will most certainly dispose Men to live in Sin hoping that a few Rites which may be easily procured at their Death will clear all at last And thus we reject not without great Zeal against the fatal Effects of this Error all that is said of the Opus operatum the very doing of the Sacrament we think it looks liker the Incantations of Heathenism than the Purity and Simplicity of the Christian Religion But the other Extream that we likewise avoid is that of sinking the Sacraments so low as to be meer Rites and Ceremonies St. Peter says Baptism saves us St. Paul calls it The laver of Regeneration to which he joyns the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 Mark 16.16 John 3.3 5. Our Saviour saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and except ye are born again of Water and of the Spirit ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God These Words have a Sense and Signification that rises far above a meer Ceremony done to keep up Order and to maintain a settled Form The Phrase Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is above the Nature of an Anniversary or Memorial Feast This Opinion we think is very unsuitable to those high Expressions and we do not doubt but that Christ who instituted those Sacraments does still accompany them with a particular Presence in them and a Blessing upon them so that we coming to them with Minds well prepared with pure Affections and holy Resolutions do certainly receive in and with them particular largesses of the Favour and Bounty of God They are not bare and naked Remembrances and Tokens but are actuated and animated by a Divine Blessing that attends upon them This is what we believe on this Head and these are the Grounds upon which we found it A Sacrament is an Institution of Christ in which some material thing is sanctified by the use of some Form or Words in and by which federal Acts of this Religion do pass on both sides on ours by Stipulations Professions or Vows and on God's by his secret Assistances by these we are also united to the Body of Christ which is the Church It must be Instituted by Christ for though Ritual Matters that are only the Expressions of our Duty may be appointed by the Church yet federal Acts to which a conveyance of Divine Grace is tied can only be instituted by him who is the Author and Mediator of this New Covenant and who lays down the Rules or Conditions of it and derives the Blessings of it by what Methods and in what Channels he thinks fit
Whatsoever his Apostles settled was by Authority and Commission from him therefore it is not to be denied but that if they had appointed any Sacramental Action that must be reckoned to be of the same Authority and is to be esteemed Christ's Institution as much as if he himself when on Earth had appointed it Matter is of the Essence of a Sacrament for Words without some material thing to which they belong may be of the Nature of Prayers or Vows but they cannot be Sacraments Receiving a Sacrament is on our part our Faith plighted to God in the use of some material Substance or other for in this consists the difference between Sacraments and other Acts of Worship The latter are only Acts of the Mind declared by Words or Gesture whereas Sacraments are the Application of a material Sign joyned with Acts of the Mind Words and Gestures With the Matter there must be a Form that is such Words joyned with it as do appropriate the Matter to such an use and separate it from all other uses at least in the Act of the Sacrament For in any piece of Matter alone there cannot be a proper suitableness to such an end as seems to be designed by Sacraments and therefore a Form must determine and apply it and it is highly suitable to the nature of Things to believe that our Saviour who has Instituted the Sacrament has also either Instituted the Form of it or given us such hints as to lead us very near it The end of Sacraments is double the one is by a Solemn Federal Action both to unite us to Christ and also to derive a secret Blessing from him to us And the other is to joyn and unite us by this publick Profession and the joynt partaking of it with his Body which is the Church This is in general an Account of a Sacrament This it is true is none of those Words that are made use of in Scripture so that it has no determined Signification given to it in the Word of God yet it was very early applied by Pliny to those Vows by which the Christians tied themselves to their Religion Lib. 10. Ep. 97. taken from the Oaths by which the Soldiery among the Romans were sworn to their Colours or Officers and from that time this Term has been used in a Sense consecrated to the Federal Rites of Religion Yet if any will dispute about Words we know how much St. Paul condemns all those curious and vain Questions which have in them the Subtilties and Oppositions of Science falsly so called If any will call every Rite used in Holy Things a Sacrament 1 Tim. 6.20 we enter into no such Contentions The Rites therefore that we understand when we speak of Sacraments are the constant Federal Rites of Christians which are accompanied by a Divine Grace and Benediction being instituted by Christ to unite us to him and to his Church and of such we own that there are Two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. In Baptism there is Matter Water there is a Form the Person Dipped or Washed with words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 There is an Institution Go preach and baptize there is a Federal Sponsion 1 Pet. 3.21 Matth. 26.26 27. The answer of a good Conscience there is a Blessing conveyed with it Baptism save us there is one baptism as there is one body and one spirit we are all baptized into one body So that here all the constituent and necessary Parts of a Sacrament are found in Baptism In the Lord's Supper there is Bread and Wine for the Matter The giving it to be Eat and Drunk with the Words that our Saviour used in the first Supper are the Form Do this in remembrance of me is the Institution Ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come again 1 Cor. 11.23 to 27. is the Declaration of the Federal Act of our part It is also the Communion of the body and of the blood of Christ that is the conveyance of the Blessings of our Partnership in the Effects of the Death of Christ. 