Faithful to the H. C. but they were persons wholely inflamed with those Fires c. and so goes on describing them in such Characters as may very well fit the Apostles themselves but how ill Some if not Most of their Communicating Disciples is too manifest in a certain reproof whereby one of the Apostles themselves charges them with such Debaucheries at the Lords Table as had been inexcusable at their own yet doth not therefor Excommunicate thogh he vehemently Reproves them As long as there was any hope to prevail his Successots labored in the same contention for This Cup of the Lord against That of Bacchus but at last dispairing of success and thinking it better to submit to an Inconvenience than a Mischief changed the Primitive manner of Church-meetings from Feasting to Fasting as upon another kind of necessity they had do'n the proper Season from Evening after Supper to Morning before Day well considering that however ill a Fasting Feast or a Morning Supper might sound yet those or any other Solaecisms were less grievous than such Profaneness as otherwise appeared equally Unavoidable and Intolerable And as they changed the Circumstances of the Celebration so did they the Stile of their Writings from exhorting to Constancy which in those days appeared unquestionable they transplanted all their endeavors into pressing Reverence which they saw too much wanting Wherein that they might answer the then urgent necessity they put all their strength to bow the stick the opposit way spake such glorious things as dazeled the understandings of the Readers and advanced the Sacrament from their Contemt first to their Admiration and thence to their Fear So that which in St. Paul's time was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Chrysostom's was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was a pretty large stride and soon followed by another For Shunning naturally follows Dreading the people quickly grew willing to avoid if possible the terrible duty which in a while they so deserted that the Priest was left alone without Communicants Nor were the People more willing to keep a distance from the dreadful Table than the Priests were to enclose it to themselves So in super-conformity to our Lord's Institution and his Churches practice the Priest celebrateth the Holy Supper in all Church-meetings and upon worse accounts often without any and in compliance with the Peoples Superstition and their own Interest they dispense with them for Communicating which was another large stride In another Age they widen the useful distance between themselves and the people with a further stride They pass from Dispensing to Forbidding not the whole indeed but a full half And thus at last taking from the people the Need to do any thing and the Power to do more than half they are gotten so far from Primitive Doctrine and Practice that they have rob'd the People of their Right The command of its Power and the Instituion not only of its Power but its Nature The Cup is metamorphosed from a Cup of Eucharist to a Cup of trembling the Performance from a Communion to a Spectacle the Institution from a Command to a Prohibition and the Bread which at first did and still ought to knead all Christs Members into one bread and one body crumbles them into almost innumerable and utterly irreconcilable divisions IV. FOR many who are willing to be freed from an Obligation are not so to be rob'd of a Right and the corruptions of Rome being now so swollen and suppurated that they could no longer hold from breaking Most if not All the Reforming Churches equalled the People with the Priests as in their Right to the Cup so in their Obligation to receive it Nor doth the Church of England put any other difference between them but only in her hopes concerning their Obedience To the Priests therefor from whom she apprehended better hopes she Enjoyneth but to the People she only Recommendeth constancy in the performance By the former keeping up her claim by the latter yielding to Necessity which yet she would not so far do as to leave even the People at liberty but enjoyneth That three times at least in every year which by her Injunctions to rhe Priests she more than intimateth desireable at least once in every week This moderation toward the People the Nonconformists heretofore complained of For Mr. Gartwright the chief opposer of the Liturgy in Q. Elizabeth's time and the Author of the Altare Damascenum the most violent censurer thereof in King James his time would have all who are in the Churches Communion forced to receive the Lords Supper condemning them who abstein out of fear as guilty of Superstition and not to be born with and had more authority for This than other of their complaints But the Melancholy proper to that Sect would neither permit them to tarry long in That Extreme nor stop till they came to the other For they now take up for Piety That fear which their predecessors condemned for intolerable Superstition While they had the Sceptre they laid aside the Holy Table as useless to any other purpose but That of bringing their people to examination when upon restitution of our Government there appeared danger of restoring this Institution to it s abolished power they moved in a publick Conference that the Rubrike which requireth every Parishioner to Communicate at least three times in every year might either be wholely left out or so curtailed as to enjoyn no more but this That the Communion should be celebrated three times in every year provided there were a competent number to receive it Which to hinder they employ their utmost diligence For even those among them who yield it lawful to conform in our other offices of Pubick Worship will by no means do it in This. V. NOR are our own Divines those of the former Age I mean altogether free of this humor Whether out of deference to the later Fathers or an opinion that the Obligation being self-evident needeth not be pressed or a conceit that Aw conduceth more to the advancement of Godliness or for whatever other reason plain it is they have been more industrious to advance the honor of this Institution by our Fear than by our Obedience For they make the Conditions of worthiness so strict and the Obligation to the performance so slack as if they designed to fright us from the one and free us from the other depending doubtless upon our Church-Rubrikes and Constant Practice for prevention of the inconvenience and not intending to deal with the Sacrament as some say our Rich the 2d was dealt with after his deposition served a la royale with store of costly Dishes his Esquire taking the Essay and all other pomps of Grandeur but not permitted to tast any thing and so destroyed with Hunger and Ceremony But to those who since the Restoration have written on this subject we must not deny our just acknowledgement that as there is greater need so have they used greater
more evident when we consider that he is no less careful to speak of the Bread in the same Jewish stile caling that also by its traditional â—lame For the Jews throughout their Misna and Talmud call this part of their Tradition by the same Name as doth the Apostle in this place and whereby it is still knowen in the New Testament They call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phrase cannot be more exactly translated than by The breaking of the Bread Yea this is so expressive with them that it is diverbial to stile the head of the family from this office and the whole performance by one word This you may plainly discover by what the lerned and laborios Doctor Castel in his Heptaglot Lexicon saith upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabb Fractor Sic dicitur Pater familias q. in convivio primus frangit panem s cibum illumque benedicit distribuit convivis sec illud 1 Sam. 19.13 Hinc Phrasis illa in N. T. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 III. LEt us now observ how the Apostle treateth these parts of the Lords Supper under these their Proper names and we shall find still more proof of his respecting This tradition He caleth That the cup of Blessing but he doth not call This the bread of Blessing and why not Two Evangelists more expresly note that our Lord blessed it and the third agreeth with our Apostle that he gave thanks before he brake it On the other side he caleth This the bread which we break but doth not stile That the cup which we distribute yet doth our Lord speak it more plainly of the Cup than of the Bread Take This and divide it among your selves Other reason for this duble difference of stiles we cannot Find and Better we cannot Desire than This that as our Lord borrowed both Parts of his Institution from the Jewish tradition so did the Apostle both their Names Again the Apostle keepeth to the Jewish stile in the Cup saying You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils but in the other part he quitteth the name of Bread changing it for Table and saying You cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the Table of devils And for this he had sufficient reason if the Greeks did not what we find no reason to believ they did consecrate Bread as they did Wine in All yea or Any of their Fests but if we quit This reason we shall hardly find another Yet again The Bread had the First Place both in the Jewish Tradition and the Lords Institution yet ver 16. he giveth the Cup precedence Why doth he thus cross his hands as old Jacob did preferring the Cadet before the First born What 's the reason were his eyes dim or his choice irrespective By no means For we shall again find him in the same partiality and upon the same reason because the Cup was more serviceable to his Argument than the Bread In This place it better demonstrates the inconsistency between the Church of Christ which blessed it and an Idols Temple which did not and in That it better distinguisheth a Fest which requireth the Lords Supper from a common Supper which doth not Yet must not the Bread be so deposed from its primogeniture as to be left without its blessing Thogh the Greeks custom had no rival for it yet our Lords Supper hath need of it and must not be maimed of the one half equally necessary to His Table thogh not to the Apostles argument Thogh therefor he cannot now as in the Cup oppose Name to Name yet he doth Thing to Thing Table to Table and under that stile payeth the Bread the same Justice thogh not the same Deference as he doth the Cup. Look we now which way we will we meet clear evidence Direct in the so careful caling each Element by its proper Name and Collateral in the no less careful Transplaceing them suitably to the aspect they had upon his Design yet doing right to the Institution and Tradition by mentioning the Bread as necessary to These thogh not to That IV. WHat more can be Expected yea What more can be Desired must we prove not only that here are the same Names but the same Person too This is do'n 8.15 16. I speak as to the wise men judge ye what I say The cup of blessing which 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 Can now any thing be plaine could any Lawyer or Grammarian more clearly and properly have expressed that the same bread and cup whose names he had thus translated from Hebrew to Greek were by our Lord translated from the Jewish Tradition to his Own Institution Are not Those the same with These I cannot pretend any stronger Proof but I shall endeavor to Illustrate it by a Custom of our own in our accademical Fests hitherto unaccounted V. OUr predecessors have no less exactly translated the name of the Jewish cup into English than hath the Apostle into Greek What They caled Blessing the Table We call Saying Grace and This answereth That in Both senses Praying or Praising Imploring a Blessing upon the Meat before we eat or returning Thanks for it after we have eaten Our Grace-cup therefore deriveth its Proper Name from St. Pauls Cup of Blessing by exact translation of the word And this same Cup hath a Sirname derived from the Same original by another Apostle In Acts 20. we find the Primitive Churches met every first day of the week to break bread And 1 Cor. 16.1 Upon this day they made their contributions to the poor so joining their Charity to the Lords Mystical Body with their Honor to his Natural which St. Jude so highly approveth as to denominat those meetings Fests of charity J whence our Ancestors have given this grace-Grace-cup its Surname the Cup of Charity as used in those Fests of Charity I wish they had be'n as careful to preserve the significance as the ceremony and the duble name But if from These we may learn That we find Characters legible enogh to inform us The Cup of Blessing and our Grace-cup have Both the same Name the same Mater the same Circumstances after Grace after Washing in such order that not one of the Guests can be past by It 's the Last action before rising requireth the same Number three at least We find that however the remoter Churches met the First day of the week to break bread yet the Apostles at Jerusalem did it daily and Religios Fraternities think themselves obliged rather to take their paterns from the Apostolic College than the Graecian Churches as our Church requireth more constancy in Collegiate and Cathedral Fraternities than Parochial When the Governors of the Church upon urgent nenessity changed the Season for the people who were not to be trusted after Supper
18. When you come together in the Church where the more general coming together is so appropriated to the Church that the indefinite when must be equivalent to whensoever as yet more plainly appears by ver 20. When you come together into one place it is not to eat the Lords Supper This is the extract of the whole charge That when they came together into That holy place which was set apart for Gods worship they so behaved themselves that what they did could not be taken for the Lords Supper A charge which now adays we should not decline and why should the Corinthians more than we We acknowledg might they not say yea we plead it We cannot be said to Eat the Lords Supper and what then therefore we cannot be said to Profane it This might have be'n an evasion as Effectual as Obvios if the Lords Supper were not concerned in Those very same meetings which he so Described and Reproved i. e. in All. This therefore is the sum of his Charge and it must be the Design of his Reasoning to prevent any evasion not to be do'n but by proving That in All their meetings the Lords Supper was Therefore Abused because it was Concerned in them All. Let us now consider by what Media he proveth it At the 23d vers he beginneth his evidence appealing to our Lords Institution explained by a Revelation In recital whereof it is most considerable that in reporting the consecration of the Cup he addeth words not mentioned by any of the Evangelists nor by himself in That of the Bread For none of Them say that our Lord said of the Cup Do this as often as you drink it nor doth Himself say that our Lord said of the Bread Do this as often as ye eat it The Reason of this difference we shall have a fitter time to enquire hereafter At Present we must not neglect to observe That as he is very careful thus to Insert these words so is he immediatly to Resume them and settle them as the Foundation of his whole Argument For upon this Supposition that our Lord preferred This Bread and This Cup which was constantly used in All Church-meetings to such an Office that whether they Considered it or no yea whether they Would or no it must set forth his death Then and not otherwise will All his Inferences follow that the abuse of This bread and This eup reach That body and blood which they so represent And lest This should fright them not only from the Abuse but the Use too of This bread and This cup to prevent so great an inconvenience he is careful to warn them that it is no less crime to disobey our Lords Authority than to Profane his Supper They must first examin themselves to prevent the One and then Eat this bread and drink this cup to avoid the Other And having thus secured the duty both in the Thing and the Manner he binds it by Threatnings to the end of the Chapter These are the great Limbs of this Body This the Process of the Argument Thus doth it answer his own character The body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth Not one joint too little or too much not One loose Expression not One word Impertinent or Unserviceable every part hath its mutual consent with every other part and its office of Serviceableness to the whole which also is complete without any the least defect His Charge made good in its whole Latitude The Corinthians convicted All Evasions barred The Crime displayed rhe Danger discovered the Duty inforced the only Safe way set forth and the Fear of deserting it prevented And because some require not only Logik force but Logik form too This is the formal Process of the Argument Those who so come together that they cannot be said to eaet the Lords Supper com together for the worse You so com together ver 21 22. The Proposition which alone needeth it he proveth by words purposely inserted in his recital of our Lords Institution ver 25. and resumed ver 26. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death which Proposition signifieth nothing unless helped with this Assumption As often as you come together in the Church you eat this bread and drink this cup. And by assistance of this Assumption the whole is made unanswerable This fundamental Assumption then Deserveth and Requireth our utmost care I shall therefore most diligently observe it And for greater clearness shall transpose the Apostles words reading them Thus This cup as often as you drink do it in remembrance of Me. And so we find these considerables 1. A certain special cup pointed at by the Demonstrative THIS 2. This cup made a standard whereby we must measure our performance 3. The Performance which we must mesur by This standard 4. The end for which we must do it And having thus stated our obligation by examining the Apostles discourse I shall examine what is said to the contrary by our late Divines who not heeding the Standard and mesuring the duty by a good but unfit one have defeated both our Lords design and their own too CHAP. II. Of the Necessiâ—y to fit the word THIS with somâ— singular Bread and Cup. I. The difference of our Lords stile towards this Bread and Wine from That towards litl children II. This subject requireth the clearest expression III. The Particle THIS most considerable IV. Grammar and Logick In Logick it is considerable 1. As a singl word a Demonstrative must have somthing for its object praecedances Every word must be answered by som Idea V. 2. As the subject of a Proposition The meaning of the Praedicate must be mesured by the capacity of the subject Offers at the import of the word rejected 1. That Individual 2. The whole kind 3. Somthing indeterminate 4. The Action OUR Lord after his last Supper treated Bread and Wine with such kindness as at another time he did little Children He took them up laid his hands upon them and blessed them But with This great difference that of Those he favored the Whole kind Suffer said he little children to come to me Little children indefinitely i. e. Any little children whatsoever and gave a Reason comprehensive as the Precept For of such is the kingdom of heaven Whereas Here he preferreth not Bread and Wine indefinitely nor speaketh a word of their Fitness for the honor recommendeth not either of them as Such but as This i. e. Not the whole Genus nor any Other Species but only This i. e. This singularly Proper cup. So great a difference in his Expression must needs proceed from a suitable difference in his Intention In the Former case his Words plainly declare his meaning That as often as Any parents or other friends desired to bring Any Children to him for his blessing his Disciples should admit them whoever they wer And had he now meant as
no other That he designed to treat them as Kindly as possibl we may see in his entrance upon This Chapter Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them unto you And again in his entrance upon this very Reproof vers 17 Now in This that I declare unto you I praise you not that you com together not for the better but for the wors And again by his close upon his description of their miscarriages vers 22. What shall I say to you Shall I praise you in This I praise you not How Unwillingly How Gently and if his thoughts wer like ours how Coldly doth he put in this calm exception against his late General Praise He had in a case far less scandalos said Now therefor there is utterly a falt among you And speaking of those Divisions which are here also objected as the first instance of their unworthy coming together saith I could not speak unto you as unto Spiritual but as unto Carnal Yet here when Divisions of the Rich among Themselves and their joint contemts of the Poor their Shismatical and Uncharitabl separations eating every one his Own supper and destroying the very Nature of a Communion and their Intemperance in Those Suppers affronting not only our Lords Doctrine but his very Person when such abuses of his very Body and Bloud in his Own Hous in the face of his Own Church cryed to his utmost zele and eloquence for a Reproof loud as the Crime in so clamoros a provocation what do we meet but a cold Negative much short of Eli's however condemned reproof Not so much as his This is no good report You make the peopl to abhorr the table of the Lord but only I praise you not We shall indeed hereafter find him lift up his now calm voice and loudly thunder both Reproofs and Threats vers 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body But this in consequence of Conviction which by That time he supposeth his argument to have wrought in them After which if they should Willingly and Knowingly profane This Bread and This Cup now proved to be the Lords Body and Bloud their Crime would be uncapable not only of Praise but of Excuse The Gentl language therefore that Ushereth in the Argument compared with the Severe which Followeth it doth more than intimate a supposal that they knew not what they did and therefor were first to be Convinced of their Error by good Evidence and then Frighted with Threatnings lest they should continu in the now inexcusabl wickedness And we may perhaps yet better understand his judgment of their Disease by the Medicine he useth for its Cure which is no other but a re-minding them of what he had before Declared to them and they perhaps misunderstood in This subject wherin he seemeth thus to bespak them I am loth to believ you guilty of so horrid a contemt of our Lords Person as to drink his very Bloud in a manner so shameful as looketh more like the mockery of a contumelios Jew than the devotion of a faithful Disciple No I rather impute this to your Forgetfulness or Misunderstanding of what I declared unto you concerning this most holy Ordinance which therfor I now repete to you Then doth he proceed to recite the whole Institution so Particularly as at That time he might very well think Sufficient throghly to convince them in what he Supposed or would seem to Suppose them Mistaken I say it was at That time sufficient For it is most necessary that we distinguish between That time and Our own The Tradition where on we suppose our Lords Supper founded was Then not only in Memory but in Practice The Demonstrative had its Object not only Intelligibl but Visibl they did not more plainly Hear the Word than See what it pointed at and therfor our Lord might well think it superfluos to express How Often they wer to do This in remembrance of himself since the Tradition which That very Institution commended sufficiently declared it Do This said he This which you see Me do This which your Whole Nation in such circumstances constantly do in conformity to the Tradition Do This with the same Matter Bread and Wine In the same Order First Bread and Then Wine at the same Season After Supper and is it not equally plain with the same Frequency when Three or More fest together This mesure of Frequency might our Lord well suppose at That time in Those circumstances sufficiently plain by that known rule Exceptio firmat legem in non exceptis But it seems the Disciples wer either less Able or less Willing to understand than He had reason to expect And how the Corinthians might mistake we have made not improbable conjectures The Apostl therefor to Clear what now appeared to Need it telleth them plainly that what our Lord at the time of institution did Not Express he had since Reveled to be his meaning viz. That as often as they drank That Cup which he then consecrated after Supper they must do it in remembrance of himself Since therfor they closed or ought to close All their fests with the Same Cup his Bloud was concerned in them All. WHAT fairer account can possibly be desired of this Former part of the Apostles Process Of the Lenity of his Reproof of his Method in convincing them first of their Error and then of their Gvilt Of his Reciteing the Lords institution so to vindicate his Supper from Cheapness of his inserting the omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to assert the Interest that his Supper had in Their publick meetings and of his authorizing this insertion so to avoid the objection that might be raised from our Saviors not useing it proved by the joint testimony of the three Evangelists WHAT need the Apostl do More than baffle All their Pretences and rectifie All their Mistakes and what could he do Less than prevent that most obvios Evasion whereby they might have pleaded for Those Meetings as unconcerned in the Lords Supper If any one of a contrary judgment can give a fairer account of this Former part of the Apostl's discours he will do a Great work but he will have a Greater yet to do For the Later part wherein the Apostl draweth his Inferences will not only Offer this as the Fairest but Urge it as the Only sens of his argument V. LET us now therefor carefully examin HOW and WHAT he bildeth upon his so solen recital of our Lords Institution He beginneth his deductions at the 26th verse wherein he resumeth the Last as the most Important clause laying it down as the Sum of our Lords mind in his Institution and the Foundation of all his own intended Inferences therefrom that As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye shew forth our Lords death By This Proposition therefor must we mesur his
