our Saviour Instituted this Sacrament was when they had been eating the Passover which was a Feast much of the same Nature among the Jews that this is among Christians that was appointed by God in memory of thier Deliverance when the Angel of God destroyed the First-born of all the Egyptians and this in memory of that much greater Blessing to Christians by the Death and Sufferings of Jesus Christ As therefore the Master of the Family when he distributed the Paschal Lamb was to say This is the Lord 's Passover as being Instituted in memory of the Lord 's passing over the Houses of the Israelites so now being to Institute a new Sacrament for his Church of Christians as that was for the Jews he appoints a memorial of the breaking of his Body and the shedding of his Blood and in the very same figure of Speech that the other was This is my Body or this is the Lord's Body could be no strange form of Speech to them who just before had heard him say This is the Lord's Passever and who had been constantly used to that form of Speech And accordingly we do not find that they were in any difficulty or surprize in the Matter which they could not have avoided if the Words are to be understood just as they sound for it was a Matter more than a little amazing especially to those who never had been used to such sort of Mysteries that their Master should take a piece of Bread in his Hand and with speaking a few Words should make it become without any apparent change that very Body which was then standing before them That he should hold his own Body whole and entire in his own Hand that they should put the same one Body whole and entire into each of their Mouths that they should eat him first and drink him afterwards and yet that he should stand by them untouched all the while besides the very uncouthness and horror of the Institution to eat their Master a Person whom they loved and had reason to love and to drink Human Blood these are things one would think should at least surprize them a little and make them ask some Questions about it for they are indeed strange monstrous Absurdities whereas the sense we give to the Words is natural and easy especially to the Persons to whom they were spoken as being used to such expressions and who had heard the like but just before in a like Case I have this one thing more to add in this Matter That as the Jewish Sacraments were Signs and Representations as well as ours and so were commonly called by the Name of what they represented so the inward Blessings conveyed to them was the same that is conveyed by the Christian Sacraments and therefore the Apostle tells us they did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.3,4 Now here is altogether as plain evidence that the Jews did eat and drink Christ before he was Born as the Christians do since But that is a way of Transubstantiation which those of the Church of Rome don't yet acknowledge and we may conclude that if the Apostle had known any thing of that Doctrine among Christians he would have been more wary in his Expressions and not have weakned the credit of it by using the same sort of Words where nothing of the same thing was meant From hence we may give an account of that large Discourse of our Saviour in the Sixth Chapter of St. John My Flesh is Meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed c. For if he were Meat and Drink to the Jews so long before he was born he might in the same manner be Meat and Drink to them still without the portentous way of putting his Body into their Mouths Christ is said to be a Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World and in the same sense was Meat and Drink to all good People from the Foundation of the World that is the benefits of his Death reach backward even to the beginning of the World though he were put to death several Thousand Years after And they are the Benefits of his Death which are the great Food of Souls that which gives and preserves Life in them as the Life of the Body is kept up by Meat and Drink And this suggests another Consideration That we may know what sort of eating this is if we only consider what sort of Life is kept up by it The eating and drinking of a Body is proper to keep up the Life of a Body but it 's only the inward Grace and Assistance of God that keeps up the Life of a Soul and therefore we then eat and drink for that when we do by Faith or any other method take in that Spiritual nourishment In a Word Our Saviour says He gave his flesh for the life of the World and we may then not improperly be said to eat his Flesh when we receive in that Spiritual Life and Nourishment procured by it And that this is the Sense is apparent from several expressions in that Discourse as in v. 35. And Jesus saith unto them I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst in which words there are Two things which directly contradict this gross sense of eating his very Body First that he alters here the expression of Eating and so explains himself whosoever comes to me and whosoever believes in me which shews that this Blessing comes by Believing in Christ and not by gross carnal Eating Secondly The Blessing it self is such as does not belong to all that only externally receive the Sacrament but to such only as come to Christ with true Faith as may be seen not only in this Verse but every where through that Discourse thus v. 51. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever And v. 53. 54. Verily I say unto you except ye eat the Flesh of he Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you whosoever eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day Which words are very true if understood of the feeding our Souls by the Benefits received from the Body and Blood of Christ but cannot be understood of external eating of him in the Sacrament for very wicked Men often do that according to the Opinion of the Romish Church and are only the worse instead of being the better for it This I believe is abundantly sufficient to shew that the Sense we put upon the Sacramental words This is my Body c. is natural and easie agreeable to the design of a Sacrament and other expressions of the same kind in Scripture and if it be so we need not be solicitous to prove any thing