likewise but a half Sacrament Secondly Bread and Wine In the Passeover there was blood shed but there was none drunken yea that flesh which was eaten was but once a yeare They who had all in types had yet their types as it were imperfect In the fulnesse of time came Christ and with or â—in Christ came the fulnesse of grace and of his fulnesse doe we receive in the Gospell which the Jewes only expected in the promise that they without us might not be made perfect these things have I spoken saith Christ that your joy might be full the fulnesse of our Sacrament notes also the fullnesse of our Salvation and of his sacrifice who is able perfectly to save those that come unto God by him Thirdly Bread and Wine common vulgar obvious food wine with water being the only knowne drinke with them in those hot Countries amongst the Jewes a lamb was to bee slaine a more chargeable and costly Sacrament not so easie for the poore to procure And therefore in the Sacrifice of first fruits the poore were dispenc'd with and for a Lamb offred a pair of pigeons Christ now hath broken down that partition wall that wall of inclosure which made the Church as a garden with hedges and made only the rich the people of the Jewes capable of Gods Covenants and Sacraments now that Gods Table hath crumms as well as flesh the Dogs the Gentiles eat of it too the poorest in the world is admitted to it even as the poorest that are do shift for bread though they are not able to provide flesh Then the Church was a fountaine sealed up but in Christ there was a fountaine opened for transgressions and for sinnes Fourthly Bread and Wine Bread to strengthen and Wine to comfort All temporall benefits are in divine Dialect called Bread it being the staffe of life and the want of which though in a confluence of all other blessings causeth famine in a Land See here the abundant sufficiency of Christs passion It is the universall food of the whole Church which sanctifieth all other blessings without which they have no relish nor comfort in them Sinne and the corrupt nature of man hath a venemous quality in it to turne all other good things into poyson unlesse corrected by this antitode this Bread of life that came downe from heaven And well may it be called a bread of life in as much as in it resides a power of trans-elementation that whereas other nourishments doe themselves turne into the substance of the receiver this quite otherwise transformes and affirmilates the soule unto the Image of it selfe whatsoever faintnesse we are in if we hunger after Christ hee can refresh us whatsoever feares oppresse us if like men opprest with feare we thirst gaspe after his blood it will comfort us whatsoever weaknesse either our sinnes or suffrings have brought us to the staffe of this bread will support us whatsoever sorrowes of mind or coldnesse of affection doe any way surprize us this wine or rather this bloud in which only is true life will with great efficacy quicken us If wee want power wee have the power of Christs Crosse if victory we have the victory of his Crosse if Triumph we have the triumph of his Crosse if peace we have the peace of his Crosse if wisdome we have the wisdome of his Crosse. Thus is Christ crucified a Treasure to his Church full of all sufficient provision both for necessitie and delight Fiftly Bread and Wine both of parts homogeneall and alike each part of Bread bread each part of Wine wine no crumme in the one no drop in the other differing from the quality of the whole O the admirable nature of Christs blood to reduce the affections and the whole man to one uniforme and spirituall nature with it selfe In so much that when we shall come to the perfect fruition of Christs glorious Body our very bodyes likewise shall be spirituall bodies spirituall in an uniformity of glory though not of nature with the soule Sinnes commonly are jarring and contentious one affection struggles in the same soule with another for mastery ambition fights with malice and pride with covetousnesse the head plots against the heart and the heart swells against the head reason and appetite will and passion soule body set the whole frame of nature in a continuall combustion like an unjoynted or broken arme one faculty moves contrary to the government or attraction of another and so as in a confluence of contrary streames and winds the soule is whirld about in a maze of intestine contentions But when once we become conformable unto Christs death it presently makes of two one and so worketh peace it slayeth that hatred and warre in the members and reduceth all unto that primitive harmony unto that uniforme spiritualnesse which changeth us all into the same Image from glory to glory Sixtly Bread and Wine as they are homogeneall so are they united together and wrought out of divers particular graines and grapes into one whole lump or vessell and therefore Bread and blood even amongst the Heathen were used for emblemes of leagues friendship and Mariage the greatest of all unions See the wonderfull effiâ—acy of Christ crucified to sodder as it were and joynt all his members into one body by love as they are united unto him by faith They are built up as living stones through him who is the chiefe corner stone elect and pretious unto one Temple they are all united by love by the bond or sinewes of peace unto him who is the head and transfuseth through them all the same vitall nourishment they are all the flock of Christ reduc'd unto one fold by that one chiefe Shepheard of their soules who came to gather those that wandred either from him in life or from one another in affection Lastly Bread and Wine sever'd and asunder that to be eaten this to be drunken that in a loafe this in a Cup It is not the bloud of of Christ running in his veynes but shed on his members that doth nourish his Church Impious therefore is their practice who powre Christs blood as it were into his body againe and shut up his wounds when they deny the Cup unto the people under pretence that Christs Body being received the blood by way of concomitancy is received together with it and so seale up that pretious Fountaine which he had opened and make a monopoly of Christs sacred wounds as if his blood had been shed only for the Priest and not as well for the people or as if the Church had power to withhold that from the people of Christ which himselfe had given them CHAP. VIII Practicall inferenâ—es from the materials of the Lords Supper HEre then we see first in as much as these
yet never properly to bee called the Body of Christ till Taken and Eaten by meanes of which Actions if they bee Actions of Faith that holy Bread and Wine doe as really convey whole Christ with the vitall influences that proceed from him unto the Soule as the hand doth them unto the mouth or the mouth unto the stomacke Otherwise if Christ were really and corporally present with the consecrated Elements severed from the act of faithfull Receiving the wicked should as easily receive him with their teeth as the faithfull in their Soule which to affirme is both absurd and impious Now Christs Presence in this holy Sacrament being a thing of so important consequence and the consideration thereof being very proper to this first end of the Sacrament the exhibiting of Christ for to exhibite a thing is nothing else but to present it or to make it present unto the party to whom it is exhibited It will not be impertinent to make some short digression for setting downe the manner and clearing the trueth of Christs Reall Presence the understanding whereof will depend upon the distinguishing of the severall manners in which Christ may bee said to bee present First then Christ being an infinite Person hath in the vertue of his Godhead an infinite and unlimited Presence whereby hee so filleth all places as that hee is not contained or circumscribed in them which immensity of his making him intimately present with all the Creatures is that whereby they are quickened supported and conserved by him for by him all things consist and hee upholdeth them all by the Word of his power and in him they live and move and have their being But this is not that Presence which in the Sacrament wee affirme because that presupposeth a Presence of Christ in and according to that nature wherein he was the Redeemer of the World which was his humane nature Yet in as much as this his humane nature subsisteth not but in and with the infinitenesse of the second Person there is therefore in the second place by the Lutherans framed another imaginary Presence of Christs humane Body after once the Divinity was pleased to derive glory in fulnesse on it which giveth it a participated ubiquity unto it too by meanes whereof Christ is corporally in or under the Sacrament all Elements But this opinion as it is no way agreeable with the truth of the humane nature of Christ so is it greatly injurious to his Divinity for first though Christs humane nature was in regard of its Production extraordinary and in regard of the sacred union which it had with the Divinity admirable and in regard of communication of glory from the Godhead and of the unction of the Holy Ghost farre above all other names that are named in heaven or earth yet in its nature did it ever retaine the essentiall and primiâ—ive properties of a created substance which is to bee in all manner of perfections finite and so by consequence in place too for glory destroies not nature but exalts it nor exalts it to any farther degrees of Perfection than are compatible to the finitenesse of a Creature who is like unto us in regard of all naturall and essentiall properties but these men give unto Christs Body farre more than his owne divine nature doth for hee glorifies it onely to bee the Head that is the most excellent and first-borne of every Creature but they glorifie it so farre as to make it share in the essentiall properties of the divine nature for as that substance unto whom the intrinsecall unseparated and essentiall properties of a man belong is a man necessarily man being nothing else but a substance so qualified so that being unto which the divine attributes doe belong in that degree of infinitenesse as they doe to the divine Person it selfe must needs bee God and immensity wee know is a proper attribute of the Divinity implying infinitenesse which is Gods owne Prerogative neither can the distinction of ubiquity communicated and originall or essentiall salve the consequence for God is by himselfe so differenced from all the Creatures as that it is not possible any attribute of his should bee participated by any Creature in that manner of infinitenesse as it is in him nay it implies an inevitable contradiction that in a finite nature there should bee roome enough for an infinite attribute We confesse that in as much as the humane nature in Christ is inseparably taken into the subsistence of the omnipresent Sonne of God It is therefore a truth to say That the Sonne of God though filling all places is not yet in any of them separated or asunder from the humane nature may by the vertue of the communication of the properties it is true likewise to say that the Man Christ is in all Places though not in or according to his humane nature But now from the union of the Manhood to the Godhead to argue a coextention or joynt-presence therewith is an inconsequent argument as may appeare in other things The Soule hath a kinde of immensity in her little world being in each part thereof whole and entire and yet it followes not because the Soule is united to the Body that therefore the Body must needs partake of this Omnipresence of the Soule else should the whole body be in the little finger because the Soule unto which it is united is wholly there Againe there is an unseparable union betweene the Sunne and the beame so that it is infallibly true to say the Sunne is no where severed from the beame yet wee know they both occupy a distinct place againe Misleâ—oe is so united to the substance of the Tree out of which it groweth that though of a different nature it subsisteth not but in and by the subsistence of the Tree and yet it hath not that amplitude of place which the Tree hath Letting goe then this opinion there is a third Presence of Christ which is a carnall Physicall locall Presence which wee affirme his humane nature to have onely in Heaven The Papists attribute it to the Sacrament because Christ hath said This is my Body and in matters of fundamentall consequence hee useth no figurative or darke speeches to this wee say that it is a carnall Doctrine and a mistake like that of Nicodemus and of Origen from the Spirit to the letter And for the difficulty it is none to men that have more than onely a carnall eare to heare it for what difficulty is it to say that then the King gives a man an Office when hee hath sealed him such a Paâ—ent in the right whereof that Office belongeth and is conveyed unto him And if Christ bee thus locally in the Sacrament and eaten with the mouth and so conveyed into the stomacke I then demand what becomes of him when and after hee is thus received into the stomacke If hee retire from the accidents out of a man then first accidents shall be left without any substance
onely in holy Scriptures but even in prophane Writers also to call the instrumentall Elements by the name of that Covenant of which they are onely the Sacrifices seales and visible confirmations because of that relation and neere resemblance that is betweene them The second End or Effect of this Sacrament which in order of Nature immediately followeth the former is to obsignate and to encrease the mysticall union of the Church unto Christ their Head for as the same operation which infuseth the reasonable soule which is the first act or principle of life naturall doth also unite it unto the body to the making up of one man so the same Sacrament which doth exhibite Christ unto us who is the first act and originall of life divine doth also unite us together unto the making up of one Church In naturall nourishment the vitall heate being stronger than the resistance of the meat doth macerate concoct and convert that into the substance of the Body but in this spirituall nourishment the vitall Spirit of Christ having a heate invincible by the coldnesse of Nature doth turne us into the same image and quality with it selfe working a fellowship of affections and confederacy of wills and as the body doth from the union of the soule unto it receive strength beauty motion and the like active qualities so also Christ being united unto us by these holy mysteries doth comfort refresh strengthen rule and direct us in all our waies Wee all in the vertue of that Covenant made by God unto the faithfull and to their seed in the first instant of our being doe belong unto Christ that bought us after in the Laver of Regeneration the Sacrament of Baptisme we are farther admitted and united to him our right unto Christ before was generall from the benefit of the common Covenant but in this Sacrament of Baptisme my right is made personall and I now lay claime unto Christ not onely in the right of his common Promise but by the efficacy of this particular Washing which sealeth and ratifieth the Covenant unto mee Thus is our first union unto Christ wrought by the grace of the Covenant effectively and by the grace of Baptisme where it may bee had Instrumentally the one giving unto Christ the other obsignating and exhibiting that right by a farther admission of us into his Body But now wee must conceive that as there is a union unto Christ so there must as in naturall bodies be after that union a growing up till wee come to our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the measure of the fulnesse of Christ. This