given either to Superstition or Irreverence And for the Sick or the Prisoners we think it is a greater Mean to quicken their Devotion as well as it is a closer adhering to the Words of the Institution to Consecrate in their Presence for tho' we can bear with the practice of the Greek Church of reserving and sending about the Eucharist when there is no Idolatry joyned with it yet we cannot but think that this is the continuance of a practice which the state of the first Ages introduced and that was afterwards kept up out of a too scrupulous imitation of that time without considering that the difference of the state of the Christians in the former and in the succeeding Ages made that what was at first innocently practised since a real necessity may well excuse a want of exactness in some matters that are only positive became afterwards an occasion of much Superstition and in conclusion ended in Idolatry Those ill effects that it had are more than is necessary to justifie our practice in reducing this strictly to the first Institution As for the lifting up of the Eucharist there is not a word of it in the Gospel nor is it mentioned by St. Paul Neither Iustin Martyr nor Cyril of Ierusalem speak of it there is nothing concerning it neither in the Constitutions nor in the Areopagite In those first Ages all the Elevation that is spoken of is the lifting up their Hearts to God The Elevation of the Sacrament began to be practised in the Sixth Century for it is mentioned in the Liturgy called St. Chrysostome's but believed to be much latter than his time â—erm Const. in Theor. Tit. 12. Bibl. patr Ivo Carn Ep. de Sacr Missae T. 2. Bibl. pat German a Writer of the Greek Church of the Thirteenth Century is the first that descants upon it he speaks not of it as done in order to the Adoration of it but makes it to represent both Christ's being lifted up on the Cross and also his Resurrection Ivo of Chartres who lived in the end of the 11 th Century is the first of all the Latins that speaks of it but then it was not commonly practised for the Author of the Micrologus tho' he writ at the same time yet does not mention it who yet is very minute upon all particulars relating to this Sacrament Nor does Ivo speak of it as done in order to Adoration but only as a form of shewing it to the People Dur. Rat. div offic lib. 4. de Sexta parte Can. Durand a Writer of the 13 th Century is the first that speaks of the Elevation as done in order to the Adoration So it appears that our Church by cutting off these Abuses has restored this Sacrament to its Primitive Simplicity according to the Institution and the practice of the first Ages ARTICLE XXIX Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the Use of the Lord's-Supper The wicked and such as be void of a lively Faith altho they do carnally and visibly press with their Teeth as St. Austin saith the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing THIS Article arises naturally out of the Former and depends upon it For if Christ's Body is corporally present in the Sacrament then all Persons good or bad who receive the Sacrament do also receive Christ On the other hand if Christ is Present only in a Spiritual Manner and if the Mean that receives Christ is Faith then such as believe not do not receive him So that to prove that the Wicked do not receive Christ's Body and Blood is upon the Matter the same thing with the proving that he is not corporally Present And it is a very considerable Branch of our Argument by which we prove that the Fathers did not believe the corporal Presence because they do very often say That the Wicked do not receive Christ in the Sacrament Here the same distinction is to be made that was mentioned upon the Article of Baptism The Sacraments are to be considered either as they are Acts of Church-Communion or as they are federal Acts by which we enter into Covenant with God With respect to the Former the visible Profession that is made and the Action that is done are all that can fall under human cognisance So a Sacrament must be held to be good and valid when as to outward appearance all things are done according to the Institution But as to the internal Effect and Benefit of it that turns upon the Truth of the Profession that is made and the sincerity of those Acts which do accompany it For if these are not seriously and sincerely performed God is dishonoured and his Institution is prophaned Our Saviour has expresly said that whosoever eats his Flesh and drinks his Blood has eternal Life From thence we conclude that no Man does truly receive Christ who does not at the same time receive with him both a Right to eternal Life and likewise the beginnings and earnests of it The Sacrament being a federal Act he who dishonours God and prophanes this Institution by receiving it unworthily becomes highly guilty before God and draws down Judgments upon himself And as it is confessed on all hands that the inward and spiritual Effects of the Sacrament depend upon the State and Disposition of him that Communicates so we who own no other Presence but an inward and spiritual one cannot conceive that the Wicked who believe not in Christ do receive him In this Point several of the Fathers have delivered themselves very plainly Origen says Christ is the true Food whosoever eats him shall live for ever of whom no wicked Person can eat Comment in Matth. c. 15. for if it were possible that any who continues Wicked should eat the Word that was made Flesh it had never been written Whoso eats this Bread shall live for ever This comes after a Discourse of the Sacrament which he calls the typical and symbolical Body and so it can only belong to it In another place he says The Good eat the living Bread which came down from Heaven but the Wicked eat dead Bread which is Death Tom. â— Spiâ—il Sacr. d' Achâ—ry Zeno Bishop of Verona who is believed to have lived near Origen's time has these words There is cause to fear that he in whom the Devil dwells does not eat the Flesh of our Lord nor drink his Blood though he seems to communicate with the Faithful since our Lord has said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood dwells in me and I in him St. Ierom says They that are not Holy in Body and Spirit do neither eat the Flesh of Iesus nor drink his Blood In cap. 66. Isaiae of which he said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood hath eternal Life Tract
is to be believed  Pr. so also is it to be believed Art 4. MS. Christ did truly arise again  Pr. Christ did truly rise again  MS. until he return to judge all men at the last day  Pr. until he return to judge men at the last day Art 6. MS. to be believed as an Article of the Faith  Pr. to be believed as an Article of Faith  MS. requisite as necessary to Salvation  Pr. requisite or necessary to Salvation  MS. In the name of holy Scripture  Pr. In the name of the holy Scripture  MS. but yet doth it not apply  Pr. but yet doth not apply  MS. Baruch  Pr. Baruch the Prophet  MS. and account them for Canonical  Pr. and account them Canonical Art 8. MS. by most certain warranties of Holy Scripture  Pr. by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture Art 9. MS. but it is the fault  Pr. but is the fault  MS. whereby man is very far gone from his original righteousness  Pr. whereby man is far gone from original righteousness  MS. in them that be regenerated  Pr. in them that are regenerated Art De Gratia non habetur in MS. Art 10. MS. a good will and working in us  Pr. a good will and working with us Art 14. MS. cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety  Pr. cannot be taught without arrogancy and iniquity  MS. we be unprofitable Servants  Pr. we are unprofitable Servants Art 15. MS. sin only except  Pr. sin only excepted MS. to be the Lamb without spot  Pr. to be a Lamb without spot  MS. but we the rest although baptized and born again in Christ yet we all offend  Pr. but all we the rest although baptized and if born in Christ yet offend Art De Blasphemia in Sp. Sanct. non est in MS. Art 16. MS. wherefore the place for Penitence  Pr. wherefore the grant of Repentance Art 17. MS. so excellent a benefit of God given unto them be called according  Pr. so excellent a benefit of God be called according  MS. as because it doth fervently kindle their love  Pr. as because it doth frequently kindle their love Art Omnes Obligantur c. non est in MS. Art 18. MS. to frame his life according to the Law and the light of Nature  Pr. to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature Art 19. MS. congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word  Pr. congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word Art 20. MS. The Church hath Power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of Faith And yet   These words are not in the Original MS.  MS. ought it not to enforce any thing  Pr. it ought not to enforce any thing Art 21. MS. and when they be gathered together forasmuch  Pr. and when they be gathered forasmuch Art 22. MS. is a fond thing vainly invented  Pr. is a fond thing vainly feigned Art 24. MS. in a Tongue not understanded of the People  Pr. in a Tongue not understood of the People Art 25. MS. and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us  Pr. and effectual signs of grace and God's will towards us  MS. and extream annoyling  Pr. and extream unction Art 26. MS. in their own name but do minister by Christ's Commission and authority  Pr. in their own name but in Christ's and do minister by his Commission and authority  MS. and in the receiving of the Sacraments  Pr. and in the receiving the Sacraments MS. and rightly receive the Sacraments  Pr. and rightly do receive the Sacraments Art 27. MS. from others that be not christned but is also a sign  Pr. from others that be not christned but it is also a sign  MS. forgiveness of sin and of our adoption  Pr. forgiveness of sin of our adoption Art 28. MS. to have amongst themselves  Pr. to have among themselves  MS. the bread which we break is a partaking Communion of the body of Christ.  Pr. the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Thrist  MS. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking Communion of the blood of Christ.  Pr. and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.  MS. or the change of the Substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood cannot be proved by holy Writ but is repugnant  Pr. or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy Writ but it is repugnant  MS. but the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  Pr. and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received  MS. lifted up or worshipped  Pr. lifted up and worshipped Art 31. MS. is the perfect redemption  Pr. is that perfect redemption  MS. to have remission of pain or guilt were forged Fables  Pr. to have remission of pain and guilt were blasphemous Fables Art 33. MS. that hath authority thereto  Pr. that hath authority thereunto Art 34. MS. diversity of countries times and mens manners  Pr. diversity of countries and mens manners  MS. and be ordained and appointed by common autority  Pr. and be ordained and approved by common authority  MS. the consciences of the weak brethren  Pr. the consciences of weak brethren Art 35. MS. of Homilies the Titles whereof we have joined under this Article do contain  Pr. of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain  MS. wholesome Doctrine and necessary for this time as doth the former book which was set forth  Pr. wholesome Doctrine necessary for these times as doth the former book of Homilies which were set forth MS. and therefore are to be read in our Churches by the Ministers diligently plainly and distinctly that they may be understanded of the people  Pr. and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the people  MS. ministred in a tongue known  Pr. ministred in a known tongue Art De Libro Precationum c. non est in MS. Art 36. MS. in the time of the most noble K. Edward the Sixth  Pr. in the time of Edward the Sixth  MS. superstitious or ungodly  Pr. superstitious and ungodly Art 37. MS. whether they be Ecclesiastical or not  Pr. whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil  MS. the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended  Pr. the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended  MS. we give not to our Princes  Pr. we give not our Princes  MS. or of Sacraments  Pr. or of the