1 Cor. 10.16 17. And we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all partakers of that one Bread this shews the Union of the Church in this Sacrament Here then we have in these two Sacraments both Matter Form Institution Federal Acts Blessings conveyed and the Union of the Body in them All the Characters which belong to a Sacrament agree fully to them In the next place we must by these Characters examine the other pretended Sacraments It is no wonder if the word Sacrament being of a large extent there should be some Passages in Ancient Writers that call other Actions so besides Baptism and the Lord's Supper for in a larger Sense every Holy Rite may be so called But it is no small prejudice against the number of Seven Sacraments that Peter Lombard a Writer in the Twelfth Century is the first that reckons Seven of them From that Mystical Expression of the Seven Spirits of God there came a conceit of the sevenfold Operation of the Spirit Lib. 3. Dist. 2. and it looked like a good Illustration of that to assert Seven Sacraments This Pope Eugenius put in his Instruction to the Armenians which is published with the Council of Florence and all was finally settled at Trent Now there might have been so many fine Allusions made on the number Seven and some of the Ancients were so much set on such Allusions that since we hear nothing of that kind from any of them we may well conclude that this is more than an ordinary Negative Argument against their having believed that there were Seven Sacraments To go on in order with them The first that we reject which is reckoned by them the second is Confirmation But to explain this we must consider in what respect our Church receives Confirmation and upon what reasons it is that she does not acknowledge it to be a Sacrament We find that after Philip the Deacon and Evangelist had converted and baptized some in Samaria Peter and Iohn were sent thither by the Apostles Acts 8.12 14 15 16 17. who laid their hands on such as were baptized and prayed that they might receive the Holy Ghost upon which it is said that they received the Holy Ghost Now though ordinary Functions when performed by the Apostles such as their laying on of Hands in those whom they Ordained or Confirmed had extraordinary Effects accompanying them but when the extraordinary Effects ceased the end for which these were at first given being accomplished the Gospel having been fully attested to the World yet the Functions were still continued of Confirmation as well as Ordination And as the laying on of Hands Heb. 6.2 that is reckoned among the Principles of the Christian Doctrine after Repentance and Faith and subsequent to Baptism seems very
among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's Death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. Transubstantiation or the change of the Substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be Proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner and the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and Worshipped In the Edition of these Articles in Edward the VIth's Reign there was another long Paragraph against Transubstantiation added in these words Forasmuch as the Truth of Man's Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one time in divers places but must needs be in one certain place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places And because as Holy Scripture doth teach Christ was taken up into Heaven and there shall continue unto the end of the World a Faithful Man ought not either to Believe or openly Confess the Real and Bodily Presence as they term it of Christ's Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper WHEN these Articles were at first prepared by the Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign this Paragraph was made a part of them for the Original Subscription by both Houses of Convocation yet extant shews this But the design of the Government was at that time much turned to the drawing over the Body of the Nation to the Reformation in whom the old Leven had gone deep and no part of it deeper than the belief of the Corporeal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a Definition in this matter in which the very word Real Presence was rejected It might perhaps be also suggested that here a Definition was made that went too much upon the Principles of Natural Philosophy which how true soever they might not be the proper subject of an Article of Religion Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this Paragraph though it was a part of the Article that was Subscribed yet it was not published but the Paragraph that follows The Body of Christ c. was put in its stead and was received and published by the next Convocation which upon the matter was a full Explanation of the way of Christ's Presence in this Sacrament that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that Faith is the mean by which he is received This seemed to be more Theological and it does indeed amount to the same thing But howsoever we see what was the Sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's Time And therefore though this Paragraph is now no Part of our Articles yet we are certain that the Clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the Truth of it we are sure it was their Opinion Since they subscribed it though they did not think fit to publish it at first and though it was afterwards changed for another that was the same in Sense In the treating of this Article I shall first lay down the Doctrine of this Church with the Grounds of it and then I shall examine the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which must be done copiously For next to the Doctrine of Infallibility this is the most valued of all their other Tenets this is the most Important in it self since it is the main Part of their Worship and the chief Subject of all their Devotions There is not any one thing in which both Clergy and Laity are more concerned which is more generally studied and for which they pretend they have more plausible Colours both from Scripture and the Fathers and if Sense and Reason seem to press hard upon it they reckon that as they understand the Words of St. Paul every thought must be captivated into the obedience of Faith 2 Cor. 10.5 In order to the expounding our Doctrine we must consider the Occasion and the Institution of this Sacrament The Iews were required once a Year to meet at Ierusalem in remembrance of the deliverance of their Fathers out of Egypt Exod. 12.11 Moses appointed that every Family should kill a Lamb whose Blood was to be sprinkled on their Door-posts and Lintels and whose Flesh they were to eat at the sight of which Blood thus sprinkled the destroying Angel that was to be sent out to kill the First-born of every Family in Egypt was to pass over all the Houses that were so marked And from that passing by or over the Israelites the Lamb was called the Lord's passover as being then the Sacrifice and afterwards the Memorial of that Passover The People