his Intercession is now in Body though a Body of Glory Now from hence you may perceive what I drive at viz. That there was great Reason that Christ should say This is my Body This is my Blood because the Body of Christ the Flesh and Blood of Christ was that which was visibly and sensibly active and was to be so throughout the whole Work of our Redemption for Forasmuch as the Children Heb. 2. 14 17. were Partakers of Flesh and Blood he himself took part of the same that c. And it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his Brethren The holy Humane Soul and Spirit of Christ was the principal Agent the Body Flesh and Blood of Christ was the Theatre upon which All was made publick the Tube and Channel through which All is convey'd therefore the whole Humane Nature is express'd by Flesh and Blood the Representation of it and the Communication of it is so given in the Doctrine and therefore so in the Lord's Supper The Body Flesh and Blood of Christ and all his Action Point 2 and Suffering in it were as so many Preparations that he may be spiritually eaten applied to and communicated with by the Souls of Believers of which his Death is the most comprehensive and principal as that in which center not only his Incarnation Circumcision Baptism Holy Life Prayers in the Days of his Flesh but even his Resurrection Ascension Intercession at the Right-hand of God and therefore as the Doctrine of the Communion of his Body styles his John 6. 51. Death the giving his Flesh for the Life of the World so the Sacrament of it in the Lord's Supper calls it his Body given for us and the Remembrance of his Death and the whole Application by Faith is call'd Eating in both And proportionably in sense Christ was sent in the Likeness Rom. 8. 3. of sinful Flesh that he might condemn Sin in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us We put off the Sins of the Flesh by the Circumcision of Christ we Col. 2. 11. are buried in his Baptism we rise in his Resurrection and Rom. 6. 4. know the Power of it Phil. 3. 10. We sit in Heavenly Places in him He makes Intercession for us and so saves to the uttermost Heb. 7. 25. And his Death is in all Senses communicated to us All which are in other Words the very same thing with giving us his Flesh te eat and his Blood to drink The humane Nature of Christ call'd his Body his Flesh Point 3 and his Blood and all his Actions and Sufferings in it were so many Rests and Repositories of the Divine Nature Power Efficacy and Virtue of Jesus Christ filling them with infinite saving Virtue and Effect in their Communication to the Senses of Believers in Jesus Christ For in all the Action and Sufferings of Christ the Son of God was immediately Active the Divine Power and Spirit was always present and Active in all as a supreme Spirit and Soul The Incarnation of Christ was a sensible fleshly and bodily Thing But there was a Manifestation of Divinity in it The Power of the most High over-shadowed the Virgin and Rom. 8. 2. Christ was Conceiv'd as we daily Profess by the Holy Ghost The Law of the Spirit of Life purified the Humane Nature of Christ to the highest Elevation of Purity The Circumcision of Christ was a Divine Circumcision made without Col. 2. 11. Hands by the immediate Action of the Divine Spirit for if ours were so much more His the original of it The Baptism of Christ was full of a Divine Presence The Spirit rested like a Dove upon Him This is my beloved Son c. Matt. 3. 18. Philip. 3. 9. His Obedience and Righteousness was the Righteousness of God In his Death he offer'd Himself by the Eternal Spirit Heb. 9. 14. His Blood is called the Blood of God He Rose by the Spirit Acts 20. 28. of Holiness which Justified Him He is made higher than the Heavens in his Intercession And this is of supreme Consideration in all the Communications of Christ in all our Eating and Drinking his Flesh and his Blood as may be seen in that excellent Discourse John 6. to which the Lord's Supper is a parallel Representation As the Living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father v. 57. even so he that eateth me shall live by me For his Flesh eaten is the Conduit of divine Life It is the Spirit viz. the Divine Nature that quickneth The Flesh profiteth nothing v. 63. The Words that I speak unto you are Spirit and they are Life that is by the Vertue and Presence of the Divinity of which they were spoken for by Power he is declar'd to be Rom. 1. 4. the Son of God viz. by the Power of the Divinity He was 2 Cor. 13. 4. put to death through weakness but he liveth by the Power of 1 Pet. 3. 