half proved by the very first glance upon the Text. 2. That in All their Church Fests they honored some Special Bread and Cup with Special ceremonies the Cup ever closing the Fest This will require a fuller Examination Upon these two Suppositions the Apostles Argument otherwise unintelligible and All his Expressions whereof some must be otherwise impertinent will appear most Clear Rational and Unanswerable By their help therefore I shall make a duble dissection of the Words by a Paraphrase and of the Argument by an Analysis VI. THE Paraphrase must take in the 20th Verse bicause all the rest hang to it 20. When you come together therefore into one place this is not to eat the Lords Supper 21. For in eating every one taketh before other his own Supper and one is hungry and anothor is drunken 22. What Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Shall I praise you in this I praise you not 23. For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus in the same night in which he was betrayed took bread c. 25. After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had supped saying This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me 26. For as often as ye eat this bread This bread and drink this cup you do shew forth the Lords death c. 27. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of This bread and drink of This cap. 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body 33. Wherefore my brethren when ye come together to eat tarry one for another 34. And if any man hunger let him eat at home When you meet in that publik place appointed to Gods Worship your behavior is such that you cannot be thoght to celebrate the Lords Supper For whereas the whole Fest oght to be common to all the Communicants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you on the contrary in that foregoing Supper which the Lords is to close eat every one his own Supper apart so that one taketh more than Temperance alloweth and another less than Nature requires If your debauchery be such that you cannot forbear drunkenness it were less intolerable to practise it in private in your own houses than thus impudently to affront the whole Church and insult over them who have neither houses nor such plentiful provisions I said indeed verse 2. I praise you that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them to you But in this which is an Ordinance of the first Magnitude I must make an exception In this I do not cannot praise you For this Tradition I received not as I did the rest from my fellow Apostles but from the Lord Jesus himself and since you seem ether to have forgotten or mistaken it I again repete it That the Lord Jesus in the same night wherein he was betrayed being a Festival one took Bread c. After that same Festival manner also he took the closing Cup in its proper time viz. after Supper saying As often as ye drink this Cup in this manner do it in remembrance of me and not as you have hitherto do'n it For by this Institution This Bread and This Cup is so advanced above its former dignity that it is consecrated to a representative of our Lords death and as such is to be honored and that to the end of the world so that neither you nor any other Christian Church shall ever be at liberty to use it otherwise Wherefore this bread and cup are now no longer your own but the Lords and who ever useth them in a manner unworthy of that Relation is guilty not only of Intemperance but Sacrilege as abusing not common Bread and Wine but the thereby represented Body and Blood of the Lord. But remember that it is the proper character of a Man to examin his own actions Do so in This consider what you do and act sutably to your rule Let not the fear of so great a guilt fright you from your Duty but from your Irreverence For he that doth it in a manner unsuitable to its relation provoketh our Lord to anger as leveling His Flesh with that of a Beast and His Blood with that of a Grape putting no difference but treating the one in the same rude manner as he doth the other Wherefore when you come together to your Church Fests entertain you one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you that are able communicate your meat to those who have none of their own But let no man either eat or drink immoderately in Gods House if he be given to appetite let him rather satisfie it in his Own By this Paraphrase well understood and duly heeded we shall not fail of the Apostles meaning in the whole and every Particle provided we handle them regularly which I shall now do by a Logical Analysis of the Argument VII BY the Rules of Reasoning we must First consider the Conclusion intended to be proved and Then the Media imployed to that End mesuring These by their serviceableness to That The Conclusion is the charge of Profaneness in the Corinthians relating to our Lords Supper This animates and This must interpret every word and therefore requires to be it's self most carefully heeded And one might think a litle heed sufficient since it seems impossible either to Overlook or Mistake it He doth not only plainly lay it down but thrice inculcate it And since in every proposition the Quantity is highly considerable we must carefully observe that he doth not accuse them as guilty of misdemeanors in Some more than Other meetings but in All alike Had he charged them as guilty in Some special meetings wherein the Lords Supper was more especially concerned we had then understood that it was not concerned in All assemblies as such Or had he charged them as Profaning the Lords Supper in All meetings without heeding whether it were concerned in them or no if in Those meetings they were at liberty to have celebrated or omitted it they might excuse themselves by saying they intended it not in those particular ones But because they Never met in the Church without Festing and in All such Fests they were obliged by Christs command to celebrate his Own he therefore blameth their Fests Universally and that in such language that thrice varying the Phrase he still further cleareth his meaning Verse 17. Your coming together is not for the better but for the worse Their coming together Indefinitly if it be not plainly enough equivalent to an Vniversal is more clearly made so by ver
18. When you come together in the Church where the more general coming together is so appropriated to the Church that the indefinite when must be equivalent to whensoever as yet more plainly appears by ver 20. When you come together into one place it is not to eat the Lords Supper This is the extract of the whole charge That when they came together into That holy place which was set apart for Gods worship they so behaved themselves that what they did could not be taken for the Lords Supper A charge which now adays we should not decline and why should the Corinthians more than we We acknowledg might they not say yea we plead it We cannot be said to Eat the Lords Supper and what then therefore we cannot be said to Profane it This might have be'n an evasion as Effectual as Obvios if the Lords Supper were not concerned in Those very same meetings which he so Described and Reproved i. e. in All. This therefore is the sum of his Charge and it must be the Design of his Reasoning to prevent any evasion not to be do'n but by proving That in All their meetings the Lords Supper was Therefore Abused because it was Concerned in them All. Let us now consider by what Media he proveth it At the 23d vers he beginneth his evidence appealing to our Lords Institution explained by a Revelation In recital whereof it is most considerable that in reporting the consecration of the Cup he addeth words not mentioned by any of the Evangelists nor by himself in That of the Bread For none of Them say that our Lord said of the Cup Do this as often as you drink it nor doth Himself say that our Lord said of the Bread Do this as often as ye eat it The Reason of this difference we shall have a fitter time to enquire hereafter At Present we must not neglect to observe That as he is very careful thus to Insert these words so is he immediatly to Resume them and settle them as the Foundation of his whole Argument For upon this Supposition that our Lord preferred This Bread and This Cup which was constantly used in All Church-meetings to such an Office that whether they Considered it or no yea whether they Would or no it must set forth his death Then and not otherwise will All his Inferences follow that the abuse of This bread and This eup reach That body and blood which they so represent And lest This should fright them not only from the Abuse but the Use too of This bread and This cup to prevent so great an inconvenience he is careful to warn them that it is no less crime to disobey our Lords Authority than to Profane his Supper They must first examin themselves to prevent the One and then Eat this bread and drink this cup to avoid the Other And having thus secured the duty both in the Thing and the Manner he binds it by Threatnings to the end of the Chapter These are the great Limbs of this Body This the Process of the Argument Thus doth it answer his own character The body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth Not one joint too little or too much not One loose Expression not One word Impertinent or Unserviceable every part hath its mutual consent with every other part and its office of Serviceableness to the whole which also is complete without any the least defect His Charge made good in its whole Latitude The Corinthians convicted All Evasions barred The Crime displayed rhe Danger discovered the Duty inforced the only Safe way set forth and the Fear of deserting it prevented And because some require not only Logik force but Logik form too This is the formal Process of the Argument Those who so come together that they cannot be said to eaet the Lords Supper com together for the worse You so com together ver 21 22. The Proposition which alone needeth it he proveth by words purposely inserted in his recital of our Lords Institution ver 25. and resumed ver 26. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death which Proposition signifieth nothing unless helped with this Assumption As often as you come together in the Church you eat this bread and drink this cup. And by assistance of this Assumption the whole is made unanswerable This fundamental Assumption then Deserveth and Requireth our utmost care I shall therefore most diligently observe it And for greater clearness shall transpose the Apostles words reading them Thus This cup as often as you drink do it in remembrance of Me. And so we find these considerables 1. A certain special cup pointed at by the Demonstrative THIS 2. This cup made a standard whereby we must measure our performance 3. The Performance which we must mesur by This standard 4. The end for which we must do it And having thus stated our obligation by examining the Apostles discourse I shall examine what is said to the contrary by our late Divines who not heeding the Standard and mesuring the duty by a good but unfit one have defeated both our Lords design and their own too CHAP. II. Of the Necessiâ—y to fit the word THIS with somâ— singular Bread and Cup. I. The difference of our Lords stile towards this Bread and Wine from That towards litl children II. This subject requireth the clearest expression III. The Particle THIS most considerable IV. Grammar and Logick In Logick it is considerable 1. As a singl word a Demonstrative must have somthing for its object praecedances Every word must be answered by som Idea V. 2. As the subject of a Proposition The meaning of the Praedicate must be mesured by the capacity of the subject Offers at the import of the word rejected 1. That Individual 2. The whole kind 3. Somthing indeterminate 4. The Action OUR Lord after his last Supper treated Bread and Wine with such kindness as at another time he did little Children He took them up laid his hands upon them and blessed them But with This great difference that of Those he favored the Whole kind Suffer said he little children to come to me Little children indefinitely i. e. Any little children whatsoever and gave a Reason comprehensive as the Precept For of such is the kingdom of heaven Whereas Here he preferreth not Bread and Wine indefinitely nor speaketh a word of their Fitness for the honor recommendeth not either of them as Such but as This i. e. Not the whole Genus nor any Other Species but only This i. e. This singularly Proper cup. So great a difference in his Expression must needs proceed from a suitable difference in his Intention In the Former case his Words plainly declare his meaning That as often as Any parents or other friends desired to bring Any Children to him for his blessing his Disciples should admit them whoever they wer And had he now meant as
