intent of such a sacrificiall Covenant the Apostle speakes Heb. 10. Now further to finish this Branch let this be added That Christ was not simply offered up as a sacrifice to confirme a meere or bare league of peace and amity betweene us sometimes such sacrifices afore spoken of were designed onely to make and bind new Leagues and Covenants betweene such parties as never had beene at variance But here in this case of ours as there was a Covenant of amity to be strucke so there were enmities to be abolisht and slaine as the text hath it and that by this sacrifice and slaying of his flesh which cannot be conceived otherwise to have beene transacted but that as in other sacrifices offered up the trespasses were laid upon the head of the sacrifice and so in a significant mystery slaine and done away in the death of the thing sacrificed And that as in that other way of reconciling us to God The Lord did lay upon him the iniquities of us all namely against himselfe as Isay speakes in allusion unto the rites and the signification therof in those sacrifices to which this text simularly speakes when it saies He slew the enmity in himselfe v. 16. So answerably it was in this which is its parallel All the enmities and mutuall injuries and feuds between us the people of God were all laid upon him and he tooke them in his flesh and in slaying thereof slew these also and abolisht them that so he might reconcile them in one body And so the same nailes that pierced through his hands and feet did naile all our enmities and the causes and occasions of them to the same Crosse as 2 Coloss. insinuates So as we are to looke upon Jesus Christ hanging on the Crosse as an equall Arbiter betweene both parties that takes upon himselfe whatever either partie hath against the other Lo here I hang saies Christ a dying and let the reproaches wherewith you reproach each other fall on me The sting of them all fix it selfe on my flesh and in my death dye all together with me lo I dye to pacific both Have therefore any of you ought against each other Quit them and take me as a sacrifice in bloud betweene you onely doe not kill me and each other too for the same offence for you and your enmities have brought me to this altar of the Crosse and I offer my selfe as your peace and as your Priest will you kill me first and then one another too And thus if taking all your sinnes against God himselfe upon his flesh and sacrificing it for you is of prevalency to kill and slay that enmity much more is it of force to kill these your enmities also Thus like as by assuming the likenesse of sinfull flesh he killed the sinne in our flesh so by taking these our enmities and animosities in his flesh he slew and abolisht them and as his death was the death of death so of these And like as he cured diseases by taking them on himselfe by sympathy 't is said of him when his healing of them is recorded Himselfe tooke our infirmities and bare our sicknesses And as not our sinnes against God onely but our sicknesses by sympathy so not our enmities against God onely but our animosities one against another and by bearing them abolisht them by dying as an Arbiter betweene us slew them and therefore in the text he is called our peace not our peacemaker onely when this peace amongst our selves is spoken of to note out as Musculus observes that he was not onely efficiently our peacemaker the Author of our peace but our peace materially the matter of our peace by the sacrifice of himselfe God is stiled our peacemaker our reconciler God was in Christ reconciling the world but not our peace this is proper to Christ and why but because he onely was the sacrifice of our peace and bore our enmities Even as he is not only called the Redeemer so God also is but redemption it selfe Now for a coronis to this first Branch and withall to adde a further confirmation yet that Christs death was intended as a sacrifice to these ends for amity and unity among Gods people we may clearly view and behold this truth in the Mirrour of the Lords Supper One most genuine and primary import whereof and end of the institution of it being this very thing in hand I shall have recourse thereto againe in the next Branch also upon the same account that now The Lords Supper in its full and proper scope is as you know a solemne commemoration of Christs death offered up upon the Crosse or if you will in the Apostles owne words it is a shewing forth his death till he comes And doe this sayes Christ in remembrance of me namely in dying for you and so withall to commemorate with application to themselves the principall ends and intendments of that his death which is therein acted over afore their eyes Hence therefore I take this as an undoubted maxime which no knowing Christian will deny and it s the foundation of what I am now a building That looke what principall ends purposes or intendments this Supper or sacrificiall feast holds forth in its institution unto us those must needs be lookt at by all Christians in the like proportion to have been the maine ends and purposes of his death to be remembred So that we may argue mutually from what were the ends of Christs death unto what must needs