18. God He was put to death in the Flesh quickned by the Spirit If any Man therefore considers the Actions of Jesus Christ in the Flesh and does not consider the Divine Nature in them he does not consider that which our Saviour says Quickens He only considers that which our Saviour saith Profits nothing From hence therefore it is plainly first to be understood that it is most impossible Material or Bodily should by it self do any thing to that which is Spiritual Immaterial Intellectual as is the Soul of Man The Sun though so glorious a Body can do nothing to Man's Soul immediately and suppose the Body of Christ as much higher in Glory than any thing we know in Nature as the Sun excells a Turf of Earth yet this very glorious Body can do nothing to our Souls to our Spirits It can do nothing in these great Negotiations of Peace with God Purification of our Consciences Sanctification This is so acknowledg'd a thing that you know as many as know any thing of Transubstantiation as it is held in the Roman Persuasion That they themselves confess That if a Man Eat that very transubstantiated Body and Drink that very transubstantiated Blood of Christ though it is as they suppose the Body and Blood of Christ in the most fleshly sensible Presence we can imagine yet it does a wicked Man no good a Man who hath not Faith and Repentance And it is very true it must needs be so because it is a material thing and cannot act so as to act upon spiritual and immaterial Things on the other side it can do no hurt to these immaterial Beings But if it did operate after the manner of material Things upon material I cannot conceive how it should miss the best Effect seeing it is infinitely prepar'd to do good in that very Case of presupposed Evil of Sin but when it is spiritual and requires spiritual Preparation to receive it or else it
not a Literal but Mystical Propriety the Lord 's Passover Exod. 12. 11. This Passover with Desire Christ desir'd to eat with his Disciples before he suffer'd as a very lively Table of his Redemptional Suffering so near but withal He declares He would no more Eat of it till it was fulfill'd in the Kingdom of God Immediately upon this whether out of an appendant Rite to the Passover or not is not now material He Institutes the Lord's Supper as it were proleptically and by way of Prophecy and yet Intuition and looking upon his Death just before him and draws in this new Table the Intention of it but whether it was to be celebrated any more there is no Explicite but that Implicite Preception In the Evangelist Luke Do it in Remembrance of me which carries an Intimation of a Continuation but it is observable It is applied only to the Bread importing the Body of Christ and it abates much from the rigour of a gross carnal Sense where it seems to press hardest For as to the Wine being materially the Blood of Christ that Figure This Cup for this Wine in the Cup and that variation is the New Testament in my Blood does beyond all Contradiction rebate the gross Literal Sense even as Remembrance does from This is my Body for Remembrance is of Absent and not Present This therefore was as before-hand to an after thing So Christ said of the Body which is broken although it was not yet actually broken and of the Blood which is shed although it was not then shed Immediately after the drinking of the Wine Christ subjoyn'd I will no more drink of This Fruit of the Vine till I drink it new in the Kingdom of God my Father when it comes which to shew a thing of weight and of the same Sense with eating the Passover no more till c. The Evangelist Luke is before-hand with the Institution of the Cup to joyn to that Saying of the Passover this of the Fruit of the Vine as is very visible And both these Expressions speak these three Things 1. That there was an eminent Kingdom of God the Father immediately to succeed at whose Right-hand Christ sits till the Time of his own peculiar Kingdom comes which is not till he puts down all Rule and Power and Authority and last of all abolishes Death and Hell out of God's Creation into the Lake it s own Place which is the Second Death or the Death of Death and then he resigns back the Kingdom The Kingdom of God and Christ are thus kept distinct and the Kingdom of the Father is in an especial manner the state of the Gospel after the Resurrection Ascension Sitting of Christ at his Right-hand and his continual Intercession even untill that Glorious Kingdom of Christ 2. That the Death of Jesus Christ imported in both the Passover and the Lord's Supper was to be renewed into a perpetual Life and Vertue immediately after his Death by those his Resurrection Ascension Session on God's Right-hand and Intercession which are the