Guinny and say This you shall have if c. he wold do him injustice if he gave him a Shilling instead of it pretending he meant not by the word THIS any determinate coin nor would Any arbitrator judge but he must pay what the constant import of the Phrase called for i. e. what to sense the piece appeared to be worth which Cajus pointed to by the word THIS The case is the same on both sides as it must not signify Less so must it not More but just the same as the sense to which it is shewen takes it for If Therefore to All senses it appear Bread the Demonstrative will not make it Any thing else it will leave it its Proper Nature of Bread and Add to That Nature some Enclosure from the Common to exclude All Other but THIS only 4. That our Lord pointed Not at the Elements but the Action is the concept of a greater than Bellarmine of our Church which he bildeth upon the Grammatical disagreement of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it is contradicted by the Other Element for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth more necessarily require that the Demonstration should be applyed to the Cup than the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can forbid it to be applyed to the Bread And the two Elements being joined in the same interests often help one another in the interpretation of what is not equally expressed but must equally be implyed as equally belonging to Both. Nor can we abstract the Action from the Subject but must take the whole complex together This Action Thus performed with THIS Bread and THIS Cup. For our Lord first Declared what THIS IS before He Commanded us to DO THIS We cannot therefore perform the Action until we know what is the Necessary Mater because the Action is confined to THIS bread and the Common nature of bread is determined to THIS only with exclusion of All Other and That before the Action hath passed upon it I have I doubt tired my good Reader with this dry kind of reasoning I come now to another kind of evidence probably more Satisfactory certainly less Troublesom If I can shew som special Bread and Cup that shall exactly fit both our Lords Institution and the Apostl's Comment thereupon This probably may be more persuasive than Any Logical Demonstration whatsoever that there Must be such an One let us therefor try if such can be found CHAP. III. The singular Bread and Cup hunted out and found I. Customs of That time and place to be enquired 1. The Custom of Festing in publik worship fitteth the Apostl's Argument but not our Lord's Institution II. 2. The Passover fitteth our Lord's Institution but not the Apostl's Argument Three incidental remarks upon the Jews Paschal form III. A Jewish custom pitch't upon exactly fitting both our Lord's and the Apostl's words IV. An Objection answered with a story VVHEN Grammar and Logik can discover nothing to us but our Want and thereby set us upon the indispensible task of enquiring after the Extraordinary Bread and Cup honored above All Other both by our Lord and Apostle but cannot direct us one step in our way to find them Whither shall we go but to History the last interpreter of Those sayings whose Obscurity is derived only from That dust wherewith time hath covered them It is the very frequent fate of many a good Speech and the very Sound sheweth it so of This that their meaning dependeth upon the Customs of remote Time and Place for which they were Calculated and with which alone they are to be Retrived Let us therefor put our selvs in the Corinthians Place and Time and enquire into their Publik assemblies if possibly we may therein meet satisfaction I. FESTING in Gods Publik worship was Then and before that time so Universal to All Nations and Religions that it may seem derived from the light of Nature But that it was the Practice of the Apostles and their Coaetaneos Churches the book of their Acts sufficiently declares and that it was so in the Church of Corinth the Apostles reproof must necessarily suppose both in his Charge wherewith it is Ushered and his Evidences wherewith it is Proved And This alone can give us a good account of that solemn and otherwise insignificant ver 26. whose Implicit meaning is only thus to be Explicated As often as you Eat this Bread which in All your assemblies you constantly Eat and Drink This Cup which you also Constantly Drink you shew forth the Lords death by vertue of that Institution whereby I have declared to you by revelation from himself he Consecrated them to That use By this light as the Importance of That vers so its Connexion both with the preceding and following and its irrefragable Force toward his design manifestly appear not leaving One syllable Obscure or Unserviceable in the the whole Dissertation BUT thogh it suffice for the Apostles Argument it doth not for our Lords Institution We hereby find To what state our Lord had preferred it but not From what And we are obliged to enquire out such a Special bread and cup as may answer This in our Lords hand before ever his Church had celebrated it or Himself commanded them so to do If we understand it to signify no more nor less but a Fest it cannot be denied that Eating bread was but another phrase to signify Festing and the Expression will concur with the Apostles Argument to say That our Lord by This Institution commanded that as All of All Religions consecrated All their publik Feasts to the honor of their several Gods so should His own Worshippers consecrate All Theirs to His own memory Did this sens agree as well with the Actions and Words of the Institution as it doth with the Apostles Comment thereupon I know not why it should be refused But bread in That stile must signify the Whole Supper All the Viands as well as the bread and wine for in customary speaking Eating bread signified eating flesh fish and what ever els was provided whereas our Lord took the bread brake and distributed it leaving the rest of the Provisions untouched the while And beside the Bread he took the Cup also and that After supper was ended pointing to This no less solenly than to That which in common speaking comprehended it And all the while the Paschal Lamb was not honored with the least Touch of his finger or Word of his mouth II. 2. THE Paschal Lamb Well remembred Did then our Lord point at This not as A Supper but as The Passover Let us consider He imbraced This Passover with the greatest affection With a desire said he i. e. wirh a vehement desire have I desired to Eat This Passover with you before I suffer and immediatly as declaring his reason proceeded to this Institution And what could more fitly represent his death when Past than That which most lively prefigured it while Future If beside
no other That he designed to treat them as Kindly as possibl we may see in his entrance upon This Chapter Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them unto you And again in his entrance upon this very Reproof vers 17 Now in This that I declare unto you I praise you not that you com together not for the better but for the wors And again by his close upon his description of their miscarriages vers 22. What shall I say to you Shall I praise you in This I praise you not How Unwillingly How Gently and if his thoughts wer like ours how Coldly doth he put in this calm exception against his late General Praise He had in a case far less scandalos said Now therefor there is utterly a falt among you And speaking of those Divisions which are here also objected as the first instance of their unworthy coming together saith I could not speak unto you as unto Spiritual but as unto Carnal Yet here when Divisions of the Rich among Themselves and their joint contemts of the Poor their Shismatical and Uncharitabl separations eating every one his Own supper and destroying the very Nature of a Communion and their Intemperance in Those Suppers affronting not only our Lords Doctrine but his very Person when such abuses of his very Body and Bloud in his Own Hous in the face of his Own Church cryed to his utmost zele and eloquence for a Reproof loud as the Crime in so clamoros a provocation what do we meet but a cold Negative much short of Eli's however condemned reproof Not so much as his This is no good report You make the peopl to abhorr the table of the Lord but only I praise you not We shall indeed hereafter find him lift up his now calm voice and loudly thunder both Reproofs and Threats vers 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body But this in consequence of Conviction which by That time he supposeth his argument to have wrought in them After which if they should Willingly and Knowingly profane This Bread and This Cup now proved to be the Lords Body and Bloud their Crime would be uncapable not only of Praise but of Excuse The Gentl language therefore that Ushereth in the Argument compared with the Severe which Followeth it doth more than intimate a supposal that they knew not what they did and therefor were first to be Convinced of their Error by good Evidence and then Frighted with Threatnings lest they should continu in the now inexcusabl wickedness And we may perhaps yet better understand his judgment of their Disease by the Medicine he useth for its Cure which is no other but a re-minding them of what he had before Declared to them and they perhaps misunderstood in This subject wherin he seemeth thus to bespak them I am loth to believ you guilty of so horrid a contemt of our Lords Person as to drink his very Bloud in a manner so shameful as looketh more like the mockery of a contumelios Jew than the devotion of a faithful Disciple No I rather impute this to your Forgetfulness or Misunderstanding of what I declared unto you concerning this most holy Ordinance which therfor I now repete to you Then doth he proceed to recite the whole Institution so Particularly as at That time he might very well think Sufficient throghly to convince them in what he Supposed or would seem to Suppose them Mistaken I say it was at That time sufficient For it is most necessary that we distinguish between That time and Our own The Tradition where on we suppose our Lords Supper founded was Then not only in Memory but in Practice The Demonstrative had its Object not only Intelligibl but Visibl they did not more plainly Hear the Word than See what it pointed at and therfor our Lord might well think it superfluos to express How Often they wer to do This in remembrance of himself since the Tradition which That very Institution commended sufficiently declared it Do This said he This which you see Me do This which your Whole Nation in such circumstances constantly do in conformity to the Tradition Do This with the same Matter Bread and Wine In the same Order First Bread and Then Wine at the same Season After Supper and is it not equally plain with the same Frequency when Three or More fest together This mesure of Frequency might our Lord well suppose at That time in Those circumstances sufficiently plain by that known rule Exceptio firmat legem in non exceptis But it seems the Disciples wer either less Able or less Willing to understand than He had reason to expect And how the Corinthians might mistake we have made not improbable conjectures The Apostl therefor to Clear what now appeared to Need it telleth them plainly that what our Lord at the time of institution did Not Express he had since Reveled to be his meaning viz. That as often as they drank That Cup which he then consecrated after Supper they must do it in remembrance of himself Since therfor they closed or ought to close All their fests with the Same Cup his Bloud was concerned in them All. WHAT fairer account can possibly be desired of this Former part of the Apostles Process Of the Lenity of his Reproof of his Method in convincing them first of their Error and then of their Gvilt Of his Reciteing the Lords institution so to vindicate his Supper from Cheapness of his inserting the omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to assert the Interest that his Supper had in Their publick meetings and of his authorizing this insertion so to avoid the objection that might be raised from our Saviors not useing it proved by the joint testimony of the three Evangelists WHAT need the Apostl do More than baffle All their Pretences and rectifie All their Mistakes and what could he do Less than prevent that most obvios Evasion whereby they might have pleaded for Those Meetings as unconcerned in the Lords Supper If any one of a contrary judgment can give a fairer account of this Former part of the Apostl's discours he will do a Great work but he will have a Greater yet to do For the Later part wherein the Apostl draweth his Inferences will not only Offer this as the Fairest but Urge it as the Only sens of his argument V. LET us now therefor carefully examin HOW and WHAT he bildeth upon his so solen recital of our Lords Institution He beginneth his deductions at the 26th verse wherein he resumeth the Last as the most Important clause laying it down as the Sum of our Lords mind in his Institution and the Foundation of all his own intended Inferences therefrom that As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye shew forth our Lords death By This Proposition therefor must we mesur his