verse 27. it is yoked with This Bread and being thus secured from any danger of mistake might safely be clothed with That larger title more suitable for It than for the Bread because it doth not only Represent his Blood as the Bread doth his Body but Prescribe the frequeny for celebration which the Bread doth Not. In verse 28. The Demonstrative is laid aside and in the 29th not only the Demonstrative but the very Subject In both a manifest Ellipsis easily and necessarily supplied since we cannot apprehend the Action of Eating and Drinking without the Bread and Cup nor any other Bread and Cup but only THIS so earnestly inculcated in the same breath And now that I may bring the whole Argument to a closer vieu I shall from a disjointed examination of its scattered parts proceed to a reduction of All to Logik form in a Syllogism of the most perfect mode Bar As often as you shew forth the Lords death unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood ba As often as you eat This Bread and drink This Cup you shew forth the Lords death ra As often as you eat This Bread and drink this Cup unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood Of this Syllogism the Assumtion is set forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 26. The Conclusion thence inferred verse 27. But the Proposition which is generally look'd upon as the adaequate design the Apostle no otherwise proveth but by reciting the Institution which abundantly declareth the relation between the Lords Supper and his Body and Blood Since therefor it was necessary for him to convince them that the Lords Supper was concerned in All their meetings but not at all that the Lords Body and Blood were Represented in his Supper since accordingly he payeth All his service to This Bread and This Cup which was used in all their Meetings but None at all to the Lords Supper otherwise then by consequence therefrom Since the whole 26th verse must be utterly Impertinent and worse if it pretend only to assert the dignity of the Lords Supper but most Cogent if it intend to assert that of This Bread and This Cup since One way he shall prove a truth whose importance Deserved his service and whose Doubtfulness Needed it and the Other way one who 's Self-evidence superseded any Proof one might think the choice between them not very doubtful Yet ar we all this while no farther than the Entry For the very Life of the Argument is laid up in a Clause purposely inserted in the Close of our Lords Institution and resumed in the Head of his Own discourse as the strength of the whole yet so miserably mistaken that it is made the only Enemy to the Apostl's direct design Dispensing with the Constancy which he so industriosly laboreth to prove Indispensibl CHAP. II. Concerning the Clause AS OFTEN AS I. The unhappiness of this Clause II. The true sens of the words mesured by parallel precepts III. Serviceable remarks 1. With what care the Apostl recordeth this Claus IV. 2. With partiality he treateth the Cup. V. The justice he doth the bread joining it with the cup in his dedeductions VI. The Conclusion with an Objection answered HOW unhappy our Lords Supper hath be'n in All the means he used to indear it we have already noted He chose the Last night because the words of dying friends most forcibly affect the survivors and the horrors of the Tragical time dashed it out of the Apostl's thoghts He then made a contrary opportunity and by a Supper purposely contrived evidenced his care of This memorial of his Death equal to that of evidencing his Resurrection And then Joy and Wonder hindred them more from heeding This than from believing That Nor did Any other means prevail till the Holy Ghost broght it to their understandings But their Disciples had not the same mesur of This Spirit The Corinthians either mistook or soon forgot and St. Paul found it highly necessary not only to Remind them of their duty but further to Explain it And This very Explication suffers as much from the mistakes of Interpreters as did the Holy Supper it self from the profaneness of the Corinthians For St. Paul did no more intend to discorage our Obedience to our Lords Command than did our Lord himself to encourage Their profaneness in the Performance Yet in his Own words do we take refuge from his Reproofs as if he had taught us to place All our safety from Unworthiness in keeping distance from Obedience That we should run from One extreme to a Contrary thogh it be a great Error is no great Wonder thogh nothing be more Condemned yet nothing is more frequently practised But that Those very words whereby he indeavored to Prevent the Error should be made to Serv it That he should use his utmost care to prove Constancy indispensibl and we should take his words for a Dispensation from it is the Singular unhappiness of This Only clause perverted thereby to an utter Defaisance of our Lords Command and an utter Defait of his Own Design We shall therefor indevor to restore the Words to their due power First by shewing what must needs be their true meanang And Secundly by exposing the Absurdities of That which is vulgarly imposed upon them II. FIRST we are to enquire into the true sense of this Clause As often as And to this end we need not look back upon what we have seen in the word THIS For This Claus no less peremtorily requireth a certain Standard than That Demonstrative doth a certain Object And the Apostle plainly joineth them together in the same power as the dubl hinge whereon his whole Argument turneth These doth he jointly resume as the sum of our Lords institution These doth he fasten as a nail in a sure place and upon These doth he hang that chain of Consequences whereby he convinceth his Corinthians of their crime and discovereth the Need and Way to avoid it Let us first vieu the import of the Words and Then his care concerning them This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plainly Relative it imports Equality in point of Frequency and requireth that the new Relative should conform it self to the mesur of a Former Correlate Now it is plain that whoever is obliged to make One thing Equal to Another must certainly know the mesur of That Other which he is to conform to No Town can shew a Standard made of Air or Water but of Wood or Metal whose firm substance having a stable bigness of its own may certainly determin the Quantity of what is to be mesured by it The Apostl is very careful to prove and inculcate that Eating THIS bread and drinking THIS cup is the stable Standard whereby we must mesure our Frequency in the Lords Supper It must therefor be necessary that it self must have its Determined Frequency fixed by som praevios Law or Custom certainly foreknown and thereby capable to give mesures to any Other performance
than what you have received let him be accursed When our Lord himself hath so reveled his mind All the inhabitants of Earth and Heaven should they combine are nether to be believed against the Revelation nor obeyed against the Command And to what purpose such a Revelation and such a Vouching If These words do not Streighten the obligation they will be but Impertinent if they Slacken it they will be Worse They can no other way answer the Care bestowed upon them but by inforcing constancy in the performance IV. 2. MY next Observation is the Partiality wherewith the Apostle treateth the Cup which alone is honored with these considerable words Somthing of This Partiality we have already observed in his Argument against the Cup of Devils which added to what we are now considering will duble the weight Describing the Institution he giveth the Bread its due Place but as cold a Treat as possible Affordeth it not so much as the common articl but without welt or gard speaketh in the slightest manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and describeth our Lord as equally slighting it not stiling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Indefinitely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much less giving it the power to mesur the performance But coming to the Cup ver 25. He useth it with much more deference himself and reporteth our Lord to have used the same Partiality He saith indeed that our Lord took the Cup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Equality must relate to the Tradition which it equally honored not to the Circumstances wherewith it self was honored not in Like but in Higher manner 1. He expresseth the exact Season After Supper and This in exact conformity to the Jewish stile which useth to fix a character of emphasis upon the Cup After Supper As we find most properly to our purpose Berach cap. 7. ver 6. Wine is broght to them in the midl of the meal they bless severally every one by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For That After meal one blesseth for them all Where that prefix ל payeth deference the Wine After Supper as to Wine of note But this is not payed to Bread because none but the Paschal Cake was distributed After Supper and had our Apostle spoken of That in the same stile he had intimated that which he endeavoreth to confute viz. that our Lords Supper was successor to the Passover 2. He honoreth it with an emphatical Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Then he describeth our Lords partiality who did not speak of it as of the Bread with a simpl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but more emphatically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. Nor Indefinitely This is my blood as of the Bread This is my body but with an Explication fixing his meaning This is the New Testament in my blood 5. And above All the important 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is industriosly put upon the Cup and denied to the Bread Let us now reflect He First reciteth the consecration of the Bread and he could no otherwise matter of fact obliged him to it as appeareth by the uniform testimony of all the Evangelists which spake any thing of it Yet he prefaceth the consecration of the Cup with the note of conformity In like manner also In which form of speaking it is Not unusual to omit in reciting the later what had be'n expressed in the former the very phrase excusing because manifesting the Ellipsis used merely to avoid the tediosness of repetition But it is contrary both to Reason and Practice that any thing should be omitted in the Former and understood in the Later and therein expressed by such a conforming Phrase when This cannot find in That any likeness What the Reason of this strange method is we shall the better discover if we observ Another care which seemeth to cross This. He is very punctual in reciting the difference of Time between the consecration of the One and the Other Our Lord took the Bread when he had given thanks and the Cup when he had supped His Argument wold have go'n more Smoothly thogh not so Strongly if in the common way of speaking he had made the later every way like the former But how could he avoid this cross Should he give the Cup the precedence he must then misreport matter of Fact Should he then apply these mesuring words to the Bread that he might speak of the Cup in like manner also He must then have confounded his Own argument For the mesuring clause must have signified either too much or too little too little if this should point at the Paschal Bread too much if to the Ordinary For since of All Fests the Passover was most prefigurative of our Lords Death and he delivered rhe Bread with such a form of words as manifestly alluded to the Paschal cake if to such peculiar suitableness with That Season and That Form he had added These words also Would not the Demonstrative have pointed to the Bread as Paschal and consequently would not these words have required us to mesure our performance of the Lords Command by that of God to Moses And would not this have cleared the Corinthians from any profanation of his Supper except only in the Easter Communion But if these words had be'n applied to the Bread as blessed Before Supper then must they have signified too much For they would have comprehended not only every Fest but every Private meal They would not be a Rubrike for Publik worship in the Church but Advice for Private manners at home they would neither require Fest nor Communion nor distinguish the Church of God from the meanest Parlor Possibly to Prevent certainly to Remove both sides of mistake and to convince the Corinthians of their obligation to close neither All their Private nor Only their Paschal but All and Only their Festival Suppers with our Lords he So describeth the Institution that it appeareth probable that our Lord distributed the Bread at the Beginning and more so that he did it before the End of Supper but manifest that the Cup he delivered at its proper time And since the Cup was the Adaequate character of a Fest to the Cup only must the power be given which these words import Let Any one giv Any other tolerabl account why the Apostl should thus deprive the First-born of the Blessing which naturally belongs to it and I must confess my self to have lost a great evidence of the Relation between our Lords Institution and the Tradition whence I endevor to prove it derived There are too many who have need to consider another honor to which our Lord preferred the Cup above the Bread He said not Eat ye All but said Drink ye All of this Whether This difference wer occasioned by Judas 's Presence when That was distributed and his Absence when this was so is not so plain as it is that it falleth very cross to the Laws of That Infallible Church which denying the people the Cup takes away
cup you drink That whereof he said This is my blood And taking this for the sens of the 26th vers the necessity of the 27th and all that follow immediatly appears For if they be so Much and so Unavoidably concerned then whoever eateth This bread and drinketh This cup unworthily must needs be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord who hath so made Those the representatives of These that whether we receve them or no will make no difference in his imputation because the Relation dependeth not upon Our admittance of them for such but upon His own Commission constituting them for such So that in the recess by intending to Omit the Lords Supper you make your selves guilty of breaking his Command which obligeth you to Do it without escaping the other guilt of Unworthiness since his Institution hath made his body and blood concerned in all the abuses you put upon This bread and This cup. SINCE therefor this 26th vers cannot be Imperative because Grammar requireth the Indicative mode always to follow the causal FOR And since it cannot be Indicative if This bread and This cup in the whole comprehension signifie nether more nor less than the Lords Supper because then in their formal concept they will necessarily import setting forth his death and Logik requireth that the Praedicate in every Proposition should bring somthing of news concerning the Subject But if we fit the Demonstrative This with its necessary Object and the Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with its necessary Mesure then will the Proposition carry Weight enough to lay it as a foundation for all the Deductions which the Apostl bildeth upon it and Light enough to shew the use of every syllabl in his Argument and Force enogh to convict the Corinthians beyond all possibility of reply To doubt now whether we will accept so Serviceable yea so necessary an Hypothesis is no other than to put our selvs into a very hard streight For we shall be obliged either to accuse the Apostl of transgressing the plain rules of Grammar and Logik yea and of Justice too in charging the Corinthians with the greatest Crime without sufficient evidence or else to produce som Other Hypothesis of our own which shall be at least equally serviceabl towards clearing his discours from such great defects And while the adversary deliberates upon so hard a choice I proceed to examin that Other Sens shall I call it which alloweth our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No ground to Build or so much as to Stand upon CHAP. III. Concerning the Vulgar interpretation of As often as I. The Distinction between Suppositive and Absolute stated because made the mesure of obligation II. The words of the Author set forth and III. Examined IV. The merely suppositive sens enervates our Lords Command And V. The Apostl's own Argument VI. The two senses ballanced in order to Conscience THAT in so doing I may escape both the Task of setting a tolerable countenance upon an opinion so generally receved and the Suspicion of representing it disadvantageosly I conceve it most Convenient if not absolutely Necessary to exhibit it in the words of its Patrons Patron I should say For among the Many that entertein it I know but One that hath put himself to the charge of affording it any means of Subsistence by cloathing it with any proper Rules or nourishing it with any Proofs But it is Such an One as may pass for a Multitude One that may not be named without Reverence One of the greatest Ornaments and Pillars of our Church One who professeth to fit every subject with its proper Rules and Mesures and therefor One whom we may believe to have said the utmost in behalf of his Opinion This singular Person puts it to the question Whether our Lords words in This Institution amount to a Command And thogh his interest persuaded him to have Affirmed it yet the sound of These words and inadvertency to the Custom we suppose them to relate to engaging him for the Negative embarrased him in difficulties inextricable from which because he struggles to free himself by help of the distinction between Suppositive and Absolute I shall first state That distinction and Then try what service it can do in the present question A Suppositive Command Obligeth just so as a Suppositive Proposition Declareth viz. nothing else but a Connexion or Disjunction between the Parts An Absolute Proposition may be true though its Subject have no Being and so may an Hypothetical one though its Antecedent have no Truth And as a Hypothetical Syllogism Absolutely concludes Nothing without help of an Absolute Assumtion so doth not a Hypothetical Command oblige to any thing without the help of som Positive addition Hypothetical necessity is therefor consistent with Absolute liberty because the Obligation must derive half its power from the yet undetermined Position E. G. If my Father should have laid upon me this Suppositive Command As often as you go to London go by land This would not oblige me either to the Journy or the Manner By staying at home I should have be'n as obedient as by a hundred tedios Journies But if my Inclinations or Bisiness should call me to the Journy then by vertu of the Command joined with the Urgency of my Business wer I obliged to go not by Water but by Land Such a Command would by no means have amounted to Get you a hors and away Nor can a Suppositive Command amount to such an Absolute Precept as Let a man examin himself and so let him eat But the utmost that so civil a word could amount to is this If you are pleased to eat then is it necessary you examin your self This is the true state of a Suppositive Obligation It leaveth us at full liberty thogh it expose us to be rob'd of it by som Absolute Proposition following And how impossibl it is to reconcile the Wisdom of our Lords Institution with the Weakness of such an Obligation cannot better be discovered than by the succesless attemts of so habile an Undertaker whose words I com now to examin wherein I beg the Readers just charity to believ what I most seriosly protest that it is not without great reluctancy I engage in so unwelcom an office toward a person to whom I am so much obliged and nothing but faithfulness to so great a Subject should compel me to expose the words of him whom all good men are obliged to honor His Rule is The Institution of a Rite or Sacrament by our Blessed Savior is a direct Law and passes a proper obligation in its whole integrity This one would think is as plain as heart can wish but the Gloss quite mars the Text for thus doth he endeavor to bend his Rule to his Conceptions and Other Writings concerning This Holy Sacrament THIS Rule can relate but to one instance that of the Holy Sacrament of Christs body and blood for although Christ did institute two Sacraments yet that
him by his Father with its counterpart which by I know not what means he had obtained out of the Scriptoire of another Family He applieth the One to the Other sheweth their exact agreement in every word of the Writing every turning of the Indenture and every stroke of the divided Letters and proveth this could not be the effect of any collusion bicause there had ever be'n and still continued a mortal feud between his own Family and That whence he had gotten the counterpart If this be our present Case we are to consider 2 things First the agreement of the Counterparts and 2ly the impossibility of Collusion 1. The Agreement of the Apostl's Argument with the Thus stated Custom we have fully discovered 1. In the Body of the discours in either Chapter In the 10th chap. both Bread and Cup caled by their proper Jewish names and under Those very names urged to be Body and Blood of the Lord. In the 11th chap. the Argument no other way Rational This way Unanswerable many words and Aspects of words no other way accountable This way Necessary the Charge otherwise to be evaded This way Unavoidable In the whole not one word or order of words impertinent deficient or superfluos 2. In the Indenting every reeling step exactly jointed with the answerably crooked process of the Argument No discours in the World so full of odd bizarreries every one this way rendered rational clear and convictive In the 10th chap. the names of Both elements industriosly so Varied as to answer the Jewish stile and so Transposed as to answer the Apostl's argument In the 11th chap. the Demonstrative THIS affectedly inculcated the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inforcedly appropriate to the Cup thogh distributed in like manner with the Bread The Bread honored above the Cup one way the Cup above the Bread another way 3. Letters so cut in sunder that in the Apostl's discours we find but one half not to be read but by supplying the other half from the Tradition THIS without an object 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a relative look like tails of Letters without heads but by application to This custom becom fairly legible So exact agreement in such strange variety one would think Gods providence here acted the Chirographer managing the Apostl's pen in such a manner that after the death of all Wirnesses and loss or embeazling of all other Evidences we might by this multiplied sutableness be armed against all doubt which either malice or carelesness of the Jews forgetting or corrupting their Tradition might bring upon us IV. 2. THE other part of my Assumtion is that This Agreement could not be the issu of the Jews conforming their practice to our Lords Institution Since the greatest Care maried to the greatest Wit Could not produce such an offspring and the Jews Would not employ ether the One or the Other to such a purpose 1. It were extravagant credulity to believ they Would employ such Care Their very differences concerning the Tradition of their Fathers is abundant evidence that they minded not its agreement or disagreement with our Scriptures And their known zele against our Lord and Apostle is a yet greater one that they would not be more careful to explain the Ones institution and the Others argument than all the Fathers of the Christian Church have be'n Shall we believ their esteem for their Gamaliel so much greater than their hatred of Saint Paul that they should he more than masorically careful to contrive a way whereby to make such a discours worthy the Disciple of their so famous Master Do they so glory in their ancestors crucifying the Lord of Life that they put themselves to great care and cost to adorn the Monument which himself raised to his own memory and That with such Figures as should blazon His great goodness and their great wickedness Were the Jewish Rabbins so much more careful of Christs worship than the Fathers of his own Church that when These had lost the key which must unlock his Oracles Those took the pains to make a new one Whoever can believ this shall never from Them receve the thanks which he shall deserv for such exorbitant charity 2. To believ their Wit capable of finding out such an invention is no less incredible So many wheels so many motions so smoothly and so strongly cooperating so remote from the common practice of All other Nations so suitable to the humor of their own so exactly fitting every titl of the Apostl's discourse and the circumstances wherein it was written was sure above all human Wit to invent Many discoveries appear obvious when made which yet for thousands of years escaped the sagacity of all mankind The very difficulties and odnesses of the Apostles discurs have be'n so far from Smoothed that many of them have not be'n Observed by any Critiks and Commentators and perhaps might not have be'n so now had not their agreement with This key occasioned it It is not to be believed that the Apostl should make the least fals step drop the least syllable that should be impertinent much less that should be mischievos to his design And the account that is to be given of them must equal the sum to a farthing Whoever will suppose the Discours worthy of a reasonabl man much more whoever will suppose it worthy the Holy Spirit if he reject what I offer Let him to his study let him summon together All his faculties let him use as much liberty of invention as he please and if he can find out any Hypothesis that shall so cleverly answer all the Phaenomena erit mihi magnus Apollo Since therefor chance Could not and the Jews neither could nor would conform their practice to our Lords Institution and the Apostl's discurse The conclusion must be That both This and That were conformed to the Jewish practice And I thank my worthy Friend for giving me occasion to confirm what I have said by this Reflection V. ANOTHER OBJECTION saith That if our frequency in celebrating the Lords Supper must be mesured by such a Grace-cup since there can be no such Grace-cup where there is no Fest no more than there can be an end without a beginning or an Adjunct without a Subject it will be as necessary that a Fest should alway usher the Lords Supper as that the Lords Supper should attend every Fest and so the revers of our Hypothesis will no less severely reprove the Universal Church of Christ for Not festing in All meetings than did the Apostl the Corinthians for not honoring the Lords Supper in them All but every particular member of Christ's Church will be blameless though he never communicate in such manner as by his Church-officers he is invited to do since he is to do it only so often as by That Practice whence Christ's Institution was derived he is obliged i. e. only so often as a Fest is to be closed with a cup of blessing To answer such an