of Israel were required to keep up the Memorial of that Transaction by slaying a Lamb before the Place where God should set his Name and by eating it up that Night They were also to eat with it a Sallet of bitter Herbs and unleavened Bread and when they went to eat of the Lamb they repeated these Words of Moses That it was the Lord's Passover Now tho' the first Lamb that was killed in Egypt was indeed the Sacrifice upon which God promised to pass over their Houses yet the Lambs that were afterwards offered were only the Memorials of it though they still carried that Name which was given to the First And were called the Lord's Passover So that the Iews were in the Paschal-Supper accustomed to call the Memorial of a thing by the Name of that of which it was the Memorial And as the Deliverance out of Egypt was a Type and Representation of that greater Deliverance that we were to have by the Messias the first Lamb being the Sacrifice of that Deliverance 1 Cor. 5.7 John 1.29 Compare Matt. 26.26 Mark 14.22 and the succeeding Lambs the Memorials of it so in order to this new and greater Deliverance Christ himself was our Passover that was sacrificed for us He was the Lamb of God that was both to take away the Sins of the World and was to lead Captivity Captive To bring us out of the Bondage of Sin and Satan into the Obedience of his Gospel He therefore chose the time of the Passover that he might be then offered up for us And did Institute this Memorial of it while he was celebrating the Iewish Pascha with his Disciples who were so much accustomed to the Forms and Phrases of that Supper in which every Master of a
the remission of Sins and that he was to substitute Bread and Wine to be the lasting Memorials of it in the repeating of which his Disciples were to renew their Covenant with God and to claim a share in the blessings of it this I say was the Sense that must naturally have occurred to a Iew upon all this we must conclude that this is the true Sense of these Words Or that otherwise our Saviour must have enlarged more upon them and expressed his meaning more particularly Since therefore he said no more than what according to the Ideas and Customs of the Iews must have been understood as has been explained we must conclude that it and it only is the true Sense of them But we must next consider the importance of a long Discourse of our Saviour's set down by St. Iohn which seems such a preparation of his Apostles to understand this Institution literally John 6.32 33. that the weight of this Argument must turn upon the meaning of that Discourse The design of that was to shew that the Doctrine of Christ was more Excellent than the Law of Moses that though Moses gave the Israelites Manna from Heaven to nourish their Bodies yet notwithstanding that they died in the Wilderness But Christ was to give his Followers such Food that it should give them Life so that if they did eat of it they should never die Where it is apparent that the Bread and nourishment must be such as the life was and that being Eternal and Spiritual the Bread must be so understood For it is clearly expressed how that Food was to be received he that believeth on me hath everlasting life 40. v. Since then he had formerly said that the Bread which he was to give should make them live for ever and since here it is said that this Life is given by Faith then this Bread must be his Doctrine For this is that which Faith receives And when the Iews desired him to give them evermore of that Bread he answered I am the bread of life he that comes to me shall never hunger 47 48 51. v. and he that believeth on me shall never thirst In these words he tells them that they received that Bread by coming to him and by believing on him Christ calls himself that Bread and says that a Man must eat thereof which is plainly a Figure and if Figures are confessed to be in some Parts of their Discourse there is no reason to deny that they run quite through it Christ says that this Bread was his flesh which he was to give for the life of the world which can only be meant of his Offering himself up upon the Cross for the Sins of the World The Iews murmured at this and said how can this Man give us his flesh to eat To which our Saviour answers That except they did eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man 53 54 55. v. they had no life in them Now if these words are to be understood of a literal eating of his Flesh in the Sacrament then no Man can be saved that does not receive it It was a natural Consequence of the expounding these Words of the Sacrament to give it to Children since it is so expresly said that Life is not to be had without it But the words that come next carry this Matter farther whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life It is plain that Christ is here speaking of that without which no Man can have Life and by which all who receive it have Life if therefore this is to be expounded of the Sacrament none can be damned that does receive it and none can be saved that receives it not Therefore since eternal life does always follow the eating of Christ's flesh and the drinking his blood and cannot be had without it then this must be meant of an Internal and Spiritual feeding on him For as none are saved without that so all are saved that have it This is yet clearer from the words that follow my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed It may well be inferred that Christ's Flesh is eaten in the same Sense in which he says it is meat now certainly it is not literally meat For none do say that the Body is nourished by it and yet there is somewhat Emphatical in this since the word indeed is not added in vain but to give weight to the Expression It is also said He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him â—6 v. Here the description seems to be made of that eating and drinking of his Flesh and Blood that it is such as the mutual indwelling of Christ and Believers is Now that is certainly only Internal and Spiritual and not Carnal or Literal And therefore such also must the eating and drinking be All this seems to be very fully confirmed from the Conclusion of that Discourse which ought to be considered as the Key to it all for when the Iews were offended at the hardness of Christ's Discourse he said It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing v. 6â— The words I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life Which do plainly Import that his former Discourse was to be understood in a spiritual Sense that it was a divine Spirit that quickned them or gave them that eternal Life of which he had been speaking And that the Flesh his natural Body was not the conveyer of it All this is confirmed by the Sense in which we find eating and drinking frequently used in the Scriptures according to what is observed by Iewish Writers they stand for Wisdom Learning and all intellectual Apprehensions through which the Soul of Man is preserved by the Perfection that is in them as the Body is preserved by Food So buy and eat eat fat of things drink of wine well refined Maimonides also observes Mâ—râ— Nevochim that whensoever eating and drinking are mentioned in the Book of Proverbs that they are to be understood of Wisdom and the Law And after he has brought several Places of Scripture to this Purpose He concludes that because this acceptation of eating occurs so often and is so manifest as if it were the primary and most proper Sense of the Word therefore hunger and thirst stand for a privation of Wisdom and Vnderstanding And the Caldee Paraphrast turns these Words ye shall draw Water out of the Wells of Salvation thus