Design by This must we enquire whether he intended merely to prove that Reverence is due to the Lords Supper as is generally supposed or whether he mean to prove that Some determinate Bread and Cup was consecrate by our Lord to his Supper In This Inquiry we shall proceed 1. Negatively shewing that the Former cannot be his meaning 2. Positively shewing that the Later must be so 1. The FORMER cannot be This will appear whether we consider the Subject or the Praedicate of the Proposition 1. The SUBJECT of the Proposition is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup and therefor whatever the Praedicate brings must not belong to That but to These That the Lords Supper precisely and formally considered is not the true subject of the Proposition is plain both by the express words that have not a syllabl of it and by plain reason which requireth it to differ from the Praedicate For if the Subject differ from the Praedicate only in Syllables not in sense the Proposition will be no better than a tautology a mere repetition of the same thing in other words It is true the Lords Supper is concerned in the Proposition but Mediatly because of its intimate relation to This Bread and This Cup which for its sake are advanced above All other of the kind consecrated first to the Lords Supper and thereby to his Body and Blood And This is so much the more considerable because if the Apostle had no other design but only to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper he ought in all reason to have insisted upon the very Phrase which would go far in his way For the very Name of the Lord challengeth Reverence the very Sound is an Argument it carrieth Aurhority and Commandeth Aw into the hearts of the hearers whereas on the contrary Bread and Wine in their natural State are but poor beggarly creatures servants of our Appetites at best and too often of our Corruptions and need a Law to defend them from our abuses Now that our Apostle should have No other Design but to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper yet desert that stile which would Strengthen his Argument and take up another that would Weaken it is so much the more unreasonable because he had used That more potent stile in his charge ver 20. and thereby obliged himself to inforce it So that he must now desert not only the Reason of his Argument but the very Subject of his Charge if he had no other design in This Proposition but to prove that our Lords Supper oght not to be treated as he complained 2. The PRAEDICATE of This Proposition is utterly useless or worse to such a design The Argument would run more Clearly more Briefly and more Conveniently Without the Proposition than With it For the Institution having stiled this Suppor of the Lord his BODY and BLOOD the Inference is most Natural and Cogent therefore whoever celebrateth the Lords Supper unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood So this whole 26th verse will at best be but impertinently troublesom good for nothing but to amuse our thoughts confound our minds and cloud the light of the Argument Yea the very Phrase of the Praedicate will conspire with That of the Subject not only to Darken the Argument but to Weaken it For to declare it our Lords Body and Blood must needs command our aw more than to say it setteth forth his death so that the interposition of This meaner office between our Lords Institution and his own next Inference in verse 27. in Both whereof That higher one is given it can serv to no other effect but to eclipse the Light and intercept the Influence which otherwise would stream more powerfully and directly from the One to the Other In a word let the Otherwise minded shew what Necessity yea what Use this 26th verse serveth what Light or what Strength it ministreth to the Discourse otherwise they must needs either suppose the Apostle to talk impertinently or accept of That service which his words offer which what it is will yet forther appear VI. POSITIVELY therefor This Proposition pointeth at some Determinate Bread and Cup declaring that Whoever eateth That determinate Bread and drinketh That determinate Cup doth Thereby shew forth the Lords death And now the lately disputed Particle THIS is no Less perhaps More considerable in the Apostl's mouth than we found it in our Lord's For the sake of This Demonstrative did he so solenly recite the Institution and resume That as the most important clause therein From This doth he derive All his Argument and to This doth he pay All his Service He observeth to what honor our Lord advanceth the Bread and Cup From His hand doth he take them cloaths them with the important Demonstrative as the Robe royal rendring them conspicuosly honorable in the beholders eyes Crowns them with the potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving them power to prescribe mesures to our obedience leads them in pomp and proclaims before them THIS is the Bread and THIS the cup which the Lord delighteth to honor THIS Bread and THIS Cup hath he commissioned to shew forth his death THIS Bread and THIS Cup are the Supper of the Lord and therefor whoever eateth THIS Bread and drinketh THIS Cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Process is Pompos yet withal it is Elegant he so inculcateth the important particl as to favor your ears he so indeavoreth to satisfy as not to surfeit you with nauseos repetitions and therefore having so shewed it as abundantly to fill you with his meaning he withdraweth by degrees still varying the phrase yet so as still to preserv the influence even when he quitteth the sound of the Demonstrative That you may see both his Art and Care I shall set down his very words Ver. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In verse 26. he giveth the Bread honors before denied it Equaleth it with the Cup honoreth it with the same Emphatical Article and the same potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither of which was given it in the Institution The reason will anon be plain he now describeth the complete Supper wherein the Bread is no less necessary than the Cup thogh not equally honored with it in the Institution as we shall see and understand why anon In verse 27. He keepeth the same stile for the Bread but varieth it in the Cup saith not now THIS cup but The cup of the Lord. And here we must pause lest we seem to contradict truth for I said but now that the Apostl mentioneth not the Lords Supper whereas here he stileth the Cup the cup of the Lord. But what I said but now I spoke of the 26th verse wherein he cut out work for his whole following process Again in this very
verse 27. it is yoked with This Bread and being thus secured from any danger of mistake might safely be clothed with That larger title more suitable for It than for the Bread because it doth not only Represent his Blood as the Bread doth his Body but Prescribe the frequeny for celebration which the Bread doth Not. In verse 28. The Demonstrative is laid aside and in the 29th not only the Demonstrative but the very Subject In both a manifest Ellipsis easily and necessarily supplied since we cannot apprehend the Action of Eating and Drinking without the Bread and Cup nor any other Bread and Cup but only THIS so earnestly inculcated in the same breath And now that I may bring the whole Argument to a closer vieu I shall from a disjointed examination of its scattered parts proceed to a reduction of All to Logik form in a Syllogism of the most perfect mode Bar As often as you shew forth the Lords death unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood ba As often as you eat This Bread and drink This Cup you shew forth the Lords death ra As often as you eat This Bread and drink this Cup unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood Of this Syllogism the Assumtion is set forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 26. The Conclusion thence inferred verse 27. But the Proposition which is generally look'd upon as the adaequate design the Apostle no otherwise proveth but by reciting the Institution which abundantly declareth the relation between the Lords Supper and his Body and Blood Since therefor it was necessary for him to convince them that the Lords Supper was concerned in All their meetings but not at all that the Lords Body and Blood were Represented in his Supper since accordingly he payeth All his service to This Bread and This Cup which was used in all their Meetings but None at all to the Lords Supper otherwise then by consequence therefrom Since the whole 26th verse must be utterly Impertinent and worse if it pretend only to assert the dignity of the Lords Supper but most Cogent if it intend to assert that of This Bread and This Cup since One way he shall prove a truth whose importance Deserved his service and whose Doubtfulness Needed it and the Other way one who 's Self-evidence superseded any Proof one might think the choice between them not very doubtful Yet ar we all this while no farther than the Entry For the very Life of the Argument is laid up in a Clause purposely inserted in the Close of our Lords Institution and resumed in the Head of his Own discourse as the strength of the whole yet so miserably mistaken that it is made the only Enemy to the Apostl's direct design Dispensing with the Constancy which he so industriosly laboreth to prove Indispensibl CHAP. II. Concerning the Clause AS OFTEN AS I. The unhappiness of this Clause II. The true sens of the words mesured by parallel precepts III. Serviceable remarks 1. With what care the Apostl recordeth this Claus IV. 2. With partiality he treateth the Cup. V. The justice he doth the bread joining it with the cup in his dedeductions VI. The Conclusion with an Objection answered HOW unhappy our Lords Supper hath be'n in All the means he used to indear it we have already noted He chose the Last night because the words of dying friends most forcibly affect the survivors and the horrors of the Tragical time dashed it out of the Apostl's thoghts He then made a contrary opportunity and by a Supper purposely contrived evidenced his care of This memorial of his Death equal to that of evidencing his Resurrection And then Joy and Wonder hindred them more from heeding This than from believing That Nor did Any other means prevail till the Holy Ghost broght it to their understandings But their Disciples had not the same mesur of This Spirit The Corinthians either mistook or soon forgot and St. Paul found it highly necessary not only to Remind them of their duty but further to Explain it And This very Explication suffers as much from the mistakes of Interpreters as did the Holy Supper it self from the profaneness of the Corinthians For St. Paul did no more intend to discorage our Obedience to our Lords Command than did our Lord himself to encourage Their profaneness in the Performance Yet in his Own words do we take refuge from his Reproofs as if he had taught us to place All our safety from Unworthiness in keeping distance from Obedience That we should run from One extreme to a Contrary thogh it be a great Error is no great Wonder thogh nothing be more Condemned yet nothing is more frequently practised But that Those very words whereby he indeavored to Prevent the Error should be made to Serv it That he should use his utmost care to prove Constancy indispensibl and we should take his words for a Dispensation from it is the Singular unhappiness of This Only clause perverted thereby to an utter Defaisance of our Lords Command and an utter Defait of his Own Design We shall therefor indevor to restore the Words to their due power First by shewing what must needs be their true meanang And Secundly by exposing the Absurdities of That which is vulgarly imposed upon them II. FIRST we are to enquire into the true sense of this Clause As often as And to this end we need not look back upon what we have seen in the word THIS For This Claus no less peremtorily requireth a certain Standard than That Demonstrative doth a certain Object And the Apostle plainly joineth them together in the same power as the dubl hinge whereon his whole Argument turneth These doth he jointly resume as the sum of our Lords institution These doth he fasten as a nail in a sure place and upon These doth he hang that chain of Consequences whereby he convinceth his Corinthians of their crime and discovereth the Need and Way to avoid it Let us first vieu the import of the Words and Then his care concerning them This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plainly Relative it imports Equality in point of Frequency and requireth that the new Relative should conform it self to the mesur of a Former Correlate Now it is plain that whoever is obliged to make One thing Equal to Another must certainly know the mesur of That Other which he is to conform to No Town can shew a Standard made of Air or Water but of Wood or Metal whose firm substance having a stable bigness of its own may certainly determin the Quantity of what is to be mesured by it The Apostl is very careful to prove and inculcate that Eating THIS bread and drinking THIS cup is the stable Standard whereby we must mesure our Frequency in the Lords Supper It must therefor be necessary that it self must have its Determined Frequency fixed by som praevios Law or Custom certainly foreknown and thereby capable to give mesures to any Other performance