be the designed intendments of this Sacrament And we may as certainly conclude and inferre to our selves what were the intendments of his death by what are the genuine ends of that Sacrament These answer each to other as the image in the glasse doth to the principall lineaments in the face the impresse on the wax to that in the scale the action the signe and remembrances to the thing signified and to be remembred Now it is evident that Christ upon his death instituted that Supper As to be a seale of that Covenant of Grace betweene God and us ratified thereby so also to be a communion the highest outward pledge ratification and testimony of love and amity among his members themselves And accordingly it being in the common nature of it a feast looke as betweene God and us it was ordained to be epulum foederale a Covenant feast betweene him and us the evidence whereof lyes in this That he invites us to his table as friends and as those he is at peace withall and reconciled unto So in like manner betweene the Saints themselves it was as evidently ordained to be a Syntaxis a love feast in that they eate and drinke together at one and the same table and so become as the Apostle saies ONE BREAD And againe looke as betweene God and us to shew that the procurement of this peace and reconciliation betweene him and us was this very sacrifice of Christs death as that which made our peace God
therefore invites us post sacrificium oblatum after the sacrifice offered up to eate of the symboles of it that is of Bread and Wine which are the signes and symboles of his body and bloud sacrificed for peace So in like manner doth this hold as to the peace betweene our selves And we may infer that we were through the offering up thereof reconciled one to another and all mutuall enmities slaine and done away thereby in that we eate together thereof in a communion which was a sacrifice once offered but now feasted upon together And doth shew that Christians of all professions or relations of men have the strongest obligations unto mutuall love and charity For the bread broken and the cup are the symboles of their Saviours body and bloud once made a sacrifice and therefore they eating thereof together as of a feast after a sacrifice doe shew forth this Union and Agreement to have been the avowed purchase and impretation of the body and bloud so sacrificed There was a controversie of late yeares fomented by some through Popish complyances That the Lords Supper might be stiled a Sacrifice the Table an Altar which produced in the discussion of it as all controversies doe in the issue some further truth the discovery of this true decision of it That it was not a sacrifice but a feast after and upon Christs sacrificing of himselfe Participatio sacrificii as Tertullian calls it a sacrificiall feast commemorating and confirming all those ends for which the onely true and proper sacrifice of Christ was offered up and so this feast a visible ratification of all such ends whereof this is Evidently One III. SECTION A Digression shewing 1. That Eating and Drinking together Especially upon and after a pacificatory Sacrifice was a farther confirmation of Mutuall peace both among Jewes and Gentiles And 2. That the Eating the Lords Supper hath the same intent and accord thereunto The Harmony of all these notions together NOw therefore to draw all these lines into one center and to make the harmony and consent of all these notions the more full and together therewith to render the harmony more compleat betweene the Lords death and its being intended as a sacrifice to procure this peace and the Lords Supper as a feast after this sacrifice holding forth this very thing as purchased thereby and so further to confirme all this looke as before I shewed as in relation to the demonstration that Christs death was intended as a sacrifice for such a peace that that was one end and use of sacrifices both among Jewes and Gentiles to found and create Leagues of amity between man and man so it is proper and requisite for me now to make another like digression as in relation to this notion of the Lords Supper to shew how that also by eating and feasting together especially after or upon such a kind of sacrifice these Leagues of Love were anciently used to be further confirmed and ratified that so it may appeare that as according to the analogy of such sacrifices Christs death was a sacrifice directed and intended to that end so also that according to the analogy of such feasting in and upon sacrifices this eating and feasting together upon the symboles of that sacrifice by believers is as genuinely intended a scale of this reconciliation amongst them and that in a due correspondency and answerablenesse to the genuine intent of that sacrifice it selfe as that which had purchased and procured it I might be as large in this as in the former When after a grudge and enmity past betweene Laban and Jacob Laban to bury all things betweene them would enter into a Covenant of peace Come sayes he Gen. 31. 44. let us make a Covenant I and thou and that by a signe for he addes let it be a witnesse betweene thee and me Now what was that signe and witnesse in the 46. 