is not done to this day in the Greek Church and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the Offices of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries so copiously this I say of their not adoring it is perhaps more than a presumption that this Doctrine was not then thought on But since it was established all the Old Forms and Rituals have been altered and the Adoring the Sacrament is now become the main act of Devotion and of Religious Worship among them One ancient Form is indeed still continued which is of the strongest kind of Presumptions that this Doctrine came in much later than some other Superstitions which we condemn in that Church In the Masses that are appointed on Saints-days there are some Collects in which it is said that the Sacrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint and it is prayed that it may become the more valuable and acceptable by the Merits and Intercessions of the Saint Now when a practice will well agree with one Opinion but not at all with another we have all possible reason to presume at least that at first it came in under that Opinion with which it will agree and not under another which cannot consist with it Our Opinion is that the Sacrament is a federal act of our Christianity in which we offer up our highest Devotions to God through Christ and receive the largest Returns from him It is indeed a Superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint but howsoever upon the supposition of Saints hearing our Prayers and Interceding for us there is still good sense in this but if it is believed that Christ is Corporally present and that he is offered up in it it is against all Sense and it approaches to Blasphemy to do this to the Honour of a Saint and much more to desire that this which is of infinite value and is the foundation of all God's Blessings to us should receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the Merits or Intercession of Saints So this tho' a late practice yet does fully evince that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was not yet thought on when it was first brought into the Office So far I have gone upon the Presumptions that may be offered to prove that this Doctrine was not known to the Ancients They are not only just and lawful Presumptions but they are so strong and violent that when they are well considered they force an assent to that which we infer from them I go next to the more plain and direct Proofs that we find of the Opinion of the Ancients in this Matter They call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration Iustin Martyr calls them Bread and Wine Apolog. 2. and a nourishment which nourished He indeed says it is not common Bread and Wine which shews that he thought it was still so in Substance And he illustrates the Sanctification of the Elements by the Incarnation of Christ in which the human Nature did not lose or change its Substance by its Union with the Divine So the Bread and the Wine do not according to that Explanation lose their proper Substance when they become the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Irenoeus calls it that Bread over which thanks are given and says it is no more common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and a heavenly Lib. 4. de haer c. 34. Lib. 1. adver Marcion c. 14. Lib. 3 adver Marcion c. 19. Tertullian arguing against the Marcionites who held two Gods and that the Creator of this Earth was the bad God but that Christ was contrary to him urges against them this that Christ made use of the Creatures And says he did not reject Bread by which he represents his own Body And in another Place he says Christ calls Bread his Body That from thence you may understand that he gave the figure of his Body to the Bread Origen says we eat of the Loaves that are set before us Lib. 8. contâ—a Celsum Which by prayer are become a certain holy body that sanctifies those who use them with a sound purpose St. Cyprian says Christ calls the Bread that was compounded of many grains Ep. â—6 Ep. 63. his Body And the Wine that is pressed out of many grapes his Blood to shew the Vnion of his People And in another Place writing against those who used only Water but no Wine in the Eucharist He says we cannot see the Blood by which we are Redeemed when Wine is not in the Chalice by which the Blood of Christ is shewed Epiphanius being to Prove that Man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he is not like him urges this In Anchoreto That the Bread is not like Christ neither in his invisible Deity nor in his Incarnate likeness for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue Gregory Nyssen says the Bread in the beginning is common In orat de baptis Christi but after the Mystery has consecrated it it is said to be and is the Body of Christ To this he compares the Sanctification of the mystical Oil of the Water in Baptism and the Stones of an Altar or Church dedicated to God St. Ambrose calls it still Bread De Benedict Patriarch c. 9. Hom. 24. in Ep. ad Cor. and says this Bread is made of the food of the Saints St. Chrysostom on these words the Bread that we break says What is the bread The Body of Christ What are they made to be who take it The Body of Christ. Which shews that he considered the Bread as being so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers became his Body which is done not by a change of Substance but by a Sanctification of their Natures St. Ierom says Christ took Bread Comm. in St. Matth. c. 26. that as Melchisedeck had in the figure offered Bread and Wine he might also represent the truth that is in Opposition to the Figure of his Body and Blood St. Augustin does very largely compare the Sacraments being called the Body and Blood of Christ Cit. apud Fulgent de Baptismo with those other Places in which the Church is called his Body and all Christians are his Members Which shews that he thought the One was to be understood Mystically as well as the other He calls the Eucharist frequently our daily Bread and the Sacrament of Bread and Wine All these call the Eucharist Bread and Wine in express Words But when they call it Christ's Body and Blood they call it so after a sort or that it is said to be or with some other mollifying Expression St. Augustin says this plainly Aug. Ep. 23. ad Bonifac Serm. 2. in Psal. 33. Chrys. Ep. ad Caesâ—r in coâ—ment in Ep. ad Gaâ— c. 5. after some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and