but adaequately for this Duties sake which gave it both Holiness and Name nor as Successor but Superior to the Sabbath And this is worthy our consideration not only for the Sacrament's sake but the Day 's too VI. FOR to derive the LORDS DAY from the fourth Commandment as it is Inconvenient upon other accounts so is it Mischievous upon This that it looseneth its relation to This office for who 's sake alone it was dignified as with the assemblies of the Saints so with it's title of the Lord's day Nor is such an opinion consistent with the practice of the Primitive Church which for several ages celebrated Both the One for the Jews sake the Other for the Sacraments which therefor we ought to celebrate as constantly at least as we do That day which cannot be duly bicause it needs not all be sanctified without it Were this as carefully heeded as in Scripture it is plainly declared in Reason duly accounted for and in the Primitive times publikly practised both the Lords Day and His Supper would have escaped Those Losses which Both of them suffer by their separation the One rob'd of it's greatest Honor the Other of its very Being For as it is higher Honor to the Day to be acknowledged an Evangelical Substance than a Legal Shadow and to be celebrated with this office than without it so is it not only Less Honorable but More Destructive to this Holy office to be spoiled both of the acknowledgement due to it from the Day so preferred by it's interest and of Safety from that Neglect which could never have befallen it while the Day it self is sanctified if that Sanctification were acknowledged to relate to this Performance Those therefor who ar zelos for the honor of the Day are for it's sake obliged to consider whether any Sport or any Lrbor can be so pernicious a desecration of it as the Omission of this Sacrament who 's celebration was the sole reason of the sacredness both of the Day it self and of its Eve which of the two hath the greater interest in the Fourth Commandment as being the same Seventh day which Gods peopl celebrated as thereby consecrated yet had not retained any difference under the Gospel from common days but in order to the better preparation for the Sacrament to be receved the Lords day following and upon That account differenced not by Festing but by Fasting And since necessity may drive to Mean condescensions I beg now not only for the Lord's sake but for the Lord's day's sake for That day's sake in who 's behalf so many complaints ar made not only To our Governors but Against them I beg that those who ar so zelous to have the Day restored to its due honor would do their part to restore this Sacrament to its due celebration whereby the Lord's Day with his Person would be better righted than by Sabbatizing with Rigot more than Jewish but with Worship less than Christian Let us now spell all together The Exercises accompanying this constant breaking of Bread Were they not Holy The Phrase expressing This exercise Is it not proper The Place Was it not consecrated before The Time Was it not consecrated purposely What then can be answered to the Apostls demand The bread which they brake was it not the Communion of the body of Christ Or to Our inference that they were as constant in the Holy Communion as in Common Prayer CHAP. VI. The Practice of Antiquity I. The constant Practice of Christ's Church in it's best ages proved by one evidence of each kind viz. 1. Canon the 9th Apostolik II. 2. One Father Justin Martyr 3. One Historian Socrates The Church of Rome under pretence of Tradition innovated against the Church Universal III. 4. Enemies of each kind 1. Protestants IV. 2. Papists V. 3. Junior Fathers particularly St. Augustin whose words are recited wherein we must distinguish between Father and Doctor As Father he stateth the question The question and the practice of the Church both in Doctrine and Discipline very different beeween St. Augustin's time and Ours VI. As a Doctor he determins the question 1. His stile very different bicause his Opinion is opposit to all other Fathers 2. His determination reacheth not Our question Yet have later ages caght at his wonds and strained them beyond his intentions with unhappy success His Syncretism rectified FROM Scripture I am now to descend to Humane Writers to examin whether by Them we find the Practice of the Primitive Churches agreeable to That of the Apostls I. AND now I feel somthing like a Tentation to imploy my Servitor to collect what the Fathers the Eldest especially have writen on This subject and then stifling my Reader with a multitude of Quotations purchase my self at Both their costs the name of Well read in the Fathers and Councils c. But corage Reader I have no more such a Design than my Subject such Need Where none contradicts One competent witness of Each kind may very well claim the belief of any indifferent person and with More I will not troubl you I shall therefor produce but One ancient Canon One Father One Historian and One Enemy of each party 1. Of CANONS I account Those most Ancient which have usurped the title of Apostolical thogh many of them bewray themselves unworthy of it We have reasons more than enough to decline their Authority but None to except against Their Testimony concerning Mater of Fact such as is the Publik practice of the Visibl Church at the Time of their Date which is Therefor certainly Ancient bicause not certainly known since having no Councel to father them they must needs be elder than Any Of Those Canons the 9th thus briefly and plainly delivereth the opinion we ar pleading for All the faithful which enter the Church and hear the Scriptures but do not stay out the Prayers nor receve the Holy Communion ought to be excommunicate as disturbers of the Church To This so clear evidence I know nothing capabl of being opposed unless perhaps the word faithful be supposed to exclude All but such as deserv the highest sens of That title But it is sufficiently know'n that That comprehensive word conteineth All but Catechumens and Penitens All others as visibl Members of Christs Body being in Those days honored with That stile And that it signifies no otherwise Here the words themselvs sufficiently evince For This title is allowed to Those very Persons who at the same time ar censured as worthy of Excommunication Nor can the Last clause be taken so copulatively as if Those passed uncensured who stayed out Prayers thogh they receved not the Holy Communion For This was lookt upon as the greater crime of the Two The Councils of Antioch and Bracara required that such should be driven out of the Church and St. Chrysostom bitterly chides them saying If thou stand by and dost not Communicate thou art wicked thou art shameless thou art impudent And we shall presently
shew forth the Lords death by them This Consequence we have all this while be'n proving to be his aim 2. The Other Consequence argueth back again from the Reverence due to our Lords Person to Answerabl Reverence due to his Representatives Bicaus the Lords Body and Blood ar concerned in it therefor you must not eat This bread and drink This cup Vnworthily And this he presseth by two important inferences the Former setting forth the Crime in the 27 vers The Later prescribing the Remedy in the 28. Upon these two turn all the Interpretative Prohibitions which must revers our Lords Command to DO this and all his own forgoing argument inforceing it For by the Former All Unworthy persons ar ipso facto excommunicated and by the Later every one is bound therefor to examin himself that if he find himself unworthy he may execute the sentence It must therefor needs be worth our Labor seriosly to enquire into the true import of those two considerable words which I shall do in their Order CHAP. II. Concerning Unworthiness I. What Unworthy importeth 1. In it 's singl signification 1. In Grammar it is an Adverb 2. In Logik a Relative II. The degree of the Crime not expressed why We need not be so fearful as the Papists We deny not the Real Presence III. 2. The Aspect of the word upon the Apostls designe 1. Personal worthiness dishonourabl to our Lord. 2. Different from the Apostls mesure IV. The Apostl oght to have warned the Corinthians of it 1. For the Lord's Tables sake 2. For his own arguments sake V. 3. For the Corinthians sakes who were such as oght to have be'n forbidden THE Former is set forth in vers 27. He that eateth This Bread and drinketh This Cup UNWORTHILY is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. And again vers 29. He that eateth unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself In the 27. is declared the Guilt in the 29. the Punishment And Both of them incurred by doing this UNWORTHILY Our main business therefor must be to mesur the import of the word Unworthy And first we must view it in it's Singl Interpretation and then in its Aspect 1. It 's Singl import may be considered in Grammar and in Logik 1. In Grammar we ar to consider the Root and the Termination 1. The Root is Worthy which Rigidly importeth an Equality of worth but in a Milder sens is satisfied with som Proportion thogh short of Full value The Chancery of the Gospel abateth much of what Strict Law requireth Is satisfied with Suitablness for Worthiness This Allowance doth it perpetually give All such words as import Righteousness And with This Latitude doth our Apostl frequently use This very word E. G. Eph. 4.1 Col. 1.10 Thes 2.12 c. For if any one think he can in a Proper sens Walk Worthy of the Gospel Worthy of the Lord or Worthy of God That very thoght will make him Unworthy of the mercy offered by That Lord in That Gospel 2. The Termination speaketh it an Adverb qualifying the Manner of the Action Not an Adjective subjected in the Agent It is not He that eateth and drinketh being Unworthy but he that doth it Unworthily however his Person be qualified The Difference between These two is so Wide so Evident and in This place so Important that it could never escape such acute eys as som of our adversaries enjoy were they not muffled with that Proverbial partiality which maketh None so blind as him that will not see For the first sight of it will expose the impertinence as to This performance of all those Schemes and Directories for Self-Examination which are so carefully set forth as if it wer the same thing to do this in a Manner worthy of the Office and to make one's Self Worthy to be the Officer This can never be too carefully observed I again insist upon it that This Difference between UNWORTHY and UNWORTHILY duely considered will let in such light as will abundantly discover the many and great flaws in That hypothesis to which so many good and wise men have so enslaved themselvs that they ar somtimes as we shall anon see a pitiful exampl forced to offer violence to their ingenuity 2. In Logik it is a Relative wherein beside the now considered Relation and Subject is also considerabl the Correlate which is the Party concerned in the Worthiness or Unworthiness of the Action And this is Generally Grossly and Unhappily mistaken for our Lords Person whereas we have sufficiently proved it to be This Bread and This Cup. Bicause so much depends upon it I again desire is may be considered that the Apostl reproveth the Corinthians just as a sober person would a rude Bully if he should see him abuse a Justice of Peace in execution of his Office Sir might he say Take heed what you do you seem to take this Gentleman for your Equal or perhaps your Inferior but then are you mistaken for This Gentleman This plain Gentlman what ever you think of him represents the Kings person And therefor the Abuses you offer Him ar not private incivilities to an Ordinary Person but Publik Misdemeanors c. In such an Admonition Nothing is intended to be urged but what needs it viz. The Character of the Officer which once known the Nature of the Crime and the Kings concern immediately appears II. THE Nature of the Crime but it 's Degree is not so plain The Apostl in This place by a most unusual stile leaveth it to our Own Reasons to judge He is guilty saith he of the Body and Blood of the Lord but whether of Trampling it under foot or only of Contemning it or in what degree of Affronting it the strange Ellipsis hath left uncertain This is very Certain and no less Considerabl That the affront which passeth through the Officers person loseth much of it's force There and cannot strike so strong upon the Kings as if it were Directly and Immediately aimed at him The Character doth indeed dignify the Otherwise inconsiderabl Person But the Person hath it's Reaction upon the Character We make great allowances for the Meanness of the One even when we pay our Honor to the Other For we think not the same Aw due to the Justice's Worship as to the King's Majesty nor do we judge the Crime Equally great in the affront offered him As the Corinthians Crime had be'n much aggravated so had the Apostl's own Argument be'n much strengthened if he had not made This Bread This Cup but our Lords body and bloud the proper object of the abuse Had therefor This Bread be'n the Proper Body and this Cup the Proper Bloud of our Lord he was now obliged both to Declare and Urge it In a case so urgent an Omission is equivalent to a Negative It was his business so to set forth the Dignity of This abused Bread and Cup that by Proportion with it their Guilt may be Aggravated Would Truth have Consented
his Design would have Required him to have raised his voice Higher He must have said he that Eateth this Bread and Drinketh this Cup eateth the body and drinketh the bloud of the Lord and not have com'n off with a Cold Indefinite Ellipsis which not expressing in What Measure maketh nothing plain but this that it is in a measure much Inferior and consequently his own argument much Weaker than if he had declared them guilty of contemt to the body and bloud of Christ immediatly by Using Them in such manner as they did This Bread and This Cup. Those indeed who still believ This Bread and This Cup not to be our Lord's Representatives but Himself may justly fear the Unworthiness not only of their Persons however carefully Prepared but of their Worship too however carefully Performed But we who believ them no other than what the Apostl stileth them even Then when he most Studiosly Recommendeth them to our Reverence when upon due Self-examination we find how unworthy We ar to Receve our Lords body and bloud may check our fears by considering how Vnworthy This Bread and This Cup ar to Represent them not doubting but the same goodness which bestowed such honor upon the unworthy elements will pardon and accept of Us if we receve them in a Manner suitable to their Office tho not in a Degree worthy of his own Person Let me not be mistaken I deny not the Reality of Christs presence in the Sacrament When I call This Bread and Cup Representatives I mean not that our Lords body and bloud ar thereby no otherwise Represented than the Kings Person is by his Picture which ar the proper goods of the Possessor and may be treated according to his pleasure or than a King is by a Stage-player which only Imitateth but Shareth not his power But as the King is by his Officer who so Representeth his Person as to Execute his Authority with whom he is tho not Personally yet Politikly present Ratifying whatever he doth in his Name and stead This kind of Real presence our Lord himself promised not to Affright but Incorage us When two or three said he ar gathered together in my name there am I in the mids of them He meant doubtless no less than a Real presence which must needs be most Eminent in Such assemblies as ar gathered together not only in his Name but upon his Invitation And to make such a Promis an argument to fright men away is a strange way of honoring the Author From this dissection of the very words we find them fall very short of the force ascribed to them They no way barr any man from Obedience for want of Worthiness Require not a Legal Worthiness in the Person coming Make not the Person of Christ the Object of the Worthiness required in the Performance And upon the whole make not the guilt of the Unworthy Performance equal to that of Disobedience since This Directly affronteth our Lords Person in his Command That only Indirectly in his Representative III. VVE have said that the Anatomist is not only to vieu the Intrinsic Texture of the part dissected but it 's Serviceablness to the Life to what therefor we have seen of the proper sens of the word we shall add it's aspect upon the Apostls design which will be a Further Evidence that he meant not so much as is generally believed bicause such supposal of Personal worthiness would have be'n 1. very dishonorabl to our Lord 2. very Deferent from that Mesure himself stateth it by and 3. very Unfaithful to the Corinthians he requireth it of 1. It wer a great DISHONOR to our Lord to suppose it possibl that any one can be Worthy yea or com within any Neerer distance than Infinite Unworthiness For Worthiness is Relative signifieth if not Full Equality yet som Proportion between the Merit and the Reward the Fest and the Guest And take which of the Correlates you please you find a Saint reproving the concept To those that fear their Own Unworthiness thus speaketh St. Chrisostom Thou sayest thou art not worthy to Do this neither art thou worthy to Pray c. We may go on neither art thou worthy to Hear So far art thou from being Worthy to take our Lords Body that thou art not Worthy to take His Name into thy mouth so far from Worthy to injoy his Bloud that thou art not so to injoy the light of the Sun the fruits of the Earth or any of those sensual delights which Beasts may Injoy but not Abuse as much as Thou On the other side to those who fear the Greatness of the Sacrament thus speaketh another Saint Thou abstainest from the Blessed Sacrament bicause it is a thing so sacred and formidabl that thou not thinkest thy self worthy of it well suppose That But I pray' who is worthy Is an angel worthy enogh No certainly if we consider the greatness of the Mystery Let us well consider these two Sayings and their Reasonablness and then judge of those so frequent phrases A Worthy Communicant A Worthy Guest c. whereby many unwary persons ar more Scared than with any thing derived from the word of God which never taught us either to think so Slightly of our Lords Bloud or so Highly of our Selvs as to believ it possibl by any endeavors to becom Worthy of it 2. The vulgar sens is very different from that Mesure the Apostl stateth the reproved Unworthiness by He expresly caleth it a not discerning the Lords body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 putting no difference between This which our Lord declared his Own Body and Common bread Our Learned Mede very well confirmeth the Jewish definition of Holiness that it signifieth Separation We Sanctify what we honor with Discrimination and on the contrary we Profane what we use as Common The heavenly vision confirmeth this warning St. Peter from an Error in opinion analogos to this Crime What God hath sanctified that call not thou Common To call Common and Unclean was all one in St. Peters sens and not to discern the Lords body from Common bread is all one as to Desecrate it in St. Pauls And this he so presseth upon the Corinthians as dubly to convince them What saith he Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Possibly he might urge this not as Another Crime but as an Evidence of their unexcusablness in the Former They might perhaps plead Ignorance in That but in This they could not For thogh possibly they might not understand that they were obliged to Discern This Bread as the Lords body yet must they needs know they oght to Discern the Church as his Hous If they knew it not to be Sacrilege to make the Lords Cup an instrument of drunkenness they could not but know it so to make his Hous a Tavern With what partiality do som for som others do not treat these two parts
of the Apostls reproof With what Colossik strides do they reach both sides of Superstition On one side they dread the Lords Supper for want of worthiness in Themselvs on the other side they fear to own any reverence toward Gods Hous for want of worthiness in It How do they rob Peter and cloath Paul make the Lords Hous Common that they may dubly Sanctify his Tabl And all the while the Apostl makes This the Corinthians crime that they discriminated not the Lords Body from Common Bread and This either another Instance or an Evidence of their Profaneness that they discriminated not his Church from their Own houses But I may not now insist upon Any other error than That of the Corinthians which the Apostl saith consisted in This That they So used our Lords Body and his Hous as if they had Both be'n Common He chargeth them not Here thogh elswhere he do with any Other crime but such as Directly and Immediately desecrate the One and the Other and that in This very exercise Taketh no notice of their Other habitual vices confineth his charge to This performance in This place Forbiddeth not to approach either the Lords Table or his Hous bicaus they ar intemperate at their Own Yea he So expresseth himself as if he would even Compound with them indulge them their Domestik debaucheries provided they would forbear them Here. Not that indeed he Justifyeth what he elswhere plainly enogh Condemneth but to aggravate This incomparably Greater wickedness whereof the Sacrilege so Exceedeth as even to Hide the Immorality The Glutton is guilty of the Flesh of his Beast and the Drunkard of the Bloud of the Grape but the Unworthy Communicant of the Body and Bloud of the Lord. To be drunk with Common Wine in a Common Hous is to abuse both Gods Benefits and ones Own Body but to Desecrate the Lords Hous into a Tavern and his Bloud into a Cup of Drunkenness to make That the Instrument and This the Scene of Leudness is a wickedness not only above Drunkenness but even above Sacrilege it self As it hath no Match so it hath no Name If therefor you will not divorce your beloved debaucheries if you will needs be eating and drinking intemperately yet know your Place do not heap Sacrilege upon Lust make not the Lords Hous yea his very Body and Bloud Servants to the leudness they would Check This is the Utmost reach of the Apostls reproof It comprehendeth indeed not only the Lords Table but his whole Hous Yet breaketh not open any Private one Judgeth no Other unworthiness but of This Performance Requireth a Difference not between one Communicant and another but between This and other Places and Suppers and Consequently Forbiddeth not Any Person to Do This which we have found All indifferently obliged to Do but forbiddeth Every one to Do It in such a Manner as shall make That Common which our Lord hath Sanctified IV. 3. THE Apostl must be mortally unfaithful to his Corinthians if upon so urgent an Occasion he did not warn them in Terms as Plain as the Crime if any must be Great I say upon so Urgent an Occasion for a most Urgent one it is Whether we look upon the 1. Lords Supper which he professedly endeavoreth to rescu from Profanation 2. the Argument whereby he laboreth to do it or 3. the Persons to whom he addresseth all 1. He professeth to rescu the Lords Tabl from Profanation and to That End to Close it with such a Rail as shall Fence it from abuse If therefor he leaves that rail so wide as to Admit Such persons as he oght to have kept out he must be dubly and inexcusably unfaithful both to the Lords tabl which he shall so have exposed to dishonor and to All those souls which finding no contrary warning may com to it with as great Sincerity as Danger If I find this the Purlieus of the Corinthians guilt that they Distinguished not the Lords Body then may I be secure of One of those Two Either he who distinguisheth the Lords Body is free from This how full soever he may be of Other Crimes Or the Apostl must be More guilty than the most Unworthy Communicant since professing to shew the True Extent of the Danger he warned them not to distinguish between Persons Worthy and Unworthy but between This and Common Bread Were his words Ambiguos yet must they here cary a sens usual in a case so Important he oght to have Explained how much they must Now signify above what at All other Times and by All Persons is ascribed to them and which can Intend No more but This That every one is obliged So to Distinguish between the Lords Supper and his Own as to shun Those indecencies which ar ordinary in Private Houses 2. He must be no less unfaithful to his Own Argument bicaus contrary to all Reason he must have neglected to strengthen it with the most Considerabl and Obvios Corroboration For if the exclusion of Unworthy Persons wer as agreeabl to our Lords Institution as the Consequence would have be'n serviceabl to his Own Purpose he Might and therefor Oght to have urged it and so put the holy Sacrament at the Greatest and Safest distance from profanation For if none must com to This Table who abuse their Own it will be out of danger of any Other abuse than Desertion If none drink This Cup who is ever drunk with Common Wine it will be secure from Promoting the Drunkenness which it cannot Tolerate If none Partake This Bread who break not Their Own to the hungry there will be no more danger that any one shall be hungry than that any other shall be drunken And since the Apostl was now obliged to speak whatever Truth would permit we ar reduced to This choice whether He wer fals to the Lords Supper his Own Argument and his Disciples souls or whether it be Not Forbidden to every Unworthy Person but enjoined to every one thogh as unworthy as wer the Corinthians to Do this 3. The Persons to whom this reproof is addressed wer such as may induce us to believ that Gods Providence concurred with the Apostl's Words to prevent any possibility of believing what we now dispute against For they wer the Corinthians a peopl of all other the most Obnoxios Proverbially Infamos for debaucheries This City vyed with Sodom as for fulness of bread so for excess of Leudness and dismalness of Destruction Yea so strangely inseparabl was Luxury from every thing of Corinth so much more incurabl than that strange Leprosy of Jewish houses that the very Burning of the City did not Purge but Propagate it The confusion of Metals melted by the raging flames from her multitude of rich Statues made That famos mixture which by the luxurios Romans was preferred above Gold it self as a more precios mater for their drinking cups and to be Supremely Luxurios something of Corinth must contribute Yet was not Leudness conveyed
first to the Holy Table and thence to Religion in general For it must add Shame to Grief when they see the best Arguments for Religion that present Happiness can offer retorted against it No greater joy saith Plut. than that of Religios fests wherein the Epicurean hath no part No greater nor more numeros troubles saith our experience than those which torment the Communicant wherein those who forbear have no part For the most worthy Communicant may be perplexed with fears that he is one of the unworthy against whom St. Paul's threatnings ar leveled but he that absenteth himself keepeth the same distance both from That danger and the troubl of preparation as from the Table For as is the Danger so is the Fear of it Great but Condicional Bicaus Great it falls heavy upon the Obedient bicause Condicional it cannot reach Others who 's neglect keeps them out of its sphaere of activity True upon the whole complex the Religios mans conscience is incomparably kinder even in its fears than that of the Irreligios even in his jollities but we now consider them not in relation to our Lords Throne but his Table And in This Precise respect we think it plain that as This duty is stated it must needs cause Great troubl to the One and None to the Other For the Irreligios will therefor be free from any Troubl from it if he Forbear bicause he believeth himself so from any Obligation to Com But the Religios whether he Com or Forbear will hardly escape Disquiets so much the more Grievos by how much the Duty is more Important Whether it wer not better to Level This in equal dignity with other holy offices of Gods worship which is the utmost the Apostl pleaded for than thus to Advance it above them All and for its maintenance in That height put it to exercise such unjust Tyranny over its most loving and faithful subjects no less contrary to its Own Nature than Their Happiness If it be not already plain enogh it will appear more so when we find This unhappy way of honoring it no less mischievos to the Publik peace of the Church than to the Private of the best of its members CHAP. VIII Pernicios to Charity I. Festing a bond of kindness among guests Salt an embleme of Love II. This a Fest of Charity seasoned with a kiss of Charity The highest Communion Drinking and Pledging Drinking healths The Bride-cake The Apostl's way of Arguing our Union from this Communion III. The kiss of charity translated kissing the Pax Panis benedictus a mockery The Sacrament not only disabled from advancing Love but turned to a makebate 1. by taking away the necessity of the Supper we take away its power to make us One body Our Saviors precept of being reconciled before we offer our gift miserably perverted IV. 2. By our too great aw we not only disable the Sacrament from healing the least breach but make it an instrument of the greatest 1. This multiplieth questions 2. Invenometh them 3. Maketh them incurable V. Taketh away the very subject of the question better the Sacrament had never be'n instituted than so abused THE Third good end to which the Holy Sacrament is directed is the cementing of All Christians together in Mutual Charity A Festival board is a Corporation the Communion holdeth not only between Head and Members but between Member and Member too And it is Such that our Lord reckoneth it among the Pretences that shall be made to his favor at the great day Many shall say at That day Lord Lord have we not eaten and drunk IN THY PRESENCE We see he reckoneth Eating and drinking in his Presence ' thogh not at his Own table for he made few fests but accepted of many worthy to be ranked with Prophecying and doing many wonderful works in his Name as an equal token of favor receved or deserved Salt was by Gods Law required in Every Sacrifice and is so by Universal Tradition in Every Fest We startl at the spilling of it as an unhappy omen The reason given by som is that it is the embleme of Love and it is authorised by our Lord saying Have Salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among your selvs and have Peace one with another II. THIS uniting vertu is more conspicuous in our Lords Supper than in Any Other and the Apostls seasoned it accordingly Greet one another with an holy kiss saith St. Paul with a kiss of Charity saith St. Peter And the later seemeth to fit the Salt to the Viands in Name as well as in Nature St. Jude caleth the Supper a fest of Charity The kiss therefor wherewith it must be seasoned might very properly be stiled a kiss of charity That was the strongest Engagement and This the properest Seal That the Table This the Salt The first time we find the Holy Supper celebrated we find it deserv the name which it afterward obteined Well might it be caled a Communion for it was the most perfect that ever the world admired Act. 2.44 All that believed wer together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and parâ—â—d them to all men as every man had need and continuing daily in the Templ and breaking bread in the common hous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partook the norishment with gladness and singlness of heart praising God and having favor with all the peopl And that we may not imagin those two Communions of Goods and of the Lords Supper to be fortuitosly met the Apostl expresly telleth us that the One was the caus of the Other We being Many ar One Bread and One Body For we ar all partakers of That One Bread It might upon too frequent occasions appear considerable that he putteth an emphasis upon the Universality both in the Reason and the Consequence All ar One Body bicause All ar Partakers of That One Bread I might further observ from J. Martyr's testimony how upon This account the Primitive Christians communicated even with the Absent by sending them portions of the holy Supper as symbols of their interest both in the Fest and their Love And I might hence not improbably derive our own custom of drinking to the Present and the Absent as a symbol of Love to Both A notion so much the more plausibl bicause after the Greekish mode we have made the Cup aequivalent to a whole Fest And among Us to drink to any person is so acknowledged a pledg of kindness that it passeth in Law for a Releas if pleaded to an action of Scandal or personal injury and he that drinks the so offered cup is said to PLEDGE him that began it i. e. he accepteth and reciprocateth or continueth on that Pledge of love In the Greek Church the Solemnities of Marriage ar closed with this ceremony The Priest blesseth a cup of wine and Bridegroom and Bride both drink of it And as in the Primitive Church the holy symbols were caried to the Absent so do we