among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's Death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. Transubstantiation or the change of the Substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be Proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner and the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and Worshipped In the Edition of these Articles in Edward the VIth's Reign there was another long Paragraph against Transubstantiation added in these words Forasmuch as the Truth of Man's Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one time in divers places but must needs be in one certain place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places And because as Holy Scripture doth teach Christ was taken up into Heaven and there shall continue unto the end of the World a Faithful Man ought not either to Believe or openly Confess the Real and Bodily Presence as they term it of Christ's Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper WHEN these Articles were at first prepared by the Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign this Paragraph was made a part of them for the Original Subscription by both Houses of Convocation yet extant shews this But the design of the Government was at that time much turned to the drawing over the Body of the Nation to the Reformation in whom the old Leven had gone deep and no part of it deeper than the belief of the Corporeal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a Definition in this matter in which the very word Real Presence was rejected It might perhaps be also suggested that here a Definition was made that went too much upon the Principles of Natural Philosophy which how true soever they might not be the proper subject of an Article of Religion Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this Paragraph though it was a part of the Article that was Subscribed yet it was not published but the Paragraph that follows The Body of Christ c. was put in its stead and was received and published by the next Convocation which upon the matter was a full Explanation of the way of Christ's Presence in this Sacrament that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that Faith is the mean by which he is received This seemed to be more Theological and it does indeed amount to the same thing But howsoever we see what was the Sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's Time And therefore though this Paragraph is now no Part of our Articles yet we are certain that the Clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the Truth of it we are sure it was their Opinion Since they subscribed it though they did not think fit to publish it at first and though it was afterwards changed for another that was the same in Sense In the treating of this Article I shall first lay down the Doctrine of this Church with the Grounds of it and then I shall examine the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which must be done copiously For next to the Doctrine of Infallibility this is the most valued of all their other Tenets this is the most Important in it self since it is the main Part of their Worship and the chief Subject of all their Devotions There is not any one thing in which both Clergy and Laity are more concerned which is more generally studied and for which they pretend they have more plausible Colours both from Scripture and the Fathers and if Sense and Reason seem to press hard upon it they reckon that as they understand the Words of St. Paul every thought must be captivated into the obedience of Faith 2 Cor. 10.5 In order to the expounding our Doctrine we must consider the Occasion and the Institution of this Sacrament The Iews were required once a Year to meet at Ierusalem in remembrance of the deliverance of their Fathers out of Egypt Exod. 12.11 Moses appointed that every Family should kill a Lamb whose Blood was to be sprinkled on their Door-posts and Lintels and whose Flesh they were to eat at the sight of which Blood thus sprinkled the destroying Angel that was to be sent out to kill the First-born of every Family in Egypt was to pass over all the Houses that were so marked And from that passing by or over the Israelites the Lamb was called the Lord's passover as being then the Sacrifice and afterwards the Memorial of that Passover The People of Israel were required to keep up the Memorial of that Transaction by slaying a Lamb before the Place where God should set his Name and by eating it up that Night They were also to eat with it a Sallet of bitter Herbs and unleavened Bread and when they went to eat of the Lamb they repeated these Words of Moses That it was the Lord's Passover Now tho' the first Lamb that was killed in Egypt was indeed the Sacrifice upon which God promised to pass over their Houses yet the Lambs that were afterwards offered were only the Memorials of it though they still carried that Name which was given to the First And were called the Lord's Passover So that the Iews were in the Paschal-Supper accustomed to call the Memorial of a thing by the Name of that of which it was the Memorial And as the Deliverance out of Egypt was a Type and Representation of that greater Deliverance that we were to have by the Messias the first Lamb being the Sacrifice of that Deliverance 1 Cor. 5.7 John 1.29 Compare Matt. 26.26 Mark 14.22 and the succeeding Lambs the Memorials of it so in order to this new and greater Deliverance Christ himself was our Passover that was sacrificed for us He was the Lamb of God that was both to take away the Sins of the World and was to lead Captivity Captive To bring us out of the Bondage of Sin and Satan into the Obedience of his Gospel He therefore chose the time of the Passover that he might be then offered up for us And did Institute this Memorial of it while he was celebrating the Iewish Pascha with his Disciples who were so much accustomed to the Forms and Phrases of that Supper in which every Master of a
Family did officiate among his Houshold Luke 22.19 1 Cor. 11.23 that it was very Natural to them to understand all that our Saviour said or did according to those Forms with which they were acquainted There were after Supper upon a new covering of the Table Loaves of Unleavened Bread and Cups of Wine set on it in which though the Bread was very unacceptable yet they drank liberally of the Wine Christ took a Portion of that Bread and brake it and gave it to his Disciples and said This is my body which is broken for you Do this in remembrance of me He did not say only this is my body but this is my body broken so that his Body must be understood to be there in its broken State if the Words are to be expounded literally And no reason can be assigned why the Word Broken should be so separated from Body or that the Bread should be literally his Body and not literally his Body broken The whole Period must be either literally True or must be understood mystically And if any will say that his Body cannot be there but in the same state in which it is now in Heaven and since it is not now broken nor is the Blood shed or separated from the Body there therefore the Words must be understood thus This is my Body which is to be broken But from thence we argue that since all is one Period it must be all understood in the same Manner And since it is impossible that Broken and Shed can be understood literally of the Body and Blood that therefore the whole is to be mystically understood and this appears more evident since the Disciples who were naturally slow at understanding the easiest Mysteries that he opened to them must naturally have understood those Words as they did the other Words of the Paschal Supper This is the Lord 's Passover That is this is the Memorial of it And that the rather since Christ added these Words Do this in remembrance of me If they had understood them in any other Sense that must have surprized them and naturally have led them to ask him many Questions Which we find them doing upon Occasions that were much less surprizing as appears by the Questions in the 14th of St. Iohn that discourse coming probably immediately after this Institution Whereas no Question was asked upon this so it is reasonable to conclude that they could understand these Words This is my Body no other way but as they understood that of the Lamb This is the Lord 's Passover And by consequence as their celebrating the Pascha was a constant Memorial of the Deliverance out of Egypt and was a Symbolical Action by which they had a Title to the Blessings of the Covenant that Moses made with their Fathers it was natural for them to conclude that after Christ had made himself to be truly that which the first Lamb was in a Type the true Sacrifice of a greater and better Passover they were to commemorate it and to communicate in the Benefits and Effects of it by continuing that Action of taking blessing breaking and distributing of Bread Which was to be the Memorial and the Communion of his Death in all succeeding Ages This will yet appear more Evident from the Second Part of this Institution he took the Cup and blessed it and gave it to them saying This Cup is the New Testament or New Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it Or as the other Gospels report it This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of Sins As Moses had enjoined the sprinkling of the Blood of the Lamb so he himself sprinkled both the Book of the Law and all the People with the Blood of Calves and of Goats Hâ—b 9.20 saying This is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant which God had enjoined you The Blood of the Paschal Lamb was the Token of that Covenant which God made then with them The Iews were under a very strict Prohibition of eating no Blood at all But it seems by the Psalms that when they payed their Vows unto God they took in their Hands a cup of Salvation that is Psal. 116. of an acknowledgment of their Salvation and so were to rejoice before the Lord. These being the Laws and Customs of the Iews they could not without Horror have heard Christ when he gave them the Cup say This is my Blood The Prohibition of Blood was given in such severe Terms as that God would set his face against him that did eat blood Levit. 7.26 27. Levit. 17.14 and cut him off from among his people And this was so often repeated in the Books of Moses that besides the natural Horror which Humanity gives at the mention of drinking a Man's Blood it was a special Part of their Religion to make no use of Blood yet after all this the Disciples were not startled at it Which shews that they must have understood it in such a way as was agreeable to the Law and Customs of their Country and since St. Luke and St. Paul report the Words that our Saviour said when he gave it differently from what is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark it is most probable that he spake both the one and the other that he first said This is my Blood and then as a clearer Explanation of it he said This cup is the New Testament in my Blood The one being a more easy Expression and in a style to which the Iews had been more accustomed They knew that the Blood of the Lamb was sprinkled and by their so doing they entred into a Covenant with God And tho' the Blood was never to be sprinkled after the first Passover yet it was to be poured out before the Lord in remembrance of that sprinkling in Egypt In remembrance of that deliverance they drank of the Cup of Blessing and Salvation and rejoiced before the Lord. So that they could not understand our Saviour otherwise than that the Cup so blessed was to be to them the Assurance of a New Testament or Covenant which was to be established by the Blood of Christ and which was to be shed In lieu of which they were to drink this cup of Blessing and Praise According to their Customs and Phrases the Disciples could understand our Saviour's Words in this Sense and in no other So that if he had intended that they should have understood him otherwise he must have expressed himself in another Manner And must have enlarged upon it to have corrected those Notions into which it was otherwise most Natural for Iews to have fallen Here is also to be remembred that which was formerly observed upon the word Broken that if the Words are to be expounded literally then if the Cup is literally the Blood of Christ it must be his Blood shed poured out of his Veins and separated from his Body And if it is
Isa. 12.3 ye shall receive a new Doctrine with joy from some select Persons Since then the Figure of eating and drinking was used among the Iews for receiving and imbibing a Doctrine it was no wonder if our Saviour pursued it in a Discourse in which there are several hints given to shew us that it ought to be so understood It is further observable that our Saviour did frequently follow that common way of Instruction among the Eastern Nations by Figures that to us would seem strong and bold These were much used in those Parts to excite the Attention of the Hearers and they are not always to be severely expounded according to the full Extent that the words will bear The Parable of the unjust Judge of the unjust Steward of the ten Virgins of plucking out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand or Foot and several others might be instanced Our Saviour in these considered the Genius of those to whom he spoke So that these Figures must be restrained only to that Particular for which he meant them and must not be stretched to every thing to which the Words may be carried We find our Saviour compares himself to a great many Things to a Vine a Door and a Way And therefore when the Scope of a Discourse does plainly run in a Figuâ—e we are not to go and descant on every Word of it much less may any pretend to say that some Parts of it are to be understood literally and some Parts figuratively For instance if that Chapter of St. Iohn is to be understood literally then Christ's Flesh and Blood must be the Nourishment of our Bodies so as to be meat indeed and that we shall never hunger any more and never die after we have eat of it If therefore all do confess that those Expressions are to be understood figuratively then we have the same reason to conclude that the whole is a Figure For it is as reasonable for us to make all of it a Figure as it is for them to make those Parts of it a Figure which they cannot conveniently expound in a literal Sense From all which it is abundantly clear that nothing can be drawn from that Discourse of our Saviour's to make it reasonable to believe that the words of the Institution of this Sacrament ought to be literally understood On the contrary our Saviour himself calls the Wine after those Words had been used by him the Fruit of the Vine which is as strict a Form of Speech as can well be imagined to make us understand that the Nature of the Wine was not altered And when St. Paul treats of it in those two Chapters in which all that is left us besides the History of the Institution concerning this Sacrament is to be found he calls it five times Bread and never once the Body of Christ. 