growth being an effect of the vitall faculty is more or lesse perfected in us as that is either more or lesse stifled or cherished for as in the soule and body so in Christ and the Church We are not to conceive the union without any latitude but capable of augmentation and liable to sundry diminutions according as are the severall meanes which for either purpose wee apply unto our selves The union of the soule and body though not dissolved is yet by every the least distemper slackned by some violent diseases almost rended asunder so that the body hath sometimes more sometimes lesse hold-fast of the soule so heere wee are in the Covenant and in Baptisme united unto Christ but wee must not forget that in men there is by Nature a roote of bitternesse whence issue those fruites of the flesh a spawne and wombe of actuall corruptions where sinne is daily conceived and brought forth a mare mortuum a lake of death whence continually arise all manner of noysome and infectious lusts by meanes of which our Union to Christ though not dissolved is yet daily weakened and stands in need of continuall confirmation for every sinne doth more or lesse smother and stoppe the principle of life in us so that it cannot worke our growth which we must rise unto with so free and interrupted a course as otherwise it might The Principle of life in a Christian is the very same from whence Christ himselfe according to his created Graces receiveth life and that is the Spirit of Christ a quickning Spirit and a strengthening Spirit Now as that great sinne which is incompatible with faith doth bidde defiance to the good Spirit of God and therefore is more especially called The sinne against the holy Ghost so every sinne doth in its owne manner and measure quench the Spirit that it cannot quicken and grieve the Spirit that it cannot strengthen us in that perfection of degrees as it might otherwise and thus is our union unto Christ daily loosened and slackened by the distempers of sinne for the reestablishing whereof God hath appointed these sacred Mysteries as effectuall instruments where they meet with a qualified subject to produce a more firme and close union of the Soule to Christ and to strengthen our Faith which is the joynt and sinew by which that union is preserved to cure those i wounds and purge those iniquities whose property it is to separate betwixt Christ and us to make us submit our services to knit our wils to conforme our affections and to incorporate our persons into him that so by constant though slow proceedings we might be changed from glory to glory and attaine unto the measure of Christ there where our Faith can no way bee impaired our bodies and soules subject to no decay and by consequence stand in no need of any such viaticums as wee heere use to strengthen us in a journey so much both above the Perfection and against the corruption of our present Nature CHAP. XIV Of three other Ends of the holy Sacrament the fellowship or union of the faithfull the obsignation of the Covenant of Grace and the abrogation of the Passeover NOW as the same nourishment which preserveth the Union betweene the Soule and Body or head and members doth in like manner preserve the Union betweene the members themselves even so this Sacrament is as it were the sinew of the Church whereby the faithfull being all animated by the same Spirit that makes them one with Christ are knit together in a bond of Peace conspiring all in a unity of thoughts and desires having the same common Enemies to withstand the same common Prince to obey the same common rule to direct them the same common way to passe the same common Faith to vindicate and therefore the same mutuall engagements to further and advance the good of each other so that the next immediate effect of this Sacrament is to confirme the Union of all the members of the Church each to other in a Communion of Saints whereby their prayers are the more strengthened and their adversaries the more resisted for as in naturall things Union strengtheneth motions naturall and weakeneth violent so in the Church Union strengtheneth all spirituall motions whether upward as meditations and prayers to God or downeward as
manifest his glory or more gratiously imprint his Image so also in the union of Christ unto us we may observe something generall whereby he is united to the whole mankind and something speciall whereby he is united unto his Church and that after a double manner either common unto the whole visible assemblie of the Christians or peculiar and proper unto that invisible company who are the immediate members of his misticall body First then all man kind may be said to be in Christ in as much as in the mistery of his incarnation hee tooke on him the selfe same nature which maketh us to be men and wherby hee is as properly man as any of us subject to the same infermities liable and naked to the same dangers temptations moved by the same Passion obedient to the same lawes with us with this only difference that all this was in him sinlesse and voluntary in us sinfull and necessary Secondly besides this there is a farther union of Christ unto all the Professors of his truth in knowledge and explicite faith which is by a farther operation infusing into them the light of truth and some generall graces that which make them serviceable for his Church even as the root of a tree will sometimes so farre enliven the branches as shall suffice unto the bringing forth of leaves though it supply not juyce enough for solid fruit for whatsoever graces the outwad professors of Christianity do receive they have it all derived on them from Christ who is the dispencer of his Fathers bounty and who inlightneth every man that commeth into the World Thirdly there is a more speciall and neere union of Christ to the faithfull set forth by the resemblances of building ingrasture members marriage and other the like similitudes in the Scriptures whereby Christ is made unto us the Originall and well-spring of all spirituall life and motion of all fulnesse and fructification Even as in naturall generation the soule is no sooner infus'd and united but presently there is sense and vegetation derived on the body so in spirituall new birth as soone as Christ is formed in us as the Apostle speakes then presently are we quickned by him and all the operations of a spirituall life sense of sin vegetation and growth in faith understanding and knowledge of the mysterie of godlinesse taste and relish of eternall life begin to shew themselves in us We are in Christ by grace even as by nature we were in Adam Now as from Adam there is a perpetuall transfusion of Originall sin on all his posterity because we were all then not only represented by his person but contained in his loynes so from Christ who on the Crosse did represent the Church of God and in whom we are is there by a most speciall influence transfus'd on the Church some measure of those graces those vitall motions that incorruption purity and holinesse which was given to him without measure that he alone might be the Author and Originall of eternall salvation the consecrated Prince of glory to the Church from which consecration of Christ and sanctification of the Church the Apostle inferres a union betweene Christ and the Church for he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are of one And all this both union or association with Christ and communion in those heavenly graces which by spirituall influence from him are shed forth upon all his members is brought to passe by this meanes originally because Christ and we do both partake of one and the selfe-same spirit which spirit conveighs to the faithfull whatsoever in Christ is communicable unto them For as the members naturall of man are all conserv'd in the integrity and unity of one body by that reasonable soule which animates enlivens and actuates them by one simple and undivided information without which they would presently fall asunder and moulder into dust even so the members of Christ are all firmely united unto him and from him receive all vitall motions by meanes of that common Spirit which in Christ above measure in us according unto the dispensation of Gods good will worketh one and the selfe-same life and grace so that by it we are all as really compacted into one mysticall body as if we had all but one common soule And this is that which we beleeve touching our fellowship with the Sonne as S. Iohn cals it the cleere and ample apprehension whereof is left unto that place where both our union and likenesse to him and our knowledge of him shall be made perfect Sixtly we eat and drink the Sacrament of Christs Passion that thereby we may expresse that more closse and sensible pleasure which the faithfull enjoy in receiving of him For there is not any one sense whose pleasure is more constant and expresse than this of Tasting the reasons whereof are manifest For first it followes by the consequence of opposites that that faculty when fully satisfied must needs be sensible of the greatest pleasure whose penury defect brings the extreamest anguish on nature For the evill of any thing being nothing else but an obliquity and aberration from that proper good to which it is oppos'd It must needs follow that the greater the extent and degrees of an evill are the more large must the measure of that good be in the distance from which that evill consisteth Now it is manifest that the evill of no senses is so oppressive and terrible unto nature as are those which violate the taste and touch which later is ever annexed to the former no ugly spectacles for the eyes no howles or shrikings for the eare no stench or infection of aire for the smell so distastefull through all which the anguish of a famine would not make a man adventure to purchase any food though affected even with noisome qualities Secondly the pleasure which nature takes in any good thing is caused by the union thereof to the faculty by meanes whereof it is enjoyed so that the greater the union is the more necessarily is the pleasure of the thing united Now there is not any faculty whose object is more closely united unto it than this of Tasting in Seeing or Hearing or Smelling there may be a farre distance betweene us and the things that do so affect us but no tasting without an immediate application of the object to the faculty Other objects satisfie though without me but meats never content nor benefit till they be taken in Even so is it with Christ and the faithfull many things there are which affect them with pleasure but they are without and at a distance onely Christ it is who by being and dwelling in them deligheth them Lastly we eat and drink the Sacrament of Christ crucified that therein we may learne to admire the wisdome of Gods mercy who by the same manner of actions doth restore us to life
Vision fruition and possession heere darkly by stooping and captivating our understandings unto those divine Reports which are made in Scripture which is a knowledge of Faith distance and expectation wee doe I say heere bend our understandings to assent unto such truths as doe not transmit any immediate species or irradiation of their owne upon them but there our understandings shall be raised unto a greater capacity and bee made able without a secondary report and conveyance to apprehend clearely those glorious Truths the evidence whereof it did heere submit unto for the infallible credit of God who in his Word had revealed and by his Spirit obsignated the same unto them as the Samaritans knew Christ at first onely by the report of the Woman which was an assent of Faith but after when they saw his Wonders and heard his Words they knew him by himselfe which was an assent of vision Secondly as the Church is heere but a travelling Church therfore cannot possibly have any farther knowledge of that Countrey whither it goes but onely by the Mappes which describe it the Word of God and these few fruites which are sent unto them from it the fruits of the Spirit whereby they have some taste and relish of the World to come so moreover is it even in this estate by being enclosed in a body of sinne which hath a darkning property in it and addes unto the naturall limitednesse of the understanding an accidentall defect and sorenesse much disabled from this very imperfect assent unto Christ the Object of its Faith for as sinne when it wastes the Conscience and beares Rule in the Soule hath a power like Dalila and the Philistines to put out our eyes as Vlysses the eye of his Cyclops with his sweet wine a power to e corrupt Principles to pervert and make crooked the very Rule by which we worke conveying all morall truths to the Soule as some concave glasses use to represent the species of things to the eye not according to their naturall rectitude or beauty but with those wrestings inversions and deformities which by the indisposition thereof they are framed unto so even the least corruptions unto which the best are subject having a naturall antipathy to the evidence and power of divine Truth doe necessarily in some manner distemper our understandings and make such a degree of sorenesse in the faculty as that it cannot but so farre forth bee impatient and unable to beare that glorious lustre which shines immediately in the Lord Christ. So then we see what a great disproportion there is betweene us and Christ immediately presented and from thence wee may observe our necessity and Gods mercy in affoording us the refreshment of a Type and Shadow These Shadowes were to the Church of the Iewes many because their weaknesse in the knowledge of Christ was of necessity more than ours in as much as they were but an infant wee an adult and growne Church and they looked on Christ at a distance wee neare at hand hee being already incarnate unto us they are the Sacraments of his Body and Bloud in the which wee see and receive Christ as weake eies doe the light of the Sunne through some darke Cloud or thicke Grove so then one maine and principall end of this Sacrament is to bee an instrument fitted unto the measure of our present estate for the exhibition or conveyance of Christ with the benefits of his Passion unto the faithfull Soule an end not proper to this mystery alone but common to it with all those Legall Sacraments which were the more thicke shadowes of the Jewish Church for even they in the red Sea did passe through Christ who was their Way in the Manna and Rocke did eate and drinke Christ who was their Life in the Brasen Serpent did behold Christ who was their Saviour in their daily Sacrifices did prefigure Christ who was their Truth in their Passeover did eate Christ by whose Bloud they were sprinkled for howsoever betweene the Legall and Euangelicall Covenant there may be sundry Circumstantiall differences as first in the manner of their Evidence that being obscure this perspicuous to them a Promise onely to us a Gospell Secondly in their extent and compasse that being confined to Iudea this universall to all Creatures Thirdly in the meanes of Ministration that by Priests and Prophets this by the Sonne himselfe and those delegates who were by him enabled and authorised by a solemne Commission and by many excellent endowments for the same service Lastly in the quality of its durance that being mutable and abrogated this to continue untill the consummation of all things yet notwithstanding in substance they agree and though by sundry wayes doe all at last meet in one and the same Christ who like the heart in the middest of the body comming himselfe in person betweene the Legall and Evangelicall Church doth equally convey life and motion to them both even as that light which I see in a starre and that which I receive by the immediate beame of the Sunne doth originally issue from the same Fountaine though conveyed with a different lustre and by a severall meanes So then wee see the end of all Sacraments made after the second Covenant for Sacraments there were even in Paradise before the Fall namely to exhibite Christ with those benefits which hee bestoweth on his Church unto each beleeving Soule but after a more especiall manner is Christ exhibited in the Lords Supper because his pretence is there more notable for as by Faith wee have the evidence so by the Sacrament wee have the presence of things farthest distant and absent from us A man that looketh on the light through a shadow doth truely and really receive the selfe same light which would in the openest and clearest Sun-shine appeare unto him though after a different manner there shall wee see him as Iob speakes with these selfe same eyes here with a spirituall eye after a mysticall manner so then in this Sacrament wee doe most willingly acknowledge a Reall True and Perfect Presence of Christ not in with or under the Elements considered absolutely in themselves but with that relative habitude and respect which they have unto the immediate use whereunto they are consecrated nor yet so doe wee acknowledge any such carnall transelementation of the materials in this Sacrament as if the Body or Bloud of Christ were by the vertue of Consecration and by way of a locall substitution in the place of the Bread and Wine in but are truly and really by them though in nature different conveyed into the Soules of those who by Faith receive Him And therefore Christ first said Take Eate and then This is my Body to intimate unto us as learned Hooker observeth that the Sacrament however by Consecration it be changed from common unto holy Bread and separated from common unto a divine use is
