Selected quad for the lemma: life_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A27625
|
A sermon of the true, spiritual transubstantiation, oppos'd to the gross, carnal, imaginary transubstantiation wherein the true meaning of the Lord's Supper is opened, in order to a constant, habitual and actual preparation to it / by Beverley.
|
Beverley, Thomas.
|
1687
(1687)
|
Wing B2175; ESTC R18401
|
43,861
|
64
|
is not Where is it that true Believers in Jesus Christ have not Right to eat of this Altar And is not this Altar as in a peculiar Institution presented in the Lord's Supper These Spirits may be extended any way conveyed every way not gross Flesh and Blood but these Divine expiatory Extracts of the Body of Jesus Christ extended and applyed by the Divinity the savour of that Offering of that Sacrifice fills Heaven and Earth From the Humane Nature call'd the Body and Flesh and Causality 2 Blood of Jesus Christ united to the Son of God is drawn that common Image Idea and Exemplar to which his Saints are every where Conform'd They are Called Justified and Glorified according to this Image for whom God did foreknow He predestinated to be so Conform'd Rom. 8. 29. This is in all Nature there is a common Idea and Platform of every kind of Being and Life and it is every where as in the Mind and under the Hand and Power of God so that all in whatever parts of the World agree in it each to their kind And whatever is not form'd and shapen according to it is monstrous and mis-shapen So in Christ Jesus is deposited that common universal Image and Idea according to which the New Creature is fram'd and this is God manifested in the Flesh that He might be the First Born among many Brethren And this Image by the Divine Spirit is every where and there is neither Jew nor Gentile Scythian nor Barbarian Bond nor Free but Col. 3. 11. all are one in Christ Jesus Called Justified as Christ was Glorified as He is so shall they be and particularly in the Lord's Supper this Image is so presented that We are all one Bread and one Body by being made partakers of that one 1 Cor. 10. 17. Bread by Faith And this Image is not either a liveless or meer Contemplative Image but it hath a mighty Power and Operation from the Spirit of Jesus Christ to conform and configurate all his Servants to himself That as He was in All Things made like unto his Brethren so his Brethren are to Him And this mutual Assimilation is so close that He dwells in them and they in Him The Humane Nature of Christ hath therefore the Power Causality 3 of an unitive efficient Cause for the Divine Spirit of Christ by the Mediation of his Humanity does unite himself to the Souls of his Servants and so to their Bodies and so conveys his Righteousness in the value of his Blood his Spirit in the power of Holiness that we become Members of his Body his Flesh and his Bone as Eve coming out of Adam and made one flesh with him was Flesh of his Flesh Bone of Eph. 5. 30. his Bone And so we are Branches of this Vine of this Good Rom. 11. 24. Olive who as a common Root beareth us All. So that indeed it comes to this That all the Servants of Christ are as one Christ for as the Body is one and hath many 1 Cor. 12. 12. Members and all the Members of that Body being many are one Body so also is Christ As there are many Members and one Body just so is Christ not Christ in his Person but Christ in all his Members All one Christ So Galat. 3. 16. he saith not Unto Seeds as unto many but as of one To thy Seed which is Christ viz. Christ in his whole Body of Members And we all come in the unity of the Faith of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fullness of Christ Christ full in all his Members And the Apostle to the Colossians calls Jews and Gentiles One new man in Christ and the Church is the fullness of him that fills all in all And thus we are one Body and one Bread Eph. 1. ult This is a great mystery of Christ and the Church but if rightly understood it greatly explains Christ's Words This is my Body for as there are many Incorporations as of political Bodies which are not lost by distance of Place as being Citizens of such a City mystical as the Incorporation of Husband and Wife which is not made void by distance of Place while the Bands of Union hold thus Christ in Heaven by his Spirit unites his Members to him on Earth and his Body in this spiritual sense is every where to be so joyn'd and it does so draw to it self But this Union is yet more nearly express'd by a natural Union viz. by eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood even as the Branches are united to the Vine by being fed by the Vine and sucking from it and so the Members are supplied with Spirits from the Head and if they were not so they would notwithstanding a local Union be disunited as a withered Branch or Member is even so by receiving the saving Effluxes and Communications of Jesus Christ which is an eating of him we dwell in him and he in us And without this we are not united by any outward Professional Duties And this Union shall be most evident in the separated state of Souls made like the Holy separated Soul of Christ or the Spirit of Christ committed into his Fathers Hand and as it were all one Spirit and are therefore as Stephen was receiv'd by him and yet most visible in the Resurrection when the Bodies of his Saints shall be made like his glorious Body because they shall see him as he is for then indeed the 1 John 3. 2. Body of Christ shall have a most natural Presence and Influence on the Bodies of Saints and shall act properly as matter upon matter or as the Sun upon the Moon and Planets about it whose Bodies it illustrates He will present his Church to himself then without spot or wrinkle or any such Phil. 3. 21. thing by that Power that subdues all things to himself That Col. 3. 3 4. Life that is now hid as Christ is hid shall then appear and we shall appear with him in Glory as all one Christ He will then be as a Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God and his Blood in a spiritual sense as a Water of Life And of this the Lord's Supper is the great pledge till He comes and the Sacrament of Eating him so as to live by him and to be raised up by him at the last day when this Union shall fully appear The Humanity of Jesus Christ that is His Body Flesh Causality 4 and Blood as it is arrayed in the Holiness Heavenliness purity of it and in that self-Resignation to the Will of God in suffering and becoming Obedient to Death even to the Death of the Cross in highest love to lost Sinners is present every where in the Gospel every where set forth before our Eyes Evidently Crucified among us Galat. 3. 1. And this hath in all due Reason the force of a strong and mighty Argument to