the better half of our Lords Supper and the Whole of the Apostl's Argument which cannot out-live this lose but would not have be'n wounded so mortally by That of the Bread V. 3. MY last remark is that in the Deductions which which himself draweth from our Lords purposly recited Institution he payeth to the Bread joint honor with the Cup which he had denied it for no other reason but only for its unserviceableness to his Argument Those Deductions ar ushered with ver 26. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he com 1. Here we see he applieth These relative words to Both elements whereas in recital of our Lords Institution he had not at all applied them to the Bread And this contrary to that know'n rule which forbids the Conclusion to infer more than was conteined in the Premises Hereof what other account can there be given or what better desired than the Tradition offereth In the former verse he was to state our Lords mind reveled to himself concerning Frequency And thereof the Cup was the only Standard because That alone distinguished Festival Suppers from Common But in This he is to describe the Supper it self wherein the Bread hath right not only to be joined with it but to be preferred before it Had he now excluded the Bread he must have intimated concerning It what som without any such color declare concerning the Cup that it were needless bicause the Supper were complete without it But by this care he preventeth any such concept 2. He addeth another Claus not mentioned in the Institution 'till he com thereby either to obviate an evasion in point of Duration if possibly the Corinthians might pretend to shift from his reproofs by supposing the Obligation worn out or to strengthen the command by shewing how great esteem our Lord had for it as extending it to all times future as well as present 3. But the most remarkable is this that the Imperative is changed to the Indicative A change so Considerable and otherwise so unaccountable that our glorios Dr. Hammond thinketh it not to be made The Greek is indifferent to both but in the Imperative there appeared a grain of sense and none at all in the Indicative For if in the Subject of the Indicative proposition we see no other difference between This Bread and Cup and and any Other Bread and Cup but what our own actual Consecration hath advanced it to if this stile be only a Periphrase of the Lords Supper differing therefrom only in Syllables then will the Proposition tell us no news at all Every child will without its help understand that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup upon no other reason but this that we may thereby shew forth our Lords death we shew forth our Lords death And that the Apostl should so carefully bring a candl to shew us the Sun seemed no way probable to our learned Doctor But if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be read Imperatively not ye do but do ye then may there be so much of reason in the Precept as there is of possibility to do otherwise For look how much danger there is that we may do this without shewing forth our Lords death just so much need there is of Caution and just so much reason will there be in the Command which hath no other use but to prevent such danger whereas in the Indicative as there can be no possibility of error since the very naming of the Subject makes the Praedicate self-evident so can there be no reason for the Proposition Yet all this while if there be Any at all there can be â—ut a very small difference for the Performance containeth the End almost as necessarily as the Subject doth the Praedicate it is almost as hard to do this without shewing forth our Lords death as it is to doubt whether we oght to do it or no And all that can be gotten by the change is this that upon supposition of the Reverence which every one will certainly pay our Lords Person the command enjoining an action in remembrance of our Lords death will by consequence mind them of doing it with such Intentions But be the gain litle or great we must quit it because the word FOR which ushereth the declaration necessarily requireth the Indicative mode Had it be'n an Illative wherefor or therefor the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had be'n indifferent to the other mode Therefor do ye had be'n all as proper as Therefor ye do But the Causal FOR will by no means indure any other than an Indicative It s proper office is to confirm our Belief or instruct our Understanding not to command our Will No Author ever speaks so nor will our Ears indure such an incongruos sound so that our excellent Doctor must lose on one hand whatever he may seem to gain on the other and he will reap but small thank from the Apostle by delivering him from a supposed Solaecism in Logik and casting him upon a real one in Grammar I say it is but a supposed Solaecism in Logik and That supposition is grounded upon our inadvertency For grant once that our Demonstrative This and our Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 point to some praeviosly singular Bread and Cup and immediatly we discover a sens so far from trifleing that probably it will appear too severe certainly most worthy of so great an Apostle most serviceable to his Argument and most worthy our utmost consideration For thus will it convince the Corinthians It is in vain for you to pretend that you do not celebrate the Lords Supper in Those your intemperate meetings FOR I have so recited our Lords Institation that you may plainly perceve it to be his meaning that as often as you drink This cup which he Then consecrated and which is the same with that wherewith you close All your Church Fests you must do it in remembrance of Him FOR he hath not left it in your power to make his Supper Concerned or Unconcerned by celebrating it as often or as seldom as you please in such meetings yea or to choose which way you will be guilty whether of Disobedience to his Command by Omitting the duty or of Contemt to his Person by Doing it unworthily FOR he hath inlayed it upon All such Fests so inseparably that thogh you would you cannot take Any of them without it FOR YOU DO whether you intend it or no whether you will or no notwithstanding any contrary Intention You Do you cannot but Do what he hath thus made not only Unlawful but utterly Impossible for you to Omit It is not only a Command obliging you but an Institution necessitating you and you cannot avoid the Actual doing it if you avoid not All Church Fests FOR as often as ye eat This bread you eat That whereof our Lord said This is my body and as often as you drink This
any be will pass from the obediently negligent Subject to the impertinently busie Law-maker who having not Required but Supposed the Action neither Found nor Made any ground for the Supposition It forbids the benevolence it begs For thogh it threaten No guilt of disobedience to the Omission it doth to the Performance While we may ly safe in our Neglect we run a great risk in our Officiosness For he that Omitteth the Performance disobeyeth no command therefor cannot incur any guilt nor deserv any punishment but he that upon such terms approacheth the Holy Table is already gilty of contemt towards the threatnings denounced against Unworthy recevers bicause he needlesly exposeth himself to them and to com safely off had need of more Piety in the Performance than we can Yet discover of Wisdom in the adventure V. IF WE can suppose the Apost'l so regardless of our Saviors command yet sure he had more kindness for his OWN ARGUMENT than to use such solicitos endeavors to destroy it and for his own Credit than to furnish the Corinthians with a Plea whereby they might non-suit his Charge He was sure a better Disciple both to Gamaliel and our Lord than to use such endeavors as by the ordinary rules of reasoning must depose both his own Discours and our Lords Command from all power But such is the unavoidable consequence of the merely Suppositive sens of those important words For it is obvious that the Corinthians Might and therefor supposable that they Would plead thus for themselves We are sufficiently sensible that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup we shew forth the Lords death and consequently that whoever eateth This bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But in these our ordinary Fests which thou so severely reprovest we have nothing to do with This bread nor This cup. We Fest indeed as often as we meet in the Church but without any Intent and we conceve without any Need to eat This bread or drink This cup. We intend to do what all Nations agree to be the proper manner of worshipping God This is the Vniversal notion of mankind in that so common Rite of Sacrificing The Votary therefor offereth his beast that he may become a guest to his God thereby at once Receiving and Expressing a confidence that he is propitious to him And thogh our Lords great Sacrifice of himself have made it needless to shed any more blood by way of atonement yet is that so far from any reason that we should lay aside Festing with Sacrificing that it is a very good one why we should take it up if it had never be'n used before since now we have much greater reason to rejoice in the Communion to which God inviteth us But that in all our Fests we should be obliged to celebrate the Lords Supper since himself hath not expressed it we understand not For either he intended we should receive it only at the same Fest whereat he Instituted it which was the Passover or els he left it wholely to our discretion to receve it as often as we should think convenient Now that we intend not to do it in our ordinary meetings thy self seemest to understand For thou declarest when ye come together it is not to eat the Lords Supper Is it not we own it we plead it It is not to eat the Supper and how do we Profane it when we do not eat it When we do Eat it if our behavior be irreverent we must confess our selves guilty for we submit to thy rule As often as we Eat This bread and Drink this cup unworthily we are guilty but it thence followeth not that we are so as often as we Fest together in the Church It is hard to say whether such a plea were more obvios to the Apostl's Observation or Destructive to his Argument It was therefor infinitely necessary he should answer it and we find no other Answer to it but in these words nor any other Use of Those words but for such an Answer This is sufficient to perswade us so to interpret them that the Argument be not Defective nor Themselves Impertinent But to fasten such a Gloss upon them as shall make them not only Useless but Pernicios and the Argument not only naked of so necessary a defence but irrefragably retorted against the Author is perhaps a greater abuse to Them than the Corinthians profaneness was to the Lords Supper VI. FOR a close of this troublesom dispute let us impartially ballance the rival senses upon This enquiry which of all others is most important viz. which of them affordeth better satisfaction to a pious soul conscientiously enquiting how often he is obliged to receve the Holy Communion A question wherein there are many things doubtful but none more than This Whether it more Deserve or Need to be answered 1 The One sens offereth full satisfaction by shewing us a Certain Mesure to which we must conform And though the change long since made in the Manner of celebrating Church Festivals seem to have confounded it yet if we once know what it was at the time of the Institution we may and must so accommodate the never decaying Reason to the Change as still to answer the first Intention For if the Corinthians were therefor obliged to Eat the Lords Supper in All their Church meetings bicause they Fested in them All in One manner so are we bicause we also Fest in them All in Another manner Since the Manner of Publik worship the Church upon competent reasons may alter but the Institution of our Lord indispensibly closing All Church Fests with his own Supper No human power may abolish at least not in point of the Obligation though possibly invincible necessity may dispense with Actual performance at som times So by This account the clear answer will be That the Church must offer the Holy Sacrament as often as she can persuade the peopl to receve it and every person is so often obliged to receve it as the Church Officers shall offer it and Both the Church and every person oght to come as neer as possible to doing it every Lords day and every Holy day i. e. All days of Church Fests 2. But the other Sens for want of a Standard will pack us off with an answer more Delusory than the Collier's If we ask How often must I do this in remembrance of Christ it will answer As often as you eat This bread and drink This cup If we then ask How often must I eat This bread and drink This cup it will answer As often as you do it in remembrance of Christ This I say is more delusory than the Collier in two respects 1. Bicause it was possible to know what the Church believed Publik Confessions Canons of Councils c. All of them independent upon the Collier or his Faith and all know'n to the Catechist But Here we have No