1 Cor. 10.16 In one Place he calls it the Communion of the Body as the Cup is the Communion of the Blood of Christ. Which is rather a saying that it is in some sort and after a manner the Body and the Blood of Christ than that it is so strictly speaking If this Sacrament had been that mysterious and unconceivable Thing which it has been since believed to be we cannot imagine but that the Books of the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles should have contained fuller Explanations of it and larger Instructions about it There is enough indeed said in them to support the plain and natural Sense that we give to this Institution and because no more is said and the design of it is plainly declared to be to remember Christ's death and to shew it forth till he come we reckon that by this natural Simplicity in which this Matter is delivered to us we are very much confirmed in that plain and easy Signification which we put upon our Saviour's words Plain things need not be insisted on But if the most sublime and wonderful Thing in the World seems to be delivered in Words that yet are capable of a lower and plainer Sense then unless there is a concurrence of other Circumstances to force us to that higher meaning of them we ought not to go into it for simple Things prove themselves Whereas the more extraordinary that any thing is it requires a fulness and evidence in the Proof proportioned to the uneasiness of conceiving or believing it We do therefore understand our Saviour's Institution thus that as he was to give his body to be broken and his blood to be shed for our Sins so he intended that this his Death and Suffering should be still commemorated by all such as look for remission of sins by it not only in their Thoughts and Devotions but in a visible Representation Which he appointed should be done in Symbols that should be both very plain and simple and yet very expressive of that which he intended should be remembred by them Bread is the plainest Food that the Body of Man can receive and Wine was the common nourishing Liquor of that Countrey So he made choice of these Materials and in them appointed a Representation and Remembrance to be made of his body broken and of his blood shed that is of his Death and Sufferings till his Second coming And he obliged his Followers to repeat this frequently In the doing of it according to his Institution they profess the Belief of his Death for the Remission of their Sins and that they look for his Second coming This does also import that as Bread and Wine are the simplest of bodily Nourishments â—o his Death is that which restores the Souls of those that do believe in him As Bread and Wine convey a vital Nourishment to the Body so the Sacrifice of his Death conveys somewhat to the Soul that is vital that fortifies and exalts it And as Water in Baptism is a natural Emblem of the Purity of the Christian Religion Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are the Emblems of somewhat that is derived to us that raises our Faculties and fortifies all our Powers St. PÃ ul does very plainly tell us that unworthy receivers that did neither examine nor discern themselves nor yet discern the Lord's Body were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord 1 Cor. 11.27 29. and did eat and drink their own damnation That is such as do receive it without truly believing the Christian Religion without a grateful acknowledgment of Christ's Death and Sufferings without feeling that they are walking suitably to this Religion that they profess and without that decency and charity which becomes so Holy an Action but that receive the Bread and Wine only as bare bodily Nourishments without considering that Christ has instituted them to be the Memorials of his Death such Persons are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ That is they are guilty either of a Prophanation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood or they do in a manner Crucify
him again and put him to an open shame when they are so faulty as the Corinthians were in observing this Holy Institution with so little Reverence and with such scandalous Disorders as those were for which he reproached them Of such as did thus Prophane this Institution he says farther that they do eat and drink their own Damnation or Iudgment that is Punishment for the word rendred Damnation signifies sometimes only temporary Punishments So it is said 1 Pet. 4.17 that Iudgment the Word is the same must begin at the House of God God had sent such Judgments upon the Corinthians for those disorderly Practices of theirs that some had fallen sick and others had died perhaps by reason of their drinking to excess in those Feasts But as God's Judgments have come upon them so the words that follow shew that these Judgments were only Chastisements in order to the delivering them from the Condemnation under which the World lies It being said that when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord 32. v. that we should not be condemned with the World Therefore though God may very justly and even in great Mercy punish Men who prophane this Holy Ordinance yet it is an unreasonable Terrour and contrary to the Nature of the Gospel Covenant to carry this so far as to think that it is an impardonable Sin which is punished with eternal Damnation We have now seen the ill Effects of unworthy Receiving and from hence according to that Gradation that is to be observed in the Mercy of God in the Gospel that it not only holds a Proportion with his Justice but rejoyceth over it we may well conclude that the good Effects upon the worthy receiving of it are equal if not superiour to the bad Effects upon the unworthy receiving of it And that the Nourishment which the Types the Bread and the Wine give the Body are answered in the Effects that the thing signified by them has upon the Soul In explaining this there is some diversity Some teach that this Memomorial of the Death of Christ when seriously and devoutly gone about when it animates our Faith encreases our Repentance and inflames our Love and Zeal and so unites us to God and to our Brethren that I say when these follow it which it naturally excites in all holy and good Minds then they draw down the returns of Prayer and a farther increase of Grace in us according to the Nature and Promises of the New Covenant And in this they put the Vertue and Efficacy of this Sacrament But others think that all this belongs only to the inward Acts of the Mind and is not Sacramental And therefore they think that the Eucharist is a federal Act in which as on the one Hand we renew our Baptismal Covenant with God so on the other Hand we receive in the Sacrament a visible Consignation as in a Tradition by a Symbol or Pledge of the blessings of the New Covenant which they think is somewhat superadded to those returns of our Prayers or of our other inward Acts. This they think answers the nourishment which the Body receives from the Symbols of Bread and Wine and stands in opposition to that of the unworthy Receivers being guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and their eating and drinking that which will bring some judgment upon themselves This they also found on these words of St. Paul The cup of blessing that we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ St. Paul considers the Bread which was offered by the People as an emblem of their Unity that as there was one Loaf so they were one Body and that they were all partakers of that one Loaf From hence it is inferred that since the word rendred Communion signifies a communication in fellowship or Partnership that therefore the meaning of it is that in the Sacrament there is a distribution made in that Symbolical action of the death of Christ 2 Cor. 13. last verse Phil. 2.1 Eph. 3.9 and of the benefits and effects of it The Communion of the Holy Ghost is a common sharing in the effusion of the Spirit the same is meant by that if there is any fellowship of the Spirit that is if we do all partake of the same Spirit We are said to have a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ Phil. 3.10 in which every one must take his share The communication or fellowship of the mystery of the Gospel was its being shared equally among both Iews and Gentiles and the fellowship in which the first Converts to Christianity lived was their liberal distribution to one another they holding all things in common In these and some other places it is certain that Communion signifies somewhat that is more real and effectual than merely mens owning themselves to be joined together in a Society which it is true it does also often signify and therefore they conclude that as in Bargains or Covenants the ancient Method of them before Writings were invented was the mutual delivering of some Pledges which were the Symbols of that Faith which was so plighted instead of which the sealing and delivering of Writings is now used among us so our Saviour instituted this in compliance with our frailty to give us an outward and sensible Pledge of his entring into Covenant with us of which the Bread and Wine are constituted the Symbols Others think that by the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ can only be meant the joint owning of Christ and of his Death in the receiving the Sacrament and that no Communication nor Partnership can be inferred from it Because St. Paul brings it in to shew the Corinthians how detestable a thing it was for a Christian to join in the Idols Feasts That it was to be a partaker with devils So they think that the Fellowship or Communion of Christians in the Sacrament must be of the same Nature with the fellowship of devils in Acts of Idolatry Which consisted only in associating themselves with those that worshipped Idols for that upon the Matter was the Worshipping of Devils And this seems to be confirmed by that which is said of the Iews 1 Cor. 10.18 20. that they who did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar which it seems can signify no more but that they professed that Religion of which the Altar was the chief Instrument the Sacrifices being offered there To all this it may be replied that it is reasonable enough to believe that according to the Power which God suffered the Devil to exercise over the Idolatrous World there might be some Inchantment in the Sacrifices offered to Idols and that the Devil might have some Power over those that did partake of them And in order to this St. Paul removed an Objection that might have been made that there could be no harm in
the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ he carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostom says the Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord And in another Place reckoning up the improper Senses of the word Flesh he says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries that is the Sacrament by the Name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church is said to be the Body of Christ. So Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and names the Bread by his Body Tertul. Lib. 4. adv Marci c. 40. The Fathers do not only call the consecrated Elements Bread and Wine They do also affirm that they retain their proper Nature and Substance and are the same thing as to their Nature that they were before And the Occasion upon which the Passages that I go next to mention are used by them does prove this Matter beyond Contradiction Apollinaris did broach that Heresy which was afterwards put in full Form by Eutycheâ— and that had so great a Party to support it that as they had one General Council a pretended one at least to favour them so they were condemned by another Their Error was that the human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by the Divine if not while he was here on Earth yet at least after his Ascension to Heaven This Error was confuted by several Writers who lived very wide one from another And at a distance of above a hundred Years one from another St. Chrysostom at Constantinople Theodoret in Asia Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Gelasius Bishop of Rome All those write to Prove that the human Nature did still remain in Christ not changed nor swallowed up but only sanctified by the Divine Nature that was united to it They do all fall into one Argument which very probably those who came after St. Chrysostom took from him Epist. ad Celarium So that though both Theodoret and Gelasius's Words are much fuller yet because the Argument is the same with that which St. Chrysostom had urged against Apollinaris I shall first set down his Words He brings an Illustration from the Doctrine of the Sacrament to shew that the human Nature was not destroyed by its Union with the Divine and has upon that these Words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it And yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son So the divine Nature being joined to the Body Both these make one Son and one Person In Photi Bibli Cod. 229. Ephrem of Antioch says The Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible Substance So Baptism says he does not lose its own sensible Substance and does not lose that which it was before Dial. 1st and 2d â—ont Eutych Theodoret says Christ does honour the Symbols with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but adding grace to nature In another Place pursuing the same Argument he says The mystical Symbols after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature For they continue in their former substance figure and form and are visible and palpable as they were before But they are understood to be that which they are made Pope Gelasius says The Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a divine thing Lib. de duâ—bus nat Christ for which reason we become by them partakers of the divine Nature and yet the substance of Bread and Wine does not cease to exist And the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in holy Mysteries Upon all these Places being compared with the Design with which they were written which was to prove that Christ's Human Nature did