't is said They tooke stones and made an heape and did EATE THERE and v. 54. after an Oath passed v. 53. Jacob offered a sacrifice on the Mount and called his Brethren or Kinsmen to eate bread and early in the morning Laban departed The like did Isaac with Abimelech Gen. 26. 28. David with Abner 2 Sam. 3. 20. I single forth chiefly those two 1. Because the parties that used and agreed in this signall rite were the one Jewes as Isaac and Jacob the other Gentiles as Abimilech and Laban to shew at once that this way of convenanting was common to them both as the former by sacrificing was also shewn to be * And further that this rite of eating together the Gentiles themselves did use especially after such sacrifices as were federall unto this intent that by that superadded custome of eating together upon or after sacrificing they might the more ratifie and confirme such Covenants first made and begun by sacrificing This seemes to me to be the intendment Exod. 34. 15. Lest thou make a Covenant God speakes it to the Jew with the Inhabitants of the Land and thou goe a whoring after their Gods and doe Sacrifice unto their Gods and one call thee and thou eate of their Sacrifices namely upon pretence of confirming that Covenant which having first been contracted and agreed on they might further be drawn on to Sacrifice and so eate of the Sacrifices also with those Heathens in token of confirming such a league as was the known common manner and custome of each to doe Yea and those that were more barbarous and inhumane among the Gentiles when they would put the more binding force into their Covenants or some such more solemne conspiracy they used to sacrifice a man a slave suppose and eate His Flesh and drinke His Bloud together which because they judged the more stupendious they judged would carry with it the deepest and more binding obligation Thus wee read in Plutarch Those Roman Gallants entring into a Covenant dranke the bloud of a man whom first as a Sacrifice they had killed And the same Plutarch sayes of another company those conspirators with Catiline that they Sacrificed a man and did eate His Flesh So to bind and unite each other more firmely to stick fast and close together in so great an undertaking by the most sure and firmest way that their Religion could invent And Psal. 16. 4. makes an expresse mention of such among the Heathens terming them Their drinke offerings of blood See also EZek. 39. 17 18 19. Men and Nations lesse barbarous tooke WINE instead of bloud to confirme their leagues after Sacrifices it being the likest and neerest unto bloud the bloud of the Grape Now then to bring all this home to the point in hand Christ our Passeover and so our Sacrifice for us having been slayn and offred up for our mutuall peace hath instituted and ordained us Believers to keepe this feast It is the Apostles own allusion agreeing with and founded on the notion we have been prosecuting and that to this end That by
order and station againe And if the now scattered Jewes must one day come together and make one body againe because those dry bones the Umbrae the ghastly Shadowes of them were seene once to meet in Ezekiels vision how much more shall the Elect coalesce in one New man because they once met in him that is the body and not the shadow If those Jewes must meet that the prophecy the vision might be fulfilled these must much move that the end of his death and his hanging on the tree may be fulfilled in whom all visions and promises have their Amen and accomplishment As in his death so in his resurrection also they are considered as one body with him Isay 26. 19. Together with my dead body they shall arise sayes Christ and both in death and resurrection one body to the end they may be presented together in one body all at last Coloss. 1. 22. and in the meane time in the efficacy of these forehand meetings are they to be created into one new man v. 15. and that even {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ONE individuall man Gal. 3. ult. not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} one bulke body or thing onely This one new man which they are to grow up into answereth exactly to that one body which was then gathered together represented and met in him on the Crosse bearing the image of it and wrought by the vertue of it The second is that if such a force and efficacy flowes from their having met once as One Body then much more from this which the text addes that they WERE RECONCILED TO GOD in that one Body This clause In one Body was on purpose inserted together with their RECONCILIATION TO GOD to shew that they were no otherwise esteemed or lookt at by God as reconciled to him but as under that representation view and respect had of them as then by him that so dum sociaret Deo sociavit inter se their reconciliation with God was not considered nor wrought onely apart singly man by man though Christ bore all their names too but the tearmes were such unlesse all were and that as in one body and community together among themselves reputed reconciled the whole reconciliation and of no one person unto God should be accounted valid with him So as their very peace with