swallowed up and our Lord's Institution be lost in a private Tradition and an unintelligibl Mass but in the Beginning it was not so 5. The result of all is That the Doctrine of liberty from obligation to constancy in the Lords Supper is Popery most properly so caled both in the Mater and the Derivation in the Mater as differing from the Church Universal in the Derivation as proceeding from no pretence of Scripture at first thogh it be otherwise now but from Tradition of their own making contrary to Tradition worthily so caled and Scripture carefully examined Whoever therefor desireth a Thorogh Reformation from Popery and Popish Superstitions let him not spend his zele about litl Ceremonies and Circumstances but imploy it in service of the most Sacred and most properly Christian office which needs be rescued from utter abolition by the Practices of Rome never more grosly superstitious than in This Subject III. 4. THE Fourth sort of Testimony is That of ENEMIES Those that appear such to the Constancy we assert may be reduced to one of these three Glasses viz. 1. Protestants 2. Papists 3. Junior Fathers Among PROTESTANTS and Abov all others I therefor apply my self to the excellent person above praised bicause I know no other that hath asserted any thing so distinctly as to be capabl of an answer This admirable Person finding the Evidence of the best Antiquity That of the Apostl's and Primitive Fathers undeniable endeavoreth ro Evade what he findeth necessary to Confess 1. Concerning the Former we have heard him say True it is the Apostls did indefinitely admit all the faithful to the Holy Communion but they were persons wholely enflamed with those Holy Fire which Jesus Christ sent from Heaven to make them burning and shining Lights c. And then he spends a whole Page in such a Character as one might think intended for the Apostls themselves did not the question necessarily cast it upon the Faithful and then too one might think that word must be taken in its most rigid sens for the Elect. But was there a Judas among the twelve chosen by our Lord himself and not One unworthy among the thousands of Disciples whom the Apostls indefinitely admitted St. Jude describeth not Such Saints sure where among other black characters he brandeth them with This that they are spots in their fests of charity and as litl doth he blame the officers of the Church for admitting them St. Paul too I take it doth not describe Saintly conversation in those Church meetings for whose debaucheries he reproveth not the Pastors for Admitting such Persons but the Peopl for Committing such Leudness yea and So reproveth them as not to Excommunicate them for their domestik riots but to require them however unworthy in their persons to come but in a manner more worthy Had the Scriptures be'n silent we must have be'n very tame if without any evidence we had believed that All Christians in that better then Golden age deserved so great an Eulogy but after such contrary Evidence we have nothing better to do than to pity such an excellent Person so enslaved and hardly used by an Opinion that putteth him to seek but alloweth him no shifts from such insupportabl Evidence Another Confession with it s annexed Evasion concerns the Ancient Fathers in these words St. Hierom and St. Augustin tells us That even until their days the custom of receving every day remained in the Churches of Rome and Spain And all the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion But just as Physitians exhort men to eat the best and heartiest meats not the sickly and faint but the strong men and the healthy All the ancient Fathers exhort to a frequent Communion This is more than can well stand with his own positions which discorage the generality from it yet falls as much short of truth as Frequent doth of Constant for we shall presently meet som of them exhorting not only to Frequent but Daily Communions Yea so certainly did the Primitive Christians make This not only their Constant but their Principal exercise in All their meetings that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which primarily signifieth no more than a Meeting became the diverbial word for the Lords Supper in exact conformity to St. Luke's stile who saith They meet to break bread and the footsteps of the phrase remain as plain yet as much corrupted as do those of the Office among the Romanists who express their Church-meetings by Going to Mass As certainly therefor as the Papists make the Mass the Principal exercise of their Publik worship so certainly did the Primitive Christians make the Lords Supper the principal of Theirs the very phrase confirming their express testimony of this truth They exhort men he confesseth but evades the consequence by adding they do it Just as Physicians c. whereas it is undeniable that They exhorted as the Apostls admitted All Indefinitely and until we are shewen that they excepted any besides Catechumens and Excommunicates we must not clip their indefinite Exhortations with unwarrantable Limitations derived from no other reason but their serviceableness to our Hypothesis IV. ANOTHER Class of Adversaries ar the Papists who yet no less manifestly Preserv than Contradict the Primitive Practice For That very Church which obligeth not the Peopl to receve but at Easter only That very Church in whose magnified Synod at Trent a Caveat was entered not to derive even That anniversary obligation from our Lords but the Churches command That very Church to This very day so Prescribeth as to Out-do the constancy of the Primitive Som may think it too much that I have from the Acts of the holy Apostles taken the Lords Supper for the reason of the Disciples meetings the first day of the week But none sure can doubt that with the Papist to go to Church signifieth the same as to go to Mass but to go to Hear Mass is such an errand as the first ages never went upon While they admit the people only to hear or see Their Hoc est corpus meum is an egregiosly and Both words of St. Paul may be applyed to such a Mass To the people belongs This is not to eat the Lords Supper To the Priest As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you shew forth the Lords death And both the One and the Other forsake their Duty and their Patern while they pretend to stick to them Thus the ruins of a beautiful Structure may at once evidence its amplitude and confess their own rubbidge no way answerable to the beauty it formerly served We need not therefor be ashamed of this kind of proof as if we too much honored the Church of Rome in owning her Practice for an evidence of the Primitive We take it not as the Testimony of the Honorable but as a Confession of the Guilty when we make use of their Own words as an evidence against the Speakers practice When we say every Mass ought to
dishonoring the Lords Supper by their necessary connexion Either therefor we ar quite out of the reach of his Threats bicause we are free from the Character he Reproves or if we ar Not then are we most exposed to That now mentioned bent against their So Coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper since That and only That can literally be charged upon us And since his Cautionary precepts were also levelled against the Sin Reproved they must needs strike more directly upon That Omission wherein we are equally gilty than upon the Unworthiness wherein we cannot be so And that inseparabl connexion between the Churches meetings and the Lords Supper which he so industriosly proveth must needs concern us more than any such kind of unworthiness as he mentioneth Not since That is to continu till the end of the World by our Lords own Institution and This is not condemned but by Our own Reason in consequence of the Apostls reproving another kind of gilt whereof we are uncapabl V. IF therefor we must accommodate the Apostls Dissertation to the change so as to shun the Unworthiness Not expresly forbidden much more must we do so in the Constancy so Expresly and Industriosly enjoyned So that our concern must needs be this As often as the Corinthians ate that bread and drank that cup which our Lord had adopted to represent his body and blood so often they shewed forth his death and therefor whoever did unworthily celebrate That were gilty of profaning This The connexion between their Meetings and their Fests the Apostl did not bicause he needed not mention but That between Them and the Lords Supper he proved inseparabl both as to Intermission and Abolition The former connexion the Church hath changed the later she may not in either of its members We ar therefor and till the Lord com ever must be obliged in All our Church meetings to celebrate the Lords Supper and That in such manner as becometh his body and blood THIS is the Equitabl and Moral sens of the Apostls words which was so Long and Universally paid them by all Ages and Churches preceding and following the change as might create a right even by Prescription but on the other side it hath be'n lost so many Ages that the Contrary Sens pleads Contrary Prescription It is now no less impossibl to reduce the people to Constancy than it was in the time of the Laodicean Council to reduce them to Sobriety and therefor the Officers of the Church now find it necessary to yield to the hardness of hearts callos by time VI. BUT here we must carefully distinguish between Yielding and Justifying Our Church speaketh not one syllabl to Dispens with the strictest Constancy but on the contrary still recommendeth it as often as she can without exposing her Own Injunctions to the Same Contemt from which she endeavoreth to rescu our Lords She doth indeed forbid the celebration if there be not a competent number to communicate bicause if the Holy Table must needs be deserted it is less dishonorable that it be so Without the Supper than With it She therefore leaveth it to the Ministers Discretion how often it shall be offered but she intrusteth their Piety to exhort the peopl to com as often as possibl She is Both ways careful that neither the Willing may want a Communion nor the Unwilling an Exhortation She therefor complieth with the peopl's Neglect no otherwise than did the equally valiant and indulgent Captain with his Armies cowardize he Commanded he Intreated he Exhorted he Reproved but when he could by no means prevail to stop their flight he put himself in their head that they might seem rather to Follow their Leader than Flee their Enemy But as this compliance of the Captain did not justify his Disobedient Troops so neither do the Churches Rubriks justify either Ministers or Peopl that are wanting to the Constancy so plainly Urged by the Apostl Practiced by the Best ages and Recommended by her Self The Sum of all is this Since the Church had no Authority nor no Intention to slacken the Power either of our Lords Command or the Apostls Argument we must therefor still own them to have the same Power now as ever and must accommodate them to our Present meetings as if they still were Festivals not only in Name or Spiritually as we acknowlege them still to be but in Reality and Sensually as at the time of his Writing they were and in the Recess the Obligation is no less indissolubl against the teeth of time and the constitutions of Governments than against any evasions of singl persons But All this the More it Obligeth the Less it Persuadeth It may perhaps Compel us to submit to the Duty but cannot Invite us to Embrace the Favor And our Lord doth not use to Drive us like Beasts we know not Why nor Whither But to Lead us with the cords of a Man with bonds of Love with strong Reason and sweet Allurements the savor of his sweet ointments which so draw loving souls as to make them not only Follow but Run after him And This duty above All others is That way most attractive The Command made Reasonabl by a good End and the End made Amiabl by Relation to our Lord 's own Person as we now com to see in the remaining words In remembrance of me PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proper rite This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as ar the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. 'T is wors in a Christian upon several accounts 1. The Law-giver 2. The Rites VI. 3. The Obligation HITHERTO we have seen nothing but Dry Law the rough Issu of Authority and Will haling us to the unrecommended performance by chains of Compulsion without any gentler Attractives that may Invite our Affections or Persuade our Reason And as the Country hath be'n dry and barren so have the Ways be'n craggy Troublesom to the Best and Unpassable to the Most understandings The Reader must understand the Rules of Reasoning and must be ar no litle pains to mesure the Apostl's discurs by Those Rules We now com to a pleasanter Country and smoother ways From the Apostl's Argument to our Lords which is full of endearments to our Affections and free from difficulties to our Understandings thogh we never sate at the feet of Gamaliel or any other Tutor but Love For whoever loveth our Lord's person can no sooner hear that He is concerned but he findeth abundant