Reverence by bowing their Knees to the Holy Table and turning their Backs upon the Holier Sacrament their Aw putteth them to as great distance as Neglect can and this occasions others to cloak their real neglect under pretence of aw so the slothful joyn with the fearful to plead There is a Lyon in the way Many come only Once in a year as if our Lord intended to consecrate none but the Passover Others not until they are dying as if they were not to shew forth the Lords death but their own Others not at all as if it were the duty of the Priest only because Instituted in the presence of the Apostles only and upon one pretence or other the much greater part of the People never think of it at all no not to their very death In the mean time the most zealous Servants of our Lord lament that his last and therefore not least Command hath lost the Obedience due to it The greatest lovers of Piety that it hath lost one of its greatest supports in the time of greatest need The most affectionate Sons of the Church that she hath in a manner lost a Sacrament an indispensible mark of a true Church The tenderest Friends of Peace that she hath worse than lost her best Cement which is abused to an Instrument of Division And the most Prudent and Pious cry aloud that it is a shame to our Government and a wound to our Religion that our practice should give such a publickly to the Apostle when we read That we are therefor one Bread and one Body bieause we eat of that one Bread Since therefore the Work is equally necessary and Neglected he that shall labor in it will be secure from being blamed as troubling the World with repetitions of trite Discourses BUT then he shall be no less sure of the contrary censure as doing it with New ones and which is worse as vilifying the adorable Sacrament For the Temple of the Sepulchre however venerable for the Antiquity of its Buildings is much more so for the Place they stand on which though they do not so much Honor as Oppress yet whoever should endeavor to rescue it from them should be doubly censured as Sacrilegious both against the Holy Temple and Holier Ground Whoever will measure the Ground whereon the mistaking zeal of former Ages hath built so many and great Mysteries cannot avoid shewing it uncapable to bear them and consequently must run a severe gandelope lashed on one side in behalf of Antiquity and on the other in behalf of the Sacrament II. BUT once throughly convinced of the Fitness yea Necessity of the undertaking these Fears move me no otherwise than to set me forward From the Dignity of the Sacrament I conclude it worthy my service and from the Duration of the Error I conclude it to need it Did not Both these concur I should not have raised Work for the Learned or Game for the Censorious by opposing a popular error in so Sacred a subject Yet lest that which sets me forward to the Work should set me backward in the Success I think it requisite to take such notice of the double Objection as to justifie my self against both its parts 1. ONE part of the Objection concernerh the Dignity of the Sacrament who 's greatness I most heartily acknowledge I confess we may be guilty of the Body and Blood of our Lord in either sense That of the Institution or that of his preceding Doctrine Jo. 6. wherein he interpreteth eating and drinking by believing And therefor we ought to examine our selves before we Receive much mote before we Publish any Opinion concerning it as carefully as before we receive the Sacrament it self But this is so far from a reason against Examination that it pleads for it For as Both ways we may be guilty of Rashness if we Receive unworthily either the Sacrament or the Opinion so may we be of Neglect if we consider not what we are obliged both to Do and to Teach I know a Gentlewoman that hardly escaped falling into water because a poor neighbor that stood neer her and might easily have helpt her forbore that good office upon this reason as she afterward excused her self because she durst not be so bold Whoever accuseth me of boldness toward the Holy Sacrament let him consider whether he would be pleased with such reverence in a time of such need Whatever others do certainly none of those good men who so sadly complain of the neglect will blame him who labors the remedy No though he should abate somewhat both of Fear toward the Sacrament and of Reverence toward those former Ages which teaching men to Dread have by consequence taught them to Shun it Yet is there no such danger For neither will the Institution be a loser if in stead of the Superstitious Dread which contradicts it's Nature we pay it the Obedience which it requires and the Love which it deserves nor true Antiquity if instead of the Middle ages we venerate the First III. 2. TO that OTHER part therefor of the Objection I answer that we ought to take none but the first and best Ages of the Church for our guides in all such Controversies as are capable so to be determined That those which concern Matter of Fact are Such since the Practices of those Ages are visible but not alway their Opinions especially in such Modern Questions as never troubled them to declare their judgments That the publick Offices of Christian Worship are visible and therefor it must needs be a great crime for Later ages therein to depart from their Fathers All this I not only acknowledge but urge and I hope no man will deny that it was as true a thousand years since If therefor it appear that the Middle ages have departed from the First we must nor follow but reform the Error and whoever shall retrive the long lost truth ought not to be look'd upon as a Contemner but faithful Servant of Antiquity and so much the more deserving by how much longer the Error hath continued That this is the present case needeth no other proof than the Records of Matter of Fact never in any case more legible whereby we may easily discover by what steps we are go'n so far from the authentick examples of the Apostles and several immediatly succeeding Ages This though we shall meet another occasion to examine yet for preventing prejudices which perhaps might hinder some from reading so far I conceive fit here to offer in a more contracted Landschape THAT the Apostles and Primitive Christians for some hundreds of years were as constant at the Lords Table as at his House is so manifest that those who wanted not the Tentation ever wanted the Face to deny it And the Evasions whereby some have endeavored to shun the unavoidable Evidence are as plainly false as the denyal it self can be True it is saith the most excellent of them the Apostles did indefinitely admit the
make all possible advantage of the Bread This they say must be the Lords Body in the literal sense bicause he hath categorically said so and since it is as easie for him to Do it as to Say it there is no Necessity and therefor no Reason why we should quit the most Proper sense For Reason must not be balanced against Faith This must believe the Thing though That cannot comprehend the Manner But the Wine all this while is laid aside as Unserviceable All the regard paid it is but as an Attendent It is concluded that since the Bread is the Lords Body the Wine must needs be his Blood whether our Lord have said any thing at all or any thing to the contrary concerning it or no. Yet our Lord honored the Wine No Less and the Apostle More than the Bread There are no Valves that hinder the Reflux but we may with the same Authothority and Evidence interpret That by This as This by That Now if we believe the Apostle Our Lord said not of the Wine This is my Blood but This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood And the literal sense saith not more plainly of the Bread This is my natural Body than it saith of the Wine This is NOT my natural Blood If therefore They may argue Positively That the Wine must be our Lords Blood bicause the Bread is his Body we may upon the same evidence argue Negatively The Bread is Not his Body but only the New Testament in his Body bicause the Wine is Not his Blood but only the New Testament in his Blood With the favor therefore of our better Champions I conceive we ought to learn as of the Adder so of the Papist to direct our blow to That part they are so careful to fence and restore the Cup to its due office Possibly they have denyed it its right in the Peoples celebration out of pique for the ill office it is so apt to do to their beloved doctrine let us restore it to Both its Rights its honor due by our Lords Institution and its power of interpretation due by the Laws of Reasoning We cannot more effectually silence their importunity for the literal sense than by claiming it They who deny Sense and Reason worthy to be ballanced against the Letter cannot deny One Element to be so against the Other What therefore they have put asunder if we remember our Lord to have joined together we cannot but know our selves obliged to Receive both in the same sense whether Literal or Mystical If Both are to be Mystically understood the querel is ended between us If Literally we make a new one between the Elements If One must comply he that hath One grain of it will grant that Reason must turn the scale on that side where it shall be found Those who deny it weight enough to preponderate the the Literal sense cannot deny it sufficient to turn Aequilibrate Scales So that the defect lyeth not in the Scripture but the Doctors whose partiality to One side above the Other hath made a difficulty which an equal regard to Both sides would have prevented And it is yet further considerable that they carry the same Partiality toward that side they so favor For as our Lords Institution hath two equal parts so hath their favored Proposition This is my Body And whereas the Laws of Reasoning require we should first understand the Subject and then the Predicate the Former they wholely lay aside and employ all their endeavors upon the Later which I might now insist upon as another Butcherly abuse but I shall hereafter meet another occasion to call it to account and therefore hasten to what more nearly concerns our present bisiness wherein if I should prefer reverence to persons however worthy above the Truth I am engaged to serve I ought to be branded with a worse Character than that of Irreverence to my betters which I expect to be accused of 2. Our own Divines therefore I cannot avoid impeaching as guilty of the same Partiality To cut the Higher part from the Lower is Another but no less irregular way of dissection especially when the Lower depends upon the influence of the Higher for all its Life and Motion That the 27th dependeth as a conclusion upon the Premises is manifest by the illative Wherefore From the Forgoing discourse therefore ought all the Following to derive its Life and Power Yet who is there that takes any notice of Those Premises or their Influence Doth not every one pass by All the rest and begin his endeavors at the Conclusion And as if we gloried in varying our irregularities into all possible shapes We take the quite contrary way with the next the 28th verse for whereas the Apostle there makes the Former half the harbinger of the Later we employ All our care about That and wholely neglect This which That is to serve Yea as if it were a small matter to Neglect we Countermand the express Injunction and so dash One Precept against Another Let a man examine himself saith the Apostle and so let him eat c. Let a man examine himself say we with all possible caution and so let him beware that he eat Not that Bread Nor drink of that Cup if he find himself Unworthy whatever the Apostle have said to the contrary V. BUT it is easier to find faults than to amend them and I promised not only to shew the cause of the embarra's but the way out which sure must be by the same Light and by contrary steps If we Therefor miss the Apostles tru meaning bicause we miss the tru way to trace it then must we needs be obliged to search after it in that same way which we have so discovered to be the Right and Forsaken one We must therefore carefully Anatomise the whole Discourse First observe the Design then the great Limbs then the least Particles Their proper Textures their mutual Aspects their joint Serviceableness to That Design which animates them All to its own Use But as in Dead bodies especially such as have any considerable time layen so many Dâ—cts disappear which during life were as Visible as Necessary and the Artist many times is led by mere Reason grounded upon consent of parts to Find out if possible otherwise to Suppose those secret channels whereof he finds no other evidence but necessity So are there in This Discourse very observable Suppositions which though they were sufficiently evident when the Apostle wrote and will ever be necessary for the circulation of his Argument yet by Length of time and Forgetfulness if not worse of those who should have kept them open are now so lost that without careful Probing they are not discoverable Two such Suppositions I shall now take upon Trust pawning all my labor to pay good Evidence for them in a more proper Season 1. That the Churches of Christ at That time celebrated All their Religious meetings with Fests This is more then
half proved by the very first glance upon the Text. 2. That in All their Church Fests they honored some Special Bread and Cup with Special ceremonies the Cup ever closing the Fest This will require a fuller Examination Upon these two Suppositions the Apostles Argument otherwise unintelligible and All his Expressions whereof some must be otherwise impertinent will appear most Clear Rational and Unanswerable By their help therefore I shall make a duble dissection of the Words by a Paraphrase and of the Argument by an Analysis VI. THE Paraphrase must take in the 20th Verse bicause all the rest hang to it 20. When you come together therefore into one place this is not to eat the Lords Supper 21. For in eating every one taketh before other his own Supper and one is hungry and anothor is drunken 22. What Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Shall I praise you in this I praise you not 23. For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus in the same night in which he was betrayed took bread c. 25. After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had supped saying This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me 26. For as often as ye eat this bread This bread and drink this cup you do shew forth the Lords death c. 27. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of This bread and drink of This cap. 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body 33. Wherefore my brethren when ye come together to eat tarry one for another 34. And if any man hunger let him eat at home When you meet in that publik place appointed to Gods Worship your behavior is such that you cannot be thoght to celebrate the Lords Supper For whereas the whole Fest oght to be common to all the Communicants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you on the contrary in that foregoing Supper which the Lords is to close eat every one his own Supper apart so that one taketh more than Temperance alloweth and another less than Nature requires If your debauchery be such that you cannot forbear drunkenness it were less intolerable to practise it in private in your own houses than thus impudently to affront the whole Church and insult over them who have neither houses nor such plentiful provisions I said indeed verse 2. I praise you that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them to you But in this which is an Ordinance of the first Magnitude I must make an exception In this I do not cannot praise you For this Tradition I received not as I did the rest from my fellow Apostles but from the Lord Jesus himself and since you seem ether to have forgotten or mistaken it I again repete it That the Lord Jesus in the same night wherein he was betrayed being a Festival one took Bread c. After that same Festival manner also he took the closing Cup in its proper time viz. after Supper saying As often as ye drink this Cup in this manner do it in remembrance of me and not as you have hitherto do'n it For by this Institution This Bread and This Cup is so advanced above its former dignity that it is consecrated to a representative of our Lords death and as such is to be honored and that to the end of the world so that neither you nor any other Christian Church shall ever be at liberty to use it otherwise Wherefore this bread and cup are now no longer your own but the Lords and who ever useth them in a manner unworthy of that Relation is guilty not only of Intemperance but Sacrilege as abusing not common Bread and Wine but the thereby represented Body and Blood of the Lord. But remember that it is the proper character of a Man to examin his own actions Do so in This consider what you do and act sutably to your rule Let not the fear of so great a guilt fright you from your Duty but from your Irreverence For he that doth it in a manner unsuitable to its relation provoketh our Lord to anger as leveling His Flesh with that of a Beast and His Blood with that of a Grape putting no difference but treating the one in the same rude manner as he doth the other Wherefore when you come together to your Church Fests entertain you one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you that are able communicate your meat to those who have none of their own But let no man either eat or drink immoderately in Gods House if he be given to appetite let him rather satisfie it in his Own By this Paraphrase well understood and duly heeded we shall not fail of the Apostles meaning in the whole and every Particle provided we handle them regularly which I shall now do by a Logical Analysis of the Argument VII BY the Rules of Reasoning we must First consider the Conclusion intended to be proved and Then the Media imployed to that End mesuring These by their serviceableness to That The Conclusion is the charge of Profaneness in the Corinthians relating to our Lords Supper This animates and This must interpret every word and therefore requires to be it's self most carefully heeded And one might think a litle heed sufficient since it seems impossible either to Overlook or Mistake it He doth not only plainly lay it down but thrice inculcate it And since in every proposition the Quantity is highly considerable we must carefully observe that he doth not accuse them as guilty of misdemeanors in Some more than Other meetings but in All alike Had he charged them as guilty in Some special meetings wherein the Lords Supper was more especially concerned we had then understood that it was not concerned in All assemblies as such Or had he charged them as Profaning the Lords Supper in All meetings without heeding whether it were concerned in them or no if in Those meetings they were at liberty to have celebrated or omitted it they might excuse themselves by saying they intended it not in those particular ones But because they Never met in the Church without Festing and in All such Fests they were obliged by Christs command to celebrate his Own he therefore blameth their Fests Universally and that in such language that thrice varying the Phrase he still further cleareth his meaning Verse 17. Your coming together is not for the better but for the worse Their coming together Indefinitly if it be not plainly enough equivalent to an Vniversal is more clearly made so by ver
Universally of Bread and Wine as then he did of Children he Easily Might and therefor Certainly would have declared such a parallel Intention with a parallel Expression saying As often as you desire to set forth my death by a visibl representative do it with Bread and Wine for such viands ar proper to That end Thus I say he Might and therefore Would have declared his meaning if he had meant no more bicause Thus it would have be'n best understood For as reason required it was his constant Practice to deliver his Practical precepts in the clearest stile that the dullest apprehension of the most illiterate Fisherman might understand his duty II. IN the Mysteries of the Kingdom indeed especially such as might have temted his yet carnal followers to forsake him he Hinted and Intimated more than he thought fit to Express and he gave his reason I have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now He therefore spake only so much as might serv to prepare them for that Spirit of truth which as it brought all his Sayings to their Memories and all his Institutions to their Understandings so did it indue them with power from on high to bear such truths as were then too Big for their narrow Capacities or too Heavy for their sensual Affections Now this is a Practical Precept Therefore Injoined that it may be Performed and for that reason oght so to be Expressed that it may be clearly Understood especially in such Necessary points as are to be Mesures of the Performance Besides as it is a Practical precept so it is a Positive one too And such above all other require the Fullest and Clearest declaration of the Authors meaning For Precepts Moral if they be less clearly delivered may receve further light from the candle of the Lord which shines in every mans Reason But Precepts Positive having no other Mesur but the mere Will of the Law-maker can have no other Interpreter but his Words which therefor need be as Clear as his intentions to be obeyed can be Real Which in This case we cannot doubt them to be since it is appropriate to his own Personal honor and favored with many expressions of his esteem If ever therefore we must mesure our Lords Mind by his Words it must be Now and Consequently Now must we most carefully examin the Proper sense of Every word by such tests as are owned by all mankind III. AND among his Words this Particle THIS as it hath the first Place so hath it a principal Importance Our Lord made it the head stone of the corner thogh the bilders have rejected it and made it a stone of stumbling For what St James said of the Toung may be applied to THIS Particle It is very litle in Bulk but very great in Power and that Power it exerciseth in the same Manner too The Bridle determins the motion of the otherwise wandring Horse and the Helm That of the otherwise floting Ship and THIS the otherwise Undermined object If we go on with St James and complain of it's setting on fire the course of nature the unhappy sentence may appear more gilty than Any But our THIS is so far from the Incendiary that had not it's help be'n refused it wold either have Prevented or Quenched the flames For had the Doctors imploy'd some of That care in duly Stateing the power of the word THIS which they have worse than lost upon Exalting that of the word BODY the Cup of blessing could never have spent as it hath do'n more blood of Christians than of the Grape But those who resolved to Deify the word BODY must Sacrifice to it our word THIS That they might destroy the principles of Natural Philosophy they must begin with those of Grammar and Logick which concur to require our Special regard to the neglected Particle IV. GRAMMAR tells us that it is a Pronoun Adjective and Demonstrative As an Adjective it cannot stand without a Substantive and as a Demonstrative it must have a proper Object to point at And Logik saith the Same if we look upon it as a Simple word and More if we look upon it as part of a Proposition If we look upon it as a Single word Logik calleth it Syncategorical which is another expression of the same office which Grammar ascribeth to it It so points at some Singular object as to change the Vagum into Determinatum and put as much difference between This Cup and Any cup as there is between Hic homo and Quidam which is no less than what the Proper name can add to the Common nature For if Peter be pointed at and called This man he is thereby as much distinguished from all other men as if he were named Obj. If it be thought sufficient that there is a difference between THIS and other bread as soon as it is prepared for Consecration Ans I answer We ar not yet com'n so far We are not now enquiring into the Consequence of the Action but into the Meaning of the Institution which was the Caus of the then futur Action We know it to be no Common Bread when it is Separate or about to be so from Common use but we wold also know whether it wer not distinguished from Common bread before the Institution required us so to Separate it whether it had not some Praevios fitness above Any other Bread which might prefer it before All orher to the Office wherewith our Lord honored it in consideration of That singular Praevios fitness Now since our Lord pointed to it by the Demonstrative THIS before ever he had Consecrated it and thereby declared it Singularly capable of the Office either it must have some Praevious singularity or the Demonstrative must be vain as having Nothing to demonstrate FOR Words are but Images of Thoghts and as That Thoght must be vain which hath no Thing to answer it so must That Word be that is not answered by a Thoght the One and the Other must be verified by some Idea But of All words the necessity lieth heaviest upon THIS Others must Signifie some proper object This doth not only Signifie but Point to it and must be not only Vain but Abusive if professing to shew somthing it have nothing to shew This Priest must of necessity have somthing to offer I here challenge Any one to shew me in Any Author whatsoever any one example wherein This Demonstrative createth the first Difference without any Praevios disposition in the Object so to be pointed at And 'till That can be do'n we may very well receve our Lords word in the same Sense since it carrieth the same Sound as it doth in Moses's stile This said he of the Blood of sprinkling THIS is the blood of the Covenant That Blood receved not All its proprieties from what Moses said or did But it First differed from All other blood by its Proper circumstances of offering and Moses finding it so Predisposed honored it with a