God was not onely never severed from but not considered nor effected nor of force without the consideration of their being one each with other in Christ Insomuch as upon the law and tenour of this Originall act thus past God might according to the true intent thereof yea and would renounce their reconciliation with himselfe if not to be succeeded with this reconciliation of theirs mutually And allthough this latter doth in respect of execution and accomplishment succeed the other in time the Saints they doe not all presently agree and come together as one body yet in the originall enacting and first founding of reconciliation by Christ these were thus on purpose by God interwoven and indented the one in the other and the termes and tenure of each enterchangeably wrought into and moulded in one and the same fundamentall Charter and Law of reconciliation mutuall then which nothing could have been made more strong and binding or sure to have effect in dne time VI SECTION This Reconciliation of the Saints to God considered as in One Body Held likewise forth in the Administration of the Lords Supper And one eminent foundation of the institution of fixed Church Communion hinted Herein THe impresse and resemblance of this namely Christs Reconciling us to God in one Body wee may likewise perceive And I shall mention it the rather to make the harmony of this with all the former still more full in the administration of the Lords Supper in which we may view this truth also as wehave done the other That Supper being ordeined to shew forth his death looke as he dyed so it represents it As therefore Christ was sacrificed representing the Generall assembly of Saints so in one body reconciled them to God so this Supper was ordeined in the regular administration of it to hold forth the image of this as neer as possible such an ordinance could be supposed to have done it For answerably the seate the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of it is a Communion of many Saints met together in one Body And not otherwise Thus 1 Cor. 10. 17. For we being many are òne bread and ONE BODY He had said v. 16. That the Lords Supper it was the Communion of the body of Christ c. that is a Communion of Christs Body as to each so as of a company united together among themselves and accordingly the Apostle subjoynes this as the reason For we whom you see doe ordinarily partake of it are many not one or two apart and those many are one bread and one body One bread as the signe One Body as the thing signified And thus we are then considered to be when Christ as dying is communicated by us For to shew forth His Death is the end of this Sacrament The seate therefore or subject of partaking in this Communion of Christs Body and Bloud and which is ordained for the publique participation of it is not either single Christians but a many nor those meeting as a fluid company like clouds uncertainly or as men at an ordinary for running Sacraments as some would have them but fixed setledly as incorporated Bodyes Which institution having for its subject such a society as then when Christs Death is to be shewne forth doth suitably and correspondently set forth how that the whole Church the Image of which whole Universall Church these particular Churches doe beare as a late Commentator hath observed upon that plaee was represented in and by Christ dying for us under this consideration of being One Body then in Him And there is this ground for it that the whole of that Ordinance was intended to represent the whole of his Death and the imports of it as farre as was possible So then looke as the Death it selfe and his bitter Passion are represented therein both of Body in the breaking the Bread which is the Communion of his Body of the Soule in the Wine which is called the Communion of his Bloud and this is the bloud of the New Testament so expressed in allusion to that of the Old in which the bloud was chosen out as the neerest visible representer of the invisible Soule that could be The life lies in the bloud for the spirits which are the animal life doe run in it so spake the old Law and the Poet the same Sanguine quaerendi reditus animâque litandum He termes the Sacrifice of the bloud the Sacrifice of the Soule and so Wine was chosen as the neerest resemblance of bloud being also the bloud of the Grape As thus the death it selfe in all the parts of it so the
SUBJECT for which hee dyed His Body and that under that very consideration He died for them as one Body is in like manner as visibly and plainly held forth Every particular Church bearing by institution the image of the whole Church as therein it hath also all the priviledges of it fitly shewing forth thereby not onely that Christ died for them singly and a part considered which yet is therewith held forth here in that each personally doth partake thereof That might have been sufficiently evidenced if every person or family apart had been warranted to have received and eaten this sacrificiall feast alone as they did the Passeover and the Sacrifices Lent 7. 