the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ he carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostom says the Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord And in another Place reckoning up the improper Senses of the word Flesh he says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries that is the Sacrament by the Name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church is said to be the Body of Christ. So Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and names the Bread by his Body Tertul. Lib. 4. adv Marci c. 40. The Fathers do not only call the consecrated Elements Bread and Wine They do also affirm that they retain their proper Nature and Substance and are the same thing as to their Nature that they were before And the Occasion upon which the Passages that I go next to mention are used by them does prove this Matter beyond Contradiction Apollinaris did broach that Heresy which was afterwards put in full Form by Eutycheâ— and that had so great a Party to support it that as they had one General Council a pretended one at least to favour them so they were condemned by another Their Error was that the human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by the Divine if not while he was here on Earth yet at least after his Ascension to Heaven This Error was confuted by several Writers who lived very wide one from another And at a distance of above a hundred Years one from another St. Chrysostom at Constantinople Theodoret in Asia Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Gelasius Bishop of Rome All those write to Prove that the human Nature did still remain in Christ not changed nor swallowed up but only sanctified by the Divine Nature that was united to it They do all fall into one Argument which very probably those who came after St. Chrysostom took from him Epist. ad Celarium So that though both Theodoret and Gelasius's Words are much fuller yet because the Argument is the same with that which St. Chrysostom had urged against Apollinaris I shall first set down his Words He brings an Illustration from the Doctrine of the Sacrament to shew that the human Nature was not destroyed by its Union with the Divine and has upon that these Words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it And yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son So the divine Nature being joined to the Body Both these make one Son and one Person In Photi Bibli Cod. 229. Ephrem of Antioch says The Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible Substance So Baptism says he does not lose its own sensible Substance and does not lose that which it was before Dial. 1st and 2d â—ont Eutych Theodoret says Christ does honour the Symbols with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but adding grace to nature In another Place pursuing the same Argument he says The mystical Symbols after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature For they continue in their former substance figure and form and are visible and palpable as they were before But they are understood to be that which they are made Pope Gelasius says The Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a divine thing Lib. de duâ—bus nat Christ for which reason we become by them partakers of the divine Nature and yet the substance of Bread and Wine does not cease to exist And the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in holy Mysteries Upon all these Places being compared with the Design with which they were written which was to prove that Christ's Human Nature did still subsist unchanged and not swallowed up by its Union with the Divinity some Reflections are very obvious â—irst If the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had been then received in the Church the natural and unavoidable Argument in this Matter which must put an end to it with all that believed such corporal Presence was this Christ has certainly a natural Body still because the Bread and the Wine are turned to it and they cannot be turned to that which is not In their Writings they argued against the possibility of a substantial Change of a Human Nature into the Divine but that could not have been urged by Men who believed a substantial Mutation to be made in the Sacrament For then the Eutychians might have retorted the Argument with great Advantage upon them The Eutychians did make use of some Expressions that were used by some in the Church which seemed to Import that they did argue from the Sacrament as Theodoret represents their Objections But to that he answers as we have seen denying that any such substantial Change was made The Design of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together and continue so united without the change of their Substances and that this was true in the two Natures in the Person of Christ And to make this more Sensible they bring in the Matter of the Sacrament as a thing known and confessed For in their arguing upon it they do suppose it as a thing out of dispute Now according to the Roman Doctrine this had been a very odd Sort of an Argument to prove that Christ's Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine because the Mysteries or Elements in the Sacrament are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body only they retain the outward appearances of Bread and Wine To this an Eutychian might readily have answered that then the Human Nature might be believed to be destroyed And though Christ had appeared in that likeness he retained only the Accidents of Human Nature but that the Human Nature it self was destroyed as the Bread and the Wine were destroyed in the Eucharist This had been a very absurd way of arguing in the Fathers and had indeed delivered up the Cause to the Eutychians Whereas those Fathers make it an Argument against them to prove that notwithstanding an Uninion of two Beings and such an Union as did communicate a Sanctification from the one to the other yet the two Natures might remain still distinguish'd and that it was so in the Eucharist Therefore it might be so in the Person of Christ. This seems to be so evident an Indication of the Doctrine of the whole Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century when so many of the most eminent Writers of those Ages do urge it so home as an Argument in so great a Point that we can scarce think it possible for any Man to consider it fully without being determined by it