still subsist unchanged and not swallowed up by its Union with the Divinity some Reflections are very obvious â—irst If the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had been then received in the Church the natural and unavoidable Argument in this Matter which must put an end to it with all that believed such corporal Presence was this Christ has certainly a natural Body still because the Bread and the Wine are turned to it and they cannot be turned to that which is not In their Writings they argued against the possibility of a substantial Change of a Human Nature into the Divine but that could not have been urged by Men who believed a substantial Mutation to be made in the Sacrament For then the Eutychians might have retorted the Argument with great Advantage upon them The Eutychians did make use of some Expressions that were used by some in the Church which seemed to Import that they did argue from the Sacrament as Theodoret represents their Objections But to that he answers as we have seen denying that any such substantial Change was made The Design of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together and continue so united without the change of their Substances and that this was true in the two Natures in the Person of Christ And to make this more Sensible they bring in the Matter of the Sacrament as a thing known and confessed For in their arguing upon it they do suppose it as a thing out of dispute Now according to the Roman Doctrine this had been a very odd Sort of an Argument to prove that Christ's Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine because the Mysteries or Elements in the Sacrament are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body only they retain the outward appearances of Bread and Wine To this an Eutychian might readily have answered that then the Human Nature might be believed to be destroyed And though Christ had appeared in that likeness he retained only the Accidents of Human Nature but that the Human Nature it self was destroyed as the Bread and the Wine were destroyed in the Eucharist This had been a very absurd way of arguing in the Fathers and had indeed delivered up the Cause to the Eutychians Whereas those Fathers make it an Argument against them to prove that notwithstanding an Uninion of two Beings and such an Union as did communicate a Sanctification from the one to the other yet the two Natures might remain still distinguish'd and that it was so in the Eucharist Therefore it might be so in the Person of Christ. This seems to be so evident an Indication of the Doctrine of the whole Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century when so many of the most eminent Writers of those Ages do urge it so home as an Argument in so great a Point that we can scarce think it possible for any Man to consider it fully without being determined by it
26. in Joan. St. Augustin expresses himself in the very Words that are cited in the Article which he introduces with these words He that does not abide in Christ and in whom Christ does not abide certainly does not spiritually eat his Flesh nor drink his Blood tho he may visibly and carnally press with his Teeth the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ But he rather eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a Matter to his Condemnation And in another Place he says Lib 21. de Civ Dei c. 25. Neither are they speaking of vitious Persons to be said to eat the Body of Christ because they are not his Members to which he adds He that says Whoso eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him shews what it is not only in a Sacrament but truly to eat the Body of Christ and to drink his Blood He has upon another Occasion those frequently cited Words speaking of the difference between the other Disciples and Iudas in receiving this Sacrament Tract 54. in Joan. These did eat the Bread that was the Lord panem Dominum but he the Bread of the Lord against the Lord panem Domini contra Dominum To all this a great deal might be added to shew that this was the Doctrine of the Greek Church even after Damascene's Opinion concerning the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ was received among them But more needs not be said concerning this since it will be readily granted that if we are in the Right in the main Point of denying the corporal Presence that this will fall with it ARTICLE XXX Of both Kinds The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to Lay People For both Parts of the Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian Men alike THere is not any one of all the Controversies that we have with the Church of Rome in which the decision seems more easie and shorter than this The words of the Institution are not only equally express and positive as to both kinds but the diversity with which that part that relates to the Cup is set down seems to be as clear a demonstration for us as can be had in a matter of this kind and looks like a special direction given to warn the Church against any corruption that might arise upon this Head To all such as acknowledg the Immediate Union of the Eternal Word with the Human Nature of Christ and the Inspiration by which the Apostles were conducted it must be of great weight to find a Specialty marked as to the Chalice of the Cup it is said Drink ye all of it whereas of the Bread it is only said Take eat so we cannot think the word all was set down without design It is also said of the Cup and they all drank of it which is not said of the Bread We think it no piece of trifling nicety to observe this Specialty The words added to the giving the Cup are very particularly Emphatical Take eat This is my Body which is given for you is not so full an Expression as Drink ye all of this for this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of Sins If the surest way to judg of the extent of any Precept to which a reason is added is to consider the extent of the Reason and to measure the extent of the Precept by that then since all that do communicate need the remission of Sins and a share in the New Covenant the reason that our Saviour joins to the distribution of the Cup proves that they ought all to receive it And if that Discourse in St. Iohn concerning the eating of Christ's Flesh and the drinking his Blood is to be understood of the Sacrament as most of the Roman Church affirm then the drinking Christ's Blood is as necessary to Eternal Life as the eating his Flesh by consequence it is as necessary to receive the Cup as the Bread And it is not easie to apprehend why it should still be necessary to consecrate in both kinds and not likewise to receive in both kinds It cannot be pretended that since the Apostles were all of the Sacred Order therefore their receiving in both kinds is no Precedent for giving the Laity the Cup for Christ gave them both kinds as they were Sinners who were now to be admitted into Covenant with God by the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood They were in that to shew forth his death and were to Take eat and drink in remembrance of him So that this Institution was delivered to them as they were Sinners and not as they were Priests They were not constituted by Christ the Pastors and Governours of his Church till after his Resurrection when he breathed on them and laid his hands on them Joh. 20.22 and blessed them So that at this time they were only Christ's Disciples and Witnesses who had been once sent out by him on an extraordinary Commission but had yet no stated Character fixed upon them To this it is said that Christ by saying Do this constituted them Priests so that they were no more of the Laity when they received the Cup. This is a new conceit taken up by the Schoolmen unknown to all Antiquity There is no sort of Tradition that supports this Exposition nor is there any reason to imagin that Do this signifies any other than a Precept to continue that Institution as a Memorial of Christ's Death and Do this takes in all that went before the taking the giving as well as the blessing and the eating the Bread nor is there any reason to appropriate this to the Blessing only as if by this the Consecrating and Sacrificing Power were conferred on the Priests From all which we conclude both that the Apostles were only Disciples at large without any special characters conferred on them when the Eucharist was instituted and that the Eucharist was given to them only as Disciples that is as Laymen The mention that is made in some places of the new Testament only of breaking of Bread can furnish them with no Argument for it is not certain that these do relate to the Sacrament or if they did it is not certain that they are to be understood strictly for by a Figure common to the Eastern Nations Bread stands for all that belongs to a Meal and if these places are applied to the Sacrament and ought to be strictly understood they will prove too much that the Sacrament may be consecrated in one kind and that the breaking of Bread without the Cup may be understood to be a compleat Sacrament But when St. Paul spoke of this Sacrament he does so distinctly mention the drinking the Cup as well as eating the Bread that it is plain from him how the Apostles understood the words and intent of Christ and how this Sacrament was received
were a mere question of Words to dispute concerning the term Sacrifice to consider the Extent of that Word and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a Sacrifice In general all Acts of Religious Worship may be called Sacrifices because somewhat is in them offered up to God Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my Hands as the evening Sacrifice Psal. 141.2 Psal. 51.17 The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit A broken and a contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise These shew how largely this Word was used in the Old Testament So in the New we are exhorted by him that is by Christ to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the Fruit of our Lips giving Thanks to his Name A Christian's dedicating himself to the Service of God Hebr. 13.15 Rom. 12.1 is also expressed by the same Word of presenting our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God All Acts of Charity are also called Sacrifices an odour of a sweet smell Phil. 4.10 a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So in this large Sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving And our Church calls it so in the Office of the Communion In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a Sacrifice One is because there is an Oblation of Bread and Wine made in it which being sanctified are consumed in an Act of Religion To this many passages in the Writings of the Fathers do relate This was the Oblation made at the Altar by the People And though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of a Religion in which they had neither Temples Altars nor Sacrifices because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the Heathens had yet both Clemens Romanus Ignatius and all the succeeding Writers of the Church do frequently mention the Oblations that they made And in the Antient Liturgies they did with particular Prayers offer the Bread and Wine to God as the Great Creator of all things Those were called the Gifts or Offerings which were offered to God in imitation of Abel who offered the Fruits of the Earth in a Sacrifice to God Both Iustin Martyr Irenaeus the Constitutions and all the antient Liturgies have very express Words relating to this Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a Sacrifice is because it is a Commemoration and a Representation to God of the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross In which we claim to that as to our Expiation and Feast upon it as our Peace-offering according to that antient Notion that Covenants were confirmed by a Sacrifice and were concluded in a Feast on the Sacrifice Upon these Accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a Sacrifice But still it is a commemorative Sacrifice and not propitiatory That is we do not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as if the Priests consecrating and consuming the Elements were in an especial manner a Sacrifice any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the Elements is an Act that does reconcile God to the Quick and the Dead We consider it only as a federal Act of professing our Belief in the Death of Cstrist and of renewing our Baptismal Covenant with him The Virtue or effects of this are not General they are limited to those who go about this piece of Worship sincerely and devoutly they and they only are concerned in it who go about it And there is no special Propitiation made by this Service It is only an Act of Devotion and Obedience in those that eat and drink worthily and though in it they ought to pray for the whole Body of the Church yet those their Prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout Intercessions but not by any peculiar Virtue in this Action On the other hand the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the Eucharist is the highest Act of Homage and Honour that Creatures can offer up to the Creator as being an Oblation of the Son to the Father So that whosoever procures a Mass to be said procures a new piece of Honour to be done to God with which he is highly pleased and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such Masses to be said whether they be still on Earth or if they are now in Purgatory And that the Priest in offering and consuming this Sacrifice performs a true Act of Priesthood by reconciling Sinners to God Somewhat was already said of this on the Head of Purgatory It seems very plain by the Institution that our Saviour as he blessed the Sacrament said Take eat St. Paul calls it a Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord and a Partaking of the Lord's Table and he through his whole Discourse of it speaks of it as an Action of the Church and of all Christians but does not so much as by a Hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Priest So that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it represents it as an Action of the whole Body in which the Priest has no special share but that of officiating In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long Discourse concerning Sacrifices and Priests in order to the explaining of Christ's being both Priest and Sacrifice There a Priest stands for a Person called and consecrated to offer some living Sacrifice and to slay it and to make reconciliation of Sinners to God by the shedding offering or sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice This was the Notion that the Iews had of a Priest And the Apostle designing to prove that the Death of Christ was a true Sacrifice brings this for an Argument that there was to be another Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec He begins the fifth Chapter with settling the Notion of a Priest Heb. 5.10 according to the Iewish Ideas And then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a Priest called of God and Consecrated But in this Sense he appropriates the Priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ in opposition to the many Priests of the Levitical Law And they truly were many Priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death But this Man Heb. 7.24 because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood It is clear from the whole Thread of that Discourse that in the strictest Sense of the Word Christ himself is the only Priest under the Gospel and it is also no less evident that his Death is the only Sacrifice in opposition to the many Oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away Sin Which appears very plain from these Words Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up