uncleane things as being in the neerest disposition to rottennes and putrefaction will never smell any sweete savor in such services What have I to doe saith God with your Sacrifices and my soule hateth your new Moones and your appointed feasts My Sacrifices and my Sabboths they were by originall institution but your carnall observance of them hath made them yours Even the Heathen Idols themselves did require rather the truth of an inward then the pompe of an outward worship and therefore they forbad all profane people any accesse to their services And God certainly will not be content with lesse then the Divill Sixtly in that by these frequent ceremonies we are led unto the celebration of Christs death and the benefits thereby arising unto mankinde we may hence observe the naturall deadnes and stupidity of mans memory in the things of his salvation It is a wonder how a man should forget his Redeemer that ransomed him with the price of his owne bloud to whom he oweth whatsoever he either is or hath him whom each good thing we injoy leadeth unto to the acknowledgment of Looke where we will he is still not onely in us but before us The wisdome of our minds the goodness of our natures the purposes of our wills and desires the calmenes of our consciences the hope and expectation of our soules and bodies the liberty from law and sinne what ever it is in or about us which we either know or admire or enjoy or expect he is the Treasury whence they were taken the fulnes whence they were received the head which transferreth the hand which bestoweth them we are on all sides compassed and even hedged in with his blessings so that in this sense we may acknowledge a kind of ubiquity of Christs body in as much as it is every where even visible and palpable in those benefits which flow from it And yet we like men that looke on the River Nilus and gaze wonderously on the Streames remaine still ignorant of the head and Originall from whence they issue Thus as there is betweene bloud and Poyson such a naturall antipathy as makes them to shrinke in and retire at the presence of each other so though each good thing we enjoy serve to present that pretious blood which was the price of it unto our soules yet there is in us so much venome of sinne as makes us still to remove our thoughts from so pure an object As in the knowledge of things many men are of so narrow understandings that they are not able to raise them unto consideration of the causes of such things whose effects they are haply better acquainted with then wiser men it being the worke of a discursive head to discover the secret knittings obscure dependances of naturall things on each other so in matters of practice in Divinity many men commonly are so fastned unto the present goods which they enjoy and so full with them that they either have noe roome or noe leisure or rather indeed no power nor will to lift up their minds from the streames unto the Fountaine or by a holy logick to resolve them into the death of Christ from whence if they issue not they are but fallacies and sophisticall good things and what ever happines we expect in or from them will prove a non sequitur at the last Remember and know CHRIST indeed such men may and do in some sort sometimes to dishonor him at best but to discourse of him But as the Phylosopher speakes of intemperate men who sin not out of a full purpose uncontroled swinge of vitious resolutions but with checks of judgement and reluctancy of reason that they are but halfe vitious which yet is indeed but an halfe-truth So certainly they who though they doe not quite forget Christ or cast him behinde their backe doe yet remember him onely with a speculative contemplation of the nature and generall efficacy of his death without particular application of it unto their owne persons and practices have but a halfe and halting knowledge of him Certainely a meere Schoole-man who is able exactly to dispute of Christ and his passion is as farre from the length and breadth and depth and heigth of Christ crucified from the requisite dimensions of a Christian as a meere Surveiour or Architect who hath onely the practise of measuring land or timber is from the learning of a Geometrician For as Mathematicks being a speculative Science cannot possibly bee compris'd in the narrow compasse of a practicall Art so neither can the knowledge of Christ being a saving and practick knowledge be compleat when it floats only in the discourses of a speculative braine And therefore Christ at the last day will say unto many men who thought themselves great Clerks and of his neere acquaintance even such as did preach him and doe wonders in his name that hee never knew them and that is an argument that they likewise never knew him neither For as no man can see the Sunne but by the benefit of that light which from the Sunne shineth on him so no man can know Christ but those on whom Christ first shineth and whom he vouch safeth to know Mary Magdalen could not say Rabboni to Christ till Christ first had said Mary to her And therefore that we may not faile to remēber Christ aright it pleaseth him to institute this holy Sacrament as the image of his crucified body whereby wee might as truely have Christs death presented unto us as if he had beene crucified before our eyes Secondly we see here who they are who in the Sacrament receive Christ even such as remember his death with a recognition of faith thankefulnesse and obedience Others receive onely the Elements but not the Sacrament As when the King seales a pardon to a condemned malefactour the messenger that is sent with it receives nothing from the King but paper written and sealed but the malefactor unto whom onely it is a gift receives it as it were a resurrection Certainely there is a staffe as well of Sacramentall as of common bread the staffe of common bread is the blessing of the Lord the staffe of the Sacramentall is the body of the Lord and as the wicked which never looke up in thankfulnes unto God doe often receive the bread without the blessing so here the element without the body they receive indeed as it is fit uncleane Birds should doe nothing but the carcasse of a Sacrament the body of Christ being the soule of the Bread and his bloud the life of the Wine His body is not now any more capable of dishonour it is a glorified body and therefore will not enter into an earthy and uncleane soule As it is corporally in Heaven so it will be spiritually and sacramentally in noe place but a heavenly soule Thinke not that thou hast received Christ till thou hast effectually remembred seriously meditated and been religiously affected and inflamed
in the glasse of the Sacraments And surely these are in themselves cleer and bright glasses yet we see even in them but darkly in regard of that vapour and steeme which exhaleth from our corrupt nature when we use them and even on these doth our soule look through other darke glasses the windowes of sense But yet at the best they are but glasses whose properties are to present nothing but the pattern the shaddow the type of those things which are in their substance quite behind us and therefore out of sight so then in generall the nature of a Sacrament is to be the representative of a substance the signe of a covenant the seale of a purchase the figure of a body the witnesse of our faith the earnest of our hope the presence of things distant the sight of things absent the taste of things unconceivable and the knowledge of things that are past knowledge CHAP. III. Inferences of Practice from the former observavations HERE then we see first the different state and disposition of the Church here in a state of corruption and therefore in want of water in Baptisme to wash it in a state of infancy and therefore in want of milke in the word to nourish it in a state of weaknesse and therefore in want of bread the body of Christ to strengthen it in a state of sorrow and therefore in want of wine the blood of Christ to comfort it Thus the Church while it is a child it speaks as a child it understands as a child it feeds as a child here a little and there a little one day in the week one houre in the day it is kept fasting and hungry But when it is growne from strength to strength unto a perfect age and unto the fulnesse of the stature of Christ then it shall be satisfied with fatnesse and drink its full of those rivers of pleasures which make glad the City of God It shall keep an eternall Sabbath a continued festivall the Supper of the Lamb shall bee without end or satiety so long as the Bridegroom is with them which shall be for ever they cannot fast Secondly we see here nor see only but even taste and touch how gratious the Lord is in that he is pleased even to unroabe his graces of their naturall lustre to overshaddow his Promises and as it were to obscure his glory that they might be made proportion'd to our dull and earthy senses to lock up so rich mysteries as lie hidden in the Sacraments in a bason of water or a morsell of bread When hee was invisible by reason of that infinite distance between the divine nature and ours hee made himselfe to be seen in the flesh and now that his very flesh is to us againe invisible by reason of that vast distance between his place and ours he hath made even it in a mysticall sense to be seen and tasted in the Sacrament Oh then since God doth thus farre humble himselfe and his graces even unto our senses let not us by an odious ingratitude humble them yet lower even under our feet Let us not trample on the blood of the Covenant by taking it into a noisome sinke into a dirty and earthie heart He that eats Christs in the Sacrament with a foule mouth and receives him into an unclensed and sinfull soule doth all one as if he should sop the bread he eates in dirt or lay up his richest treasures in a sink Thirdly we learn how we should employ all our senses Not only as brute beasts do to fasten them on the earth but to lift them up unto a more heavenly use since God hath made even them the organs instruments of our spirituall nourishment Mix ever with the naturall a heavenly use of thy senses Whatsoever thou seest behold in it his wonder whatsoever thou hearest hear in it his wisedome whatsoever thou tastest taste in it the sweetnesse as well of his love as of the creature If Christ will not dwell in a foul house he will certainly not enter at a foul door Let not those teeth that eat the bread of Angelsgrinde the face of the poor Let not the mouth which doth drink the blood of Christ thirst after the blood of his neighbour Let not that hand which is reached out to receive Christ in the Sacrament be stretched out to injure him in his members Let not those eyes which look on Christ be gazing after vanity Certainly if he will not be one in the same body with a harlot neither will he be seen with the same eyes he is really in the heaven of the greater world and he will be no where else Sacramentally but in the heavenly parts of man the lesser Lastly we see here what manner of conversation we have The church on earth hath but the earnests of glory the earnest of the Spirit and the earnest of the Sacrament that witnessing this signifying both confirming and sealing our adoption But we know not what we shall be our life is yet hid and our inheritance is laid up for us A Prince that is haply bred up in a great distance from his future kingdome in another Realm and that amongst enemies where he suffers one while a danger another a disgrace loaded with dangers and discontents though by the assurance of blood by the warrant of his fathers own hand seal he may be confirmed in the evident right of his succession can hardly yet so much as imagine the honour he shall enjoy nor any more see the gold and lustre of his crown in the print of the wax that confirms it than a man that never saw the Sunne can conceive that brightnesse which dwelleth in it by its picture drawn in some dark colours We are a royall people heirs yea coheirs with Christ but we are in a farre countrey and absent from the Lord in houses ruinous and made of clay in a region of darknesse in a shadow of death in a valley of tears though compassed in with a wall of fire yet do the waves of ungodly men break in upon us though ship'd in a safe Ark the temple of God yet often tos'd almost unto shipwrack and ready with Ionah to be swallowed of a great Leviathan though protected with a guard of holy Angels which pitch their tents about us so that the enemy without cannot enter yet enticed often out and led privily but voluntarily a-away by the enchanting lusts the Dalilahs of our own bosome The kingdome and inheritance we expect is hid from us and we know no more of it but onely this that it passeth knowledge Truly the assurance of it is confirmd by an infallible pattent Gods own promise and that made firm by a seal coloured with that blood and stamped with the image of that body which was the price that bought it What remains then but that where the body is thither the Eagles flie where the treasure is