And so far we have considered the Authorities from the Fathers to shew that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain in the Sacrament Another Head of Proof is that they affirm that our Bodies are nourished by the Sacrament which shews very plainly that they had no Notion of a Change of Substance made in it Iustin Martyr calls the Eucharist Apol. 2 That food by which our flesh and blood through its transmutation into them are nourished Irenaeus makes this an Argument for the Resurrection of our Bodies Lib. 5. adv Haeres c. 2. that they are fed by the Body and Blood of Christ When the Cup and the Bread receives the Word of God it becomes the Eucharist of the Body and Blood of Christ by which the substance of our flesh is encreased and subsists And he adds that the flesh is nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ and is made his Member Tertullian says The flesh is fed with the Body and Blood of Christ. Origen explains this very largely on those words of Christ De Resurrect c. 8. In Mat. c. 15. It is not that which enters within a man that defiles the man He says if every thing that goes into the Belly is cast into the Draught then that food which is sanctified by the Word of God and by Prayer goes also into the belly as to that which is material in it and goes from thence into the draught And a little after he adds It is not the matter of the Bread but the Word that is pronounced over it which profits him that eats it in such a way as is not unworthy of the Lord. The Bishops of Spain in a Councel that sat at Toledo in the Seventh Century Con. Tol. 16. Can. 6. condemned those that began to Consecrate Round Wafers and did not offer one intire Loaf in the Eucharist and appointed that for so much of the Bread as remained after the Communion that either it should be put in some Bag or if it was needful to eat it up that it might not oppress the belly of him that took it with an over-charging burden and that it might not go into the digestion They fancying that a lesser quantity made no digestion and produced no Excrement In the Ninth Century both Rabanus Maurus and Heribald believed that the Sacrament was so digested that some part of it turned to Excrement which was also held by divers Writers of the Greek Church whom their Adversaries called by way of reproach Stercoranists Others indeed of the Ancients did think that no part of the Sacrament became Excrement but that it was spread through the whole Substance of the Communicant â—yril Caâ—ech Mest. 5. Chrysost Hom. in Euch. To. 5. Damas lib. 4. de Ortho. fide c. 14. for the good of Body and Soul Both Cyril of Ierusalem St. Chrysostom and Iohn Damascene fell into this conceit but still they thought that it was changed into the Substance of our Bodies and so nourished them without any Excrement coming from any part of it The Fathers do call the Consecrated Elements the Figures the Signs the Symbols the Types and Antitypes the Commemoration the Representation the Mysteries and the Sacraments of the Body and Blood which does evidently demonstrate that they could not think that they were the very Substance of his Body and Blood â—ib 4. adv Maâ—cion c. 40. Tertullian when he is proving that Christ had a true Body and was not a Phantasm argues thus He made Bread to be his Body saying This is my Body that is the figure of my Body From which he argues that since his Body had that for its figure it was a true Body for an empty thing such as a Phantasm is cannot have a figure It is from hence clear that it was not then believed that Christ's Body was literally in the Sacrament for otherwise the Argument would have been much clearer and shorter Christ has a true Body because we believe that the Sacrament is truly his Body than to go and prove it so far about as to say a Phantasm has no figure But the Sacrament is the figure of Christ's Body therefore it is no Phantasm Comm. in Psâ—l 3. St. Austin says He commended and gave to his Disciples the Figure of his Body and Blood And when the Manicheans objected to him that Blood is called in the Old Testament the Life or Soul contrary to what is said in the New He answers that Blood was not the Soul or Life but only the Sign of it and that the Sign sometimes bears the name of that of which it is the Sign â—ib â—â—nt 〈◊〉 1â— So says he Christ did not doubt to say This is my Body when he was giving the Sign of his Body Now that had been a very bad Argument if the Bread was truly the Body of Christ it had proved that the Sign must be one with the thing signified The whole Ancient Liturgies and all the Greek Fathers do so frequently use the words Type Antitype Sign and Mystery that this is not so much as denied it is their constant Style Now it is apparent that a thing cannot be the Type and Symbol of it self And tho' they had more frequent occasions to speak of the Eucharist than either of Baptism or the Chrism yet as they called the Water and the Oyl Types and Mysteries so they bestowed the same descriptions on the Elements in the Eucharist and as they have many strong Expressions concerning the Water and the Oyl that cannot be literally understood so upon the same Grounds it will appear reasonable to give the same Exposition to some high Expressions that they fell into concerning this Sacrament Facundus has some very full Discourses to this purpose He is proving that Christ may be called the Adopted Son of God as well as he is truly his Son and that because he was Baptized The Sacrament of Adoption that is Baptism Defen Conc. Chalced. l. 9. may be called Baptism as the Sacrament of his Body and Blood which is in the Consecrated Bread and Cup is called his Body and Blood Not that the Bread is properly his Body or the Cup properly his Blood but because they contain in them the Mystery of his Body and Blood St. Austin says That Sacraments must have some resemblance of those things of which they are the Sacraments So the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is after some manner his Body and the Sacrament of his Blood is after some manner his Blood And speaking of the Eucharist as a Sacrifice of Praise he says Ep. 23. ad Bonifac. The Flesh and Blood of this Sacrifice was promised before the coming of Christ by the Sacrifices that were the Types of it In the Passion the Sacrifice was truly offered and after his Ascension it is Celebrated by the Sacrament of the Remembrance of it And when he speaks of the murmuring of the Iews upon