full and clear proofs of it in the New Testament And they had need be both full and clear before a Doctrine of this Nature can be pretended to be proved by them In order to the making this Mystery to be more distinctly Intelligible different Methods have been taken By one Substance many do understand a Numerical or Individual Unity of Substance and by Three Persons they understand Three distinct Subsistences in that Essence It is not pretended by these that we can give a distinct Idea of Person or Subsistence only they hold it imports a real diversity in one from another and even such a diversity from the Substance of the Deity it self that some things belong to the Person that do not belong to the Substance For the Substance neither begets nor is begotten neither breathes nor proceeds If this carries in it somewhat that is not agreeable to our Notions nor like any thing that we can apprehend to this it is said That if God has Revealed that in the Scripture which is thus expressed we are bound to believe it though we can frame no clear apprehension about it God's Eternity his being all one single Act his Creating and Preserving all things and his being every where are things that are absolute riddles to us We cannot bring our Minds to conceive them and yet we must believe that they are so because we see much greater Absurdities must follow upon our conceiving that they should be otherwise So if God has declared this inexplicable thing concerning himself to us we are bound to believe it though we cannot have any clear Idea how it truly is For there appear as strange and unanswerable difficulties in many other things which yet we know to be true so if we are once well assured that God has Revealed this Doctrine to us we must silence all Objections against it and believe it Reckoning that our not understanding it as it is in it self makes the difficulties seem to be much greater than otherwise they would appear to be if we had light enough about it or were capable of forming a more perfect Idea of it while we are in this depressed State Others give another view of this Matter that is not indeed so hard to be apprehended But that has an Objection against it that seems as great a prejudice against it as the difficulty of apprehending the other way is against that It is this They do hold That there are Three Minds That the first of these Three who is from that called the Father did from all Eternity by an Emanation of Essence beget the Son and by another Emanation that was from Eternity likewise and was as Essential to him as the former both the first and the second did jointly breathe forth the Spirit and that these are Three distinct Minds every one being God as much as the other Only the Father is the Fountain and is only self-originated All this is in a good degree Intelligible but it seems hard to reconcile it both with the Idea of Unity which seems to belong to a Being of Infinite Perfection and with the many express Declarations that are made in the Scriptures concerning the Unity of God Instead of going farther into Explanations of that which is certainly very far beyond all our apprehensions and that ought therefore to be let alone I shall now consider what Declarations are made in the Scriptures concerning this Point The First and the Chief is in that Charge and Commission which our Saviour gave to his Apostles to go and make Disciples to him among all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Mat. 28.19 By Name is meant either an Authority derived to them in the virtue of which all Nations were to be Baptized Or that the Persons so Baptized are Dedicated to the Father Son and Holy Ghost Either of these Senses as it proves them all to be Persons so it sets them in an equality in a thing that can only belong to the Divine Nature Baptism is the receiving Men from a State of Sin and Wrath into a State of Favour and into the Rights of the Sons of God and the Hopes of Eternal Happiness and a calling them by the Name of God These are things that can only be offered and assured to Men in the Name of the Great and Eternal God and therefore since without any Distinction or Note of Inequality they are all Three set together as Persons in whose Name this is to be done they must be all Three the True God otherwise it looks like a just Prejudice against our Saviour and his whole Gospel That by his express Direction the first entrance to it which gives the Visible and Foederal Right to those great Blessings that are offered by it or their Initiation into it should be in the Name of Two Created Beings if the one can be called properly so much as a Being according to their Hypothesis and that even in an equality with the Supream and Increated Being The plainness of this Charge and the great occasion upon which it was given makes this an Argument of such Force and Evidence that it may justly determine the whole Matter A Second Argument is taken from this That we find St. Paul begins or ends most of his Epistles with a Salutation in the Form of a Wish Rom. 1.7 Rom. 16.20 24. 1 Cor. 16.23 1 Cor. 1.3 2 Cor. 1.3 Gal. 1.3 Gal 6.18 Eph. 1.2 Eph. 6.23 Phil. 1.2 Phil. 4.23 Col. 1.2 1 Thes. 1.1 1 Thes 5.28 2 Thes. 1.2 2 Thes. 3 18. 1 Tim. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.2 Tit. 1.4 Philem. 3.25 2 John 1.3 which is indeed a Prayer or a Benediction in the Name of those who are so Invocated in which he wishes the Churches Grace Mercy and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Iesus Christ which is an Invocation of Christ in conjunction with the Father for the greatest Blessings of Favour and Mercy That is a strange Strain if he was only a Creature which yet is delivered without any mitigation or softning in the most remarkable parts of his Epistles This is carried further in the Conclusion of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians The Grace of the Lord Iesus Christ the Love of God 2 Cor. 13.14 and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you It is true this is expressed as a Wiâ—h and not in the nature of a Prayer as the common Salutations are But here Three great Blessings are wished to them as from Three Fountains which imports that they are Three different Persons and yet equal For though in order the Father is first and is generally put first yet here Christ is first named which seems to be a strange reversing of things if they are not equal as to their Essence or Substance It is true the Second is not named here The Father as elsewhere but only God yet since he is mentioned as distinct from Christ and the
an Argument for it from our Saviour's Example He begins with the dignity of his Person expressed thus That he was in the form of God and that he thought it no robbery to be equal with God Then his Humiliation comes That he made himself of no reputation but took on him the form of a servant the same Word with that used in the former Verse after which follows his Exaltation and a Name or Authority above every Name or Authority is said to be given him so that all in Heaven Earth and under the Earth which seems to Import Angels Men and Devils should bow at his Name and confess that he is the Lord. Now in this Progress that is made in these words it is plain That the Dignity of Christ's Person is represented as Antecedent both to his Humiliation and to his Exaltation It was that which put the value on his Humiliation as his Humiliation was rewarded by his Exaltation This Dignity is expressed first That he was in the Form of God before he humbled himself He was certainly in the form of a Servant that is really a Servant as other Servants are He was obedient to his Parents he was under the Authority both of the Romans of Herod and of the Sanhedrim Therefore since his being really a Servant is expressed by his being in the form of a Servant his being in the form of God must also import That he was truly God But the â—ollowing words That he thought it not robbery to be equal or be held equal for so the word may be rendred with God carry such a natural Signification of his being neither a Made nor Subordinate God and that his Divinity is neither precarious nor by concession that fuller words cannot be devised for expressing an entire Equality Those who deny this are aware of it and therefore they have put another sense on the words in the form of God They think That they signify his appearing in the World as one sent in the Name of God representing him Working Miracles and delivering a Law in his Name and the words rendred he thought it no robbery they render he did not catch at or vehemently desire to be held in equal honour with God And some Authorities are found in Eloquent Greek Authors who use the words rendred he thought it not robbery in a figurative sense for the earnestness of desire or the pursuing after a thing greedily as Robbers do for their Prey This rendring represents St. Paul as Treating so sacred a Point in the Figures of a high and seldom-used Rhetorick which one would think ought to have been expressed more exactly But if even this sense is allowed it will make a strange Period and a very odd sort of an Argument to enforce Humility upon us because Christ though Working Miracles did not desire or snatch at Divine Adorations in an Equality with God The Sin of Lucifer and the cause of his Fall is commonly believed to be his desire to be equal to God and yet this seems to be such an extravagant piece of pride that it is scarce possible to think That even the Sublimest of Created Beings should be capable of it To be next to God seems to be the utmost heigth to which even the Diabolical Pride could aspire So that here by the Sense which the Socinians put on those words they will import That we are persuaded to be humble from the Example of Christ who did not affect an Equality with God The bare repeating of this seems so fully to expose and overthrow it that I think it is not necessary to say more upon this place Acts 20.28 1 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 5.20 Tit. 2.13 Jam. 2.1 The next head of Proof is made up of more particulars All the Names the Operations and even the Attributes of God are in full and plain words given to Christ. He is called God his Blood is said to be the Blood of God God is said to have laid down his life for us Christ is called the true God the great God the Lord of Glory the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and more particularly the Name Iehovah is ascribed to him in the same word in which the LXX Interpreters had Translated it throughout the whole Old Testament Rev. 1.8 Rev. 19.16 So that this constant Uniformity of Stile between the Greek of the New and that Translation of the Old Testament which was then received and was of great Authority among the Iews and was yet of more Authority among the first Christians is an Argument that carries such a weight with it that this alone may serve to determine the Matter The Creating the Preserving and the Governing of all things is also ascribed to Christ in a variety of placâ—s but most remarkably when it is said That by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth Visible and Invisible Whether they be Thrones Col. 1.16.17 â—ohn 2.25 Mat. â—1 27. Mat. 9.6 Joh. 15.26 Joh. 14.13 Joh. 5 25 26. Joh. 6.39 40. or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him And he is before all things and by him all things consist He is said to have known what was in man to have known mens secret thoughts and to have known all things That as the Father was known of none but of the Son so none know the Son but the Father He pardons Sin sends the Spirit gives Grace and Eternal Life and he shall raise the dead at the last day When all these things are laid together in that variety of Expressions in which they lie scattered in the New Testament it is not possible to retain any reverence for those Books if we imagine that they are writ in a Stile so full of approaches to the Deifying of a mere Man that without a very Critical studying of Languages and Phrases it is not possible to understand them otherwise Idolatry and a Plurality of Gods seem to be the main things that the Scriptures warn us against and yet here is a pursued Thread of Passages and Discourses that do naturally lead a man to think that Christ is the True God who yet according to these men only acted in his Name and has now a high Honour put on him by him This carries me to another Argument to prove that the Word that was made Flesh was truly God Nothing but the True God can be the proper Object of Adoration This is one of those Truths that seems almost so evident that it needs not to be proved Adoration is the humble Prostration of our selves before God in Acts that own our dependance upon him both for our Being and for all the Blessings that we do either enjoy or hope for and also in earnest Prayers to him for the continuance of these to us This is testified by such outward Gestures and Actions as are most proper to express our Humility and Submission to God All this has