to wash them The Necessity of the H. C. thus stated Let the condicions of worthiness be multiplied and enforced with what rigor you please Let them be more intolerabl than plucking out Both eyes and cutting off Both hands so they be indispensibl No reasonabl man will be thereby frighted from the Lords table but every one will be so from his sins since he every where carieth about him the same guilt and danger thogh he com not Nor will the Scrupulos be at all distracted with doubts whether it be best to com or forbear since this will be no other than to question whether it be best to be Singly or Dubly gilty Singly if he com with unworthiness or Dubly if he dishonor the Lords table both by Forsakeing and Profaning it the one in Reality the other by Imputation And this must needs be the opinion of the good Alms-giver above-praised who would not suffer the peopl to go away without the Communion but broght them back when they were already go'n out of the Church an importunity which he would never have used had he not believed it more sinful to Omit the duty than to perform it unprepared as they wer whereof no better account can be given than this that our obligation besets us behind and before and layeth such hand upon us that we cannot fly from it's presence but must necessarily fly from our sins bicaus this is the only way left us to escape the judgments threatened to unworthy Communicants and whether such an ordinance be a converting one or no I shall no further dispute from Scripture but proceed to consider Reason V. REASON will persuade that the Sacrament must be a converting Ordinance He that will deny this must impute the Defect either to the Unfitness of our Lords Death toward such an effect or 2. To the Insufficiency of the Sacrament to set it forth or 3. To our Lords denial of his ordinary Blessing In One or All of These must the Defect needs ly for if they All concurr Nothing is wanting to a saving efficacy 1. The defect cannot ly in the Death of Christ which the Apostl so often tells us he suffered to This very Purpose The Scripture speaketh I say not more Clearly but sure more Frequently of his dying for our Sanctification than for our Justification to redeem us from the Works than from the Wages of Sin If it sound ambiguosly when the Apostl saith he died to redeem us from all iniquity he cleareth it by an immediat explication to purchase to himself a peculiar peopl zelos of good works What can be spoken plainer than this That he died to redeem us from our vain conversation that he carried our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness to leave us an exampl that we should follow his steps c. And had the Apostls be'n silent plain Reason would have taught it us For as in Law without shedding of bloud there was no remission so was there no need of more than the mere death of the Sacrifice so much the fitter for That service by how much more Pampered Why then must our Lord be so unhappily unlike his typical Oxen why might he not have be'n sacrificed like Them by One blow and No pain closing a Full and Easie Life with a Death as Easie What could the Law have expected from Him beyond what the Jews expect in their Messiah the Son of David a Life Victorios and glorios closed with a Death suitably glorios in the Bed of honor One Drop of bloud perhaps certainly the singl Death however Easie or Honorabl of a Person of infinit valu must in justice be sufficient to satisfie a Father so Willing to receve satisfaction To what purpose then All the this way Needless and to him incomparably more Grievos Other Sufferings Why a Life so Poor so Despised so Hated so Laborios Why a Death so Painful so Shameful so Intolerabl Why but for the Apostl's reason To leave us an exampl that we should follow his steps which as they shewed us the way so did they smooth it for us that no man might think much to take up his Cross and follow such a Leader SUCH a leader as Caesar who did not say to his Soldiers Go but Com make them follow him if not for Valor yet for Shame It became him who was to bring many Sons to Glory to make the Captain of our Salvation perfect by sufferings and such sufferings too that none of his followers shall ever be able to upbraid him as requiring More To deny therefor that such a Death is fit to Redeem us both from the Service of sin and Fear of suffering is to giv the Scripture the Ly and to take from our Lords death it's Vertu VI. 2. AND Secundly to Deny this Sacraments sufficiency to set forth our Lords death is yet if possibl a greater affront both to our Lord and his Apostl Both of them expressly declare This for it's Adaequate designe As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he com What the Apostl said to the Galatians that Christ was evidently set forth crucified among them was not so much ascribed to Preaching as to This Sacrament which so evidently sets it forth to All senses that whoever consideringly receveth it may say not only we have heard with our ears but we have seen with our Eyes we have looked upon our hands have handled our mouths have tasted and our bowels have be'n strengthened with the bread of Life What Orator can com neer an ordinary Painter in setting forth a mans countenance By how much the Ey is tenderer than the Ear by so much is the Mind more affected by it Now This Sacrament setteth forth the Death of our Lord not to the Ear as Preaching doth but to the very Ey and that not as a Picture but as a Drama it so Commemorates as to Act the Tragedy so Describes as to Exhibite it's Benefits How much more potent such visibl Rhetorik is than the most powerful Preaching Antony made a memorabl experiment He imployed all his Eloquence to stir up the peopl of Rome to revenge the death of Caesar He magnified his Wisdom his Industry and his Valor he recounted his Victories celebrated his Vertues lamented the cruelty of his Death Then he recited his Testament and from the Legacies therein bequeathed proved the greatness of his Love to them in his life their Champion after death their Benefactor All this the peopl heard thogh with Grief yet with Patience But when he produced his Robe when he shewed the Holes and the Bloud wherewith the murdering Poniards had Pierced and Stained it then did those visibl Orators not only Move them to Anger but Transport them to Rage they snatched up Weapons and Firebrands and missing the Persons destroyed the Dwellings of the Conspirators Such is the Designe such the Rhetorik of
sum of all is This He that is not freed from the dominion of sin he that is not really a subject of the kingdom of grace he in who 's mortal body sin do's reign and the Spirit of God do's not reign must at no hand present himself before the holy Table of the Lord bicaus what ever dispositions or alterations he may begin to have in order to pardon and holiness he as yet hath neither but is Gods enemy and therefor cannot receve his holy Son In These words and indeed in the Whole Book the excellent Person endevored to make the Same mesures of Repentance necessary for a Communicant as in another very Pios and Learned Treatise he had proved necessary for Salvation And thogh he Express it not yea ' thogh he Intend it not he must Imply such a Faith also necessary for This Supper of our Lord which every where els he denieth to be so for That in heaven viz. An Assurance that he is in God's favor For since upon these grounds no man can Otherwise be Assured of the Lawfulnes of this action and whatever is not so of faith is sin the want of such Assurance must be as strong a bar against the performance as want of Worthiness So Those Few only Those very Few who ar not only in Gods favor but Above all Doubt of their being so must presume to approach his Table Yea if we will follow the conduct of the Position as far as it will lead us we shall com to believ it less sinful to Dy in such an estate than to Communicate Bicause Death is Unavoidabl and however it be damnabl to Live in a state of Impenitency it is no New sin to Dy so But here we ar told that we may avoid the Lords Table without sin and therefor must incur a Distinct guilt by Coming and that not only if we be Really Unworthy but if we Doubt whether we ar so or no. And what a singularity it here In every other controversie the Rival Positions use to oppose one another as Positive and Negative in the same Question Our present question is Whether our Lords Do this amount to a Command We might in cours expect no wors than a Denial And That very Denial too we might hope so Tempered as to leav Something Answerable in Som sort tho not fully Equal to the usual import of the word An Encouragement or Recommendation an Invitation or Intimation Somthing of som savor as Fit if not Necessary At worst if it do no way Oblige us if neither Duty nor Kindness bind us yet at least we should be at full Liberty to do it if we please But behold We now find it a Command but a Negative one For every one is bound to Forbear it upon Such Suppositions as shall lay hold upon the far greatest part of mankind And if a Law be made for the Collective body then must This needs be a Negative one bicaus not one of a thousand can escape the Prohibition If it be said That This Prohibition is but Suppositive and between two such Propositions there is no Inconsistence That it may very well be tru that If we be not worthy we must not do it I confess it nor do I accuse this admirable person of Inconsistency with Himself but his two Suppositive Propositions of Conspiracy against our Lords Command Bicaus the Former if it pretend to contein the whole Command Derogateth from it and the Later plainly Countermandeth it That disableth it from Obligeing Any to Do this And This maketh it Oblige almost All men to Forbear it The One falleth unreasonably Short of our Lords Command and the Other more unreasonably Contradicts it IV. WE cannot now avoid the rudeness to demand a sight of the Warrant which may authorise any one not onely thus to Limit but Countermand our Lords Laws It is an undoubted rule Ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum And Those words which ar accused of it we have sufficiently cleared from any such Crime But to Countermand a Law is much more than to Limit it and for This we have not yet seen the least Appearance of a Warrant much less so Clear so Imperative so Express an one as may outvoice both our Lord and his Apostl Our Lords Command is Universal Drink ye all of this This Apostl's injunction is equivalently indefinite Let a man eat this bread c. It is probabl our Lord admitted certain he Forbad not Judas himself And it is plain the Apostl Prohibited not but Commanded the Corinthians themselvs bad thogh they wer And if Either of them did at any Other time either Repeal such unlimited Commands or Prohibit their performance to Any kind of Persons when we see it we shall submit Yea though we have no such Commission we will take the boldness to conform not only to an Explicit Prohibition peremtorily saying Do Not this but any such word as by Clear and Necessary Consequence must Infer it If I say either our Lord or This or any Other Apostl ever drop't a syllabl which is capable of being made a Medium to forbid not onely the Most but any One member of his Church to do this thogh I shall think it as great a Miracle as Either of them ever wroght yet I shall Admire onely not Oppose the Conviction But there is No such danger the wonder bloweth from another point even from the slightness of the Evidences shall I call them which ar brought against the whole weight of the Apostl's argument Two loos words cut off from their fellow members and miserably rack't that they may confess something against His or our Lords designe a few precarios Allegories and som shews of Probability that our Lords Supper would be more honored and his Service more promoted another way These are the whole force we ar to contend with and shall do it in the order now set down beginning with that which alone is worth regarding Scripture And here I deny not the truth of the Supposition if the Apostl hath said any thing which by necessary inference will forbid any one to Do this it is as much as if he had said in express terms Do it not But then the Inference must be Unavoidabl and the saying whereon it is grounded Uncapabl of any such sens as may Comply with That Command which it shall pretend to Weaken If once more we look upon the Apostl's dissertation we shall find it to consist of Two main limbs Positions and Deductions which Depending upon These Positions must by no means Contradict them The Positions we have found aim all at This That Our Lord hath so inseparably inlayed His Supper upon all Church-meetings that as we May not so if we would we Cannot part them The Inferences ar Two 1. From Constancy in the One he inferreth Constancy in the Other Bicaus in All your meetings you eat This Bread and drink This Cup therefor in All your meetings you