the fulnesse of time was come wherein Christ was to accomplish the redemption of the world In the evening or twylight when the Passeover was celebrated learne from the condition of the time the nature as of that Legall so in some sort of this Evangelicall Sacrament it is but a shaddow and dark representation of that light which shall be revealed It hath but the glimmerings and faint resemblances of that mercy which redeemed us of that glory which expecteth us In the evening at the eating of the Paschall Lamb to note that Christs active obedience to the commands of the Law went together with his passive obedience to the curse and penaltie of the Law He first celebrated the Passeover that therein he might restifie his performance of the Law and then he instituted his own Supper that therin he might prefigure his suffring of the Law In the evening after the Passeover to signifie the abolishing both of the Evening and of the Passeover the plucking away of Moses his vail of all those dark misty prefiguratioÌ„s of that light which was within a few dayes to rise upon the world He would first celebrate the Passeover and there nullifie it to make it appeare unto the world that he did not therefore abrogate that holy ordinance because he oppugn'd it but because hee fulfil'd it and therefore to the substance hee joynes the shaddow the Lamb of the Jewes to the Lamb of God the true sacrifice to that which was typicall that the brightnesse of the one might abolish and swallow up the shaddow of other In the evening at the time of unleavened bread to signifie that we also it is the Inference of the Apostle should keep our Feast not with the leavened bread of malice or of wickednesse but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth That we should not venture to play the hucksters with so divine and pure mysteries by adulterating them with either the mixture of humane inventions or with the mud of our owne sinfull affections In the evening at the time of Supper to note the most wiling ready yea the forward and greedy resigning himselfe into the hands of bloody and cruell men to signifie that unto him it was meat and drink not only to doe but to suffer his Fathers will In the evening of that same night wherein he was betrayed to give first a warrant unto his Church of his approaching passion which though so intollerable for the quality and burthen of it that it could not but amâ—ze his humanity and draw from him that naturall and importunate expression of the desire he had to decline it yet in their elements did hee ascertaine the Church that as he came to drink of the brook in the way so hee should not shrink from drinking the very bitterest part of it And secondly in the night wherein hee was betrayed to forearme his poore disciples with comfort against the present losse of him and against all that anguish which their tender hearts must needs suffer at the sight of that bloody and savage usage which Iudas and the Jewes would shew towards their Master And therefore in these elements he acquaints them with the nature and quality of his passion that it should be as Bread to strengthen and as Wine to comfort the faint hearted to confirme the knees that tremble and the hands that hang downe Thirdly it was the night wherein he was betrayed to let us understand that these words were the words of a ding man and therefore to be religiously observed and that this Sacrament was the work of a dying man and therefore in its nature a Gift or Legacy In his life time hee gave his Church his Word and his Miracles he went about doing good but now in his passion he bestowed that which added weight and value to all his other gifts himselfe Other men use to bequeath their bodyes to the earth from whence it came but Christs body was not to see corruption and therefore hee bequeath'd it unto the Church It was his body by his hypostaticall and reall but it is ours by a mysticall and spirituall union Whatsoever fulnesse is in him of it have we all received whatsoever graces and merits flow from him as the head they trickle down as farre as the skirts of his garment the meanest of his chosen the paines of his wounds were his but ours is the benefit the suffrings of his death were his but ours is the mercy the stripes on his back were his but the balme that issued from them ours the thornes on his head were his but the Crowne is ours the holes in his hands and side were his but the blood that ran out was ours in a word the price was his but the purchase ours The corne is not grinded nor baked nor broken for it selfe the grape is not brâ—ized nor pressed for it selfe these actions rather destroy the nature of the elements than perfect them but all these violations that they suffer are for the benefit of man No marvell then if the Angells themselves stoop and gaze upon so deep a mysterie in which it is impossible to decide whether is greater the Wonder or the Mercy If we look unto the Place where this Sacrament was celebrated even there also shall we find matter of meditation for we may not think that two Evangelists would bee so expresse and punctuall in describing the Place iâ— there were not some matter of consequence to be observed in it First then it was a borrowed roome he that had no hole where to lay his head in had no place where to eat the Passeover We may not then expect in Christs new Supper any variety of rich and costly dishes as his Kingdome is not so neither is his Supper of this world It was not his purpose to make our worship of him a chargeable service and to enjoyne us such a table as should six our thoughts on the meats rather than on the substance which they resembled Hee knew that where the senses are overcharg'd faith lies unexercis'd and therefore he proportion'd his Supper both to the quality of his own estate which was poore to the condition of our weaknesse apt as the Church after in her love-feasts found to be rather tempted than edified in too much variety of outward meats It was likewise an upper roome to note the dignitie and divinenesse of this Sacrament and that property of lifting up the hearts which it should work in the receivers of it Our thoughts and affections while conversant about these mysteries should not lie groveling on the earth but should be raised unto high and noble contemplations And this particular of the place may seeme to have been imitated by the Churches in placeing the Lords Table and celebrating the Lords Supper in the Chancell or upper roome of the Temple besides it was a
Elements are so necessary and beneficiall to that life of man with what appetite we should approach these holy mysteries even with hungry and thirsty soules longing for the sweetnesse of Christ crucified Wheresoever God hath bestowed a vitall being hee hath also afforded nourishment to sustaine it and an inclination and attractive faculty in the subject towards its nourishment Even the new-borne Babe by the impression of nature is moved to use the breasts before he knowes them Now we which were dead in sinnes hath Christ quickned and hath infused into us a vitall principle even that faith by which the just do live which being instilled into us Christ beginneth to be formed in the soule and the whole man to be made conformable unto him Then are the parts organced and fitted for their severall workes there is an eye with Stephen to see Christ an eare with Mary to heare him a mouth with Peter to confesse him a hand with Thomas to touch him an arme with Simeon to imbrace him feet with his Disciples to follow him a heart to entertaine him and bowels of affection to love him All the members are weapons of righteousnesse and thus is the new man the new creature perfected Now hee that left not himselfe amongst the Heathen without a witnesse but filled even their hearts with food and gladnesse hath not certainly left his owne chosen without nourishment such as may preserve them in that estate which he hath thus framed them unto As therefore new Infants are fed with the same nourishment and substance of which they consist so the same Christ crucified is as the cause and matter of our new birth so the food which sustaineth and preserveth us in it unto whose body and blood there must needs be as proportionable an appetite in a new Christian as there is unto Milke in a new Infant it being more nourishable then Milke and faith more vitall to desire it then nature And all this so much the rather because he himselfe did begin unto us in a more bitter Cup. Did he on his Crosse drink Gall and Vinegar for me and that also made infinitely more biâ—ter by my sinnes and shalâ— not I at his Table drink Wine for my selfe made infinitely sweeter with the blood which it conveighs Did hee drink a Cup of bitternesse and wrath and shal not I drink the Cup of blessing Did he eat the bread of affliction and shall not I eat the bread of life Did he suffer his Passion and shall not I enjoy it Did he stretch out his hands on the Crosse and shall mine be withered and shrunken towards his Table Certainly it is a presumption that he is not only sick but desperate who refuseth that nourishment which is both food to strengthen and Physick to recover him Secondly the benefit of Christ being so obvious as the commons and so sufficient as the properties of these Elements declare we see how little we should be dismaid at any either inward weaknesses and bruses of minde or outward dangers and assaults of enemies having so powerfull a remedy so neere unto us how little we ought to trust in any thing within our selves whose sufficiency and nourishment is from without There is no created substance in the world but receives perfection from some other things how much more must Man who hath lost his owne native integrity go out of himselfe to procure a better estate which in vaine he might have done for ever had not God first if I may so speak gone out of himselfe humbling the Divine Nature unto a personall union with the humane And now having such an Immanuel as is with us not only by assuming us unto himselfe in his incarnation but by communicating himselfe to us in these sacred Mysteries whatsoever weaknesses dismayes us his body is bread to strengthen us whatsoever waves or tempests rise against us his wounds are holes to hide and shelter us what though sinne be poyson have we not here the bread of Christ for an Antidote What though it be red as Skarlet is not his blood of a deeper colour What though the Darts of Satan continually wound us is not the issue of his wounds the balme for ours Let me be fed all my dayes with bread of affliction and water of affliction I have another bread another Cup to sweeten both Let Satan tempt mee to despaire of life I have in these visible and common Elements the Author of life made the food of life unto me let who will perswade me to trust a little in my owne righteousnesse to spie out some gaspings and faint reliques of life in my selfe I receive in these signes an all-sufficient Saviour and I will seeke for nothing in my selfe when I have so much in him Lastly we see here both from the example of Christ who is the patterne of unity and from the Sacrament of Christ which is the Symboll of unity what a conspiracy of affections ought to be in us both betweene our owne and towards our fellow-members Thinke not that thou hast worthily received these holy mysteries till thou finde the image of that unity which is in them conveighed by them into thy soule As the breaking of the bread is the Sacrament of Christs Passion so the aggregation of many graines into one masse should be a Sacrament of the Churches unity What is the reason that the bread and the Church should be both called in the Scripture by the same name The bread is the body of Christ and the Church is the body of Christ too Is it not because as the bread is one Loafe out of diverse cornes so the Church is one body out of diverse Beleevers that the representative this the mysticall body of the same Christ. Even as the Word and the Spirit and the faithfull are in the Scripture all called by the same name of seed because of that assimulating vertue whereby the one received doth transforme the other into the similitude and nature of it selfe If the beames of the Sunne though divided and distinct from one another have yet a unity in the same nature of light because all pertake of one native and originall splendor if the limbes of a Tree though all severall and spreading different wayes yet have a unity in the same fruits because all are incorporated into one stock or root if the streames of a River though running diverse wayes doe yet all agree in a unity of sweetnesse and cleerenesse because all issuing from the same pure Fountaine why then should not the Church of Christ though of severall and divided qualities and conditions agree in a unity of truth and love Christ being the Sunne whence they all receive their light the Vine into which they are all ingrafted and the Fountain that is opened unto them all for transgressions and for sins CHAP. IX Of the Analogy and
proportion betweene the holy Actions used by Christ in this Sacrament and Christ himselfe who is the substance of it IT followes now that we enquire farther into the nature of this holy Sacrament which will be explained by considering the Analogie fitnesse and similitude betweene the signes and the things signified by them and conferred or exhibited together with them which is Christ the Lord. Now this Analogie or fitnesse as it hath been in some generall manner expres'd in the nature or quality of the elements substantially or physically taken so more expressely and punctually is it propos'd unto us in those holy actions which doe alter in the use and make it a Sacrament And first we finde that Christ tooke the Bread and Wine and blessed it and gave thanks and so consecrated it or set a part unto a holy or solemne use which is the reason why Saint Paul calls it a Cup of blessing so that unto the Church it ceaseth to be that which nature had made it and beginnes to be that unto which the blessing had consecrated it In like manner did the eternall Sonne of God assume into the subsistance of his owne infinite person the whole nature of man the body and the soule by the vertue of which wonderfull union notwithstanding the properties of the divine nature remaine absolutely intransient and uncommunicable unto the humane yet are there shed from that inexhaustible fountaine many high and glorious endowments by which the humanity under this manner of subsistence is annoynted consecrated sealed and set apart for that work of incomprehensible love and power the redemption of the world and secondly as the Bread is taken by us from Christ in the nature of a gift he brake it and gave it to his Disciples so is the humane nature taken by Christ from the Father as a gift from the good pleasure of God Thirdly as the taking of the Bread by Christ did alter only the manner of its being the operation and efficacy the dignity and use but no way at all the element or nature of the Bread Even so the taking of the humane body by Christ did conferre indeed upon it many glorious effects and advance it to an estate farre above its common and ordinary capacity alwayes yet reserving those defects and weaknesses which were required in the aeconomie and dispensation of that great work for which he assumed it but yet he never alterd the essentiall and naturall qualities of the body but kept it still within the measure and limits of the created perfection which the wisdome of God did at first share out unto it Lastly to come neerer unto the Crosse of Christ as hee did by prayer and thanksgiving consecrate their elements unto a holy use so did he immediately before his passion of which this is the Sacrament make that consecratory prayer and thanksgiving which is registred for the perpetuall comfort of his Church The second Action is the breaking of the Bread and powering the Wine into the Cup which doth neerly expresse his crucified Body where the joynts were loosed the sinewes torne the flesh bruized and peirced the skin rent the whole frame violated by that straining and razeing and cutting and stretching and wrentching which was used in the crucifying of it and by the shedding of that pretious blood which stop'd the issue and flux of ours It were infinite and intricare to spin a meditation into a controversie about the extent and nature of Christs passion but certainly whatsoever either Ignominie or Agony his body suffered which two â— conceive to comprize all the generalls of Christ crucified are if not particularly expressed yet typically and