so clear aâ—d so inseparable a Relation to the only True God as its proper Object that it is scarce possible to apprehend how it should be separated from him and given to any other And as this seems evident from the Nature of things so it is not possible to imagine how any thing could have been prohibited in more express and positive and in more frequently-repeated Words and longer Reasonings than the offering of Divine Worship or any part of it to Creatures The chief design of the Mosaical Religion was to banish all Idolatry and Polytheism out of the Minds of the Iews and to possess them with the Idea of One God and of One Object of Worship The Reasons upon which those Prohibitions are founded are universal which are The Unity of God's Essence and his Jealousy in not giving his Honour to another It is not said that they should not worship any as God till they had a Precept or Declaration for it There is no Reserve for any such time but they are plainly forbid to worship any but the Great God Matth. 4.10 because he was One and was Jealous of his Glory The New Testament is writ in the same Strain Christ when tempted of the Devil answered Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God Acts 14.15 Acts 17.29 1 Thes. 1.9 Rev. 19 1â— and him only shalt thou serve The Apostles charged all Idolaters to forsake those Idols and to serve the living God The Angel refused St. Iohn's Worship commanding him to worship God The Christian Faith does in every particular raise the Ideas of God and of Religion to a much grâ—ater Purity and Sublimity than the Mosaical Dispensation had done so it is not to be imagined that in the chief Design of Revealed Religion which was the bringing men from Idolatry to the Worship of One God it should make such a Breach and extend it to a Creature All this seems fully to prove the first Proposition of this Argument That God is the only proper Object of Adoration The next is That Christ is proposed in the New Testament as the Object of Divine Worship I do not in proof of this urge the Instances of those who fell down at Christ's Feet and worshipped him while he was on Earth for it may be well answered to that That a Prophet was worshipped with the civil Respect of falling down before him among the Iews as appears in the History of Elijah and Elisha nor does it appear that those who worshipped Chrisâ— had any apprehension of his being God they only considered him as the Messias or as some eminent Prophet But the mention that St. Luke makes in his Gospel Luke 24.52 of the Disciples worshipping Christ at his Ascension comes more home to this matter All those Salutations in the beginning and conclusion of the Epistles in which Grace Mercy and Peace are wished from God the Father and the Lord Iesus Christ are implied Invocations of him It is also plain that it was to him that St. Paul prayed when he was under the Temptations of the Devil as they are commonly understood 2 Cor. 12.8 9 Phil. 2 10. Heb. 1.5 Rev. 5.8 to the end Every knee must bow to him The Anâ—els of God worship him All the hosts in heaven are represented in St. Iohn's Visions as falling down prostrate before him and worshipping him as they worship the Father He is proposed as the Object of our Faith Hope and Love as the Person whom we are to obey to pray to and to praise so that every Act of Worship both External and Internal is directed to him as to its proper Object But the Instance of all others that is the clearest in this Point is in the last Words of St. Stephen who was the first Martyr and whose Martyrdom is so particularly related by St. Luke He then in his last Minutes saw Christ at the right hand of God and in his last Breath he worshipped him in two short Prayers that are upon the matter the same with those in which our Blessed Saviour worshipped his Father on the Cross Lord Iesus receive my spirit Lord lay not this sin to their charge Acts 7.59.60 From this it seems very evident that if Christ was not the True God and Equal to the Father then this Protomartyr died in two Acts that seem not only Idolatrous but also Blasphemous since he worshipped Christ in the same Acts in which Christ had worshipped his Father It is certain from all this deduction of Particulars That his Human Nature cannot be worshipped therefore there must be another Nature in him to which Divine Worship is due and on the account of which he is to be worshipped It is plain that when this Religion was first published together with these Duties in it as a part of it the Iews though implacably set against it yet never accused it of Idolatry though that Charge of all others had served their purposes the best who intended to blacken and blast it Nothing would have been so well heard and so easily apprehended as a just Prejudice against it as this The Argument would have appeared as strong as it was plain And as the Iews could not be ignorant of the Acts of the Christian Worship when so many fell back to them from it who were offended at other parts of it so they had the Books in which it was contained in their hands Notwithstanding all which we have all possible reason to believe that this Objection against it was never made by any of them in the First Age of Christianity Upon all which I say it is not to be imagined that they could have been silent on this head if a mere Man had been thus proposed among the Christians as the Object of Divine Worship The Silence of the Apostles in not mentioning nor answering this is such a Proof of the Silence of the Iews that it would indeed disparage all their Writings if we could think that while they mentioned and answered the other Prejudices of the Iews which in comparison to this are small and inconsiderable matters they should have passed over this which must have been the greatest and the plausiblest of them all if it was one at all Therefore as the Silence of the Apostles is a clear Proof that the Iews were silent also and did not object this and since their silence could neither flow from their Ignorance nor their undervaluing of this Religion it seems to be certain that the first opening of the Christian Doctrine did not carry any thing in it that could be called the Worshiping of a Creature It follows from hence that the Iews must have understood this part of our Religion in such a manner as agreed with their former Ideas So we must examine these They had this settled among them That God dwelt in the Cloud of Glory and that by virtue of that Inhabitation Divine Worship was paid to God as dwelling in the Cloud that it was
Messiah did come and was cut off during the continuance of Ierusalem and the Temple but that it hapned within a Period of Time designed in that Vision Time was then computed more certainly than it had been for many Ages before Two great Measures were fixed one at Babylon by Nabonassor and another in Greece in the Olympiads Here a Prediction is given almost Five hundred Years before the Accomplishment with many very nice Reckonings in it I will not now enter upon the Chronology of this matter on which some Great Men have bestowed their Labours very happily Archbishop Usher has stated this matter so that the Interval of Time is clearly Four hundred eighty six Years The Covenant was to be confirmed with many for one Week in the midst of which God was to cause the Sacrifice and Oblation for Sin to cease which seems to be a Mystical way of describing the Death of Christ that was to put an end to the Virtue of the Iudaical Sacrifices so Sixty nine Weeks and a half make just Four hundred eighty six Years and a half But without going further into this Calculation it is evident That during the Second Temple the Messias was to come and to be cut off and that soon after that a Prince was to send an Army to destroy both City and Sanctuary The Iews do not so much as pretend that during that Temple the Messias thus set forth did come or was cut off so either the Prediction fail'd in the Event or the Messiah did come within that Period And thus a Thread of the Prophecies of the Messias being carried down through the whole Old Testament it seems to be fully made out That he was to be of the Seed of Abraham and of the Posterity of David That the Tribe of Iudah was to be a distinct Policy till he should come That he should work many Miracles That he was to be Meek and Lowly That his Function was to consist in Preaching to the Afflicted and in comforting them That he was to call the Gentiles and even the remote Islands to the knowledge of God That he was to be born of a Virgin and at Bethlehem That he was to be a New Lawgiver as Moses had been That he was to settle his Followers upon a New Covenant different from that made by Moses That he was to come during the Second Temple That he was to make a mean but a joyful Entrance to Ierusalem That he was to be cut off That the Iniquities of us all were to be laid on him and that his Life was to be made an Offering for Sin but that God was to give him a glorious Reward for these his Sufferings and that his Doctrine was to be internal accompanied with a free Offer of Pardon and of Inward Assistances and that after his Death the Iews were to fall under a terrible Curse and an utter Extirpation When this is all summed up together when it appears That there was never any other Person to whom those Characters did agree but that they did all meet in our Saviour we see what Light the Old Testament has given us in this matter Here a Nation that hates us and our Religion who are scattered up and down the World who have been for many Ages without their Temple and without their Sacrifices without Priests and without their Genealogies who yet hold these Books amongthem in adue Veneration which furnish us with so full aproof that the Messiah whom they still look for is the Lord Jesus whom we worship We do now proceed to other matters The Iews pretend That it is a great Argument against the Authority of the New Testament because it acknowledges the Old to be from God and yet repeals the far greater part of the Laws Enacted in it though those Laws are often said to be Laws for ever and throughout all Generations Now they seem to argue with some advantage who say That what God does declare to be a Law that shall be perpetual by any one Prophet cannot be abrogated or reversed by another since that other can have no more Authority than the former Prophet had And if both are of God it seems the one cannot make void that which was formerly declared by the other in the Name of God But it is to be considered That by the Phrases of a Statute for ever or throughout all Generations can only be meant that such Laws were not transient Laws such as were only to be observed whilst they marched through the Wilderness or upon particular occasions whereas such Laws which were constantly and generally to be observed were to them perpetual But that does not Import that the Lawgiver himself had parted with all the Authority that naturally belongs to him over his own Laws It only says That the People had no power over such Laws to repeal or change them They were to bind them always but that puts no limitation on the Lawgiver himself so that he might not alter his own Constitutions Positive Precepts which have no real value in themselves are of their own nature alterable And as in human Laws the words of Enacting a Law for all future times do only make that to be a perpetual Law for the Subjects but do not at all limit the Legislative power which is as much at liberty to abrogate or alter it as if no such words had been in the Law There are also many hints in the Old Testament which shew that the Precepts of the Mosaical Law were to be altered Many plain Intimations are given of a time and state in which the knowledge of God was to be spread over all the Earth And that God was every where to be worshipped Now this was impossible to be done without a Change in their Law and Rituals It being impossible that all the World should go up thrice a Year to worship at Ierusalem or could be served by Priests of the Aaronical Family Circumcision was a distinction of one particular Race which needed not to be continued after all were brought under one denomination and within the same common Privileges These things hitherto mentioned belong naturally to this part of the Article yet in the intention of those who framed it these words relate to an extravagant sort of Enthusiasts that lived in those days who abusing some ill-understood Phrases concerning Justification by Christ without the works of the Law came to set up very wild Notions which were bad in themselves but much more pernicious in their Consequences They therefore fancied that a Christian was tied by no Law as a Rule or Yoke all these being taken away by Christ They said indeed That a Christian by his renovation became a Law to himself he obeyed not any written Rule or Law but a new inward Nature And thus as it is said that Sadocus mistook his Master Antigonus who taught his Disciples to serve God not for the hope of a Reward but without any expectations as if he by