18. but the institution is for many which very word Christ mentions in the institution This is the bloud of the new Testament shed for many which word I believe the Apostle had aney unto when he sayd We being many are partakers c. Christ indeed principally aimed therein to shew that his intent in dying was for a multitud of mankinde the whole body of his Elect yet because he inserts the mention hereof at the delivery of those Elements and that the ordinance it selfe was suited to hold forth this intent The Apostle takes the hint of it and adds this glosse and construction upon it as glaunced at in it that according to the institution and import of this Ordinance the partakers hereof are to be a many not one or two alone and these united into one Body to the end that thereby may be held forth this great intendment in His death That he died for the many of His Church as one collective body This however wee are sure of that this way of partaking this Supper as in one Body was to the Apostle a matter of that moment That we find him bitterly inveighing in the next Chapter that the same individuall Church of Corinth when they came together in one for that and other Ordinances should of all Ordinances else not receive this Ordinance together in such a community but perverting that order should even in that place appointed for the meetings of the whole Church divide themselves into private severall companies and so make this as a private Supper which in the nature and intendment of the institution of it was to be a Communion of the whole Church or body together Insomuch as he sayes This is not to eate the Lords Supper for in eating namely this Sacramentall Supper every one takes before others perhaps do come His own Supper together with the Lords so maketh it as a private colation or as {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} wherefore my brethren when you come together to eate that Supper tarry one for another to make a full meeting of the whole body and as for other Suppers every man is at liberty to take them at home as he pleaseth v. 34. The Apostle is thus zealous in it as he had reason because hereby is shewne forth one principall mystery in Christs death for from this at least upon occasion of this particular as well as any other doth the Apostle utter this great maxime yea shew forth His death till he comes v. 26. Of such moment in their import and significancy are things thus small and meane in the eyes of some that yet are full of Mystery in Christs intendment And thus much for the Second Head FINIS v. 14. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} V. 15. V. 16. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} v. 14 15. v. 15. v. 16. * {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} magisquidpiam quaÌ„ {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} occidere significat occidere cum saevitiâ Beza Mat. 10. 28 Ezek. 25. 15. Lib. 14. Satyr * The word signifies both wormes circumcised Deut. 7. 11. Hispanus * 1 Serm. sat 5. †L. 7. * Sat. 5. * Malvenda hom de Antichristo c. 3. †Barn An 72. c. 31. Am mian de Marco lib. 11. Ibid. Diod. 1. 5. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} * Cicero pro Flacco Liquet quod apud Israclitas faedera partim epulis partim Sacrificiis inita fuisse sancita Vide Rivet in Gen. 31. Exercit. 135. Caput medium prior pars ad dextram posterior ad Laevam viae pariter inter hanc divisam hostiam copiae armatae traducuntur Liv. L. 39. The Latin Foedus à feriendo and hence percutere elicere faedus to strike a Covenant with us Thus Sanctio à sanguine which that of Tacitus confirmes Sacrificiis conspiratio sancitur agreements and combinations had their sanction and confirmation by Sacrifices and faedus cruore sacratum lib. Annal. 12. Psal. 22. a Edendo censebantur ipsius sacrificii tanquam pro ipsis oblati fieri participes Est in loc. b Christus vult in se credentes participes fieri ejus sacrificii plane quasi ipsi hoc sacrificium obtulissent quia oblatum ab eo qui naturam eorum susceperat Rom. 8. 1 Cor. 15. * Some instances have been collected by Mr. Meade Diatr 2. part upon Mal. 1. 11. as also by R. C. after him Grotius Rivetus of the customes of severall Nations antient and modern to shew eating and drinking together to have been intended testimonies and ratifications of amity I only shall cast in one from the custome of the East-Indians as in the stories of whom there are found as well as in other Eastern Nations to this day many footsteps of like customes to the Jewes of old Sir Th. Roe Ambassador there in his journall observations relates how he was invited by one of the great ones of the Court to a Banquet with this very expression simular to those which those Authors alledge as in use among other Nations We will eate bread and salt together to scale a friendship which I desire Purchas Pilgri 1 Part. p. 348. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 1 Cor. 10. Scipio Jovis epulo cuÌ„ Graccho Concordiam Communicavit Vale Max. lib. 6. c. 2. Bullinger Zanchius Beza Groius Crocius Omnes qui eidem mensae sacrae paâ—iter accumbimus unam facimus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quae {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} totius Ecclesiae gerit imaginem Grot. 1 Cor. 10. 17. Virg. 11. Aen.