singular Demonstrative and Dignity Our Lords stile is the very same and plainly alludeth to the same form of Consecration This cup said he is the New Covenant and therefore This blood of the New Covenant must as well as that of the Old have some Praevios singularities preceding the Proposition and Fitting it for the honor whereto merely by reason of That fitness it was so preferred above All other As we know what Honor it receved from the Institution so we must enquire what was the Singular fitness it broght to it We are not yet com'n to the word of command DO THIS where the Demonstrative following the Action may derive a singularity from it but we are yet in the porch in the Declaration THIS is c. and desire to learn what THIS can signify before any other word be spoken which may change it to some other state than what belonged to it before V. HITHERTO we have looked upon it in its Single capacity Logik further considereth it as a Part and the principal Part too of a Proposition It is no less than the Subject considerable Always as the Foundation whereon the Praedicate is to be bilt and Oftentimes as the Standard whereby its meaning is to be mesured For the sense of the Praedicate must ever be fitted to the capacity of the Subject and if the ordinary signification appear too big or too little the Inrerpreter must imitate the Prophet who applied his Own Eyes Hands and Mouth to the Childs wherein he must derive his mesures from the Speakers mind somtimes discoverable by common Reason and somtimes by the Speakers annexed Exposition E. G. Jacob categorically affirmeth of several of his Sons that they are Beasts of several kinds and immediatly limiteth the extravagant Expression to some determinate Resemblance Juda is a Lions whelp Not in all respects but this From the prey my son thou art not go'n up Issachar is a strong Ass What in the whole form No but in This couching down between two burthens Dan shall be a Serpent in the way Not in All but this One respect He biteth the horse heels Our Lords stile is the same at other times as well as now And we may as reasonably say Our Lord was not a Man but a Plant because he said I am the Vine thogh he interpreted himself by adding In Me ye bring forth fruit Yea not so much as a Living plant because he said I am the door thogh he immediatly added by me if any enter in he shall be saved As we may that this is not Bread because he said This is my body when he immediatly glossed upon the word by adding Do This in remembrance of me But on the contrary we are as much obliged to mesure This Proposition by the annexed Limitation as either of the Other and so to confess that This is no more our Lords Body than himself was a Door or Issachar an Ass Now if it be true that the Praedicate must be thus accommodated to the Subject then the less capable the Subject is the less must we giv it of the Praedicate If therefor Bread as such cannot be understood to be our Lords body Then perhaps as THIS it may carry such diminishing characters as may write it less capable For This reason it is probable that former Ages have be'n industriously silent concerning it and for This reason is the enquiry necessary Thogh This be a quite different question yet it is not unserviceable even toward our understanding the Other It is one question which asketh what Jacob meant by the word Ass when he put it upon Issachar and another to ask which of his sons it was whom he so stiled So it is one thing to enquire what our Lord meant by the word Body when he said of the Bread This is my body and another to enquire what extraordinary Bread that was which he preferred to that dignity THE Eunuchs first question was Not concerning the Things to be suffered but the Person that was to undergo them He asked not what was meant by being led like a lamb to the slaughter his judgment taken away in his humiliation or the obscurity of his generation But of whom speaketh the Prophet this And the same must be our method if we will understand our Lords Institution Before we enquire what he meant by calling the bread his Body we must ask of what bread speaketh the Lord this We may probably better understand Into What our Lord changed it if we first know From What. Many Therefore understand not What they say because they know not Whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.7 Many wold not have Spoken Others would not have Believed what All confess they cannot Understand in the Praedicate of this unhappy Proposition if they had first understood its true Subject as they ought to have do'n 1. That our Lord spake only of that individual Bread and That individual Cup which he then distributed so as to make Those Individuals the adaequate Subject as well of his permanent Institution as of That One Distribution cannot be imagined since Those Individuals must perish in the useing but for ever live in such successors as may be the Same in the General Nature of Bread and Wine and in the Special circumstances wherewith those were accompanied even before their preferment 2. That he spake of the Whole kind Any Bread and Any Cup we may not believe both because of the now mentioned difference of stile in This text and That concerning Children and because such a sense would oblige us to Consecrate All bread and All wine seeing the Demonstrative would have pointed to All alike This sense is as much too Wide as the former was too Narrow yet some will have a yet Wider For 4. They conceve that our Lord was so far from pointing to any determinate Bread that he did not to any determinate Thing But the Hoc must be taken Indeterminately Hoc i. e. Hoc aliquid This Somthing That they may destroy the nature of Bread they begin with that of the Pronown For whereas the Proper office of This Pronown is to make the Object More determinate by singling One out of Many contracting the General to a Special or Particular This sense will make it Less Determinate and More General 't will be so far from distinguishing This bread from Other bread that it will take away the Specifical difference whereby it is distinguished from an Egg a Stone or a Scorpion c. Which is so contrary to the nature of a Demonstrative as Black is from White whereof One is said to Congregate the Other to Segregate And the Constant Practice of All mankind contradicts it For whoever sheweth any thing to another and stileth it This Doth not pretend to disable him from judging what it is in its kind but to difference it from Others of the same kind doth not pretend to Contradict his sense but to Direct it If Caius shew Titus a
this the Jews in their Passover used our Important This in such a Form as did no less plainly prefigure this Institution than the Sacrificed Lamb did the death of the Author then must it seem reasonable that he chose that Form with the same affection that he did that Season and if so then must we mesure our Lords This by that of the Jews makeing the resemblance an evidence that the One was the issue of the Other Let us therefore to the Jewish rituals The Law of Moses requireth Unleavened Bread and for That reason to This day they honor Bread with many ceremonios solennities Before In and After Supper Particularly they break a Cake into two unequal parts The greater part the Master of the Fest hideth under a cushion there to be kept safe till the end of Supper Then doth he solenly bring it forth distributing it among the guests and saying This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate in Egypt whoever is hungry let him come and eat of the Paschal Lamb. And have we not now found our so much sought for Singular bread exactly answering what This bread is more than any Other bread Do not All features exactly concur The Season the Mater the Form of words All Circumstances the same This is so plausible that to this very Day thogh not for this Reason many look upon the Passover as the Predecessor of the Lords Supper and consequently the Standard of our Performance Many think that women have no right to the Lords Supper because they had none to the Passover and which is more proper to our present purpose that we are not obliged to receve it but at Easter only because That was celebrated only at the same season And that the Corinthians were of this Later opinion the more we consider it the more probable will it appear but most manifest that the Apostle hath utterly confuted it For he first reproveth them as profaning the Lords Supper not in their Paschal only but their Ordinary meetings and then convinceth them that it is concerned in them All whereby the Former error is also destroyed unless its Patrons will exclude all women not only from the Lords Table but his House too The Paschal bread therefore ' though it exactly answer our Lords Institution yet can it by no means agree with the Apostles gloss and we must not rest till we meet an answer for All Phaenomena as well in the One as the Other YET have we not lost our labor For as the Chemist ' thogh he miss his great Secret often findeth his cost and labor well paid by some profitable Experiment so we ' thogh we meet not full Satisfaction in our main enquiry meet somthing worthy Observation 1. That since our Lord in the same Circumstances used the same Word we ought to understand him in the same Sens. And therefor This bread must be our Lords body just so and no otherwise but so as the Pascal cake celebrated to this day by the Jews is the very bread which their Fathers ate in Egypt 2. That since This in the Jewish Passover pointeth at a Singular remarkable piece of bread distinguished from All others of the Kind by its Proper circumstances wherein it is to be eaten therefore This in our Lords Institution must likewise point at some Special bread known by the Circumstance of eating it from All ordinary bread 3. Thogh we have not hereby found what are the proper Marks whereby we may know This from Common bread yet we have the Way wherein we are to seek it For since there is no other defect in the Paschal but This that it answereth not the Apostles dissertation which reproveth their Ordinary Fests it must needs concern us to enquire into the forms of their Common Fests if possibly we may therein find not only such a Special bread but such a Special cup too as may answer both our Lords design and his word This in his Institution and the Apostles explication too whereby he proveth them concerned not only in the Passover but generally in Church Fests III. 3. LET us therefore again to the Jewish Ritual Behold at the very first Step we receve such light as leaves Nothing unsatisfied but our Wonder that the Jewish Rabbins should be better Commentators upon our Lords and his Apostles words and discover more to us of the Original Nature and Design of our great Sacrament than All the Christian Doctors who so long and so much have labored to honor it with their explications Because they are short and full take the words of Leo Modena a modern Rabbin and to remove all doubt of his veracity you shall find the same said by Buxtorf in his Syn. Judaica so that you cannot doubt of matter of fact equally testified by two such witnesses as you are secure agreed not to deceve you After they are sat down they say for the most part the 23d Psalm and afterward the Master of the house taketh a loaf of bread and saith a benediction over it which having do'n he breaketh it and giveth to each person about the bigness of a great olive and afterward every one eateth as he pleaseth and so the first time that every one drinketh he saith a benediction When they have do'n eating they wash their hands and take their knives from off the table because say they the Table representeth an Altar upon which no iron tool was to come And if they be three or more that eat together then doth one of them command a glass to be washed and filling it with wine he taketh it up from off the table saying with a loud voice Sirs let us bless His name with whose good things we have be'n filled After this the master of the house blesseth it and prayeth for peace and having so do'n he giveth to each of them a little of That wine which he hath in his glass and he himself also drinketh of it and so they rise from the table The Necessity considered which lieth so hard upon us to find some Special Bread and Cup which may equally answer both our Saviors and Apostles THIS we may justly upon That single account require any Dissenter to admit of This or shew us a Better But the Resemblance considered we may challenge him not only to shew a better Tally to our Lords Institution but any Pictur better answering the life Yea upon supposition that we were allowed to Forge what we pleased we might challenge him to Invent any Hypothesis that may more exactly answer all the Phaenomena both in our Lords Institution and the Apostles Dissertation to the least tittle Mark I pray you After they are sat down the master of the house taketh a laaf of bread saith the Rabby Our Lord distributed The bread when he had given thanks saith St. Paul as they sat at meat saith St. Luke Then for the Cup. The first time any one drinketh he saith a benediction saith the Rabbi The Lord took the
as between These Which must double the probability of the relation seeing it carieth apparent marks not of Father only but Grandfather too not only of the Tradition but the Rite of Sacrificing whence that Tradition was derived LET us then consider The Institution-Supper as it was Festival so was it Sacrificial more particularly it was Paschal i. e. a Fest of unleavened Bread And Bread was and still is therein honored with a solen Distribution and these words This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate in Egypt Do you not perceve the air of our Lords Form This is my body which is given for you If not observe that of the Cup. Moses when he sprinkled the blood of the sacrificed Heifer upon the Peopl recordeth himself to have said Behold the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with us the Apostle reciteth it This is the blood of the Testament or Covenant which the Lord hath enjoined you The One of these Forms is not more like to the Other than Either of them is to our Lords This is the blood of the New Testament or Covenant that is shed for you And 〈◊〉 we doubt This to be a copy of That Can we doubt but This pointeth at That as its shadow now to disappear Neither the Jewish stile which caleth their Table an Altar nor the Christian which caleth this the Sacrament of the Altar can desire a more honorable approbation than these words of our Lord give them manifestly owning That Jewish Phrase for the Parent and This Christian one for its Issu This resemblance of the Sacrificial Form added to the other of the Festival Mater what is it but the Scripture-way of naming considerable persons that we may not know Joshua the son of Nun more distinctly than we may this Festival Ceremony the issu of that Sacrificial CHAP. V. I. A plainer proof from Chap. 10. From the sameness of names In the Cup the Greeks aped the Jews The Apostle stileth the Cup of the Lord the Cup of blessing which is a perfect translation of the Hebrew name II. The breaking of Bread a Jewish phrase III. Some Phaenomena not salvable but by this Hypothesis IV. He expresly telleth us that each part of the Jewish Tradition by name is a part of our Lords Supper V. An Illustration from our Grace-cup VI. A Sacrament What NEVER did Talies more exactly agree than do This Institution and That Tradition both in Substances and Circumstances Yet shall we be content to let all this pass for Accidental and the Evidence thence derivable for Incompetent if we confirm it not by a Demonstration as full and unanswerable as the Subject can bear or the most Sceptical person require Suppose a Prince had be'n long lost and his Friends had met with a person of Princely deportment carrying in his countenance all the features and in his voice the perfect tone of the lost Prince This must certainly make them full of hopes that it was the same and what greater satisfaction would they desire than This that som credibl person of his retinu should giv in his clear Testimony that it was so And what clearer testimony could any such person give or how could he more effectually express it than by naming him by his proper name and declaring that this Person â—â—â—med was the Prince they desired If therefor we find the Apostle call the Lords Supper in each Element by the very same names as the Jews did each Mater in their Tradition and then declare them to be the Communion the one of his Body and the other of Blood I might hope the evidence capable to silence all doubts Look we then back to the 10th Chapter and observe his motions and expressions His Design there is to dissuade his Corinthians from communicating with Heathens in their Idols Temples His Medium for this he there taketh from the same Topik as he doth here for the reproofs of their misdemeanors in the Church As Here the Lords Supper is inconsistent with Intemperance so is it There with Idolatros Fests There is saith he implicitely the same relation between the Church of Christ his Table and his Cup with Us as between the Temple of the Idol his Table and his Cup with Them These are the Characteristiks of an Idolater as Those are of a Christian and therefor you cannot use them Both bicause you cannot at once be of Both families In pressing this Argument he so manageth each part of the Lords Supper as may best answer the Customs of the Heathen from which he is to dissuade them That they used any benedictions of Bread is nether manifest nor probable because not so suitable to the Greeks humor which ran all upon Drinking But their Closing-cup is so evident that they who above all Nations in the World were excellent at Both Speaking and Drinking could not find a word more expressive of Drunkenness than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were the inseparable attendant of Sacrificeing And that in their other Fests they aped this Tradition as in their Sacrificing they did the Law appeareth by what we find in many of their Poets and other Writers I mention only the Scholiast who seemeth litle more than a Translator of the last claus of our Rabby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The custom was to offer drink to the good daemon when the Table was about to be taken away This doth the Apostle so lay hold on as to express in their own abominable stile therein opposing Name to Name as expresly as he doth Cup to Cup caleth That by the Name themselves had given it the Cup of Devils for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is only the diminitive of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thereto opposeth the Cup of the Lord by the very same Name which the Jews in the above-mentioned Tradition knew it by For this I urge as most considerable that to this day they call their closeing Cup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it is not possible to translate into Greek more exactly than the Apostle hath do'n by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Strength or at least the Evidence of the Argument dependeth upon the Sameness of the Name whereby he here pointeth at the Cup no less yea perhaps more plainly than we have seen him do in the next Chapter by his Demonstrative This and I think it not easy to find a third way wherein he could have more clearly have do'n it No properer way of determining an Individuum than either to call him by his proper Name Peter or John c. or by pointing at him and saying This man Thus do these two Arguments mutually enlighten each other and Both concur to make it manifest that the Cup of Blessing in the 10th Chap. and that pointed at by the Demonstrative This in the 11th Chapter are the same with that which the Jews honored both in the same Circumstances and by the same Name too II. AND this will be yet
Country accordingly His General design we cannot mistake Nothing can be plainer than This that it is to convince the Corinthians of their guilt in profaning the Lords Supper but the Medium whereby he prosecutes this charge is both Generally and Grosly mistaken and since this is the Mother error whence all our Neglects on One hand and all our Earnestness on the Other and all our Disputes on All hands proceed it cannot be too plainly exposed and thogh it be troublesom yet must we crave the Reader to undergo a labor so necessary that without it he cannot understand what the Apostle meaneth throughout his discourse We too hastily believe that he endeavoreth to prove no more but this that our Lords Person was concerned in all the abuses of his Supper taking it for granted that they knew how his Supper was concerned in Those Meetings which he reproved Whereas the more we consider it the plainer we shall find that his Direct and Immediate endeavor is to prove the Later supposing the Former as self-evident upon the first notice of our Lords Institution So the case of the Corinthians toward the Lords Supper was much like the Apostles Own toward the High Priest Acts 23.4 5. They that stood by said Revilest thou Gods high priest Then said Paul I wist not brethren that he was the high priest For it is written Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people He reproveth the Corinthians as the By-standers reproved Him Profane you the Lords Holy Supper And supposing them likewise to excuse themselves in the same manner by saying We wist not that it was the Lords Holy Supper for we cannot but know That must be celebrated with reverence he argueth in such manner as to convince them of what they seemed either not to Understand or not to Own II. THE understanding of This will give us great light towards discovery of every step and that this is true we may the better perceve if we proceed by these Enquiries 1. Whether this might not be the Corinthians case 2. What might become the Apostle to do in such a case 3. How doth the Apostles procedure suit with such a Supposal 1. This might very well be the Corinthians case For 1. Possibly they might suppose that our Lord pointed at the Bread as Paschal not as Festival and consequently preferred not Every Fest but only the Passover to this honor and for This there are appearances of reason not contemtibl 1. He chose the Passover for the Season of his Institution and embraced it with such expressions of Affection as seemed Proper to That Particular solennity saying With a desire have I desired to eat not this Supper but this Passover 2. This above All other Fests best Prefigured his death while Future and was therefor most fit to Commemorate it when Past 3. The Jews said of the Lamb This is the BODY of the Passover and our Lord seemeth to allude to it saying This is my BODY 4. The Jews distributing the Paschal Cake said THIS IS the Bread of affliction c. and our Lord distributing the Bread said THIS IS my Body c. And at That time having newly filled their minds with phrases proper to the Season it is very probable that they might receve our Lords words in such a sens 2. And probably such an error might proceed from want of a proper form of Words to accompany the celebration One of the best Doctors our Church can bost of authoriseth me to say That such a Form of words however Useful is not indispensibly Necessary Our Lord enjoined none and we find not that his Apostles either Practised or Taught their Disciples any and it was prone for the Corinthians to slide into an error concerning That cup which carried no Inscription to declare its contents Certainly from hence came that which Tertullian complains of in his days That Fests of Charity were celebrated in the Church without the Lords Supper and from hence came our loss of the meaning which is the Soul of our Grace-cup And on the contrary the Jews with the Mater retene also the meaning of their Tradition because both the Bread and Cup are accompanied with such a Form of words as will not suffer it to be lost 3. And possibly they might look upon the Whole as a mere outward Performance For knowing how litle fondness our Lord had toward Such exercises they might thence infer that he left it in Their choice to Perform or Omit it as Themselves should judge convenient and their Partiality to their beloved riot might incline them both to Entertene such an opinion and Improve it Our Lords Supper must strike some Aw into their unwilling minds Commanding not only Sobriety but Devotion And how unwelcom such a check must be to the Corinthian humor and consequently how willing they must be to free themselfs from it if we know not already we shall anon Thus far we have considered Probabilities we come now to Certainty 4. Whatever they Really believed it is Certain they might Pretend that they believed our Lords Supper unconcerned in Those Fests which the Apostle thus reproved and the very Possibility of such a Pretence no less required a confutation than a Real profession of such a Belief which requireth us to consider as our next step III. VVHat might become the Apostle to do in such a case If it were but Possibl for them to believ so Himself hath taught us that he ought to suppose they Did For Charity thinketh no evil but hopeth All things believeth All things Since therefor This was much better than Knowingly and Willingly to affront our Lord in his Representative This must in Charity be supposed And Prudence agreed with Charity rather to seek out Excuses for them than to expose them to the Vttermost He was to deal as Sweetly and Obligingly as possibl so to endear Himself and the Gospel to them Praise them as much as possibly he might Reprove them no more than Needs he must and Excuse them when he could not Justifie them And this as it sweetened the Reproof in appearance so did it more bitterly aggravate the Crime if their own consciences upbraided them as uncapabl of such an excuse Since the Guilt must needs be Great which to the Reprover appeared Incredibl Nor could any Inconvenience on the Other side dissuade such a procedure This way he might meet with them at All turns If they wer Really mistaken he might Rectifie their Judgments if they wer not he might Baffl their Pretences and Both waies Reprove their Misdemeanors rescuing our Lords Supper from Profanation if they intended to celebrate it and his Commands from Neglect if they intended it not and Himself from any appearance either of Severity towards Them or Coldness towards our Lords Supper IV. 3. HOW doth his Procedure suit with such Supposals If we carefully observe we find that the former part agreeth very well with them and the later part will agree with