shew forth the Lords death by them This Consequence we have all this while be'n proving to be his aim 2. The Other Consequence argueth back again from the Reverence due to our Lords Person to Answerabl Reverence due to his Representatives Bicaus the Lords Body and Blood ar concerned in it therefor you must not eat This bread and drink This cup Vnworthily And this he presseth by two important inferences the Former setting forth the Crime in the 27 vers The Later prescribing the Remedy in the 28. Upon these two turn all the Interpretative Prohibitions which must revers our Lords Command to DO this and all his own forgoing argument inforceing it For by the Former All Unworthy persons ar ipso facto excommunicated and by the Later every one is bound therefor to examin himself that if he find himself unworthy he may execute the sentence It must therefor needs be worth our Labor seriosly to enquire into the true import of those two considerable words which I shall do in their Order CHAP. II. Concerning Unworthiness I. What Unworthy importeth 1. In it 's singl signification 1. In Grammar it is an Adverb 2. In Logik a Relative II. The degree of the Crime not expressed why We need not be so fearful as the Papists We deny not the Real Presence III. 2. The Aspect of the word upon the Apostls designe 1. Personal worthiness dishonourabl to our Lord. 2. Different from the Apostls mesure IV. The Apostl oght to have warned the Corinthians of it 1. For the Lord's Tables sake 2. For his own arguments sake V. 3. For the Corinthians sakes who were such as oght to have be'n forbidden THE Former is set forth in vers 27. He that eateth This Bread and drinketh This Cup UNWORTHILY is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. And again vers 29. He that eateth unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself In the 27. is declared the Guilt in the 29. the Punishment And Both of them incurred by doing this UNWORTHILY Our main business therefor must be to mesur the import of the word Unworthy And first we must view it in it's Singl Interpretation and then in its Aspect 1. It 's Singl import may be considered in Grammar and in Logik 1. In Grammar we ar to consider the Root and the Termination 1. The Root is Worthy which Rigidly importeth an Equality of worth but in a Milder sens is satisfied with som Proportion thogh short of Full value The Chancery of the Gospel abateth much of what Strict Law requireth Is satisfied with Suitablness for Worthiness This Allowance doth it perpetually give All such words as import Righteousness And with This Latitude doth our Apostl frequently use This very word E. G. Eph. 4.1 Col. 1.10 Thes 2.12 c. For if any one think he can in a Proper sens Walk Worthy of the Gospel Worthy of the Lord or Worthy of God That very thoght will make him Unworthy of the mercy offered by That Lord in That Gospel 2. The Termination speaketh it an Adverb qualifying the Manner of the Action Not an Adjective subjected in the Agent It is not He that eateth and drinketh being Unworthy but he that doth it Unworthily however his Person be qualified The Difference between These two is so Wide so Evident and in This place so Important that it could never escape such acute eys as som of our adversaries enjoy were they not muffled with that Proverbial partiality which maketh None so blind as him that will not see For the first sight of it will expose the impertinence as to This performance of all those Schemes and Directories for Self-Examination which are so carefully set forth as if it wer the same thing to do this in a Manner worthy of the Office and to make one's Self Worthy to be the Officer This can never be too carefully observed I again insist upon it that This Difference between UNWORTHY and UNWORTHILY duely considered will let in such light as will abundantly discover the many and great flaws in That hypothesis to which so many good and wise men have so enslaved themselvs that they ar somtimes as we shall anon see a pitiful exampl forced to offer violence to their ingenuity 2. In Logik it is a Relative wherein beside the now considered Relation and Subject is also considerabl the Correlate which is the Party concerned in the Worthiness or Unworthiness of the Action And this is Generally Grossly and Unhappily mistaken for our Lords Person whereas we have sufficiently proved it to be This Bread and This Cup. Bicause so much depends upon it I again desire is may be considered that the Apostl reproveth the Corinthians just as a sober person would a rude Bully if he should see him abuse a Justice of Peace in execution of his Office Sir might he say Take heed what you do you seem to take this Gentleman for your Equal or perhaps your Inferior but then are you mistaken for This Gentleman This plain Gentlman what ever you think of him represents the Kings person And therefor the Abuses you offer Him ar not private incivilities to an Ordinary Person but Publik Misdemeanors c. In such an Admonition Nothing is intended to be urged but what needs it viz. The Character of the Officer which once known the Nature of the Crime and the Kings concern immediately appears II. THE Nature of the Crime but it 's Degree is not so plain The Apostl in This place by a most unusual stile leaveth it to our Own Reasons to judge He is guilty saith he of the Body and Blood of the Lord but whether of Trampling it under foot or only of Contemning it or in what degree of Affronting it the strange Ellipsis hath left uncertain This is very Certain and no less Considerabl That the affront which passeth through the Officers person loseth much of it's force There and cannot strike so strong upon the Kings as if it were Directly and Immediately aimed at him The Character doth indeed dignify the Otherwise inconsiderabl Person But the Person hath it's Reaction upon the Character We make great allowances for the Meanness of the One even when we pay our Honor to the Other For we think not the same Aw due to the Justice's Worship as to the King's Majesty nor do we judge the Crime Equally great in the affront offered him As the Corinthians Crime had be'n much aggravated so had the Apostl's own Argument be'n much strengthened if he had not made This Bread This Cup but our Lords body and bloud the proper object of the abuse Had therefor This Bread be'n the Proper Body and this Cup the Proper Bloud of our Lord he was now obliged both to Declare and Urge it In a case so urgent an Omission is equivalent to a Negative It was his business so to set forth the Dignity of This abused Bread and Cup that by Proportion with it their Guilt may be Aggravated Would Truth have Consented
Cup and gave thanks saith St. Luke But of This Cup because it concerned not the Lords Supper St. Paul taketh no notice When they have done eating he distributeth a little of the wine saith the Rabbi Our Lord took the Cup when he had supped saith St. Paul After supper saith St. Luke saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THIS signal cup THIS closing cup c. Could we have Expected yea could we have Desired greater resemblance Are not the Mater the Actions the Seasons All circumstances the same And do not All these agree as exactly with the Apostl's Argument and All its Clauses as with our Lords Institution The very first sight discovereth such Resemblance as manifestly declareth Relation and rhe more exactly we vieu the more shall we discover nor would we doubt the One were the proper issue of the Other did not the Parentage appear too Mean and too long Concealed V. WHAT must the adorable Sacrament of the Altar which hath so long exercised the highest devotions of devoutest Souls must this inestimable Sacrament fall to so low a meanness as to own a poor ordinary feasting-Feasting-cup for its Original And must all the Admirable Mysteries which contemplative Souls have so Long and so Much venerated must they All dwindle into a mere Representative of That death which the Evangelists have as plainly set forth by Words as This can do by Figures And shall we believe that so many good and learned Men who have so carefully studied it should be so much deceived and the Christian world at last after almost 1700 years be obliged to we know not whom for information To such erronios purpose may Those declame who use to judge of the truth of the Sun-dial by their Watches and I shall answer them by a story Codrus or some such brave Prince the night before he sacrificed his life for his people delivered into the hands of his chief Officers a Cabinet telling them he therein bequeathed them his very heart and requiring them publicly to produce it in every Assembly as a lasting Monument of his death It contained his directions for its use legible enough throgh its Christal covering but much more if opened with its annexed key They receved it with all due reverence and while the memory of their so deserving King was yet fresh they constantly obeyed his command But after some ages as their love cooled toward his Person so did their regard to his Legacy Which the Officers lamenting and endeavoring not only to restore it to its due reverence but to advance it higher told the people That however incredible it might seem they must believe what their dying Lord told them viz. That in this Cabinet he left them his very heart which therefore they must adore as his Royal Person And lest by opening it any one might therein find the Kings plain directions they laid aside the key and then omitted the use of the Cabinet it self except only upon extraordinary seasons pretending that too frequent use sullied it When many considering and considerable Persons complained that they were brought the back way to the same contemt as former ages were condemned for a certain Officer of a midle rank knowing the Kings directions could not otherwise be legible sought about till he had found the forgotten key and upon tryal finding it exactly to answer every ward brought it into public vieu pleading that such a concurs of lock and key in so many wards could not be fortuit and seeing Some key must necessarily be had they who refused This must be obliged to produce a Better And because the metal was objected against as base brass or iron no way suitable to the richness of the Cabinet and the Jewels therein contained he fell to scouring it from that rust wherewith Time and Neglect if not Design 〈◊〉 covered it and finding it pure Gold turned that Objection Against its worthiness into an Evidence For is And thinking that All cavils must be abundantly answered by a duble ocular Demonstration he turned it round in the lock shewing that all its parts were as well suited to all the wards thereof as its matter was to the worth of the Cabinet it self What success this had with the people my Author doth not inform me but this proceeding seemeth so genuine that I shall follow it First I shall shew that the Jewish Tradition was fit for the honor of a Sacrament Secondly That it exactly answereth our Lords Institution And thirdly That it serveth every syllable of the Apostl's Dissertation CHAP. IV. I. No more dishonor to This than to the other Sacrament to be derived from a Jewish Tradition This Tradition more worthy than That II. In what sens our Lords Table is an Altar Were our behavior at Table more pious the Sacrament need not be ashamed of such a relation III. Our Lords form of consecration derived from the Jewish Forms both Festival and Sacrificial THAT it is a dishonor to This Sacrament to ow its original to a Jewish Tradition can ill be objected by those who make no such scruple against Baptism which yet deriveth its Institution from the same Author and its Extraction from the same Family That had lost its Key almost as long as This for an Age hath not past over us since it was found among the same Jewish rubbidge yet are we not ashamed to expound those Evangelical allegories Regeneration New birth New creature Old man and New man c. by the Jewish Rituals which speak them more than Allegorical effects of Baptism upon Proselytes NOR is This Sacrament barely Equal but much Superior to That both by Natural and Positive Law For the Jewish Baptism was a mere naked Ceremony Significant indeed of the purity required in the person which received it but neither Derived from it nor Effective of it But This Festival solennity did not only Represent but really Exercise and Improve and 't was its self the issue of true Piety Their affectation of Ceremonies might for ought appeareth in Scripture be all the reason which moved Them to Baptise their Proselytes but to bless God for his Benefits is a worship acceptable to God above all burnt-offerings and sacrifice though instituted by himself as appeareth in the 50th Psalm where he rejecteth Those and approveth This saying He that offereth me praise he honoreth me And if even under the Law much more under the Gospel must such a Service be acceptable which carrieth in its countenance such fair Characters of the Divine Nature And as it hath more of Gods Image so hath it of his Superscription more Authority from Positive as well as more Dignity from Natural Law That Gods people should Baptise their Proselytes the Law of Moses took no care but that they should acknowledge his Bounty in feeding them it made special provision For Lev. 17.3 we find it thus written What man soever there be of the house of Israel that killeth an ox or lamb or goat in the camp or that