whether formally or substantially or some other way Some Schoolmen thought that the Matter of Bread was destroyed but that the Form remained to be the Form of Christ's Body that was the Matter of it Others thought that the Matter of the Elements remained and that the Form only was destroyed But that to which many inclined was the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ or a hypostatical Union of the eternal Word to them by which they became as truly a Body to Christ as that which he has in Heaven Yet it was not the same but a different Body Stephen Bishop of Autun was the First that fell on the Word of Transubstantiation Amalric in the beginning of the Thirteenth Century denied in express Words the corporal Presence De Sacram Altaris c. 13. He was condemned in the Fourth Council of the Lateran as an Heretick and his Body was ordered to be taken up and burnt And in opposition to him Transubstantiation was decreed Yet the Schoolmen continued to offer different Explanations of this for a great while after that But in conclusion all agreed to explain it as was formerly set forth It appears by the crude Way in which it was at first explained that it was a Novelty And that Men did not know how to mould and frame it but at last it was licked into shape the whole Philosophy being cast into such a Mould as agreed with it And therefore in the present Age in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit great Pains are taken to suppress the New and freer Way of Philosophy as that which cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And the Arts that those who go into the New Philosophy take to reconcile their Scheme to this Doctrine shew that there is nothing that subtile and unsincere Men will not venture on For since they make Extension to be of the Essence of Matter and think that Accidents are only the Modes of Matter which have no proper being of themselves it is evident that a Body cannot be without its Extension and that Accidents cannot subsist without their Subject so that this can be in no sort reconciled to Transubstantiation And therefore they would willingly avoid this special Manner of the Presence and only in General assert that Christ is corporally Present But the Decrees of the Lateran and Trent Councils make it evident that Transubstantiation is now a Doctrine that is bound upon them by the Authority of the Church and of Tradition And that they are as much bound to believe it as to believe the corporal Presence it self Thus the going off from the Simplicity in which Christ did deliver the Sacrament and in which the Church at first received it into some sublime Expressions about it led Men once out of the way and they still went farther and farther from it Pious and Rhetorical Figures pursued far by Men of heated Imaginations and of inflamed Affections were followed with Explanations invented by colder and more designing Men afterwards and so it increased till it grew by degrees to that which at last it settled on But after all if the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence had rested only in a Speculation tho' we should have judged those who held it to be very bad Philosophers and no good Criticks yet we could have endured it if it had rested there and had not gone on to be a matter of practice by the Adoration and Processions with every thing else of that kind which followed upon it for this corrupted the Worship The Lutherans believe a Consubstantiation and that both Christ's Body and Blood and the Substance of the Elements are together in the Sacrament That some explain by an Vbiquity which they think is communicated to the Human Nature of Christ by which his Body is every where as well as in the Sacrament Whereas others of them think that since the words of Christ must needs be true in a literal sense his Body and Blood is therefore in the Sacrament but in with and under the Bread and Wine All this we think is ill grounded and is neither agreeable to the words of the Institution nor to the nature of things A great deal of that which was formerly set forth in defence of our Doctrine falls likewise upon this The Vbiquity communicated to the Humane Nature as it seems a thing in it self impossible so it gives no more to the Sacrament than to every thing else Christ's Body may be said to be in every thing or rather every thing may be said to be his Body and Blood as well as the Elements in the Sacrament The impossibility of a Bodies being without extension or in more places at once lies against this as well as against Transubstantiation But yet after all this is only a Point of Speculation nothing follows upon it in practice no Adoration is offered to the Elements and therefore we judge that Speculative Opinions may be born with when they neither fall upon the Fundamentals of Christianity to give us false Ideas of the Essential parts of our Religion nor affect our practice and chiefly when the Worship of God is maintained in its Purity for which we see God has expressed so particular a concern giving it the Word which of all others raises in us the most sensible and the strongest Ideas calling it Iealousie that we reckon we ought to watch over this with much caution We can very well bear with some Opinions that we think ill grounded as long as they are only matters of Opinion and have no Influence neither on Mens Morals nor their Worship We still hold Communion with Bodies of Men that as we judge think wrong but yet do both live well and maintain the Purity of the Worship of God We know the great design of Religion is to govern Men's Lives and to give them right Ideas of God and of the Ways of Worshipping him All Opinions that do not break in upon these are things in which great forbearance is to be used large Allowances are to be made for Mens Notions in all other things and therefore we think that neither Consubstantiation nor Transubstantiation how ill grounded soever we take both to be ought to dissolve the Union and Communion of Churches But it is quite another thing if under either of these Opinions an Adoration of the Elements is taught and practised This we believe is plain Idolatry when an Insensible piece of Matter such as Bread and Wine has Divine Honours paid it when it is believed to be God when it is called God and is in all respects Worshipped with the same Adoration that is offered up to Almighty God This we think is gross Idolatry Many Writers of the Church of Rome have acknowledged that if Transubstantiation is not true their Worship is a strain of Idolatry beyond any that is practised among the most depraved of all the Heathens The only excuse that