sacramentally shaddowed and exhibited in the Bread broken and the Wine powred out The third Action was the giving or delivering of the Bread and Wine which first evidently expresseth the nature and quality of Christ crucified with these benefits which flow from him that they are freely bestowed upon the Church which of it selfe had no interest or claime unto any thing save death Secondly we see the nature of Christs passion that it was a free voluntary and unconstrained passion for though it be true that Iudas did betray him and Pilate deliver him to bee crucified yet none of this was the giving of Christ but the selling of him It was not for us but for mony that Iudas deliver'd him it was not for us but for feare that Pilate deliver'd him but God deliver'd the Sonne and the Sonne deliver'd himselfe with a most mercifull and gracious will to bestow his death upon sinners and not to get but to be himselfe a price The Passion then of Christ was most freely undertaken without which free-will of his own they could never have laid hold on him and his death was a most free and voluntary explication his life was not wrentched nor wrung from him nor snatch'd or torne from him by the bare violence of any forraine Impression but was with a loud voice arguing nature not brought to utter decay most freely surrendred and laid downe by that power which did after reassume it But how then comes it to passe that there lay a necessicie upon Christ of suffring which necessicie may seeme to have enforc'd and constrain'd him to Golgatha in as much as hee himselfe did not only shrinke but even testifie his dislike of what he was to suffer by a redoubled prayer unto his Father that that Cup might passe from him doth not feare make Actions involuntary or at least derogate and detract from the fulnesse of their liberty and Christ did feare how then is it that Christs Passion was most voluntary though attended with necessitie feare and reluctance surely it was most voluntary still and first therefore necessary because voluntary the maine and primitive reason of the necessitie being nothing else but that immutable will which had fore-decreed it Christs death then was necessary by a necessitie of the event which musts needs come to passe after it had once been fore-determined by that most wise will of God which never useth to repent him of his counsells but not by a necessitie of the cause which was most free and voluntary Againe necessary it was in regard of the Scriptures whose truth could not miscarry in regard of the promises made of him which were to be performed in regard of propheticall predictions which were to be fulfilled in regard of typicall prefigurations which were to bee abrogated and seconded with that substance which they did fore-shaddow but no way necessary in opposition to Christs will which was the first mover into which both this necessitie and all the causes of it are to be finally resolv'd And then for the fear and reluctance of Christ noe marvell if he who was in all things like unto us had his share in the same passions and affections like wise though without sin But neither of
these did any way derogate from the most free Sacrifice which hee himselfe offered once for all in asmuch as there was an absolute submission of the inferiour to the higher will and the inferiour it selfe shrunk not at the obedience but at the pain To explaine this more cleerly consider in Christ a double Will or rather a double respect of the same Will First the naturall Will of Christ whereby hee could but wish well unto himselfe and grone after the conservation of that being whose anguish and dissolution did now approach whereby he could not upon the immediate burden of the sinne of man and the wrath of God but feare and notwithstanding the assistance of Angells drop downe a sweat as full of wonder as it was of torment great drops of blood and then no marvell if we here Father if it be possible let this Cup passe from me But then again consider not the naturall but the mercifull will of Christ by which he intended to appease the wrath of an offended by any other unsatisfiable God the removall of an unsupportable curse the redemption of his own and yet his fellow creaturs the giving them accesse unto a father who was before a consuming fire in a word the finishing of that great work which the Angles desire to looke into and then wee finde that hee did freely lay downe his life and most willingly embraced what hee most naturally did abhorre As if Christ had said if wee may venture to paraphrase his sacred words Father thou hast united mee to such a nature whose Created and Essentiall property it is to shrink from any thing that may destroy it and therefore if it be thy Will let this Cupp passe from mee But yet I know that thou hast likewise annoynted mee to fullfill the eternall Decree of thy love and to the performance of such an office the dispensation wherof requires the dissolution of my assumed nature and therefore not as I but as thou wilt So then both the desire of preservation was a naturall desire and the offring up of his Body was a free-will offring And indeed the light of nature hath required a kind of willingnesse even in the Heathens bruit Sacrifices And therefore the beast was led and not haled to the Altar and the struggling of it or flying and breaking from the Altar or bellowing and crying was ever counted ominous and unhappy Now our Saviour Christs willingnesse to offer up himselfe is herein declared in that hee opened not his mouth in that he suffred such a death wherein hee first did beare the Crosse before it bore him in that hee dehorted the women that followed after him to weepe or expresse any passion of willingnesse for his death Thus did hee in his passion and still doth in his Sacrament really perfectly and most willingly give himselfe unto his Church In somuch as that the Oyle of that unction which consecrated him unto that bitter worke is called an Oyle of gladnesse So then Christ freely offreth both in himselfe Originally and in his Sacraments Instrumentally all grace sufficient for nurishment unto life to as many as reach forth to receive or entertaine it CHAP. X. Of the fourth Action with the reasons why the Sacrament is to be eaten and drunken THe fourth and last Action made mention of in this Sacrament is the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine after wee have taken them from the hands of Christ to signifie unto us that Christ crucified is the life and food of a Christian that receiveth him Here are the degrees of faith first we take Christ and then we eat him There are none that finde any nourishment or relish in the blood of Christ but those who have received him and so have an interest propriety and title to him He must first be ours before we can taste any sweetnesse in him ours first in possession and claime and after ours in fruition and comfort For all manner of sweetnesse is a consequent and effect of some propriety which we have unto the good thing which causeth it unto the which the neerer our interest is the greater is the sweetnesse that we finde in it In naturall things we may observe how nothing will be kindly nourished in any other place or meanes than those unto which nature hath given it a primitive right and symthy Fishes perish in the aire and Spice-trees dye and wither in these colder Countries because Nature had denyed them any claime or propriety unto such places We are all branches and Christ is a Vine now no branch receiveth juyce or nourishment unlesse first it be inserted into the stock If we are not first ingrafted into Christ and so receive the right of branches we cannot expect any nourishment from him As the name which was written in that white Stone was knowne unto him only that had it so in these mysteries which have the impresse and character of Christs Passion on them Christ is knowne and enjoyed onely by those who first take him and so have a hold and right unto him But why is it that Christ in this Sacrament should be eaten and drunken Cannot the benefit of his Passion be as well conveighed by the eye as by the mouth It was the joy of Abraham that he saw Christs day the comfort of Simeon that hee had seene Gods salvation the support of Stephen that hee saw Christ in his kingdome the faith of Thomas that he saw his resurrection and why is it not enough that wee see the passion of Christ in this Sacrament wherein he is crucified before our eyes Certainly if wee looke into the Scriptures wee shall find nothing more common than the Analogie and resemblance betwixt spirituall grace and naturall food Hence it is that we so often read of Manna from Heaven Water from the Rock Trees in Paradise Apples and Flagons for Christs Spouse Wisdomes feast and the marriage feast of hungring and thirsting and sucking of marrow and fatnesse and Milke and Honey and infinite the like expressions of divine grace the reasons whereof are many and important First to signifie the benefit we receive by Christ crucified exhibited unto us in his last Supper by that Analogie and similitude which is betwixt him and those things we eat and drink Now meates are all either Physicall common or costly either for the restoring or for the supporting or for the delighting of nature and they have all some of those excellent properties of good which Aristotle hath observed either to conserve nature entire or to restore it when it hath beene violated or to prevent diseases ere they creep upon it And all these benefits do the faithfull receive by Christ. First his body and blood is an Antidote against all infections of sin or feare of death When he said Feare not it is I. It was an
Christ in his Church of his more peculiar presence with and in his people of our spirituall ingrasture into him by faith of those more neere and approaching relations of Brotherhood and coinheritance between Christ and us that mutuall interest fellowship and society which wee have each to other with infinite other expressions of that divine and expresselesse mixture whereby the faithfull are not only by a consociation of affections and confederacy of wills but by a reall though mysticall union ingrafted knit and as it were joynted unto Christ by the sinew of faith and so made heires of all that glory and good which in his person was purchased for his members and is from him diffus'd on them as on the parts and portions of himselfe So that it pleaseth Gods spirit as some do observe so farre sometimes to expresse this union betwixt Christ and his Church as to call the Church it selfe by the name of Christ and every where almost to interest himselfe in the injuries and suffrings of his Church yea to esteeme him self incompleat and maimed without it And here this mysticall unity between Christ his Church being by eating and drinking so expressely signified and in the Sacrament so gratiously obsignated unto us it will not be impertinent to enlarge somewhat on so divine a point whersoever any thing hath so inward a relation and dependancy on something else as that it subsisteth not nor can retaine that integrity of being which is due unto it without that whereon it dependeth there is necessarily requir'd some manner of union between those two things by meanes whereof the one may derive unto the other that influence and vertue whereby it is preserved for broken discontinued and ununited parts receive no succour from those from which they are divided All manner of activity requiring a contract and immediatnesse between the Agent and the subject and this one proofe of that omnipresence and immensity which we attribute unto God whereby he filleth all creatures bestowing on them all that generall influence and assistance of his Providence whereby they live and move and have their being But besides this universall presence of God wherwith he doth equally fill all things by his essence which were from eternity wrapped up in his power and wisedome there is a more speciall presence and union of his unto the creature according as he doth in any of them exhibit more expresse Characters of his glorious Attributes In which sense he is said to be in Heaven because hee doth there more especially manifest his power wisedome and majesty in the soft and still voice because there his lenity was more conspicuous in the burning bush and in the light cloud because in them his mercy was more express'd in the mount Sinah because there his â—errour was especially declared According unto which different diffusions of himselfe on the Creature and dispensation of his Attributes God without any impeachment of his Immensity may be said to be absent to depart and to turne away from his Creature as the words are every where in the Scriptures used Thus is God united to the creature in generall by the right of a Creator upholding all things by his mighty word without the participation whereof they could not but be annihilated and resolved into their first nothing but besides there is a more distinct and nobler kind of union unto his more excellent Creature man for as there are some things which partake only of the vertue and efficacy others which partake of the Image and nature of the Sunne as the bowels of the earth recceive only the vertue heat and influence but the beame receives the very Image and forme of it light so in the creatures some partake of God only as an Agent as depending on his eternall power from whence they did originally issue and by which they doe now still subsist and so receive only some common Impressions and foot prints of divine vertue whereby they declare his glory others partake of the Image of God of the divine nature as Saint Peter speaks and receive from him those two speciall properties wherein principally consists the Image of God holinesse and happinesse that giving perfection to our working and this to our being which two satisfie the whole compasse of a created desire and so declare his love some acknowledge God as their maker others as their Father in them is dependance and gubernation only in these is cognition and inheritance The bond of this more speciall union of the reasonable creature unto God was originally the Law of mans creation which did prescribe unto him the forme and limits of his working and subordination unto God which knot he by his voluntary aversation violating and untying there did immediately ensue a dis-union between God and man so saies the Prophet your sinnes have separated between you and your God Now as the parts of a body so long as they are by the naturall bonds of joynts and sinewes united to the whole doe receive from the fountaines of life the heart and the braine all comfortable supplies for life and motion which are due unto them but being once dissolved and broken off there then ceaseth all the interest which they had in the principall parts so as long as man by obedience to the Law did preserve the union between God and him intire so long had he an evident participation of all those graces spirituall which were requisite to the holinesse and happinesse of so noble a creature but having once transgress'd the Law and by that meanes broken the knot he is no more posses'd of that sweet illapse and influence of the spirit which quickneth the Church unto eternall life but haveing united himselfe unto another head and subjected his parts unto another Prince even the Prince that ruleth in the children of disobedience hee is utterly destitute of all divine communion an alien from the common-wealth and by consequence from all the priviledges of Israel a stranger from the covenant of promise unacquainted with yee unable to conceive aright of spirituall things quite shut out from the Kingdome yea without God in the world And thus farre wee have considered the severall unions which are between the creatures either in generall as creatures or in particular as reasonable and God consider'd in the relation of a Creator which will give great light to understand both the manner and dignity of this mysticall and evangelicall union betwixt the Church and Christ consider'd under the relation of a Redeemer by whom we have re-union and accesse to the Father in whom only he hath accepted us againe and given unto us the adoption of children Now as in the union of God to the creatures we have before observed the differences of it that it was either generall unto all or speciall unto some in which he did either more expressely