Gospel-Kingdom of the Father 3. That Christ in a spiritual sense continually eats the Passover as fulfill'd in the Kingdom of God drinks the Wine as new in the Kingdom of God and that with his Disciples of all Ages viz. in that perpetual Renovation of his Death in his Intercession and Application of the Benefits thereof to Believers according to the whole Tenor of the Gospel and particularly of the Lord's Supper and as in a Pro-gramma or afore-hand Portraicture of all this those excellent Discourses of at least John 15. c. 16. and that great Prayer a Pattern of the Intercession of Christ John 17. following shew And of this Intercession of Christ upon his own Death the Lord's Supper is in highest sense the Memorial for the Remembrance of Christ is not of a dead Christ but who lives for ever to make Intercession and so saves to the uttermost In consequence of all this especially the * A point most insisted upon by the Apostles Paul and John I had almost said solely by them Rom. 8. Epist to the Heb. frequently and solemnly c. 7. the Apostle John c. 15 c. 16. c. 17. especially Epist c. 2. 1 2. Intercession of Christ The Apostle Paul as a fourth Evangelist concerning this Institution is immediately commission'd by Christ from Heaven to promulge it to all Ages of Christians And therein he reveals it under a solemn new Title as it were new in the Kingdom of God The Lord's Supper He applies to it its great Scope and End both to the Bread and to the Wine Do it in solemn Memorial of Christ and his Action now in Heaven upon his Death which was here on Earth and farther in those Words You shew forth his Death till he comes that is the whole Contexture of his Death as his Body is eaten and his Blood drunk through the Efficacy and Application of his Intercession through which we offer the Sacrifice of Praise giving Thanks to his Name through him in this Eucharist or Feast of Thanksgiving of whose Altar we continually Eat even that of the Great Shepheard of the Sheep brought again from the Dead by the Blood of the everlasting Covenant as the Apostle hath most divinely woven these Things into a Neighbourhood Heb. 10. v. 10. v. 15. v. 20. And this Ordinance with this whole State of Things the Apostle hath dated till the Coming of Christ when a new State shall receive this into it self till which this Ordinance cannot be superannuated or out of Date for which his being receiv'd into Glory is postpond in the Mystery of Godliness that it may be a Pawn and Pledge of his Kingdom of Glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. on which the Apostasie follows darkning all till then c. 4. Laying then all these Things together how evident is it This whole Matter is of a divine spiritual heavenly Sense and therefore the Words concerning it are to be understood mystically spiritually heavenly however express'd in a Phrase and Language nearest most easie and familiar to Sense by which Sensibleness the Substantialness Reality certain Presence of those Spiritualities is to be understood and yet nothing to be detracted or derogated from the Spirituality and to interpret otherwise is to go contrary to the Rule of all Language and of Scripture-Language particularly and is as mischievous as the worst sort of Allegorizing or Evacuating the sense of the Letter of Scripture where plain historical Things are intended The one is turning Scripture into a spiritual Romance the other is to subvert the whole World of Spirituals to bring in horrible Anthropomorphitism or imagining God to have Eyes Hands Feet c. because Scripture representing the Reality of his divine Action Providence and Government does it in Words and Images we best understand and in a word to bring in rank Hobbianism into the Scripture the Church of God and into this Sacrament as shall be more particularly remark'd under a following
Faculties and of Religion by it and the greatest danger of Idolatry against the Precept of the Apostle Paul upon the very Discourse of the Lord's Supper a Prophecy I am persuaded of Future Danger as well as an Admonition Dearly Beloved viz. Christians flee from Idolatry the Idolatry which 1 Cor. 10. 