cup you drink That whereof he said This is my blood And taking this for the sens of the 26th vers the necessity of the 27th and all that follow immediatly appears For if they be so Much and so Unavoidably concerned then whoever eateth This bread and drinketh This cup unworthily must needs be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord who hath so made Those the representatives of These that whether we receve them or no will make no difference in his imputation because the Relation dependeth not upon Our admittance of them for such but upon His own Commission constituting them for such So that in the recess by intending to Omit the Lords Supper you make your selves guilty of breaking his Command which obligeth you to Do it without escaping the other guilt of Unworthiness since his Institution hath made his body and blood concerned in all the abuses you put upon This bread and This cup. SINCE therefor this 26th vers cannot be Imperative because Grammar requireth the Indicative mode always to follow the causal FOR And since it cannot be Indicative if This bread and This cup in the whole comprehension signifie nether more nor less than the Lords Supper because then in their formal concept they will necessarily import setting forth his death and Logik requireth that the Praedicate in every Proposition should bring somthing of news concerning the Subject But if we fit the Demonstrative This with its necessary Object and the Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with its necessary Mesure then will the Proposition carry Weight enough to lay it as a foundation for all the Deductions which the Apostl bildeth upon it and Light enough to shew the use of every syllabl in his Argument and Force enogh to convict the Corinthians beyond all possibility of reply To doubt now whether we will accept so Serviceable yea so necessary an Hypothesis is no other than to put our selvs into a very hard streight For we shall be obliged either to accuse the Apostl of transgressing the plain rules of Grammar and Logik yea and of Justice too in charging the Corinthians with the greatest Crime without sufficient evidence or else to produce som Other Hypothesis of our own which shall be at least equally serviceabl towards clearing his discours from such great defects And while the adversary deliberates upon so hard a choice I proceed to examin that Other Sens shall I call it which alloweth our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No ground to Build or so much as to Stand upon CHAP. III. Concerning the Vulgar interpretation of As often as I. The Distinction between Suppositive and Absolute stated because made the mesure of obligation II. The words of the Author set forth and III. Examined IV. The merely suppositive sens enervates our Lords Command And V. The Apostl's own Argument VI. The two senses ballanced in order to Conscience THAT in so doing I may escape both the Task of setting a tolerable countenance upon an opinion so generally receved and the Suspicion of representing it disadvantageosly I conceve it most Convenient if not absolutely Necessary to exhibit it in the words of its Patrons Patron I should say For among the Many that entertein it I know but One that hath put himself to the charge of affording it any means of Subsistence by cloathing it with any proper Rules or nourishing it with any Proofs But it is Such an One as may pass for a Multitude One that may not be named without Reverence One of the greatest Ornaments and Pillars of our Church One who professeth to fit every subject with its proper Rules and Mesures and therefor One whom we may believe to have said the utmost in behalf of his Opinion This singular Person puts it to the question Whether our Lords words in This Institution amount to a Command And thogh his interest persuaded him to have Affirmed it yet the sound of These words and inadvertency to the Custom we suppose them to relate to engaging him for the Negative embarrased him in difficulties inextricable from which because he struggles to free himself by help of the distinction between Suppositive and Absolute I shall first state That distinction and Then try what service it can do in the present question A Suppositive Command Obligeth just so as a Suppositive Proposition Declareth viz. nothing else but a Connexion or Disjunction between the Parts An Absolute Proposition may be true though its Subject have no Being and so may an Hypothetical one though its Antecedent have no Truth And as a Hypothetical Syllogism Absolutely concludes Nothing without help of an Absolute Assumtion so doth not a Hypothetical Command oblige to any thing without the help of som Positive addition Hypothetical necessity is therefor consistent with Absolute liberty because the Obligation must derive half its power from the yet undetermined Position E. G. If my Father should have laid upon me this Suppositive Command As often as you go to London go by land This would not oblige me either to the Journy or the Manner By staying at home I should have be'n as obedient as by a hundred tedios Journies But if my Inclinations or Bisiness should call me to the Journy then by vertu of the Command joined with the Urgency of my Business wer I obliged to go not by Water but by Land Such a Command would by no means have amounted to Get you a hors and away Nor can a Suppositive Command amount to such an Absolute Precept as Let a man examin himself and so let him eat But the utmost that so civil a word could amount to is this If you are pleased to eat then is it necessary you examin your self This is the true state of a Suppositive Obligation It leaveth us at full liberty thogh it expose us to be rob'd of it by som Absolute Proposition following And how impossibl it is to reconcile the Wisdom of our Lords Institution with the Weakness of such an Obligation cannot better be discovered than by the succesless attemts of so habile an Undertaker whose words I com now to examin wherein I beg the Readers just charity to believ what I most seriosly protest that it is not without great reluctancy I engage in so unwelcom an office toward a person to whom I am so much obliged and nothing but faithfulness to so great a Subject should compel me to expose the words of him whom all good men are obliged to honor His Rule is The Institution of a Rite or Sacrament by our Blessed Savior is a direct Law and passes a proper obligation in its whole integrity This one would think is as plain as heart can wish but the Gloss quite mars the Text for thus doth he endeavor to bend his Rule to his Conceptions and Other Writings concerning This Holy Sacrament THIS Rule can relate but to one instance that of the Holy Sacrament of Christs body and blood for although Christ did institute two Sacraments yet that
induced to pardon a multitude of his friends after a solen Procession receved the Communion in his behalf as did also the Cardinal de la Valette in a mass celebrated by the Bishop of Faviers Yea Those very persons we dispute with Those who neglect it all their lives ar careful in the End to obtain it When they look death in the face Then by all means must the Minister be sent for and the necessary two or three must accompany the Sick person however at that time most unfit to receve the hitherto neglected Supper Whence this new care but from a persuasion that Now more than ever there is great need of effectual prayer and that this holy Sacrament is most efficacios for inforcing it But have we no need of effectual prayer 'till we com to dy Need we no Pardon nor no Blessing Ar our Lusts so mortified our Graces so perfect our Salvation so secure our Happiness so complete Can we answer the kind offers of this Sacrament as the Shunamite did those of the Prophet Elisha when he asked what is to be do'n for thee Do we so live upon our own as to want No Favor Or have we No friend No child No relative that needs our prayer Have we No petition to offer for our King or Country Our Church or any Comember Ar all things so perfectly well within and without us that we need no further favor If we think so we need this Sacrifice to obtein pardon for That very thoght And certainly the Continuance of so uniform and complete happiness is a blessing worth Desiring and therefor worth Asking and if so the Sacrament is worth Receving that such Prayers may be more Prevalent and our Minds more Satisfied as having deposited our requests in the most Succesful manner For if on our Death-bed we find comfort much more reasonably may we hope it in the mids of Life as by the more probabl soundness of our Repentance so by the more efficacios vertu of the Sacrament receved then with greater both Worthiness and Appetite than the Death-bed can promis which can naturally operate no better in acts of Spiritual than of Temporal life so much Less Vigorosly by how much More against all Appetites VI. 4. IF the Pleasures of Prayer be so great those of Thankfulness must needs be much greater For Prayer proceedeth from sens of Want Thankfulness from sens of Abundance That is the work of the Indigent This of the Rich That is the happiness of the Earth drawing down the former and later rain to satisfy it's drought This the blessedness of Heaven whose inhabitants have no other Imployment nor greater Joy than to bless God We cannot perhaps better understand the pleasures of Thankfulness than by comparing it with That which of all others the world thinketh both most Pleasant and most Honorable Revenge above all other Human if it be not wors than Human passions may bost of the destructions it hath wroght upon the earth of Persons yea of Families yea of Nations and He is branded for a Coward who will spare life Temporal or Eternal when This shall require them for Sacrifice Now Thankfulness is no other than White Revenge more Glorios and more Innocent The One saith as doth the Other I will Requite I will do to him as he hath do'n to me I will render to him according to his work c. And is it not more Noble and Pleasant to requite Good than Evil Ar not the satisfactions of Love sweeter than those of Anger Both glory in Justice but the One while it pretendeth to Do Justice Violateth it by invading Gods right who hath said Vengeance is mine The Other more than dubleth the glory of Justice by the addition of Love TO THIS so excellently pleasant exercise is this Sacrament designed St. Paul caleth this the Cup of Blessing The Fathers the Eucharist Our own Church saith it was for a Thankful remembrance of the Death of Christ and of the benefits which we receve thereby And requireth Every communicant to receve it with thankfulness And since the Pleasures of Revenge grow in exact suitableness with the Resentments of the Passion thereby gratified and the Passion with the Injury offered so also must the Pleasures of Thankfulness answer the Benefit which giveth it birth Whence it must necessarily follow that as the Benefits Here communicated ar the Greatest so must This exercise be of All other the Pleasantest especially bicaus the very Passion is hereby most vigorosly excited which is a dubl advantage 1. The Benefits hereby commemorated ar the Greatest I hope This will not need much proof Since it cannot be imagined what our Lord could have do'n More than suffer the Death we hereby Commemorate A Benefit which as it Requireth so doth it Exceed our highest raptures of Thankfulness Excellently well doth our Ingenios and Pios Herbert express this He resolveth upon this noblest Revenge Surely I will revenge me on thy Love And try who shall victorios prove He instanceth in several Benefits finding ways of suitable Returns but coming to the Passion First he adjorneth it as difficult saying And for thy Passion but of that anone When with the other I have done And at last after several Other instances closeth all by acknowledging it not only Difficult but Impossibl to answer it saying Then for thy Passion I will do for that Alas my God I know not what And beginneth his next meditation with the same acknowledgment I have considered it and find There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion But our Lord himself hath be'n pleased to help us as by his Death against our Guilt so by This Institution against our Inability to find a way wherein to express our Thankfulness for That death When our Best wits and Carefulest considerations cannot tell what to do he biddeth us Do This. Whether David Prophesied of it is not so plain as that he was very happy in So speaking as if he had for he pitched upon the same Answer to the same Question What shall I render said he to the Lord for all the benefits that he hath do'n unto me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. But with This difference that All the Benefits which so posed David came incomparably short of our Lord's Passion and consequently This Cup as it much better deserveth the Title so doth it exceed in Pleasantness That which he stileth the Cup of Salvation 2. By this Cup our Thankfulness is most vigorosly incited For as No benefit can be greater than our Lords death so cannot our Affections be more powerfully stirred than by This Representative which assalts our very Senses and strikes our Hearts by the most Lively Representation as we have already seen Other Festers pretend no more than to provide Viands and Wine as delicios as possibl Our Lord takes care that our Palates may be quickened As he provideth the Best Mater for our Thankfulness so doth