given either to Superstition or Irreverence And for the Sick or the Prisoners we think it is a greater Mean to quicken their Devotion as well as it is a closer adhering to the Words of the Institution to Consecrate in their Presence for tho' we can bear with the practice of the Greek Church of reserving and sending about the Eucharist when there is no Idolatry joyned with it yet we cannot but think that this is the continuance of a practice which the state of the first Ages introduced and that was afterwards kept up out of a too scrupulous imitation of that time without considering that the difference of the state of the Christians in the former and in the succeeding Ages made that what was at first innocently practised since a real necessity may well excuse a want of exactness in some matters that are only positive became afterwards an occasion of much Superstition and in conclusion ended in Idolatry Those ill effects that it had are more than is necessary to justifie our practice in reducing this strictly to the first Institution As for the lifting up of the Eucharist there is not a word of it in the Gospel nor is it mentioned by St. Paul Neither Iustin Martyr nor Cyril of Ierusalem speak of it there is nothing concerning it neither in the Constitutions nor in the Areopagite In those first Ages all the Elevation that is spoken of is the lifting up their Hearts to God The Elevation of the Sacrament began to be practised in the Sixth Century for it is mentioned in the Liturgy called St. Chrysostome's but believed to be much latter than his time â—erm Const. in Theor. Tit. 12. Bibl. patr Ivo Carn Ep. de Sacr Missae T. 2. Bibl. pat German a Writer of the Greek Church of the Thirteenth Century is the first that descants upon it he speaks not of it as done in order to the Adoration of it but makes it to represent both Christ's being lifted up on the Cross and also his Resurrection Ivo of Chartres who lived in the end of the 11 th Century is the first of all the Latins that speaks of it but then it was not commonly practised for the Author of the Micrologus tho' he writ at the same time yet does not mention it who yet is very minute upon all particulars relating to this Sacrament Nor does Ivo speak of it as done in order to Adoration but only as a form of shewing it to the People Dur. Rat. div offic lib. 4. de Sexta parte Can. Durand a Writer of the 13 th Century is the first that speaks of the Elevation as done in order to the Adoration So it appears that our Church by cutting off these Abuses has restored this Sacrament to its Primitive Simplicity according to the Institution and the practice of the first Ages ARTICLE XXIX Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the Use of the Lord's-Supper The wicked and such as be void of a lively Faith altho they do carnally and visibly press with their Teeth as St. Austin saith the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing THIS Article arises naturally out of the Former and depends upon it For if Christ's Body is corporally present in the Sacrament then all Persons good or bad who receive the Sacrament do also receive Christ On the other hand if Christ is Present only in a Spiritual Manner and if the Mean that receives Christ is Faith then such as believe not do not receive him So that to prove that the Wicked do not receive Christ's Body and Blood is upon the Matter the same thing with the proving that he is not corporally Present And it is a very considerable Branch of our Argument by which we prove that the Fathers did not believe the corporal Presence because they do very often say That the Wicked do not receive Christ in the Sacrament Here the same distinction is to be made that was mentioned upon the Article of Baptism The Sacraments are to be considered either as they are Acts of Church-Communion or as they are federal Acts by which we enter into Covenant with God With respect to the Former the visible Profession that is made and the Action that is done are all that can fall under human cognisance So a Sacrament must be held to be good and valid when as to outward appearance all things are done according to the Institution But as to the internal Effect and Benefit of it that turns upon the Truth of the Profession that is made and the sincerity of those Acts which do accompany it For if these are not seriously and sincerely performed God is dishonoured and his Institution is prophaned Our Saviour has expresly said that whosoever eats his Flesh and drinks his Blood has eternal Life From thence we conclude that no Man does truly receive Christ who does not at the same time receive with him both a Right to eternal Life and likewise the beginnings and earnests of it The Sacrament being a federal Act he who dishonours God and prophanes this Institution by receiving it unworthily becomes highly guilty before God and draws down Judgments upon himself And as it is confessed on all hands that the inward and spiritual Effects of the Sacrament depend upon the State and Disposition of him that Communicates so we who own no other Presence but an inward and spiritual one cannot conceive that the Wicked who believe not in Christ do receive him In this Point several of the Fathers have delivered themselves very plainly Origen says Christ is the true Food whosoever eats him shall live for ever of whom no wicked Person can eat Comment in Matth. c. 15. for if it were possible that any who continues Wicked should eat the Word that was made Flesh it had never been written Whoso eats this Bread shall live for ever This comes after a Discourse of the Sacrament which he calls the typical and symbolical Body and so it can only belong to it In another place he says The Good eat the living Bread which came down from Heaven but the Wicked eat dead Bread which is Death Tom. â— Spiâ—il Sacr. d' Achâ—ry Zeno Bishop of Verona who is believed to have lived near Origen's time has these words There is cause to fear that he in whom the Devil dwells does not eat the Flesh of our Lord nor drink his Blood though he seems to communicate with the Faithful since our Lord has said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood dwells in me and I in him St. Ierom says They that are not Holy in Body and Spirit do neither eat the Flesh of Iesus nor drink his Blood In cap. 66. Isaiae of which he said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood hath eternal Life Tract