had blessed the Bread with Thanksgiving and broke it and likewise after Supper Blessing the Cup with Thanksgiving and saying Divide it among your selves and drink ye All of it For This is my Blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in my Blood For when our Lord had settled that great Doctrine of Eating his Flesh John 6. and Drinking his Blood comprehensive of the whole of his Redemption and the saving Application of it by Faith and Love and the entire new Creation Galat. 5. 6. c. 6. 15. it is not at all strange he should establish so great a sacramental Institution upon it For when in so large and Sublime a Discourse and in more Words than he expended upon any one Subject that we find upon Record he had compriz'd the whole Mystery of our Salvation it cannot be surprizing he should adjust to it one of the two and that the most solemn and continual of his positive Laws which we call Sacraments For though it is true Eating and Drinking consider'd as mere sensitive Things and much more when it degenerates into Sensuality a Life of and for Eating and Drinking it is a sordid low and course thing as the Apostle says Meats for the Belly and the Belly for Meats but God shall destroy both it and them and there cannot be a more ignoble Character than of those whose God is their Belly and who serve not the Lord Jesus but their own Bellies a beastly a bruitish Servitude But then taking it as it is by the Wisdom of Providence made the means of the support of the Humane Animal Life in Subordination to the Life of Reason and Religion and is symbolical and significant and also serviceable to many rational Communications and much noble Humanity of Conversation so it may even as the natural Purgation of Water in Baptism be worthy to be transplanted from common use to the highest Significations in Religion and as it had been so dignified in the Old Testament so to be farther ennobled in the New and to bear a sense far above and beyond it self And yet to shew both the Spirituality great use to the highest Life and also the Simplicity of the Gospel Institution it is taken from the most necessary plainest Food in Eating Bread and the most generous thing in Drinking viz. Wine Bread that strengthens and Wine that maketh glad the Heart of Man And the Resemblance stands in these following Particulars between Eating Bread and Drinking Wine and Eating the Body and Drinking the Blood of Jesus Christ. But I shall begin with those Particulars that are as least of Controversie so of least Interest in the main Merits of the Point we are upon and will end in that which is of the grand Concern in this whole matter 1. It is an Eating and Drinking in Pledge of Reconciliation Peace and Friendship with God by Jesus Christ for so eating Bread and drinking Wine is in Scripture and by the general Impression of Providence upon Mankind ordain'd as Joseph's Brethren in token of extraordinary Favour were to eat Bread with him and it is said of the Nobles of Israel Gen. 43. 25. They saw God and he laid not his hand of viz. of Displeasure upon them They saw him and did eat and drink in Exod. 24. 11. token of Peace and especially this is a Feast upon a Sacrifice a Sin-offering become a Peace-offering of which the Jews that serve the Altar have no Right to eat because their Heb. 13. 10. Sin-offerings of greatest expiatory Account yet as not able to purge off the imputative Guilt laid upon them were burnt without the Camp But Christ though he suffer'd without the Camp yet consuming the Guilt and fully expiating it his Body as sacrific'd becomes an Altar of Peace-offerings to the true Christian although to the Jews an Offering only to Justice not conquering the Guilt but as a Malefactor dying in his own Blood but the true Believer feasts upon it after he is sanctified atton'd reconcil'd and purified by the Blood of it It is a Feast upon the Paschal Lamb in assurance against the destroying Angel the Blood being sprinkled by way of 1 Cor. 5. 7 8. Expiation and the Flesh eaten in the way of a holy Festival Rejoycing and Thanksgiving So that though eating the Flesh of Christ carries a broad Signification of the great Evil and Horror of Sin and of the dreadful way of Reconciliation looking so unnatural as the eating of the Flesh and the drinking the Blood of our Saviour does yet by the great attoning vertue of this Sacrifice it becomes a Feast of Joy and Peace 2. This Act is a solemn Act of Worship of God and Christ We eat thus and worship It is an Acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as our Saviour Lord and Master as all eating upon Sacrifices was an Acknowledgment of the God of the Sacrifice and seeing our Mediator is our Sacrifice of whom it is testified He lives for ever and we are to live to him it is an Acknowledgment of him our Saviour and so it requires Reverence and Godly Fear it calls for Self-probation even to Approbation or Approvizing our selves that so we may eat and not otherwise To eat and drink in a way worthy or becoming the Holy Body and Blood we seed upon to discern that Body of the Lord or to make a difference and discrimination betwixt it and all other Bread by spiritual holy Action and to carry from it such Obligations as by no means to partake of the Table or drink the Cup of Devils This is the solemn Worship of Eating and Drinking before God 3. Eating and Drinking is made a Symbol of Eternal Glory for so Christ expresses Eternal Glory by Eating and Luc. 22. 30. Matt. 8. 11. Drinking at his Table in his Kingdom By sitting down with Abraham with Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And this is the Reason Christ in that great Sixth of John so often enterweaves with that Discourse of Eating Raising up at the last day because then shall the full effect of the Union to the Body of Christ be seen when all his Members shall indeed be seen as One Christ in Glory Their Bodies shall be fashioned like his Glorious Body It does not yet appear what we shall be but when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is He will then present us faultless before the Presence of his Glory And all this from the Power of Union to himself through the eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood So that Life Eternal Life Living for ever Never dying Raising up at the last Day Having no Life if we do not eat the Flesh of Christ and drink his Blood are in that Discourse sixteen Times mention'd to shew how close the Relation is betwixt eating the Flesh of Christ and drinking his Blood and Eternal Life So that the Apostle Peter sums up all the Discourse in the Words of