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death_n cup_n eat_v lord_n 6,874 5 4.8423 4 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A23658 Catholicism, or, Several enquiries touching visible church-membership, church-communion, the nature of schism, and the usefulness of natural constitutions for the furtherance of religion by W.A. Allen, William, d. 1686. 1683 (1683) Wing A1055; ESTC R502 134,503 424

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which he would have them examine themselves was about their Capacity of discerning the Lords Body in doing it For he tells them that if they did not discern the Lords Body in eating that Bread c. they would eat and drink unworthily and likewise Judgment to themselves For our better understanding the scope and meaning of St. Paul in this his Discourse touching unworthy Communicating at the Lords Table we will enquire alittle what he means by eating and drinking unworthily what by not discerning the Lords Body and what by being guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 1. The unworthy eating of that Bread and drinking that Cup of the Lord of which the Apostle speaks signifies the receiving those Sacred Symbols of Christs Body and Blood with a frame of Mind incongruous and unsuitable to the nature of that Feast and to a participation of it Or it is a receiving those Consecrated Elements with such an unsuitable Mind as makes Men uncapable of receiving that benefit which our Lord designed to be received by the use of that Ordinance 2. Not to discern the Lords Body in eating that Bread and drinking that Cup is not to understand the Nature of that Ordinance nor our Lords design in it nor to be sutably affected with the Spiritual Nature and meaning of it First it is not to understand the Nature and End of that Ordinance As when Men do not understand that the breaking the Lords Body upon the Cross and the shedding of his Blood as an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sin of the World is signified represented and commemorated by the breaking of Bread and pouring out of Wine in that Sacrament And when they do not understand or discern that this Ordinance was appointed by our Blessed Saviour for a perpetual Commemoration of his transcendent Love in dying for us Now if no more than this should be meant by not discerning the Lords Body Men of common Illumination in the things of the Gospel and by a common Faith concerning them may undoubtedly escape being guilty of this unworthiness in eating that Bread and drinking that Cup. For it will not be denyed but that many unregenerate Men may in this sense discern the Lords Body more clearly and more distinctly than many of the Regenerate themselves can And if Secondly by not discerning the Lords Body should be also meant as I suppose it is the unsutableness of Mens Affection to the Spiritual Nature of the things represented by eating that Bread and drinking that Cup yet Men by common Grace may in some measure discern the Lords Body by having some degree of Affection sutable to the Spiritual Nature and Design of that Ordinance In the sense now under consideration Men do not discern the Lords Body in receiving this Sacrament when they are no more Affected with Love and Gratitude to our Blessed Saviour for his great Love in dying for us than as if there had never been any such thing suffered by him and for such an end as the Redemption of the World But now Men who have but Initial Faith and common Grace may eat that Bread and drink that Cup of the Lord with a much more sutable frame of Mind and Affection than this comes to For they may at such a time and upon such an Occasion have some sense of Christs Love upon their Minds in dying for them and some hope of being saved by his Death and for that reason they may have some degree of Love and Affection to him stirring in them even such as may draw some grateful acknowledgment of his Love from them and some present purposes of Living more to him such as may cause them to sin less until that sense is worn off When our Saviour saith He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Mat. 10.37 He supposeth some may Love him to a degree who yet love somewhat else more and thereby make themselves unworthy of the Salvation which is by him Now such a sense of Christs Love as this which Men but of common Grace may have at their coming to the Sacrament has a very fair tendency in it towards such a sense and such Love which is saving indeed and is in a very near Capacity of being so improved as to become such and doubtless is so in many a one For which cause such should be encouraged to frequent this Sacrament as often as they have Opportunity with the best Preparation they can make 3. To be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord as all they are who eat that Bread and drink that Cup unworthily ver 27. can signifie no less and it may be no more than a being guilty of a Profaning of his Body and Blood by using and receiving the Sacred Symbols and Signs thereof with a frame of Mind altogether unsutable to what is signified and represented thereby And this Men are guilty of when they are no otherwise affected at the Commemoration of the Death of Christ in the Sacrament than as if his Death had been the Death but of a common Man nor are no more Affected with the things represented by that Sacrament in the eating that Bread and drinking that Cup than as if they were but at a common Meal They are thus guilty when they are stupid sottish and irreverent at that Action and void of an affecting sense of the wonderful Love of our Saviour in laying down his Life for us even then when they make use of that Ordinance which was purposely instituted to perpetuate and preserve a lively sense of it in Christians to the end of the World This Profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord thus is as we may easily perceive a sin of the same Nature with that of not discerning the Lords Body in eating that Bread and drinking that Cup and is resolved into it as all unworthy receiving that Sacrament is as it should seem by St. Paul's words when he assigns the not discerning the Lords Body as the reason why Men at any time eat that Bread and drink that Cup unworthily in the 29. ver But now Men by common Illumination and Faith are very capable of discerning a great difference between the Person and Death of Christ and the Reason and End of his Death and the Person and Death of other Men and between the reason of eating and drinking at the Lords Table and their eating and drinking at other Tables and of being otherwise Affected with these things than with common things Considering then that the unworthy eating of that Bread and drinking that Cup of which the Apostle speaks consists in such an unsutable frame of Mind in doing so as by reason of which Men do not discern the Lords Body but Profane it and the facred Signs and Symbols of it And considering likewise that the Apostle makes the danger of thus eating that Bread and drinking that Cup unworthily the reason of his Exhorting them to examine themselves before they