doe eat and drink the Lord himselfe And therefore the Church hath both at first and since most devoutly imitated our blessed Saviour in consecrating both these mysteries and their owne soules by thanksgiving and prayer before ever they received the elements from the hands of the Deacons that so that same pure Wine that immaculate Blood might be put into pure and untainted vessels even into sanctified and holy hearts lest otherwise the wine should be spilt and the vessells perish And indeed the Sacrament is ignorantly and fruitlessely received if we doe not therin devote consecrate and set apart our selves unto Gods service for what is a Sacrament but a visible oath wherin wee doe in consideration of Christs mercies unto us vow eternall alleigeance and service unto him against all those powers and lusts which warre against the soule and to make our members weapons of righteousnesse unto him Secondly as Christ brake the bread before he gave it so must our hearts before they be offered up to God for a reasonable sacrifice be humbled and bruised with the apprehension of their owne demerits for a Broken and contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise shall wee have adamantine and unbended soules under the weight of those sins which brake the very Rock of our salvation and made the dead stones of the Temple to rend in sunder Was his body broken to let out his blood and shall not our soules be broken to let it in Was the Head wounded and shall the Ulcers and Impostumes remaine unlanced Would not God in the Law accept of any but pushed and dissected and burned sacrifices was his Temple built of none but cut and hewed stones and shall we think to have no Sword of the Spirit divide us no Hammer of the Word break us none of our drosse and stubble burned up none of our flesh beaten downe none of our old man crucified and cut off from us and yet be still living sacrifices and living stones in his Temple Whence did David call on God but out of the pit and the deepe waters when his bones were broken could not rejoyce Certainly we come unto God either as unto a Physitian or as to a Judge wee must needs bring soules either full of sores to be cured or full of sins to be condemned Againe in that this Rock of ours was broken we know whither to flie in case of tempest and oppression even unto the holes of the Rock for succor To disclaime our owne sufficiency to disavow any confidence in our owne strength to flie from Church treasures and supererrogations and to lay hold on him in whom were the treasures the fulnes of all grace of which fulnesse we all receive to forsake the private Lampes of the wisest Virgins the Saints and Angels which have not light enough to shine into anothers house and to have recourse only unto the Sonne of righteousnesse the light not of a House but of the World who inlightneth every man that commeth into it Think when thou seest these Elements broken that even then thou applyest thy lips unto his bleeding wounds and doest from thence suck salvation That even then with Thomas thy hand is in his side from whence thou mayest pluck out those words of life My God my God that even then thou seest in each wound a mouth open and in that mouth the blood as a visible prayer to intercede with God the Father for thee and to solicite him with stronger cries for salvation than did Abels for revenge Let not any sins though never so bloody so numberlesse deterre thee from this pretious Fountaine If it be the glory of Christs blood to wash away sinne then is it his greatest glory to wash away the greatest sins Thy sinne indeed is the object of Gods hate but the misery which sinne brings upon thee is the object of his pitty O when a poore distressed soule that for many yeares together hath securely weltered in a sinck of numberlesse and noisome lusts and hath even beene environed with a Hell of wickednesse shall at last having received a wound from the sword of Gods Spirit an eye to see and a heart to feele and tremble at the terrors of â—ods judgements shall then I say flie out of himselfe smite upon his thigâ— cast away his rags crouch and crawle unto the throne of grace solicite Gods mercy with strong cries for one drop of that blood which is never cast away when powred into sinfull and sorrowfull soules how think we will the bowels of Christ turne within him How will he hasten to meet such an humbled soule to embrace him in those armes which were stretched on the Crosse for him and to open unto him that inexhausted Fountaine which even delighteth to mix it â—elfe with the teares of sinners Certainly if it were possible for any one of Christs wounds to be more pretious than the rest even that should be opened wide and powred out into the soule of such a penitent Yea if it might possibly be that the sins of all the World could be even throng'd into the conscience of one man and the whole guilt of them made proper and personall unto him yet if such a man could bee brought to sue for grace in the mediation of Christs broken body there would thence issue balme enough to cure blood enough to wash and to drowne them all Only let not us sin because grace abounds let not us make work for the blood of Christ and go about by crimson and presumptuous sins as it were to pose Gods mercy The blood of Christ if spilt and trampled under foot will certainly cry so much lowder than Abels for vengeance by how much it is the more pretious It may be as well upon us as in us As the vertue and benefit of Christs blood is in those that imbrace it unto life and happinesse so is the guilt of it upon those that despise it unto wretchednesse and condemnation Thirdly in that Christ gave and delivered these mysteries unto the Church we likewise must learne not to ingrosse our selves or our owne gifts but freely to dedicate them all unto the honour of that God and benefit of that Church unto which he gave both himselfe and them Even nature hath made men to stand in need of each other and therefore hath imprinted in them a naturall inclination unto fellowship and society in one common City by Christ we are all made of one City of one houshold yea of one Church of one Temple He hath made us members of one body animated by one and the same Spirit stones of one entire building united on one and the same foundation branches of one undivided stock quickned by one and the same root and therefore requires from us all a mutuall support succour sustentation and nourishment of each
at all under them to sustaine them and which is if any thing can bee yet more absurd bare accidents should nourish bee assimulated and augment a substance for it is plaine that a man might bee nourished by the Bread yea the Priest by intemperate excesse made drunke with the consecrated Wine unto which detestable effects wee cannot imagine that God by a more especiall concurrence and miracle would enable the bare accidents of Bread and Wine But if Christ stay and doe corporally unite himselfe to the Receiver then I see not how all they that receive the Sacrament being physically and substantially united to Christs Body have not likewise a naturall union to his Person too that being no where separated from this which is blasphemous to affirme Secondly how Christs Body may not bee said to have a double subsistence Infinite in the second Person and Finite in all those with whom he is Incorporated Leaving then this as a fleshly conceit wee come to a fourth Presence of Christ which is by Energy and power thus where two or three bee gathered together in his Name Christ is in the middest of them by the powerfull working of his holy Spirit even as the Sunne is present to the Earth in as much as by its influence and benignity it heateth and quickeneth it For all manner of operation is by some manner of Contact betweene the Agent and the Patient which cannot bee without some manner of presence too but the last manner of Presence is a Sacramentall Relative mysticall Presence Understand it thus The King is in his Court or Presence-chamber onely locally and physically but representatively he is wheresoever his Chancellour or subordinate Judges are in as much as whatsoever they in a Legall and judiciall course doe determine is accompted by him as his owne personall act as being an effect of that power which though in them as the instruments doth yet originally reside no where but in his owne Person just so Christ is locally in Heaven which must containe him till the restitution of all things yet having instituted these Elements for the supply as it were of his absence hee is accompted present with them in as much as they which receive them with that reverend and faithfull affection as they would Christ himselfe doe together with them receive him too really and truly though not carnally or physically but after a mysticall and spirituall manner A reall Presence of Christ wee acknowledge but not a locall or physicall for Presence reall that being a metaphysicall terme is not opposed unto a meere physicall or locall absence or distance but is opposed to a false imaginary phantasticke presence for if reall presence may bee understood of nothing but a carnall and locall presence then that speech of Christ Where two or three bee gathered together in my Name there am I in the middest of them cannot have any reall Trueth in it because Christ is not locally in the middest of them This reall Presence being thus explained may bee thus proved The maine end of the Sacrament as shall be shewed is to unite the faithfull unto Christ to which union there must of necessity be a Presence of Christ by meanes of the Sacrament which is the instrument of that union Such then as the union is such must needs bee the presence too since Presence is therefore only necessary that by meanes thereof that union may be effected Now united unto Christ we are not carnally or physically as the meat is to the body but after a mysticall manner by joynts and sinewes not fleshly but spirituall even as the faithfull are united to each other in one mysticall Body of Christ into one holy spirituall Building into one fruitfull olive into a holy but mysticall marriage with Christ. Now what Presence fitter for a Spirituall union than a spirituall presence Certainly to confine Christ unto the narrow compasse of a piece of Bread to squeeze and contract his Body into so strait a roome and to grinde him betweene our teeth is to humble him though now glorified lower than hee humbled himselfe hee himselfe to the forme of a servant but this to the condition of a monster That Presence then of Christ which in the Sacrament wee acknowledge is not any grosse Presence of circumscription as if Christ Jesus in Body lay hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine as if hee who was wont to use the senses for witnesse and proofe of his Presence did now hide from them yea deceive them under the appearances of that which hee is not but it is a spirituall Presence of energie power and concomitancy with the Element by which Christ doth appoint that by and with these mysteries though not in or from them his sacred Body should bee conveyed into the faithfull Soule and such a Presence of Christ in power though absence in flesh as it is most compatible with the properties of a humane Body so doth it most make for the demonstration of his power who can without any necessity of a fleshly Presence send as great influence from his sacred Body on the Church as if hee should descend visibly amongst us Neither can any man shew any enforcing reason why unto the reall exhibition and reception of Christ crucified there should any more physicall Presence of his bee required than there is of the Sunne unto the eye for receiving his light or of the roote unto the utmost branches for receiving of vitall sappe or of the head unto the feete for the receiving of sense or of the land and purchase made over by a sealed Deed for receiving the Lordship or lastly to use an instance from the Jesuites owne Doctrine out of Aristotle of a finall Cause in an actuall existence to effect its power and causality on the the will for if the finall Cause doe truely and really produce its effect though it have not any materiall grosse Presence but onely an intellectuall Presence to the apprehension why may not Christ whose sacred Body however it bee not substantially coextended as I may so speake in regard of ubiquity with the Godhead yet is in regard of its cooperation force efficacy unlimited by any place or subject it having neither spheare of activity nor stint of merit nor bounds of efficacy nor necessary subject of application beyond which the vertue of it growes faint and uneffectuall why may not hee I say really unite himselfe unto his Church by a spirituall Presence to the faithfull Soule without any such grosse and carnall descent or rehumiliation of his glorified Body unto an ignoble and prodigious forme So then to conclude this digression and the first End of this Sacrament together when Christ saith This is my Body wee are not otherwise to understand it than those other Sacramentall speeches of the same nature I am the Bread of Life Christ was that rocke and the like it being a common thing not