Design by This must we enquire whether he intended merely to prove that Reverence is due to the Lords Supper as is generally supposed or whether he mean to prove that Some determinate Bread and Cup was consecrate by our Lord to his Supper In This Inquiry we shall proceed 1. Negatively shewing that the Former cannot be his meaning 2. Positively shewing that the Later must be so 1. The FORMER cannot be This will appear whether we consider the Subject or the Praedicate of the Proposition 1. The SUBJECT of the Proposition is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup and therefor whatever the Praedicate brings must not belong to That but to These That the Lords Supper precisely and formally considered is not the true subject of the Proposition is plain both by the express words that have not a syllabl of it and by plain reason which requireth it to differ from the Praedicate For if the Subject differ from the Praedicate only in Syllables not in sense the Proposition will be no better than a tautology a mere repetition of the same thing in other words It is true the Lords Supper is concerned in the Proposition but Mediatly because of its intimate relation to This Bread and This Cup which for its sake are advanced above All other of the kind consecrated first to the Lords Supper and thereby to his Body and Blood And This is so much the more considerable because if the Apostle had no other design but only to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper he ought in all reason to have insisted upon the very Phrase which would go far in his way For the very Name of the Lord challengeth Reverence the very Sound is an Argument it carrieth Aurhority and Commandeth Aw into the hearts of the hearers whereas on the contrary Bread and Wine in their natural State are but poor beggarly creatures servants of our Appetites at best and too often of our Corruptions and need a Law to defend them from our abuses Now that our Apostle should have No other Design but to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper yet desert that stile which would Strengthen his Argument and take up another that would Weaken it is so much the more unreasonable because he had used That more potent stile in his charge ver 20. and thereby obliged himself to inforce it So that he must now desert not only the Reason of his Argument but the very Subject of his Charge if he had no other design in This Proposition but to prove that our Lords Supper oght not to be treated as he complained 2. The PRAEDICATE of This Proposition is utterly useless or worse to such a design The Argument would run more Clearly more Briefly and more Conveniently Without the Proposition than With it For the Institution having stiled this Suppor of the Lord his BODY and BLOOD the Inference is most Natural and Cogent therefore whoever celebrateth the Lords Supper unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood So this whole 26th verse will at best be but impertinently troublesom good for nothing but to amuse our thoughts confound our minds and cloud the light of the Argument Yea the very Phrase of the Praedicate will conspire with That of the Subject not only to Darken the Argument but to Weaken it For to declare it our Lords Body and Blood must needs command our aw more than to say it setteth forth his death so that the interposition of This meaner office between our Lords Institution and his own next Inference in verse 27. in Both whereof That higher one is given it can serv to no other effect but to eclipse the Light and intercept the Influence which otherwise would stream more powerfully and directly from the One to the Other In a word let the Otherwise minded shew what Necessity yea what Use this 26th verse serveth what Light or what Strength it ministreth to the Discourse otherwise they must needs either suppose the Apostle to talk impertinently or accept of That service which his words offer which what it is will yet forther appear VI. POSITIVELY therefor This Proposition pointeth at some Determinate Bread and Cup declaring that Whoever eateth That determinate Bread and drinketh That determinate Cup doth Thereby shew forth the Lords death And now the lately disputed Particle THIS is no Less perhaps More considerable in the Apostl's mouth than we found it in our Lord's For the sake of This Demonstrative did he so solenly recite the Institution and resume That as the most important clause therein From This doth he derive All his Argument and to This doth he pay All his Service He observeth to what honor our Lord advanceth the Bread and Cup From His hand doth he take them cloaths them with the important Demonstrative as the Robe royal rendring them conspicuosly honorable in the beholders eyes Crowns them with the potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving them power to prescribe mesures to our obedience leads them in pomp and proclaims before them THIS is the Bread and THIS the cup which the Lord delighteth to honor THIS Bread and THIS Cup hath he commissioned to shew forth his death THIS Bread and THIS Cup are the Supper of the Lord and therefor whoever eateth THIS Bread and drinketh THIS Cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Process is Pompos yet withal it is Elegant he so inculcateth the important particl as to favor your ears he so indeavoreth to satisfy as not to surfeit you with nauseos repetitions and therefore having so shewed it as abundantly to fill you with his meaning he withdraweth by degrees still varying the phrase yet so as still to preserv the influence even when he quitteth the sound of the Demonstrative That you may see both his Art and Care I shall set down his very words Ver. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In verse 26. he giveth the Bread honors before denied it Equaleth it with the Cup honoreth it with the same Emphatical Article and the same potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither of which was given it in the Institution The reason will anon be plain he now describeth the complete Supper wherein the Bread is no less necessary than the Cup thogh not equally honored with it in the Institution as we shall see and understand why anon In verse 27. He keepeth the same stile for the Bread but varieth it in the Cup saith not now THIS cup but The cup of the Lord. And here we must pause lest we seem to contradict truth for I said but now that the Apostl mentioneth not the Lords Supper whereas here he stileth the Cup the cup of the Lord. But what I said but now I spoke of the 26th verse wherein he cut out work for his whole following process Again in this very
the better half of our Lords Supper and the Whole of the Apostl's Argument which cannot out-live this lose but would not have be'n wounded so mortally by That of the Bread V. 3. MY last remark is that in the Deductions which which himself draweth from our Lords purposly recited Institution he payeth to the Bread joint honor with the Cup which he had denied it for no other reason but only for its unserviceableness to his Argument Those Deductions ar ushered with ver 26. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he com 1. Here we see he applieth These relative words to Both elements whereas in recital of our Lords Institution he had not at all applied them to the Bread And this contrary to that know'n rule which forbids the Conclusion to infer more than was conteined in the Premises Hereof what other account can there be given or what better desired than the Tradition offereth In the former verse he was to state our Lords mind reveled to himself concerning Frequency And thereof the Cup was the only Standard because That alone distinguished Festival Suppers from Common But in This he is to describe the Supper it self wherein the Bread hath right not only to be joined with it but to be preferred before it Had he now excluded the Bread he must have intimated concerning It what som without any such color declare concerning the Cup that it were needless bicause the Supper were complete without it But by this care he preventeth any such concept 2. He addeth another Claus not mentioned in the Institution 'till he com thereby either to obviate an evasion in point of Duration if possibly the Corinthians might pretend to shift from his reproofs by supposing the Obligation worn out or to strengthen the command by shewing how great esteem our Lord had for it as extending it to all times future as well as present 3. But the most remarkable is this that the Imperative is changed to the Indicative A change so Considerable and otherwise so unaccountable that our glorios Dr. Hammond thinketh it not to be made The Greek is indifferent to both but in the Imperative there appeared a grain of sense and none at all in the Indicative For if in the Subject of the Indicative proposition we see no other difference between This Bread and Cup and and any Other Bread and Cup but what our own actual Consecration hath advanced it to if this stile be only a Periphrase of the Lords Supper differing therefrom only in Syllables then will the Proposition tell us no news at all Every child will without its help understand that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup upon no other reason but this that we may thereby shew forth our Lords death we shew forth our Lords death And that the Apostl should so carefully bring a candl to shew us the Sun seemed no way probable to our learned Doctor But if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be read Imperatively not ye do but do ye then may there be so much of reason in the Precept as there is of possibility to do otherwise For look how much danger there is that we may do this without shewing forth our Lords death just so much need there is of Caution and just so much reason will there be in the Command which hath no other use but to prevent such danger whereas in the Indicative as there can be no possibility of error since the very naming of the Subject makes the Praedicate self-evident so can there be no reason for the Proposition Yet all this while if there be Any at all there can be â—ut a very small difference for the Performance containeth the End almost as necessarily as the Subject doth the Praedicate it is almost as hard to do this without shewing forth our Lords death as it is to doubt whether we oght to do it or no And all that can be gotten by the change is this that upon supposition of the Reverence which every one will certainly pay our Lords Person the command enjoining an action in remembrance of our Lords death will by consequence mind them of doing it with such Intentions But be the gain litle or great we must quit it because the word FOR which ushereth the declaration necessarily requireth the Indicative mode Had it be'n an Illative wherefor or therefor the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had be'n indifferent to the other mode Therefor do ye had be'n all as proper as Therefor ye do But the Causal FOR will by no means indure any other than an Indicative It s proper office is to confirm our Belief or instruct our Understanding not to command our Will No Author ever speaks so nor will our Ears indure such an incongruos sound so that our excellent Doctor must lose on one hand whatever he may seem to gain on the other and he will reap but small thank from the Apostle by delivering him from a supposed Solaecism in Logik and casting him upon a real one in Grammar I say it is but a supposed Solaecism in Logik and That supposition is grounded upon our inadvertency For grant once that our Demonstrative This and our Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 point to some praeviosly singular Bread and Cup and immediatly we discover a sens so far from trifleing that probably it will appear too severe certainly most worthy of so great an Apostle most serviceable to his Argument and most worthy our utmost consideration For thus will it convince the Corinthians It is in vain for you to pretend that you do not celebrate the Lords Supper in Those your intemperate meetings FOR I have so recited our Lords Institation that you may plainly perceve it to be his meaning that as often as you drink This cup which he Then consecrated and which is the same with that wherewith you close All your Church Fests you must do it in remembrance of Him FOR he hath not left it in your power to make his Supper Concerned or Unconcerned by celebrating it as often or as seldom as you please in such meetings yea or to choose which way you will be guilty whether of Disobedience to his Command by Omitting the duty or of Contemt to his Person by Doing it unworthily FOR he hath inlayed it upon All such Fests so inseparably that thogh you would you cannot take Any of them without it FOR YOU DO whether you intend it or no whether you will or no notwithstanding any contrary Intention You Do you cannot but Do what he hath thus made not only Unlawful but utterly Impossible for you to Omit It is not only a Command obliging you but an Institution necessitating you and you cannot avoid the Actual doing it if you avoid not All Church Fests FOR as often as ye eat This bread you eat That whereof our Lord said This is my body and as often as you drink This
any be will pass from the obediently negligent Subject to the impertinently busie Law-maker who having not Required but Supposed the Action neither Found nor Made any ground for the Supposition It forbids the benevolence it begs For thogh it threaten No guilt of disobedience to the Omission it doth to the Performance While we may ly safe in our Neglect we run a great risk in our Officiosness For he that Omitteth the Performance disobeyeth no command therefor cannot incur any guilt nor deserv any punishment but he that upon such terms approacheth the Holy Table is already gilty of contemt towards the threatnings denounced against Unworthy recevers bicause he needlesly exposeth himself to them and to com safely off had need of more Piety in the Performance than we can Yet discover of Wisdom in the adventure V. IF WE can suppose the Apost'l so regardless of our Saviors command yet sure he had more kindness for his OWN ARGUMENT than to use such solicitos endeavors to destroy it and for his own Credit than to furnish the Corinthians with a Plea whereby they might non-suit his Charge He was sure a better Disciple both to Gamaliel and our Lord than to use such endeavors as by the ordinary rules of reasoning must depose both his own Discours and our Lords Command from all power But such is the unavoidable consequence of the merely Suppositive sens of those important words For it is obvious that the Corinthians Might and therefor supposable that they Would plead thus for themselves We are sufficiently sensible that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup we shew forth the Lords death and consequently that whoever eateth This bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But in these our ordinary Fests which thou so severely reprovest we have nothing to do with This bread nor This cup. We Fest indeed as often as we meet in the Church but without any Intent and we conceve without any Need to eat This bread or drink This cup. We intend to do what all Nations agree to be the proper manner of worshipping God This is the Vniversal notion of mankind in that so common Rite of Sacrificing The Votary therefor offereth his beast that he may become a guest to his God thereby at once Receiving and Expressing a confidence that he is propitious to him And thogh our Lords great Sacrifice of himself have made it needless to shed any more blood by way of atonement yet is that so far from any reason that we should lay aside Festing with Sacrificing that it is a very good one why we should take it up if it had never be'n used before since now we have much greater reason to rejoice in the Communion to which God inviteth us But that in all our Fests we should be obliged to celebrate the Lords Supper since himself hath not expressed it we understand not For either he intended we should receive it only at the same Fest whereat he Instituted it which was the Passover or els he left it wholely to our discretion to receve it as often as we should think convenient Now that we intend not to do it in our ordinary meetings thy self seemest to understand For thou declarest when ye come together it is not to eat the Lords Supper Is it not we own it we plead it It is not to eat the Supper and how do we Profane it when we do not eat it When we do Eat it if our behavior be irreverent we must confess our selves guilty for we submit to thy rule As often as we Eat This bread and Drink this cup unworthily we are guilty but it thence followeth not that we are so as often as we Fest together in the Church It is hard to say whether such a plea were more obvios to the Apostl's Observation or Destructive to his Argument It was therefor infinitely necessary he should answer it and we find no other Answer to it but in these words nor any other Use of Those words but for such an Answer This is sufficient to perswade us so to interpret them that the Argument be not Defective nor Themselves Impertinent But to fasten such a Gloss upon them as shall make them not only Useless but Pernicios and the Argument not only naked of so necessary a defence but irrefragably retorted against the Author is perhaps a greater abuse to Them than the Corinthians profaneness was to the Lords Supper VI. FOR a close of this troublesom dispute let us impartially ballance the rival senses upon This enquiry which of all others is most important viz. which of them affordeth better satisfaction to a pious soul conscientiously enquiting how often he is obliged to receve the Holy Communion A question wherein there are many things doubtful but none more than This Whether it more Deserve or Need to be answered 1 The One sens offereth full satisfaction by shewing us a Certain Mesure to which we must conform And though the change long since made in the Manner of celebrating Church Festivals seem to have confounded it yet if we once know what it was at the time of the Institution we may and must so accommodate the never decaying Reason to the Change as still to answer the first Intention For if the Corinthians were therefor obliged to Eat the Lords Supper in All their Church meetings bicause they Fested in them All in One manner so are we bicause we also Fest in them All in Another manner Since the Manner of Publik worship the Church upon competent reasons may alter but the Institution of our Lord indispensibly closing All Church Fests with his own Supper No human power may abolish at least not in point of the Obligation though possibly invincible necessity may dispense with Actual performance at som times So by This account the clear answer will be That the Church must offer the Holy Sacrament as often as she can persuade the peopl to receve it and every person is so often obliged to receve it as the Church Officers shall offer it and Both the Church and every person oght to come as neer as possible to doing it every Lords day and every Holy day i. e. All days of Church Fests 2. But the other Sens for want of a Standard will pack us off with an answer more Delusory than the Collier's If we ask How often must I do this in remembrance of Christ it will answer As often as you eat This bread and drink This cup If we then ask How often must I eat This bread and drink This cup it will answer As often as you do it in remembrance of Christ This I say is more delusory than the Collier in two respects 1. Bicause it was possible to know what the Church believed Publik Confessions Canons of Councils c. All of them independent upon the Collier or his Faith and all know'n to the Catechist But Here we have No
Objection and withal to justifie our Ancestors for casting sensual Fests out of the Church I shall say sufficient Part III. Chap. 3. Besides these two Objections for which I am obliged to my Friends two others offered themselves to mine own mind which I also think fit to answer VI. IT may be further objected That the Jewish Custom concerned not Religious Worship but Domestik Fests as worthy of greater reverence saying What Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God Since therefor the Grace-cup was to be drunk in their Own houses and This in the Church how can the One be derived from the Other I answer This Objection by steps 1. It is not requisite that the Successor should answer the Predecessor in all Circumstances Yea the One may be opposed to the Other in very material Ones The Apostle even when he pleadeth Christ to be the tru Sacrifice opposeth his blood to that of bulls and goats as in other respects so in This of Frequency Those were offered often This but Once yet were Those types of This. 2. It is requisite that rhe Successor should be more perfect than the Predecessor The Antitype must excel the Type as the Gospel doth the Law the Body the Shadow 3. Difference of place the ground of the Objection is caused by difference of Dispensations That Gods worship is no longer confined to One Place is one of the great changes wrought by the Gospel and This makes it needless for Us to make out own houses Temples Gods House is so near our own that we need no Chappels of ease 4. This was the very design of the Tradition they took the Names and did what possibly they could to perform the Things caled their Table an Altar c. and so professing to do their utmost and com as near as possibly they could to the performance which could not legally be accomplished but only at Hierusalem This therefor is so far from an Objection against our deriving the Lords Supper from such a Tradition that it is a Reason for it It doth not in This respect contradict it as at first glance it may seem to do but comply with it The Tradition expressed their endeavor to offer their meat in God's house if possibly they could and since that which they so professed to endeavor is to us not only Possible but Easy we could not answer the very fundamental design of the Tradition if we did not make the Lord's House the place of his Supper 5. This difference of Place speaks the Lords Supper successor not only to the Tradition which was it self but a Succedaneum but to the Legal Sacrifices themselvs That hindrance being removed which induced the Jews to invent such a supply This Institution by a motion of refiliency passeth through rhe Succedaneum to the Principal Yea and the very Principal it answers not as an Inferior but a Superior and therefor required a Place Superior if possibl not only to their own houses but the Templ it self The Apostl maketh This an Instance of the greater dignity of Christ's Priest-hood that he entered into a Holier place than did Aaron or his seed Since therefor this Bread and Wine hath a better title to Christs Body and Blood than had the flesh and blood of Bulls and Goats and yet Those might not legally be offered but at God's House and since This very Tradition professed to do what possibly could be do'n to Fest before God in his own House it was not suitable either to the greater dignity of this Holier Sacrifice or to the very significancy of the Tradion that it should be celebrated except in case of necessity in any other than God's own House 6. As the dignity of the Sacrament so the interest of the Poor too Christ's body in another sens caled for This translation The Rich make as many Fests as Meals and were their own Tables the Altars might celebrate daily Sacraments But the Poor to whom our Lord bears as great affection as to his Supper seldom eat Three together which is the necessary Number or drink Wine which is the Necessary Mater and for this dubl defect must be excommunicate thogh guilty of no other falt but what they certainly repent their Poverty What therefor they must otherwise have lost they gain by the publikness of the Place which also gains the greater number So the Poor gain the Fest and the Table gains Guests and the Tradition gaineth greater perfection by being So answered as to be outdo'n by the Sacrament VII THE most Obvios OBJECTION or Prejudice rather which hath more force thogh less weight than an Objection cometh from the Universal silence of All ages in a Subject of such importance For it seemeth utterly incredibl that in so many hundreds of years and thousands of Books we should not meet one word that so much as intimateth what might justly require to be most plainly Manifested But This Objection however big it looks at first sight Will hardly stand a strict examination or reply upon what shall be answered For 'pray' Reader consider Whence will you expect such an account From the Primitive ages They thoght it needless From the Later They thoght it Prejudicial 1. The PRIMITIVE ages thoght it Needless to give such an account in their Writings bicause they constantly gave it in their Practice It would have be'n a disparagement to the Institution to have writen upon it as the bungling Painter did upon his rude pieces This is a Cock This is a Bull c. and it would have be'n a fulsom officiosness to inform a Reader of what he daily saw with his eyes The Reason of every Negative ceremonial Law was at the time of stablishment legibl as the Letter but in following Generations almost utterly lost till Maimonides discovered that most of them pointed at som Idolatrous Ceremony at That time practised by the neighbor Nations and therefor forbidden the Jews upon the same account as were their daghters And the same is the case in most Positive commands Generally som present custom declares the contents thogh afterward by degrees it wears into more and more obscurity and in process of time grows utterly illegible I instance only in the Other Sacrament Both Scripture and Antiquity have be'n altogether as silent concerning the Origination of That as of This. All that we read of it in the Gospel amounts to no more but This that John ministred it the People received it and the Pharisees questioned Why Baptisest thou if thou be not the Christ nor Elias nether that Prophet No Evangelist thought fit to expound the reason either of the Action or Objection bicause the Then knowen custom sufficiently manifested it which yet was lost as much as This to many Generations thogh now retrived and generally owned by the Learned and why should not This share the right of Postliminium as it hath do'n the loss 2. LATER ages desired to hide any such notice They
Remote Churches on the Lords day VI. The first Day of the Week consecrated to This office and for That reason stiled the Lords day dishonored by derivation from the 4th Commandment cannot be worse profaned than by neglect of This office to which it oweth it's sacreduess HITHERTO I have labored to serve the Learned and the Inquisitive the Able and the Willing to search both the ground of our Lords Institution and the Apostl's discourse concerning it which reciprocate such light to one another that I hope every such Reader is fully satisfied both in Conscience and Curiosity But there ar many other who ether understand not such work or will not suffer the fatigue whom I shall now endeavor to fit with less troublsom Discourses It is much easier both to Understand and to Attend the the process of an History than that of an Argument and the sens of Mater of Fact as it is more Obvious so is it generally more Potent than That of Mater of Right What therefor I have hitherto be'n proving to have be'n our Lord's and Apostl's mind concerning our obligation to constancy I shall now authorise by the suitable Practice of All the Apostl's and Primitive Churches In This Chapter I shall search the Scripture for the Former and in the following I shall look into humane Writers for the Later In This Chapter let us vieu the Scripture and see the strange unhappiness of This Subject We might well hope to ' scape all disputes concerning Mater of Fact when the witness is infallibl what can we need more but to hear him Yes we need understand him too and as in the Apostl's argument we have found difficulty bicause those expressions which were familiar to His age are worn out in Ours So the same difficulty still pursueth us in the very History We must not only vieu what is written but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search and Examin and that carefully too what is meant when report is made even of Mater of Fact But we have This comfort that as the troubl will be now less so will our discoveries be more various and at every step we shall meet somthing worth the no great labor of the inquiry Two things will be worth our observation 1. How careful our Lord was to recommend his Institution and how backward the Apostls were in Apprehending his meaning 2. How diligent the Apostl's were in Obeying his will when well informed concerning it 1. It is worth observing be it but for our own justification that notwithstanding our Lords care to instruct them the Apostl's themselves were as hardly broght to understand his mind in his Institution as we ar now And it is more particularly observable that Those endeavors which he used to recommend it to their affections met the same success as we have seen follow those very words of the Apostl whereby he endeavored to prove the necessity of constancy Our Lord's care to recommend it appeareth especially by two Actions 1. His timeing the Institution Secondly His care to mind them of it while fresh in memory 1. He chose the fittest Time for the Institution The Apostl observed it and we shall anon find another occasion more fully to consider how observable it is that it was the Last night and That wherein he was betrayed and the Evangelist is careful to commemorate with what affection he embraced That Passover for This very reason bicause it was the most proper for This Institution But That dismal night however seasonable to endear it to Future times was least so for it's publication to the Present It was natural that the dreadful Tragedy then impending should so confound both their Apprehensions and Memories as utterly to rob them of all other consideration but of their Lord's and their Own dangers leaving them no power to regard the at-such-a-time-scarce-considerable action To cure This inconvenience he applyeth a contrary remedy and that speedily II. HIS Resurrection was matter of as great Joy as his Passion was of Grief or Fear and he makes That an opportunity to remedy the Other After his Death they met together not to Fest but Fast bicause the Bridegroom was taken from them the news of his Resurrection must give them the garments of gladness for the spirit of heaviness and invite them both to turn their Fasting to Festing and to close their Fests with his Supper as he had both very Carefully and very Lately commanded He therefor contriveth a way whereby he may at once assure them of the truth of his Resurrection and the meaning of his Institution The story we meet in Luke 24.13 which bicause we as litle heed now as the Apostl's did then will require som Animadversion Finding Two Disciples traveling together to complete the necessary number himself makes a Third He joins himself to them discourses with them gives them sufficient opportunity and occasion to observ his countenance his voice his meen and whatever els he might be know'n by But these it seems were Disciples in extraordinary not such as ordinarily conversed with him and they knew him not so perfectly as to discover him in such circumstances He suppeth with them and having by his discourses manifested himself a Rabbin takes the office of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breaker and performs it not in the Accustomed but his Own New form points not so much to the Bread as to his own Body and thereby so manifested his Person that immediatly they knew him This gives us an Hypothesis suitable to all the Phaenomena of the story otherwise unaccountable and if our eyes be withholden that we no more know his Meaning now than the Disciples did his Person by the way let us look how we shall answer these questions How came their eyes to be opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by the breaking of the Bread more than by all his other appearances You say he might discover himself When and How he pleased True but the question concerneth not his Power but his Will which governs that Power and is it self governed by his Wisdom We therefor further demand Why he that Could do it in what circumstances he pleased should Chuse to do it in These rather than any Other This say you is a saucy question we are not to call our Lord to account for his actions But may we not be bolder with his servants his Disciples and Evangelist Let us then inquire concerning them Why were the Disciples so careful to report This very Circumstance Why the Evangelist so punctual to record that they reported not only the Thing but the Manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How or in what manner he was knowen to them by the breaking of the Bread Here meet an unaccountabl Will of our Lord choosing This very Manner of discovering himself the no less unaccountabl Care of the Disciples reporting This Manner and of the Evangelist recording both the One and the Other Must All this be imputed to a fortuit concurs without