14. turns the Cup of the Lord and the Table of the Lord into a Cup and Table of what I am afraid to name for the Devil is the Author of all Idolatry It is likewise against the prophetical Farewel of the Apostle John after declaring the True God and Eternal Life Little Children Keep your selves from Idols 1 Ep. John c. ult v. ult When therefore There is so little Gain at the cost of such a miraculous Power suppos'd on God's part of so prodigious a Faith on ours and so great a danger what but a strange Servitude to a Church calling it self Infallible can subject us to such an undesirable Opinion 2. It should raise us to high Thoughts of the Redemption of Christ thus nearly uniting it self to and incorporating it self within us Although it is matter of Faith yet it is so abundantly assur'd to that Faculty of our Minds to Know and to be assur'd to that Faculty of our Minds to Know and to be assur'd by so high a Revelation that if we pursue it by that Power that Faculty sanctified actually to believe in Christ and that we come to live by that Faith of the Son of God it will be even as certain as sensible as Life it self 3. We should lift up our Souls and Hearts to Christ in the Heavens on the Right-hand of God Interceeding for us for there he still eats the Passover and drinks of that very same Fruit of the Vine with us as it is new and fulfill'd in his Fathers Kingdom there he continually applies it to our Hearts as the great Testator and Risen surviving Surety Executor or Mediator of his own Testament 4. It should oblige us to a continual Appretiation and high value of the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper and joyning the Lord's Supper if it could be to every Lord's Day Lordly Supper Lordly Day to which it is coupled in so peculiar and unparallel'd only to themselves a New-Testament-Expression For though it hath a constant and undividable Annexion to that New Testament of which Christ hath made it a visible Sum altho' it is always preach'd with the Gospel and is as it were administred in that Preaching yet because the whole Gospel is present and sensibly preach'd in that Sacrament also we should embrace both within our most conscientious Observation And the very Ordinance it self is undoubtedly the most ordinary means of a superadditional Assurance and Conveyance of the Gospel-Efficacy into our Hearts and therefore by no means to be neglected 5. It persuades us to an earnest Care and Caution against violating the great Ordinances of the Gospel preach'd in both the Word of God and in the Lord's Supper for it is the Offer of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to be Eaten and Drunk and if we neglect and refuse or unworthily partake we are guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord we do not discern and take due notice of the Lord's Body so it becomes a savor of Death unto Death in the Word and of Judgment to Condemnation if we persevere so to do in the Lord's Supper because it is a degree of that great Sin of Apostacy treading under foot the Son of God counting the Blood of the Covenant a common thing doing Injury to the Spirit of Grace Crucifying him a-fresh and putting him to an open Shame And when by the ordinary Profession of Jesus Christ being Born and Baptiz'd into the only Holy Religion in the World Educated in it we are caught in its Net and under the Bond of the Covenant the Gospel is Preach'd to us whether we will or no and the Lord's Supper goes along with it whether we Hear or whether we forbear whether we Receive or whether we forbear we must know we shall know the Gospel in its Preaching in the Lord's Supper inseparable from it hath been among us We are All Baptiz'd in the Cloud and in the Sea of the Gospel Ministry every way surrounding us We All Eat the same spiritual Meat and 1 Cor. 10. 1. Drink the same spiritual Drink and that is Christ. The Bread broken among us the Cup of Blessing bless'd among us encloses us though in regard of Unbelief and Impenitency we Eat and Drink Judgment to our selves and with many of us God is not well pleased and our Carkasses will fall notwithstanding this Manna this Water of the Rock vouchsaf'd to us if we Repent not There is therefore no way of avoiding the Gospel-Penalty but by Receiving the Lord Jesus aright and walking in him No Abatement of our Danger as to the Lord's Supper but by giving no Sleep to our Eyes nor Slumber to our Eye-lids till we have brought our selves into an approved state for it Refusal of the Gospel in its Preaching in the Lord's Supper will not be so Tollerable as Sodom's Judgment There is no Safety any way but in Eating and Drinking Christ so that we may live for ever else we can have no life in us 6. Seeing all the Gospel and Lord's Supper hath such relation to the Last Day to the Table of Christ in his Kingdom in his Glory and to Eating and Drinking then in his Presence let us lift up our Heads our Thoughts our Desires our Prayers to it Although these Ordinances ought to be all our Delights on Earth yet they are but the State below a State of the Delay and Patience of Christ for his Kingdom A shewing forth the Lord's Death till he come Then