reason is because wheresoever Nature hath left a capacity of receiving farther perfection from some other thing there she hath imprinted an appetite to that thing and there is such a sympathy betweene the faculties of Nature that the indigence of one sets all the rest on motion to supply it Now what thing was there ever more beneficiall unto mankinde than the Death of Christ in comparison whereof all other things are as drosse and dung The name and fruite and hope of a Christian would be all but shadowes if Christ had not dyed By his humility are wee exalted by his curse are wee blessed by his bondage are wee made free by his stripes are wee healed we who were vessels of dishonour had all our miseries emptied into him in whom dwelled the fulnesse of the Godhead Whatsoever evils hee suffered ours was the propriety to them but the paine was his all that Ignominy and Agony which was unworthy so honourable a Person as Christ was necessary for so vile a sinner as man Infinite it is and indeed impossible to take a full view of all the benefits of Christ Death yet because the remembrance of Christs Death heere is nothing else but a recordation of those unvaluable blessings which by meanes of it were together with his holy Bloud shed downe upon the Church I will touch a little upon the principall of them That Christ Jesus is unto his Church the Authour and Originall of all spirituall Life the deliverer that should come out of Sion that should set at liberty his People spoile Principalities and Powers lead Captivity captive take from the strong man all his armour and divide the spoiles is a Trueth so clearely written with a Sun-beame that no Craconian Heretique daâ—e deny it Let us then see by what meanes he doth all this and wee will not heere speake of that worke whereby Christ having formerly purchased the Right doth afterwards conferre and actually apply the benefit and interest of that right unto his members which is the worke of his quickening Spirit but onely of those meanes which hee used to procure the right it selfe and that was in generall Christs Merit The whole conversation of Christ on the earth was nothing else but a continued merit proceeding from a double estate an estate of Ignominy and Passion procuring and an estate of Exaltation and honour applying his benefits The Passion of Christ was his Death whereby I understand not that last act onely of expiration but the whole space betweene that and his Nativity wherein being subject to the Law of Death and to all those naturall infirmities which were the Harbingers of Death hee might in that whole space bee as truly called A man of Death as Adam was a dead man in the vertue of the Curse that very day beyond which notwithstanding hee lived many hundred yeares that which we call Death being nothing else but the consummation of it The estate of exaltation is the Resurrection of Christ whereby the efficacy of that merit which was on the Crosse consummated is publikely declared and his Intercession wherein it is proposed and presented unto God the Father as an eternall Price and Prayer in the behalfe of his Church Now the Benefits which by this merit of Christs we receive are of severall kindes Some are Privative consisting in an immunity from all those evils which wee were formerly subject unto whether of sinne or punishment others are Positive including in them a right and interest unto all the Prerogatives of the sonnes of God The one is called an Expiation Satisfaction Redemption or Deliverance The other a Purchase and free Donation of some excellent blessing Redemption thus distinguished is either a Redemption of Grace from the bondage and tyranny of Sinne or a Redemption of Glory from the bondage of Corruption and both these have their parts and latitudes for the first In Sinne we may consider three things The state or masse of sinne the Guilt or damnablenesse of sinne and the Corruption staine or deformity of sinne The state of sinne is a state of deadnesse or immobility in Nature towards any good the understanding is dead and disabled for any spirituall perception the will is dead and disabled for any holy propension the affections are dead and disabled for any pursute the body dead and disabled for any obedient Ministery and the whole man dead and by consequence disabled for any sense of its owne death And as it is a state of death so it is a state of enmity too and therefore in this state wee are the objects of Gods hatred and detestation so then the first part of our Deliverance respects us as we are in this state of death and enmity and it is as I said before a double Deliverance negative by removing us out of this estate and positive by constituting us in another which is an estate of life and reconcilement First the understanding is delivered from the bondage of ignorance vanity worldly wisedome misperswasions carnall principles and the like and is after removall of this darknesse and vaile opened to see and acknowledge both its owne Darkenesse and the evidence of that Light which shines upon it Our wils and affections are delivered from that disability of embracing or pursuing of divine Objects and from that love of darknesse and prosecution of evill which is naturally in them and after this are wrought unto a sorrow and sense of their former estate to a desire and love of Salvation and of the meanes thereof with a resolution to make use of them and the whole man is delivered from the estate of Death and enmity unto an estate of Life and Reconciliation by being adopted for the sonnes of God of these Deliverances Christ is the Authour who worketh them as I observed by a double Causality the one that whereby he meriteth them the other that whereby hee conveyeth and transfuseth that which hee had merited This conveying cause is our Vocation wrought by the Spirit of Christ effectively by the Word of Life and Gospell of Regeneration instrumentally by meanes of both which this latter as the seed that other as the formative vertue that doth vegetate and quicken the seed are wee from dead men engrafted into Christ and of enemies made sonnes and Coheires with Christ but the meritorious cause of all this was that Price which Christ laid downe whereby he did ransome us from the estate of Death and purchase for us the Adoption of sonnes for every Ransome and Purchase which are the two acts of our Redemption are procured by the lâ—ying downe of some Price valuable to the thing ransomed and purchased Now this Price was the precious Blood of Christ and the laying downe or payment of this Bloud was the powring it out of his sacred Body and the exhibiting of it unto his Father in a passive obedience and this
are wholly delivered from all the sting and malediction of the Law Christ is unto us the end of the Law abolishing the shadowes of the Ceremoniall the the Curses of the Morall wee are no more under the Law but under Grace under the precepts but not under the Covenant under the obedience but not under the bondage of the Law unto the righteous there is no Law that is there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ wee are dead unto the Law by the Body of Christ it hath not the least power or dominion over us Secondly the most proper nature of a punishment is to satisfie an offended Justice but Christ bearing the iniquity of us all in his Body on the Tree did therein make a most sufficient and ample satisfaction to his Fathers wrath leaving nothing wherein wee should make up either the measure or the vertue of his sufferings but did himselfe perfectly save us for an infinite person suffering and the value of the suffering depending on the dignity of the Person it must needs bee that the satisfaction made by that suffering must be likewise infinite and by consequence most perfect Lastly if we consider as it is in all matters of consequence necessary but the author of this evill we shall finde it to be no true and proper punishment for it is a reconciled father who chasteneth every sonne whom hee receiveth who as hee often doth declare his severest wrath by forbearing to punish so doth he as often even out of tendernesse and compassion chastise his Children who hath predestinated us unto them doth execute his decrees of mercy in them doth by his providence governe and by his love sanctifie them unto those that suffer them in none of which things are there the prints of punishment But if Christ have thus taken away the malignity of all temporall punishments why are they not quite removed to what end should the substance of that remaine whose properties are extinguished Certainely God is so good as that he would not permit evill to bee if hee were not so powerfull as to turne it to good Is there not honey in the Bee when the sting is removed sweetnesse in the rose when the prickles are cut off a medicinable vertue in the flesh of Vipers when the poyson is cast out and can man turne Serpents into Antidotes and shall not God bee able to turne the fiery darts of that old Serpent into instruments for letting out our corruptions and all his buffets into so many stroakes for the better fastening of those Graces in us which were before loose and ready to fall out Briefly to conclude this digression some ends of the remaining of Death and other temporall evils notwithstanding the Death of Christ have taken away the malignity of them all are amongst others these First for the triall of our faith and other Graces our Faith in Gods Providence is then greatest when wee dare cast our selves on his care even when to outward appearances hee seemeth not at all to care for us when wee can so looke on our miseries that we can withall looke through them Admirable is that faith which can with Israel see the Land of Promise through a Sea a Persecution a Wildernesse through whole Armies of the sonnes of Anak which can with Abraham see a Posterity like the starres of Heaven through a dead wombe a bleeding sword and a sacrificed sonne which can with Iob see a Redeemer a Resurrection a restitution through the dunghill and the potsheard through ulcers and botches through the violence of heaven and of men through the discomforts of friends the temptations of a wife and the malice of Satan which can with Stephen see Christ in heaven through a whole tempest and cloud of stones which can with that poore Syrophenician Woman see Christs compassion through the odious name of Dogge which can in every Egypt see an Exodus in every red Sea a passage in every fiery Fornace an Angell of Light in every Denne of Lions a Lion of Iudah in every temptation a doore of escape and in every grave an arise and sing Secondly they are unto us for antidotes against sinne and meanes of humility and newnesse of life by which our faith is exercised and excited our corruptions pruned our diseases cured our security and slacknesse in the race which is set before us corrected without which good effects all our afflictions are cast away in vaine upon us Hee hath lost his affliction that hath not learned to endure it the evils of the faithfull are not to destroy but to instruct them they loose their end if they * teach them nothing Thirdly they make us conformable unto Christs sufferings Fourthly they shew unto us the perfection of Gods graces and the sufficiency of his love Fifthly they drive us unto God for succour unto his Word for information and unto his Sonne for better hopes for nothing sooner drives a man out of himselfe than that which oppresseth and conquereth him in so much as that publique calamities drave the Heathen themselves to their prayers and to consult with their Sybils Oracles for removing those Judgements whose authour though ignorant of yet under false names and idolatrous representations they laboured as much as in them lay to reconcile and propitiate Sixthly God is in them glorified in that he spareth not his owne People and yet doth so punish that hee doth withall support and amend them Lastly it prepareth us for Glory and by these evils convincing the understanding of the slipperinesse and uncertainty of this worlds delights and how happinesse cannot grow in that earth which is cursed with thornes and briars it teacheth us to groane after the revelation of that life which is hidde with Christ where all teares shall be wiped from our eyes So that in all temporall evils that which is destructive the sting and malediction of them is in the Death of Christ destroyed having therefore so many motives to make imprâ—ssions on the Soule the Wonder of Christs Death the Love of it and the Benefits redounding unto us from it there is required of us a multiplied recordation a ruminating and often recalling of it to our thoughts if it were possible at all times to have no word or thought or worke passe from us without an eye unto Christ crucified as the patterne or if not as the Judge of them but especially at that time when the drift and purpose of our whole sacred businesse is the Celebration of his Death CHAP. XVI Of the manner after which we are to celebrate the memory of Christs Passion BUt wee may not presume that wee remember Christs death as hee requires when either with an historicall memory or with a festivall solemnitie onely wee celebrate or discourse of it except we doe it with a practicke memory proportioned to the goodnesse and quality of
Prince of darkenes Nature is in all her operations uniforme and constant unto her selfe one Tree cannot naturally bring forth Grapes and Figgs out of the same Fountaine cannot issue bitter water and sweete the selfe same vitall faculty of feeling which is in one member of the body is in all because all are animated with that soule which doth not confine it selfe unto any one The Church of God is a Tree planted by the same hand a Garden watred from the same Fountaine a body quickned by the same Spirit the members of it are all brethren begotten by one Father of mercy generated by one Seede of the Word delivered g from one wombe of ignorance fed with one bread of Life employd in one Heavenly calling brought up in one House-hold of the Church travellers in one way of grace heires to one Kingdome of glory and when they agree in so many unities should they then admit any fraction or disunion in their minds from Adam unto the last man that shall tread on the Earth is the Church of GOD but one continued and perfected body and therefore we finde that as in the body the head is affected with the grievances of the feete though there be a great distance of place betweene them so the holymen of God have mourned and been exceedingly touched with the afflictions of the Church even in after Ages though betweene them did interveane a great distance of time Certainly then if the Church of God lie in distresse and we stretch our selves on beds of Juory if she mourne in sack-cloath and we riot in soft rayment if the wild Bore of the Forrest breake in upon her and we send not out one prayer to drive him away if there bee cleanenesse of teeth in the poore and our teeth grinde them still if their bowells be empty of food and ours still empty of compassion if the wrath of God bee enflamed against his people and our zeale remaine still as frozen our charity as cold our affections as benum'd our compassion as stupid as it ever was In aword if Sion lye in the dust and wee hang not up our Harpes nor pray for her peace as wee can conclude nothing but that we are unnaturall members so can wee expect nothing but the curse of Meroz who went not out to helpe the Lord. Fourthly in that this Sacrament is Gods Instrument to ratifie and make sure our claime unto his Covenant we learne First therein to admire and adore the unspeakeable love of God who is pleased not onely to make but to confirme his promises unto the Church As God so his truth whether of judgments or promises are all in themselves immutable and infallible in their event yet notwithstanding as the Sunne though in it selfe of a most uniforme light and magnitude yet by reason of the great distance and of the variety of mists and vapours through which the raies are diffus'd it often seemeth in both properties to varie so the promises of God however in themselves of a fixed and unmoveable certainty yet passing through the various tempers of our minds one while serene and cleere another while by the steeme of passions and temptations of Satan foggie and distemperd doe appeare under an inconstant shape And for this cause as the Sunne doth it selfe dispell those vapours w ch did hinder the right percâ—â—tion of it so the grace of God together with and by the holy Sacrament communicated doth rectifie the minde and compose those diffident affections w ch did before intercept the efficacie and evidence thereof God made a Covenant with our fathers and not accounting that enough hee confirmed it by an oath that by 2. immutable things wherein it was impossible for God to ly they might have strong consolation who have had refuge to lay hold on the hope that is set before them The strength wee see of the consolation depends upon the stability of the covenant And is Gods covenant made more firme by an oath than by a promise The truth of God is as his nature without variablenesse or shadow of changing and can it then bee made more immutable Certainly as to infinitenes in regard of extension so unto immutabillity in regard of firmenes can there not bee any accession of degrees or parts All immutability being noâ—thing else but an exclusion of whatsoever might possibly occur to make the thing variable and uncertaine So then the Oath of God doth no more adde to the certainty of his word then doe mens oathes and protestations to the truth of what they affirme but because wee consist of an earthly and dull temper therefore God when he speakes unto us doth ingeminate his compellations O Earth Earth Earth heare the word of the Lord. So weake is our sight so diffident our nature as that it seemes to want the evidence of what it sees peradventure God may repent him of his promise as he did sometime of his Creature Why should not the Covenant of grace bee as mutable as was that of gwords God promised to establish Sion for ever and yet Sion the City of the great God is fallen was not Shilo beloved and did not God forsake it had Comah beene as the signet of his hand had hee not yet beene cast away was not Ierusalem a Vine of Gods planting and hath not the wild Boare long since rooted it up was not Israel the naturall Olive that did partake of the fat and sweetnesse of the roote and is yea cut off and wrath come upon it to the uttermost Though God be most immutable may he not yet alter his promise did the abrogation of Ceremonies prove any way a change in him who was as well the erector as the dissolver of them Though the Sunne be fastned to his owne Spheare yet may hee bee moved by another Orbe What if Gods promise barely considered proceed from his Antecedent and simple will of benevolence towards the Creature but the stability and certainty of his promise in the event depend on a second resolution of his consequent will which presupposeth the good use of mine owne liberty may not I then abuse my free will and so frustrate unto my selfe the benefit of Gods promise Is not my will mutable though Gods bee not may not I sinke and fall though the place on which I stand be firme may not I let goe my hold though the thing which I handle bee it selfe fast what if all this while I have beene in a Dreame mistaking mine owne private fancies and misperswasions for the dictates of Gods Spirit mistaking Satan who useth to transforme himselfe for an Angell of light God hath promised it is true but hath hee promised unto mee did hee ever say unto mee Simon Simon or Saul Saul Or Samuel Samuel Or if hee did must he needs performe his promise to me who am not able to fulfill my conditions unto him Thus