to speak like one as not declaring rhe Doctrine of the Church but his own Private Thoghts and that how modestly how diffidently how contrary to his stile in other cases This is not the Only Doctrine wherein he took the boldness to depart from the Opinions of his predecessors and in those cases he expressed himself with confidence sufficiently why so timoros now The Reason is as plain as the change In the Other Questions they had not declared their minds plainly in this they had do'n it not only Plainly but Zelously St. Cyprian had said This bread we crave to have EVERY DAY given us lest we who are in Christ and daily receve the Sacrament for the food of Salvation by interposing of any grievos crime while restrained and not communicating we ar forbidden the Heavenly bread we should be separated from the body of Christ St. Basil had said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To communicate the body and blood of Christ EVERY DAY is good and most profitable seeing himself plainly saith He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life now then who can doubt but that often to partake of the life is nothing else but often to live St. Ambrose had said If the Eucharistical bread be daily offered why do'st thou receve it after a Year as the Greekt do in the East Receve That EVERY DAY which may profit thee every day So live that thou mayest deserv to receve every day He that deserveth not to receve every day deserveth not to receve after a year c. Saint Chrysostom complained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vain is the DAILY sacrifice c. So express and so earnest we see were the Exhortations of other Fathers both Before and In St. Augustin's time that as they gave him sufficient reason to be diffident in declaring his own contrary opinion so do they Us to except against it as singular and out-voted by his equals if it prejudice the Truth we have engaged to assert which whether it do or not we are to judge by his Determination wherein we ar to observ 1. His Design 2. His way of ferving it 1. His Design in determining this Question is the same with that of the whole Epistl which is to perswade compliance in matter of worship The Peace of Christ is dearer to him than his Supper it self which is to serv it and therefor oght principally to be regarded thogh with it's diminution Rectius inter eos fortasse quisquam dirimit litem qui monet ut praecipue in Christi pace permaneant And to This only purpose doth he bring his instance of Zacheus and the Centurion Neque enim litigaverunt inter se aut quisquam eorum se alteri praeposuit He doth not pretend by their Exampls to determin the Question but the Quarrel 2. His Way to serv this good end is by a toleration that every one should do what he thinketh best which he encorageth with This reason that nether of them dishonoreth the body of Christ if saluberrimum Sacramentum certatim honorare contendunt In which last words the good Father may seem to unty the obligation I have so much contended for For if every one may do what he thinketh best if He do not dishonor the body and blood of Christ who striveth to honor the Sacrament by forbearance in sens of his unworthiness then cannot our obligation to constancy be indispensibl but our selvs ar judges of what is best Upon This Authority of so great a Father so confirmed with pios reason have following ages proceeded to the modern way of honoring the Lords Supper Having learned to ballance Reverence against Performance to make the former the more weighty they have loaded it with so many doubts and difficulties that he must be both very good and very confident who will not prefer the Centurions safe and easie complement before Zacheus's costly and troublesom entertainment Thus while every one chuseth to excuse himself as unworthy that Christ should come under his roof He may complain that he hath not where to lay his head And All or at least much of this proceeding from the too much valuing and too little considering the good Fathers words I thoght to rescue both the Truth and Him from so great and unhappy a mistake For as These words will not Require so will not his other writing Permit that we should list Him among our Adversaries He that caled as loud as any other Father He that so earnestly expostulated with the desertors of the Holy Sacrament saying What is the reason O hearers that ye see the Table and come not to the banquet He certainly did not intend to furnish his hearers with an excuse that they did what they thoght best upon the same reason as did the Centurion Nor can we easily so mistake if we regard either the case or his very words Inter Eos and Neuter Eorum restrain his determination to Those two parties between whom he professeth to arbitrate who both of them might plead such good precedents as might entitle them to toleration at least One thinketh it best to communicate Every day Another thinketh it better to do it only upon som certain days The Former voucheth the Apostls and the Hierusalem Church who continued Daily in breaking of Bread as well as in Prayer The Later the Provincial Churches who met the First day of the week to break Bread But how wide is this from our Question wherein One thinketh himself obliged to receive the Holy Sacrament as often as it is offered and another thinketh himself free to take or refuse it as often as he thinketh fit Whether the good Father would have determined This Question Inter Nos in the same manner as he did That Inter Eos is not so apparent as it is that his Instance can here have no place Zacheus had a Command from our Lord to come down and entertene him at his house he did so and honored him by the forwardness of his Obedience The Centurion had no such command and he honored Him by the humility of his excuse Had Zacheus receved no such command who knows but he might have excused himself as did the Centurion Had the Centurion receved such a command who knoweth but he would have receved our Lord with the same alacrity as did Zacheus Had he not his own instance of his servants obedience must have condemned him Both of them honored our Lord but Both cannot be imitated by Us. For either with Zacheus we have a Command or with the Centurion we have None That we have none to receve the Lords Supper EVERY DAY we willingly acknowledge and thereby submit to St. Augustin's determination But whether we have one to receve it as often as it is celebrated that we may understand we must proceed to examin The word of Command DO PART III. Concerning the word DO CHAP. I. We must answer such a Command no otherwise but by Performance I.
dishonoring the Lords Supper by their necessary connexion Either therefor we ar quite out of the reach of his Threats bicause we are free from the Character he Reproves or if we ar Not then are we most exposed to That now mentioned bent against their So Coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper since That and only That can literally be charged upon us And since his Cautionary precepts were also levelled against the Sin Reproved they must needs strike more directly upon That Omission wherein we are equally gilty than upon the Unworthiness wherein we cannot be so And that inseparabl connexion between the Churches meetings and the Lords Supper which he so industriosly proveth must needs concern us more than any such kind of unworthiness as he mentioneth Not since That is to continu till the end of the World by our Lords own Institution and This is not condemned but by Our own Reason in consequence of the Apostls reproving another kind of gilt whereof we are uncapabl V. IF therefor we must accommodate the Apostls Dissertation to the change so as to shun the Unworthiness Not expresly forbidden much more must we do so in the Constancy so Expresly and Industriosly enjoyned So that our concern must needs be this As often as the Corinthians ate that bread and drank that cup which our Lord had adopted to represent his body and blood so often they shewed forth his death and therefor whoever did unworthily celebrate That were gilty of profaning This The connexion between their Meetings and their Fests the Apostl did not bicause he needed not mention but That between Them and the Lords Supper he proved inseparabl both as to Intermission and Abolition The former connexion the Church hath changed the later she may not in either of its members We ar therefor and till the Lord com ever must be obliged in All our Church meetings to celebrate the Lords Supper and That in such manner as becometh his body and blood THIS is the Equitabl and Moral sens of the Apostls words which was so Long and Universally paid them by all Ages and Churches preceding and following the change as might create a right even by Prescription but on the other side it hath be'n lost so many Ages that the Contrary Sens pleads Contrary Prescription It is now no less impossibl to reduce the people to Constancy than it was in the time of the Laodicean Council to reduce them to Sobriety and therefor the Officers of the Church now find it necessary to yield to the hardness of hearts callos by time VI. BUT here we must carefully distinguish between Yielding and Justifying Our Church speaketh not one syllabl to Dispens with the strictest Constancy but on the contrary still recommendeth it as often as she can without exposing her Own Injunctions to the Same Contemt from which she endeavoreth to rescu our Lords She doth indeed forbid the celebration if there be not a competent number to communicate bicause if the Holy Table must needs be deserted it is less dishonorable that it be so Without the Supper than With it She therefore leaveth it to the Ministers Discretion how often it shall be offered but she intrusteth their Piety to exhort the peopl to com as often as possibl She is Both ways careful that neither the Willing may want a Communion nor the Unwilling an Exhortation She therefor complieth with the peopl's Neglect no otherwise than did the equally valiant and indulgent Captain with his Armies cowardize he Commanded he Intreated he Exhorted he Reproved but when he could by no means prevail to stop their flight he put himself in their head that they might seem rather to Follow their Leader than Flee their Enemy But as this compliance of the Captain did not justify his Disobedient Troops so neither do the Churches Rubriks justify either Ministers or Peopl that are wanting to the Constancy so plainly Urged by the Apostl Practiced by the Best ages and Recommended by her Self The Sum of all is this Since the Church had no Authority nor no Intention to slacken the Power either of our Lords Command or the Apostls Argument we must therefor still own them to have the same Power now as ever and must accommodate them to our Present meetings as if they still were Festivals not only in Name or Spiritually as we acknowlege them still to be but in Reality and Sensually as at the time of his Writing they were and in the Recess the Obligation is no less indissolubl against the teeth of time and the constitutions of Governments than against any evasions of singl persons But All this the More it Obligeth the Less it Persuadeth It may perhaps Compel us to submit to the Duty but cannot Invite us to Embrace the Favor And our Lord doth not use to Drive us like Beasts we know not Why nor Whither But to Lead us with the cords of a Man with bonds of Love with strong Reason and sweet Allurements the savor of his sweet ointments which so draw loving souls as to make them not only Follow but Run after him And This duty above All others is That way most attractive The Command made Reasonabl by a good End and the End made Amiabl by Relation to our Lord 's own Person as we now com to see in the remaining words In remembrance of me PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proper rite This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as ar the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. 'T is wors in a Christian upon several accounts 1. The Law-giver 2. The Rites VI. 3. The Obligation HITHERTO we have seen nothing but Dry Law the rough Issu of Authority and Will haling us to the unrecommended performance by chains of Compulsion without any gentler Attractives that may Invite our Affections or Persuade our Reason And as the Country hath be'n dry and barren so have the Ways be'n craggy Troublesom to the Best and Unpassable to the Most understandings The Reader must understand the Rules of Reasoning and must be ar no litle pains to mesure the Apostl's discurs by Those Rules We now com to a pleasanter Country and smoother ways From the Apostl's Argument to our Lords which is full of endearments to our Affections and free from difficulties to our Understandings thogh we never sate at the feet of Gamaliel or any other Tutor but Love For whoever loveth our Lord's person can no sooner hear that He is concerned but he findeth abundant
Her Power to preserv him in a great part of All Three especially That which of All was dearest to him He had Long made her heart his Throne and Now desired to have it for his Monument he therefor prayed both the Gods and Her to take care of That life wherein was preserved the remains of his Own To this purpose but infinitely more obligingly spake our dying Lord not in the language of a faint but quiet sickness but in the Agonies of a tormented Soul not in a few Complemental words suddenly offering themselvs to Augustus's mind and perhaps as suddenly flitting out of Livia's certainly dying with her but upon a premeditated Design to settle a lasting Monument whose firm durablness should Fix the fugitive impression and by constant returns perpetually Renew it so to keep his Bloud from Drying up and his Death from Dying His Last Command oght to be as powerful to work Obedience in his Disciples as wer his last Cryes to work Faith in the Centurion since These shewed no less the Strength of his Love than Those did the Vigor of Life at the very point of Death 2. But much more when we further consider that as it was the Last so was it the most Dreadful night This Passover had not onely the same bitter herbs with others but much bitterer Gall. He had the Devil for his guest and he that dipped with him in the dish was about to Betray him And he had his merciless enemies for his attendants waiting with swords and staves to take and destroy him This was That dreadful night wherin his Soul oppressed with horrors complained That it was exceeding heavy even to the death The same dismal night wherin the stabbing agonies of his tormented mind made every pore of his body a wound bleeding great grumos drops and those so plentifully as to run down to the ground The same terribl night wherin the dreadful prospect of his approaching sufferings so confounded his faculties that with dubled and trebled importunities he prayed to have That Cup taken from him for drinking whereof he came into the World The same amazing night wherin he was so near sinking that he needed an assisting Angel to support him under his burthen Even in That most hideos night did his care of This Institution so prevail over All Those Horrors which prevailed over his faculties as to bring him to a truce and he seemed almost to forget what night it was To Forget No but what was incomparably more to Long for it to Desire it With a Desire i. e. with a vehement desire with such a desire as outvoiced all the cries of his terrifying and tormenting passions Could we possibly understand the load that made him complain That his Soul was exceeding heavy even unto death and how much his Longings for This very season outweighed so great a load then possibly may we adjust the esteem he had for This his Dear Institution V. BUT if on the other side we compare the Affection wherewith We Receive it shall I say with that wherewith we find our Lord Recommended it we shall find Solomons words most perversly verified As in water face answereth to face so doth the heart of man to man For as the Reflex is directly Opposite to the Incident answering the Right side with the Left so doth our Obedience shall I say or our Performance no but our Neglect answer our Lords Care He chose the Last night of his Life for the Institution and many answer This by chusing the Last of theirs for the Performance as if appointed to shew forth not His Death but Their own When they have receved the Sentence of death in themselvs and ar immediatly to receve That of God Then first do they think fit to receve the Body and Blood of Christ as a kind of Charm somwhat better than the Sign of the Cross to fright the Devil from seising his own When the Physician hath declared or other Indications make it apparent that there is no hope of returning to Those sins which Therefor only they repent of bicaus they ar Past when the Will is sealed wherin they bequeath That soul to God whereof they had so long given the Devil possession Then in commutation for a whole life spent in contemt of This and All other holy exercises the Minister is sent for som good words spoken Absolution granted and Sealed with This Sacrament And now what uncharitabl Infidel can doubt but that the man is Pardoned in vertu of the One and receved into Eternal joys in that of the Other since our Lord himself promised that Whosoever Eateth his flesh and Drinketh his bloud hath Eternal life or how can This Bread and Wine possibly be imagined ar Any time fuller of Vertu than when so lately receved that the digestive faculty of the stomach hath not at all impaired it BUT others do not Thus put it off to the very Last Many own it if not a Duty yet an acceptabl act of Devotion Laudably thogh perhaps not Necessarily to be performed in the mids of life Yet even Those thogh not in the Same in Another wretched sens make it their Last Care When All other Interests and Inclinations ar served Then perhaps shall This have it's turn But if any thing els crave it however Slight or Trifling it be This Holy Office must yield it Precedence Pretences so Slender that a hundred twisted together shall not be sufficient to draw one from a Gossiping or any other Meeting shall singl be abl to draw him from the Lords Table With Solomons yawning Sluggard he cryes there is a Lion in the way a Lion in the streets when indeed he fears no danger But to his Lust or Ease I had business says one But pray Sir what was That Business Was it greater than what our Lord had in That last horrid Night wherein he forced all his dreadful crouds of griefs and fears to give way to This Care Was it so Importunate that it could not be Neglected or so Urgent that it could not be Delayed or so Suden that it could not be Prevented Didst thou use all indevors to Keep or Dispatch it out of the way Did it Surprise thee just in the nick when thou wert going to the Church and upon the very spot Disable thee from performing thy then fixed resolution Didst thou Wrestle against it with thy utmost Strength and yield to it no otherwise than as to an Invincibl Necessity If so thou art so far excusabl For Necessity hath This only of good nature that it Defends those most who have most Resisted it But if thou hast either Wilfully Draw'n this pretended hindrance upon thy self or Carelesly Suffered it to surprise thee or Tamely Yielded to it or be'n any way Defective in striving against it look how many grains the Hindrance falleth short of Insuperabl and thy Endevors of Perfect so many doth thy Excuse of Justifiable BUT the business which is too Slight may be otherwise Innocent
in theit Own Houses This was the Sore and to This must the Plaster be fitted Why must the Plaster be so much larger than the Sore Why must we examin our selvs concerning such Actions or Worthiness whose knowledge hath no Aspect upon this Performance but only Opposit and Malignant Such an Examination as shall excommunicat if not the Whole certainly the Greatest part of mankind He that shall most carefully perform his examination first in That manner which the Apostl prescribeth by Discerning the infinite Distance of dignity between the Lords table and his Own and then in That Manner that our Worthy Author prescribeth between our Lords Body and his Own Soul tho he be the Best of his age yea the best our Lord only excepted that ever was will most clearly discover not only that he is Now Unworthy but that he must despere Ever to be Otherwise Since then the Best Examination of the Best Person will carry him not only Beyond but Contrary to the Apostl's Design Since it will put such an Inconsistency between the Two Precepts that Let a man examin himself will inferr Let him Not Eat and since the Apostl doth not in any kind Intimate that our Worthiness but plainly Declare that our Differencing This from Common bread and wine is to be subject of our Examination IV. HIS Meaning in the words now under vieu can be no More nor Other than This Let a man examin himself whether he well Understand and Consider what he is about to Do Whether he put the due Estimate upon what he is about to Receve Whether he put as great Difference between the Lords supper and a Common fest as there is between the vertues of a litl Common Bread and Wine and those of the Body and Bloud of Christ Whether he go to gratify his sensual appetite with Eating and Drinking or to comply with his governors or neighbors in communicating with them or to fest his soul with Thankfulness and Love toward his crucified Savior with Joy and Delight in Communion with him and such other acts of devotion as so Holy an office requireth Let a man well examin himself concerning this and So let him Eat with appetites suitabl This I say is all that the Apostl's Design can Permit or his Words Declare him to mean by Let a man examin himself He requireth us to look Forward not Backward upon what we ar Going to do in the Church not upon what we Have already do'n there or elswhere upon the Difference between This and Other Bread not upon That between Our Own and Other mens souls Yet to prevent misconstructions I add this Proviso That I neither pretend to disparage the most Severe self-examination as it takes account of our Past actions and Present state of soul For I dare swear with Pythagoras that it is the high-way to divine life Nor to deny that our approch to This holy supper is the Most Proper season for This most Excellent exercise For he that best performeth the One will undoubtedly best perform the Other All that I deny is this That the Apostl in This place setteth up Examining our selvs against Obeying our Lord so as to Forbid any one to Eat if upon examination he find himself Unworthy And I further add thohg I have no such need that if it wer Doubtful yea if it wer highly Probabl If he had so worded his precept that in a Plausibl appearance it might signify som such intention yet is not a Probabl Sound of any One expression worthy to be ballanced against so Express a command of our Lord and so industrious an Endeavor of the same Apostl to urge it as we have found in the Context For it is Good Law and Good Reason that no Law can be repeled but by Express terms and therefor I still insist upon my demand Where is that Express DO NOT which may Countermand our Lords DO THIS CHAP. IV. Answereth Reason Objecting Allegories I. A Transition from Scriptur to Reason and by the way notice taken of Allegories of a midl Nature between both II. The Allegory of Covenant and Seal answered and retorted III. The Allegory of Member likewise answered IV. The Allegory of Sons and Enemies V. A General answer to all objections of this kind I. I HAVE now do'n what I proposed as Necessary and all that I conceve Possibl for a full discovery of the Apostl's meaning in That unhappy discours which as it is the Only Comment we have upon our Lords Institution so hath shared it's sufferings somtimes Mutilated somtimes Racked somtimes Rob'd of it's due sens somtimes Laden with more than it can bear and by all ways Tormented that it may say somthing in Justification of That Omission which he designed to Prevent or Condemn I have given so regular and exact account of every Word and every Aspect of words that as I am sure no man ever Hath so I may boldly believ no man ever Will match it with any other I have acted Both parts Opponent and Respondent On That side I have traced the Process of his Argument Viewed every Design and every Medium and every Claus as it servs either in the One or the Other Office On This side I have reduced the Inferences from Contradicting to Serving the Positions they depend on I have shewen that as the Former half which conteineth Positions hath be'n so Robbed of it's due that it cannot make good the charge in the Universality wherein it is laid down So hath the Later half be'n Rack't that it may speak more than either the words can bear or the Apostl's designe suffer That he cannot intend to Forbid Every person that findeth himself Unworthy or to make Self-examination an Hinderance to the Performance which it is to Serv. And I may boldly say that in the Former half there is not a word which doth not Help in the Later half there is not any that Hinders the obligation of Constancy in Every unexcommunicate person obliged by Every word disobliged by None If therefor we will appeal to Scripture and take the regular way to Understand it we ar upon as Secure ground as any Rules can make us Yet shall we quit This place of Advantage and descend to the Plain field allowing Reason to plead what it can to the contrary But before we can reach the Plain we ar encountered with a Midl sort of Evidences shall I call them or Colors laid upon Scripture ground precarios Allegories improved to a pretence of Reason These since they ar mere Colors no better Subjected than in Allegories must for That very reason be Insufficient to Convince us of Any thing but This that Those who make use of Such arguments want Better II. SOMETIMES we ar told that This Sacrament is the Seal of the New Covenant and we ought not to see Gods Seal to a Blank c. In this Plea ther ar two terms by explication whereof we ar to understand its force 1. Covenant 2.
For that from the Godly there is no danger to the Sacrament and consequently that in Them Frequecy is commendable is not doubted The only question is concerning the Unworthy but we oght also to consider that concerning Them is a counterquestion no less important For when we inquire on One side Whether there be Danger that the Sacrament may suffer dishonor by such mens Unworthiness it is worth inquiring whether there be not SOM hope that it may Gain Honor by their Salvation I say SOME hope For if there be Any such Hope however Short of such Fear in point of Probability it will so exceed it in point of Valu as abundantly to outweigh it's defect in Bulk For 1. The loss of Many Sacraments will be abundantly recompenced by the gain of One Soul Be the odds so great as in a Lottery yet since One happy draught will more than answer a Multitude of Blanks especially when there is nothing to be Lost but the labor of Drawing it must needs more conduce to the honor of the Sacrament and its Author to adventure upon the Smallest Hope That way than to forbear upon the Greatest Fear the Other way 2. The Salvation of One impenitent sinner is more valuabl than the cherishing of Many already converted The good shepherd will leav ninety and nine to seek pasture rather then suffer one strayer to perish in the wilderness 3. The odds in point of number lieth the other way it wer a happier world than ever we ar like to see if there wer but ninety and nine sinners for one just person that needs no repentance Their very numbers wroght in our Lord compassion to the Multitude and it wer strange if he should intend to let the greater part of mankind perish for want of This food 4. Here is no need to leav the Flock for Salvation of the Strayer Wer there not sufficient for Both we might perhaps plead it unfit to take the childrens bread and cast it to Dogs but the Lords tabl is as capabl to receve All comers as was the wilderness to afford room for never so many thousands and the Bread is not like those two cours loaves but like That which came from heaven and covered the whole face of the earth it hath both plenty and vertu sufficient to answer All Palates and All Needs however different no less Salutiferos to the Sick then delicios to Healthy and where there is enogh and to spare it wer strange our Lord should intend any one should perish for hunger 5. Here is no adventure but of the troubl to Take and eat The shepherd needs not toyl himself with Wandering quest of the Lost sheep nor with shouldering home the Found Our Lord is not in danger to lose any more Bloud the greatest loss that can com must fall upon That already spilt which at worst takes no Life from our Lord thogh it bring None to the Recever No wounds or stripes can reach his Body The greatest danger is lest the shadow of his body passing by should now as in his life-time fall upon som Lepers and cleanse them without Hinderance to his Progress or Prejudice to his Better disciples So that if there be any healing saving vertu in This other shadow of his body and bloud to say he forbids Any to com within its reach for This very reason bicaus they Need it is so farr from honoring him as a good Physician that it represents him wors than his very Accusers of whom he asked which of You of You my envios backbiters Which of You having one sheep c. If therefor our Blessed Redeemer have any right to what David said of the Father His honor is great in Our salvation his Dishonor must be proportionably great if he deny so cheap a means of it as shall not cost him the troubl of a Journy to seek but only the Mercy to Admit such as need it III. 2. SECONDLY This Sacrament hath a converting vertu This ' thogh it need no other proof but only the application of That general rule that In Religion That is always Truest which is Best yet bicaus such a work cannot be overdo'n I shall further prove it 1. By the Authority of the Apostls and 2. By Reason shewing that Morally it must needs be so 1. If we consider what the APOSTLS thoght of This Sacrament we shall find they look't upon it as a Spiritual Panacaea for All distempers of Christ's mystical body a rich Treasure for All Arguments and All Characters When St. Jude would Character the worst men he borroweth his black from This Sacrament if not from This Discours These saith he ar spots in your Fests of Charity while they fest with you foeding themselvs without fear When the Epistler to the Hebrews would set forth the gilt of Apostacy most graphically he doth it by treading under foot the Son of God and That by counting this blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing In This Epistl St. Paul seemeth to affect this Topik upon all occasions When he would admonish them to put from among them the Scandalos person Let us saith he keep the fest without leaven bicaus Christ the Passover is sacrificed for us When he would dehort them from fellowship with Idols he argueth from the inconsistency of the Lords table and the table of devils When he would exhort them to provide for the poor he appointeth the first day for the Offertory bicause consecrated to the breaking of bread and Here when he would reprove them for their debaucheries in Gods hous to set forth the hainosness of the crime he proveth that thereby they becom gilty of the Body and Bloud of Christ I say when he would reprove them for their debaucheries in Gods hous for I must now add to what I have already said that as those Debaucheries were the true Occasion of the whole discours so was the Lord's Supper employed as the best Argument whereby to convince them of the hainosness of That crime that whatever thoghts they might otherwise have had concerning such Profaneness in Gods Hous they might by This new Argument understand it greater than they wer aware of And what better argument could he have urged in such a case Should he have empleaded them at the Moral bar He knew them proof against such lectures of their own Philosophers strenuosly but unprosperosly declaming against them Should he have pleaded Natural Religion He knew that They and their Fathers had time beyond memory do'n the same in their Templs Should he then urge the great difference in purity between the true God and Divels This were proper but remote the impression might be sufficient Plain but not sufficiently Deep it might convince their Reason but not so powerfully move their Affections But This interest of the body and bloud of Christ as it was new and properly Evangelical so was it utterly unanswerabl upon any account either of reason or custom And that
communicate our pledge of Kindness to our Absent friends by communicating it to them and somtimes by drinking their healths which can have no wors meaning than a declaration of our good wishes to them and an intention to communicate to them all that kindness which a Fest can signify or exercise But since the Apostl draweth not his Argument from the Cup but the Bread it will be fitter for us to take notice that Thence also ar drawen obligations to mutual Kindness Companions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ar such as eat of the Same Bread And David's complaint that he that eat of his bread had laid wait for him was not grounded upon the unthankfulness of the beneficiary as one whom he had nurished with his bounty so much as the incivility of his Companion that had familiarly conversed with him at the same table Nor ar we short of the Greeks in our Bridall ceremony For our Bride-cake answereth their Bride-cup with this advantage that when the New-married cople have first taken their parts the rest is communicated to other friends in pledge of a common affection among the whole Company But no Custom Ancient or Modern is so considerable as the Apostl's way of Arguing He doth not urge it as Probabl but Contingent Apt to produce the effect but Capabl to be disappointed Doth not say It is Fit or it is Intended we May or Oght to be made One by it c. But we Are and For this Reason we Are One Both the Effect and the Reason are Actually existent and so secure not to be hindered from being The Kiss of Charity was as certain an attendant upon This holy fest as the Fest it self was upon Every holy meeting The Communicants parted with the most Affectionate Kisses the most Endearing Embraces and all other expressions of most Ardent Love All this constantly repeted at every meeting still feweled their mutual love and kept the divine fire alive as did the daily Sacrifice That upon Gods holy Altar Such was the Significancy such the Efficacy of This holy fest As nothing could be more Proper so nothing could be more Prosperos Behold said the Persecutors how the Christians love one another And behold saith the Apostl the Reason why they do so It is bicaus they eat of That One Bread That Fest of Charity seasoned with the holy Kiss of Charity III. BUT how miserably in our days is the Osculum Pacis translated into Kissing of the Pax Primitively the Kiss was begun by the Priest and caried on throgh the assembly Now the Priest delivereth som painted toy to be kissed by the peopl and no other kiss thoght on And for the Bread what a fine trick do both Latine and Greek Churches agree in to mock its Charitifik vertu They take a loaf half consecrate it distribute it among the peopl but not at the holy Tabl and every one carieth his morsel to his several home where he somtimes Eats and ofterner Keeps it Is not this to mock the Apostl All ar perhaps partakers of That One bread but so as Not to be made One body For they do not so properly Communicate as Dispers it render it rather an Embleme of Separation than of Union not of One Body but Many scattered Particles So we greet not one another as the Apostl prescribeth with a kiss of charity but the Picture which we have made of the Lords Supper with a kiss of veneration and That Picture no more like the life than the Modern kiss is like the Primitive and the whole vertu is lost with all tokens of its uniting power And would to God it wer no wors than lost Our abuse doth not only falsify the unhappy Proposition but Convert it with that worst kind of Conversion We Cannot be one Body bicause we Cannot eat that One Bread A conversion too properly per Impossibile bicause our many and irreconcileable contentions make That Impossibl to Us which to the Apostl seemed Certain and Necessary by reason of This very bread It is not a Fest of charity but an Apple of Contention in stead of kissing we bite one another and turn the Peace-maker to an Incendiary Litl did the Apostl think of this holy Banket when he said Mark those which cause divisions among you and Avoid them Yet this dubl plaint do we now put up against the Modern way of honoring it It first makes It to cause division and then causeth Us to avoid it 1. By taking away the Obligation to Eat this Bread we disable it from making us One Body and so deprive it of the Blessing of a Peace-maker 2. By too superstitios fear of it we not only disable it from healing the Least breach but make it an Instrument of the Greatest and so make it a Curs instead of a Blessing 1. By taking from our selvs the Obligation to Eat This Bread we take from it the Power to make us One Body This is as clear as That common Axiom Sublata causa tollitur effectus We cannot sure doubt but our Gracios Lord designed as great Vertu to his Own table as to the Legal Altar which by a Plain thogh Suppositive Precept he preferred to the Power of a Peace-maker saying If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath oght against thee leav there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then com and offer thy gift But by our misapplication of the Suppositive Command we have utterly defeated the design of the Precept The Method we like well enogh First to be reconciled and Then to com and think we obey it sufficiently if This be the Last action of our life and That the last save This One Quite contrary to our Lords Precept who for avoiding delay bids us not cary back our gift but leave it before the Altar as an earnest of our speedy return which we cunningly escape by not coming thither at all We agree indeed with the best ages in the Antecedent That none but the charitable must communicate but we thence infer conclusions directly opposit For They conclude Positively Therefore I must be reconciled that I may communicate but We Negatively Therefor I will Not Communicate bicause I will Not be Reconciled They Therefor thoght Charity Necessary bicause they thoght the Communion so and We taking away the Necessity of Communicating take away all its influence upon Charity When therefor we consider the vast difference between the Present and Primitive ages in point of Charity whatever cause we have to Lament we have none to Admire unless we look upon it's Cause For our neglect of the Lords Supper may well challenge our wonder but that This should beget it 's genuine issu is no wonder at all If it be pleaded that our forbearance proceeds not from Neglect but Reverence This will give cause of a yet greater complaint for such is our Second viz. that IV. 2. BY our too superstitios
living would no less industriosly press it had they no better reason than this that the bildings go with the land bicaus those who think it needless to receve the Sacrament cannot think it necessary to examin themselvs by way of preparation for it Let us then learn by experience we have seen the trial of Both ways Primitive Christians practised Constancy with as great Success as Obedience The Church of Rome first seduced the world from it and thereby advanced Themselvs more than the Sacrament Our Schismatiks out-shot the Church of Rome not only Abated but Destroyed the Office root and branch What need we less intelligibl comments upon our Lord's or Apostl's words our very senses inform us what is to be do'n And however former ages may be excused by the goodness of their intentions we cannot be so if we refuse to be convinced by manifest experience plainly confuting their plausibl designes IV. THE other part of the practice is the advancement of REVERENCE for as Frequency for want of a Damm to fence it is swallowed up so Reverence for want of one to restrain it hath swollen further and further 'till it came to Adoration and this is answered by a success so much wors than the Other as a Mischief is wors than Nothing for it is mischievos both to the Honor of our Lord and the Peace of his Church I. To the HONOR of our Lord bicause it restoreth Both those Religions which he came and died to abolish turning This which he instituted for a livree of Christianity to a cloak both of Heathenism and Judaism 1. Heathenism by making it an Idol much after the Old Pagan mode For the Old Heathen believed they could by force of words bring their God to enhabit the statu they consecrated to him and then worshiped That statu not a as carved piece of wood but as the body of the God and the Papists believ they can by like force of words make bread and wine the Body of Christ and then worship it after the manner of the heathen yet eat it too and therein exceed them 2. Judaism by burying true Spiritual worship under a heap of dumb ceremonies Our Lord gave This as a character of the Gospel-worship God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship in Spirit and in Truth But the Papists have turned Spiritual worship out of door to make room for a mass of pageantry who 's Mysteries ar no more understood by the Priest than is the Language by the Peopl But thogh no meaning can be perceved in the Retail yet This is plain in the Gross that the Sacrament is to be Admired but not Understood II. To the PEACE of the Church the Ten Persecutions have not be'n so pernicios The King of France after all his bloody atchievments must yield it a greater right to his vaunt Behold what destructions I have wroght upon the earth God be blessed we ly not at present under such violent paroxysms as our ' forefathers suffered Nether Warr nor Persecution rage among us but we hear of Oppressions among our Neighbors Plots among our selvs Jelosies Disputes Distractions which thogh they do not utterly Destroy do yet Disturb the peace of the Church as Fears and Perplexities of conscience do the souls of it's best members These ar the fruits of our modern way of honoring the blessed Sacrament Neglect of Constancy hath produced Constancy of Neglect we have So put it at Distance as to put it out of sight Yea it is wors than Destroyed for it is made Destructive of that Spiritual devotion toward God that mutual Charity toward each other that inward Comfort in our Own souls which our Lord instituted it to advance V. OUR THIRD enquiry is What Need For it oght not to be thoght but the Necessity must be proportionate to the Remedy Nice persons somtimes take physik without need only to prevent they know not what in such cases the Physician prescribes none but gentl medecines such as may do no more than only purge the patient out of som of his superfluos mony Such a cours therefor as we find taken with This institution must persuade us to expect som very urgent Necessity or som apparent and great Danger no other way to be escaped And a great danger we hear of A danger of contemt But what contemt Is this holy Bread any where cast to the dogs Is this Cup wors abused to drunkenness Is the whole Supper any where profaned as the Apostl testifieth it to have be'n the by Corinthians or as their Persecutors slanderosly reported of the Primitive Christians All this were so much less than the abuses it now suffereth from the remedies as Lust is less than Murder but the Least of them is incomparably more than our greatest fears For indeed there is no pretence of any other danger than Negative or Comparative It will not be capabl of Adoration at Rome nor of Veneration among our Selvs 't will be as cheap as Common-prayer by too much familiarity it must therefor keep state like the Eastern kings who preserv Aw in their peopl by keeping Distance That Distance causeth Aw cannot be denied This objection verifieth it For while we look upon it at distance it looketh dreadful as a Lion but if we com to a closer vieu we shall find it a less formidabl beast To this end we have already distinguished the world into it's two parties the Godly and the Ungodly and found that from nether of them was any such danger to be feared Not from the Godly for no Constancy will make them quit their Reverence Not from the Ungodly for they have none worth preserving 1. The Godly will never quit Reverence upon any the greatest Frequency as plainly appeareth by their uniting Both in Prayer Evening and Morning and at Noon-day will I pray and that Instantly said David Not the less Instantly bicaus Constantly Such Constant Experience oght to deal with this Fear as its patrons pretend Constant performance will with Reverence Abate at least perhaps Destroy it 2. That shew of Reverence which Ungodly men bring to the Communion is not worth preserving much less is it worth purchasing at so dear a rate as disobedience We have b p. 303. lately examined the Pageant and found that however goodly shew it makes in the eyes of children and the populace it must be contemptibl in the eyes of God who seeth and hateth it's want of inward life which it Therefor wanteth bicaus it wanteth such Frequency as is most likely to beget it Since therefor True Reverence which alone is Worth our care Needs it not bicaus it is secure from danger and that Empty shew of revercnce which is in danger is not worth our care to preserv it From This topik of Prudence there is not to be had one grain to turn the emty scale But on the contrary in This very Topik we shall meet such considerations as without help from any