Having thus found out the first necessary quallification of a man for the receiving of the holy Eucharist without which hee is absolutely as uncapable of it as a dead man of food we may the more easily looke into the next more immediate and particular consisting in that preparatory Act of examination or triall of the conscience touching its fitnesse to communicate because the former is to bee the rule and measure by which wee proceed in the latter Some things there are which men learne to doe by doing of them and which are better perform'd and the dangers incident unto them better avoided by an extemporary dexterity than by any premeditation or forecast But yet generally since matters of consequence are never without some perplexed difficulties not discernable by a sudden intuition and since the mindes of men are of a limited efficacy and therefore unfit for any serious worke till first dispossessed of all different notions which might divert and of all repugnant principles or indispositions which might opâ—pose it in the performance of any great businesse set upon with sudden uncomposed and uncollected thoughts It is very necessary before wee undertake any serious and difficult worke both to examine the sufficiency and to prepare the instruments by which wee may bee enabled to performe it Thus wee see in the workes of Nature those which admit of any latitude or degrees of perfection are seldome done without many previous dispositions to produce them In Plants and vegetables the Earth is to bee opened the seed to bee scattered the raine to moysten the Sunne to evocate and excite the seminall vertue and after all this comes a Fruitfull Harvest and so in generation of all other naturall bodies there are ever some antecedent qualities introduc'd by meanes whereof Nature is assisted and prepared for her last act So in the workes of Art wee finde how wrestlers and runners in races did supple their joynts with oyntments and diet their bodies that by that meanes they might be fit for those bodily exercises how those Romane Fencers in their gladiatory fights did first use presatory or dulled weapons before they entred in good earnest into the Theater and then their custome was first to carry their weapons to the Prince to have his allowance of the fitnesse of them before they used them in fighting The Lacedemonians were wont to have musicall instruments before their warres that thereby their courage might bee sharpned and their mindes raised unto bold attempts And wee reade of Scipio Africanus that ever before hee set himselfe upon the undertaking of any great businesse his manner was to enter the Capitole to submit his projects unto the judgment of the gods and to implore their aid and allowance for the good successe of such his enterprises A thing for the substance of it practised by all the Ethnicks before they addressed themselves unto any worke of consequence whose constant use it was to have recourse unto their gods in prayers for benediction and encouragement And it was a religious observation in the Romane superstitious sacrifices for a servant that stood by to put the Priest in minde what hee was about and to advise him to consider maturely and to doe with his whole mind and endeavour that worke hee was to performe And whatsoever vessells or garments were in those solemnities used were before-hand washed and cleansed that they might bee fit instruments for such a worke Thus farre wee see the light of reason and the very blindnesse of superstition enforceth a necessity of preparation unto any great especially divine worke If wee looke into the holy Scriptures wee may finde God himselfe a patterne of these deliberate preparations In making the world it had beene as easie for him in one simple command to have erected this glorious frame at once as to be six daies in the fashioning of it But to exhibite unto us an example of temperate and aduis'd proceedings he first provides the materialls and then superadds the accomplishment and perfection In the dispensing of his judgments hee first prepares them before hee inflicts them He hath whet his sword and bent his bow and made ready his arrowes before he strikes or shootes his eye comes before his hand He comes downe to see Sodome before to consume it Hee examines before he expells Adam where art thou before he drive him out of Paradise Nay in the very sweetest of all his attributes his mercy we find him first consider his people Israel before he sends Moses to deliver them In like manner our blessed Saviour though having in him the fulnes of the God-head the treasures of Wisdome and Grace without measure he was therefore perfectly able to discharge that great worke unto which the Father had Sealed him was yet pleased to prepare himselfe both unto his propheticall and sacerdotall obedience by Baptisme Fasting Temptation and Prayer That the practise of this great Worke where it was not necessary might be a president unto us who are not able of our selves to thinke or to doe any good thing In the building of Salomons Temple the stones were perfected and hewed before they were brought there was neither Hammer nor Axe nor any toole of Iron heard in the house while it was in building And so should it be in the Temple of which that was a type even in the mysticall body of CHRIST every man should be first hewed and fitted by repentance and other preparatory workes before he should approach to incorporate himselfe into that spirituall and eternall building In the observation of Leviticall ceremonies wee may note that before the celebration of the Passeover the Lambe was to be taken and severed from the flocke three dayes ere it was slaine in which time the people might in that figure learne to sanctifie themselves and to be seperated from sinners And our saviour Christ in the celebration of the last Supper would not have so much as the roome unprovided but he sent his Disciples before hand about it Teaching us that in sacred things there should be first a preparation before a celebration So then we see in generall the necessity of preparing and deliberating before we addresse our selves unto the performance of any holy worke and if any where certainly in this worke of the Sacrament most necessary it is Though Gods commands by his Apostle were bond enough to inforce us the necessity of obedience depending rather on the Author then on the emolument of the Law yet GOD who is not wanting all wayes to winne men unto the observance of what he requires urgeth us thereunto not onely with an argument of debt because we are his servants but with an argument of profit too because the omission of it will not onely nullifie unto us the benefit of his Sacrament but make us guilty of that very bloud which was shed for the Salvation of the World and
speciall presence doth much vary unto this speciall union of the creature unto God in vertue whereof the creature is quickned and doth in some sort live the Life of God There is necessarily presupposed some sinew or ligament which may be therefore called the medium and instrument of life This knot in the estate of mans Creation was the obedience of the Law or the covenant of workes which while man did maintaine firme and unshaken he had an evident Communion with God in all those vitall influences which his mercy was pleased to shed downe upon him but once untying this knot and cutting asunder that bond there did immediately ensue a seperation betweene GOD and man and by an infallible consequence death likewise But God being rich in mercy and not willing to plunge his creature into eternall misery found a new meanes to communicate himselfe unto him by appointing a more easie Covenant which should be the second knot of our union unto him onely to beleeve in Christ incarnate who had done that for us which we our selves had formerly undone And this new Covenant is the covenant of faith by which the just doe live But here a man may object that it is harder for one to discerne that hee doth live in Christ then that he beleeves in him and therefore this can be noe good meane by which we may finde out the truth of our Faith To this wee answer that life must be discerned by those tokens which are inseperable from it and they are first a desire of nourishment without which it cannot continue for nature hath imprinted in all things a love of its owne being and preservation and by consequence a prosecution of all such meanes as may preserve and a removeall of all such as may endanger or oppresse it Secondly a conversion of nourishment into the nature of the body Thirdly augmentation growth till we come unto that Stature which our life requires Fourthly participation of influences from the vitall parts the Head the Heart and others with conformity unto the principall mover amongst them for a dead part is ever withered immoveable and disobedient to the other faculties Fiftly a sympathy and communion in paines or delights with the fellow members Lastly a free use of our senses and other faculties by all which we may infallibly conclude that a creature liveth And so it is in Faith It frameth the heart to delight in all such spirituall food as is requisite thereunto Disposing it upon the view at lest upon the taste of any poysonous thing to be pained with it and cast it up The food that nourisheth Faith is as in little Infants of the same quality with that which begat it even the word of life wherein there is sincere Milke and strong meate The poyson which endangereth it is heresie which tainteth the roote of Faith and goeth about to prevert the assent and impiety which blasteth and corrupteth the branches All which the soule of a Faithfull man abhorreth Secondly in Faith there is a conversion likewise the vertue whereof ever there resides where the vitall power is In naturall life the power of altering is in the man and not in the meate and therefore the meate is assimilated to our flesh but in spirituall life the quickning faculty is in the meate and therefore the man is assimilated and transformed into the quality of the meate And indeed the word is not cast into the heart of man as meate into the stomacke to be converted into the corrupt quality of nature but rather as seed into the ground to convert that Earth which is about it into the quality of it selfe Thirdly where Faith is there is some growth in grace wee grow neerer unto Heaven then when we first beleeved an improvement of our knowledge in the mysteries of godlines which like the Sunne shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day An increase of willingnes to obey God in all things and as in the growth of naturall bodies if they be sound and healthy so in this of Faith likewise it is universall and uniforme one part doth not grow and another shrivell neyther doth one part grow too bigge and disproportioned for another the Head doth not increase in knowledge and the Heart decay in love the Heart doth not swell in zeale and the Hand wither in charity but in the nourishment of Faith every grace receives proportionably its habituall confirmation Fourthly by the spirituall life of Faith the faithfull doe partake of such heavenly influences as are from the head shed downe upon the members The influences of Christ in his Church are many and peradventure in many things imperceptible Some principall I conceive to be the influence of his truth and the influence of his power His truth is exhibited in teaching the Church which is illumination his power partly in guiding the Church and partly in defending it that is direction this protection Now in all these doe they who are in Christ according to the measure and proportion of his Spirit certainely communicate They have their eyes more or lesse opened like Paul to see the terrours of God the fearefulnesse of sinne the rottennesse of a spirituall death the pretiousnesse of Christ and his promises the glimpses and rayes of that glory which shall be revealed they have their feete loosned with Lazarus that they can now rise and walke and leape and praise God Lastly they are strengthned and cloathed with the whole armes of God which secureth them against all the malice or force of Satan Fiftly where faith is there is a naturall compassion in all the members of Christ towards each other If sinne be by one member committed the other members are troubled for it because they are all partakers of that Spirit which is grieved with the sinnes of his people If one part bee afflicted the other are interested in the paine because all are united together in one head which is the Fountaine and originall of Sense The members of the Church are not like paralyticke and unjoynted members which cannot move towards the succour of each other Lastly where Faith is there all the faculties are expedite and free in their operations The eye open to see the wonders of Gods Law the eare open to heare his voyce the mouth open to praise his name the arme enlarged towards the reliefe of his servants the whole man tenderly sensible of all pressures and repugnant qualities The secondary effects of faith are amongst sundry others such as these First a love and liking of those spirituall truths which by faith I assent unto For saving Faith being an assent with adherence and delight contrary to that of Divils which is with trembling and horror which delight is a kinde of relish and experience of the goodnesse of those objects wee assent unto It necessarily followes even from the dicate of Nature which instructeth a man to love that which worketh in him delight and comfort that from this