of Paul The Conversion of St. Paul himself was so clearly from a Preventing Grace that if it had not been miraculous in so many of its Circumstances it would have been a strong Argument in behalf of it These words of Christ seem also to assert it Without me ye can do nothing ye have not chosen me but I you and no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him Joh. 1.13.15.5 16. Phil. 2.13 Those who received Christ were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of the will of God God is said to work in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure The one seems to import the first beginings and the other the progress of a Christian Course of Life So far all among us that I know of are agreed though perhaps not as to the force that is in all those places to prove this Point There do yâ—t remain Two Points in which they do not agree the one is the Efficacy of this Preventing Grace some think that it is of its own nature so Efficacious that it never fails of Converting those to whom it is given others think that it only awakens and disposes as well as it enables them to turn to God but that they may resist it and that the greater part of Mankind do actually resist it The examining of this Point and the stating the Arguments of both sides will belong more properly to the Seventeenth Article The other Head in which many do differ is concerning the Extent of this Preventing Grace for whereas such as do hold it to be Efficacious of it self restrain it to the number of those who are Elected and converted by it others do believe That as Christ died for all Men so there is an Universal Grace which is given in Christ to all Men in some degree or other and that it is given to all Baptized Christians in a more eminent degree and that as all are corrupted by Adam there is also a general Grace given to all Men in Christ. This depends so much on the former Point that the discussing the one is indeed the discussing of both and therefore it shall not be further entred upon in this place ARTICLE XI Of the Justification of Man We are accounted Righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Works or Deservings Wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholsome Doctrine and very full of Comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Iustification IN order to the right understanding this Article we must first consider the true meaning of the Terms of which it is made up which are Iustification Faith Faith only and Good Works and then when these are rightly stated we will see what Judgments are to be passed upon the Questions that do arise out of this Article Iust or Iustified are words capable of two senses the one is a Man who is in the Favour of God by a mere Act of his Grace or upon some Consideration not founded on the Holiness or the Merit of the Person himself The other is a Man who is truly holy and as such is beloved of God The use of this word in the New Testament was probably taken from the term Chasidim among the Iews a designation of such as observed the external parts of the Law strictly and were believed to be upon that account much in the Favour of God an Opinion being generally spread among them that a strict observance of the external parts of the Law of Moses did certainly put a Man in the Favour of God In opposition to which the design of a great part of the New Testament is to shew that these things did not put Men in the Favour of God Our Saviour used the word saved in opposition to condemned Job 3.18 and spoke of Men who were condemned already as well as of others who were saved St. Paul enlarges more fully into many Discourses in which our being justified and the righteousness of God or his grace towards us are all terms equivalent to one another His design in the Epistle to the Romans was to prove that the observance of the Mosaiâ—al Law could not justifie that is could not put a Man under the grace or favour of God or the righteousnâ—ss of God that is into a state of acceptation with him as that is opposite to a state of wrath or condemnation He upon that shews that Abraham was in the Favour of God before he was Circumcised upon the account of his trusting to the Promises of God and obeying his Commands and that God reckoned upon these Acts of his as much as if they had been an entire course of Obedience Gen. 15.6 Rom. 4.3.22 for that is the meaning of these words Aâ—d it was imputed to him for righteousness These Promises were freely made to him by God when by no previous Works of his he had made them to be due to him of debt therefore that Covenant which was founded on those Promises was the justifying of Abraham freely by grace upon which St. Paul in a variety of Inferences and Expressions assumes That we are in like manner justified freely by grace through the redemption in Christ Iesus Rom. 3.24 That God has of his own free Goodness offered a new Covenant and new and better Promises to Mankind in Christ Jesus which whosoever believe as Abraham did they are justified as he was So that whosoever will observe the Scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians will see that he always uses Iustification in a sense that imports our being put in the Favour of God The Epistle to the Galatians was indeed writ upon the occasion of another Controversy which was Whether supposing Christ to be the Messias Christians were bound to observe the Mosaical Law or not Whereas the Scope of the first part of the Epistle to the Romans is to shew that we are not justified nor saved by the Law of Moses as a Mean of its own nature capable to recommend us to the Favour of God but that even that Law was a Dispensation of Grace in which it was a true Faith like Abraham's that put Men in the Favour of God yet in both these Epistles in which Iustification is fully treated of it stands always for the receiving one into the Favour of God In this the Consideration upon which it is done and the Condition upon which it is offered are two very different things The one is a Dispensation of God's Mercy in which he has regard to his own Attributes to the Honour of his Laws and his Government of the World The other is the Method in which he applies that to us in such a manner that it may have such Ends as are both perfective of Human Nature and suitable to an infinitely Holy Being
they are Yet a long softening is added to the Decree importing That none ought to glory in himself but in the Lord whose goodness is such that he makes his own gifts to us to be merits in us And it adds That because in many things we offend all every one ought to consider the justice and severity as well as the mercy and goodness of God and not to judge himself even tho he should know nothing by himself So then that in which all are agreed about this Matter is 1. That our Works cannot be good or acceptable to God but as we are assisted by his Grace and Spirit to do them So that the real Goodness that is in them flows from those Assistances which enable us to do them 2. That God does certainly reward Good Works He has promised it and he is faithful and cannot lie nor is he unrighteous to forget our labour of love So the Favour of God and eternal Happiness is the reward of Good Works Mention is also made of a full reward of the reward of a righteous Man and of a Prophet's reward Matth. 10.41 42. 2 Cor. 4.17 3. That this Reward is promised in the Gospel and could not be claimed without that by any antecedent Merit founded upon equality Since our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory The Points in which we differ are 1. Whether the Good Works of holy Men are so perfect that there is no defect in them or whether there is still some such defect mixed with them that there is occasion for Mercy to pardon somewhat even in Good Men Those of the Church of Rome think that a Work cannot be called good if it is not entirely good and that nothing can please God in which there is a mixture of Sin Whereas we according to the Article believe that Human Nature is so weak and so degenerated that as far as our Natural Powers concur in any Action there is still some Allay in it and that a Good work is considered by God according to the main both of the Action and of the Intention of him that does it and as a Father pities his Children so God passes over the defects of those who serve him sincerely though not perfectly Gen. 6.5 Jam. 3.2 Phil. 3.13 The imaginations of the heart of man are only evil continually In many things we offend all says St. Iames And St. Paul reckons that he had not yet apprehended but was forgetting the things behind and reaching to these before and still pressing forward We see in fact that the best Men in all Ages have been complaining and humbling themselves even for the sins of their Holy Things for their Vanity and Desire of Glory for the distraction of their Thoughts in Devotion and for the Affection which they bore to Earthly things It were a Doctrine of great Cruelty which might drive Men to despair if they thought that no Action could please God in which they were conscious to themselves of some Imperfection or Sin The Midwives of Egypt feared God yet they excused themselves by a Lye But God accepted of what was good and passed over what was amiss in them and built them houses Exod. 1.21 St. Austin urges this frequently That our Saviour in teaching us to pray has made this a standing Petition Forgive us our Trespasses as well as that Give us this day our daily Bread for we sin daily and do always need a Pardon Upon these Reasons we conclude that somewhat of the Man enters into all that Men do We are made up of Infirmities and we need the Intercession of Christ to make our best Actions to be accepted of by God For if he should straitly mark iniquity who can stand before him Psal. 130.3 4. 2 Chron. 30.18 19. but mercy is with him and forgiveness So that with Hezekiah we ought to pray That though we are not purified according to the purification of the sanctuary yet the good Lord would pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God The Second Question arises out of this concerning the Merit of Good Works for upon the supposition of their being compleatly good that Merit is founded which will be acknowledged to be none at all if it is believed that there are such Defects in them that they need a Pardon since where there is Guilt there can be no pretension to Merit The word Merit has also a sound that is so daring so little suitable to the humility of a Creature to be used towards a Being of Infinite Majesty and with relation to endless Rewards that though we do not deny but that a sense is given to it by many of the Church of Rome to which no just exception can be made yet there seems to be somewhat too bold in it especially when Condignity is added to it And since this may naturally give us an Idea of a buying and selling with God and that there has been a great deal of this put in practice it is certain that on many respects this Word ought not to be made use of There is somewhat in the Nature of Man apt to swell and to raise it self out of measure and to that no Indulgence ought to be given in words that may flatter it for we ought to subdue this Temper by all means possible both in our selves and others On the other hand though we confess that there is a Disorder and Weakness that hangs heavy upon us and that sticks close to us yet this ought not to make us indulge our selves in our sins as if they were the effects of an Infirmity that is inseparable from us To consent to any Sin if it were ever so small in it self is a very great sin We ought to go on still cleansing our selves more and more 2 Cor. 7.1 from all filthiness both of the flesh and of the spirit and perfecting holiness in the fear of God Our readiness to sin should awaken both our diligence to watch against it and our humility under it For though we grow not up to a pitch of being above all sin and of absolute Perfection yet there are many degrees both of Purity and Perfection to which we may arrive and to which we must constantly aspire So that we must keep a just Temper in this Matter neither to ascribe so much to our own Works as to be lifted up by reason of them or to forget our daily need of a Saviour both for Pardon and Intercession nor on the other hand so far to neglect them as to take no care about them The due Temper is to make our calling and election sure Phil. 2.12 Col. 3.17 and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling but to do all in the name of the Lord Iesus ever trusting to him and giving thanks to God by him ARTICLE XIII Of Works before Justification Works done before the
Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Iesus Christ neither do they make men meet to receive Grace or as the School-Authors say deserve Grace of Congruity Yea rather for that they are not done as God hath commanded and willed them to be done we doubt not but that they have the nature of Sin THere is but one Point to be considered in this Article which is Whether Men can without any inward Assistances from God do any Action that shall be in all its circumstances so good that it is not only acceptable to God but meritorious in his sight though in a lower degree of merit If what was formerly laid down concerning a Corruption that was spread over the whole Race of Mankind and that had very much vitiated their Faculties be true then it will follow from thence That unassisted Nature can do nothing that is so good in it self that it can be pleasant or meritorious in the sight of God A great difference is here to be made between an external Action as it is considered in it self and the same Action as it was done by such a Man An Action is called good from the Morality and Nature of the Action it self so Actions of Justice and Charity are in themselves good whatsoever the Doer of them may be But Actions are considered by God with relation to him that does them in another light his Principles Ends and Motives with all the other circumstances of the Action come into this Account for unless all these be good let the Action in its own abstracted nature be ever so good it cannot render the Doer acceptable or meritorious in the sight of God Another distinction is also to be made between the Methods of the Goodness and Mercy of God and the strictness of Justice For if God had suchregard to the feigned Humiliation of Ahab 1 Kings 21.29 as to grant him and his Family a Reprieve for some time from those Judgments that had been denounced against them and him and if Iehu's executing the Commands of God upon Ahab's Family and upon the Worshippers of Baal procured him the Blessing of a long continuance of the Kingdom in his Family though he acted in it with a bad design 2 Kings 10.30 31. and retained still the old Idolatry of the Calves set up by Ieroboam then we have all reason to conclude according to the Infinite Mercy and Goodness of God that no Man is rejected by him or denied inward Assistances that is making the most of his Faculties and doing the best that he can but that he who is faithful in his little shall be made Ruler over more The Question is only Whether such Actions can be so pure as to be free from all sin and to Merit at God's hand as being Works naturally perfect for that is the formal Notion of the Merit of Congruity as the Notion of the Merit of Condignity is That the Work is perfect in the Supernatural Order To establish the Truth of this Article beside what was said upon the Head of Original Sin we ought to consider what St. Paul's words in the 7 th of the Romans do import Nothing was urged from them on the former Articles because there is just ground of doubting whether St. Paul is there speaking of himself in the state he was in when he writ it or whether he is personating a Iew and speaking of himself as he was while yet a Iew. But if the words are taken in that lowest sense they prove this That an Unregenerate Man has in himself such a Principle of Corruption that even a good and a holy Law revealed to him cannot reform it but that on the contrary it will take occasion from that very Law to deceive him and to slay him Rom. 7.12 13. So that all the benefit that he receives even from that Revelation is Ver. 14. that sin in him becomes exceeding sinful as being done against such a degree of Light by which it appears that he is carnal and sold under sin and that though his Understanding may be enlighten'd by the Revelation of the Law of God made to him so that he has some Inclinations to obey it yet he does not that which he would but that which he would not And though his Mind is so far convinced 16 17 18 that he consents to the Law that it is good yet he still does that which he would not which was the effect of sin that dwelt in him and from hence he knew that in him that is in his flesh in his carnal part or carnal state there dwelt no good thing for though to will that is to resolve on obeying the Law was present yet he found not a way how to perform that which was good the good that he wished to do that he did not but he did the evil that he wished not to do which he imputed to the sin that dwelt in him He found then a Law a Bent and Biass within him 21 that when he wished resolved and endeavoured to do good evil was present with him it sprung up naturally within him for though in his rational Powers he might so far approve the Law of God as to delight in it yet he found another Law arising upon his Mind from his Body 23 which warred against the law of his mind and brought him into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members 24 25. All this made him conclude that he was carnal and sold under sin and cry out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death For this he thanks God through our Lord Iesus Christ And he sums all up in these words So then with the mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the flesh the Law of Sin If all this Discourse is made by St. Paul of himself when he had the Light which a Divinely-inspired Law gave him he being educated in the exactest way of that Religion both zealous for the Law and blameless in his own observance of it we may from thence conclude how little reason there is to believe that a Heathen or indeed an unregenerated Man can be better than he was and do Actions that are both good in themselves which it is not denied but that he may do and do them in such a manner that there shall be no mixture nor imperfection in them but that they shall be perfect in a Natural Order and be by consequence meritorious in a Secondary Order By all this we do not pretend to say That a Man in that state can do nothing or that he has no use of his Faculties He can certainly restrain himself on many occasions he can do many good works and avoid many bad ones he can raise his Understanding to know and consider things according to the Light that he has he can put
For so great and so important a Matter as this is must be supposed to be either expresly declared in the Scriptures or not at all The Article affirming That some General Councils have erred must be understood of Councils that pass for such and that may be called General Councils much better than many others that go by that Name For that at Arimini was both very Numerous and was drawn out of many different Provinces As to the strict Notion of a General Council there is great Reason to believe that there was never any Assembly to which it will be found to agree And for the Four General Councils which this Church declares she receives they are received only because we are persuaded from the Scriptures that their Decisions were made according to them That the Son is truly God of the same Substance with the Father That the Holy Ghost is also truly God That the Divine Nature was truly united to the Human in Christ and that in One Person That both Natures remain distinct and that the Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine These Truths we find in the Scriptures and therefore we believe them We reverence those Councils for the sake of their Doctrine but do not believe the Doctrine for the Authority of the Councils There appeared too much of Human Frailty in some of their other Proceedings to give us such an Implicite Submission to them as to believe things only because they so Decided them ARTICLE XXII Of Purgatory The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God THERE are two small Variations in this Article from that published in King Edward's Reign What is here called the Romish Doctrine is there called the Doctrine of School-men The plain reason of this is that these Errors were not so fully espoused by the Body of the Roman Church when those Articles were first published so that some Writers that softened matters threw them upon the School-men and therefore the Article was cautiously worded in laying them there But before these that we have now were published the Decree and Canons concerning the Mass had passed at Trent in which most of the Heads of this Article are either affirmed or supposed though the formal Decree concerning them was made some Months after these Articles were published This will serve to justifie that diversity The second difference is only the leaving out a severe word Perniciously repugnant to the Word of God was put at first but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word they judged very right in the Second Edition of them that it was enough to say repugnant to the Word of God There are in this Article five Particulars that are all Ingredients in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of Rome Purgatory Pardons the Worship of Images and of Relicks and the Invocation of Saints that are rejected not only as ill grounded brought in and maintained without good warrants from the Scripture but as contrary to it The first of these is Purgatory concerning which the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that every Man is liable both to Temporal and to Eternal Punishment for his Sins that God upon the Account of the Death and Intercession of Christ does indeed pardon Sin as to its Eternal Punishment but the Sinner is still liable to Temporal Punishment which he must expiate by Acts of Pennance and Sorrow in this World together with such other Sufferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him but if he does not expiate these in this Life there is a State of Suffering and Misery in the next World where the Soul is to bear the Temporal punishment of its Sins which may continue longer or shorter till the Day of Judgment And in order to the shortening this the Prayers and Supererogations of Men here on Earth or the Intercession of the Saints in Heaven but above all things the Sacrifice of the Mass are of great Efficacy This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome asserted in the Councils of Florence and Trent What has been taught among them concerning the Nature and the Degrees of those Torments though supported by many pretended Apparitions and Revelations is not to be imputed to the whole Body and is indeed only the Doctrine of Schoolmen though it is generally preached and infused into the Consciences of the People Therefore I shall only examine that which is the established Doctrine of the whole Roman Church And first as to the Foundation of it that Sins are only pardoned as to their Eternal Punishment to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ. Rom. 5.1 There is not a colour for it in the Scriptures Remission of Sins is in general that with which the Preaching of the Gospel ought always to begin and this is so often repeated without any such reserve that it is a high assuming upon God and his Attributes of Goodness and Mercy to limit these when he has not limited them but has expresly said that this is a main part of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 Heb. 8.12 that he will remember our sins and iniquities no more Now it seems to be a Maxim not only of the Law of Nations but of Nature that all offers of Pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the Words without any secret Reserves or Limitations unless they are plainly expressed An Indemnity being offered by a Prince to persuade his Subjects to return to their Obedience in the fullest Words possible without any reserves made in it it would be lookt on as a very perfidious thing if when the Subjects come in upon it trusting to it they should be told that they were to be secured by it against Capital Punishments but that as to all Inferior Punishments they were still at Mercy We do not dispute whether God if he had thought fit so to do might not have made this distinction nor do we deny that the Grace of the Gospel had been infinitely valuable if it had offered us only the Pardon of Sin with relation to its Eternal Punishment and had left the Temporal Punishment on us to be expiated by our selves but then we say this ought to have been expressed The Distinction ought to have been made between Temporal and Eternal and we ought not to have been drawn into a Covenant with God by words that do plainly import an intire Pardon and Oblivion upon which there lay a limited Sense that was not to be told the World till it was once well engaged in the Christian Religion Upon these Reasons it is that we conclude that this Doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures is not only without any warrant in them but that it is contrary to those full offers of
not only in the point of Redemption which is not denied by those of the Church of Rome but even in the point of Intercession for when St. Paul is treating concerning the Prayers and Supplications that are to be offered for all Men he concludes that Direction in these Words For there is one God and one Mediator between God and Man 1 Tim. 2. the Man Christ Iesus We think the silence of the New Testament might be a sufficient Argument for this But these Words go farther and imply a Prohibition to address our Prayers to God by any other Mediator All the Directions that are given us of trusting in God and praying to him are upon the matter Prohibitions of trusting to any other or of calling on any other Invocation and Faith are joyned together How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed Rom. 10.14 So that we ought only to pray to God and to Christ according to those words Ye believe in God believe ye also in me John 14.1 We do also know that it was a part of Heathenish Idolatry to Invocate either Demons or departed Men whom they considered as good Beings subordinate to the Divine Essence and imployed by God in the Government of the World and they had almost the same Speculations about them that have been since introduced into the Church concerning Angels and Saints In the condemning all Idolatry no reserve is made in Scripture for this as being faulty only because it was applied wrong or that it might be set right when directed better On the contrary when some Men under the pretence of Humility and of Will-worship Col. 2.18 did according to the Platonick Notions offer to bring in the Worship of Angels into the Church of Colosse pretending as is probable that those Spirits who were imployed by God in the Ministry of the Gospel ought in gratitude for that Service and out of respect to their Dignity to be worshipped St. Paul condemns all this without any reserves made for lower degrees of Worship he charges the Christians to beware of that vain Philosophy Verse 8 9 10. and not to be deceived by those shews of Humility or the Speculations of Men who pretended to explain that which they did not know as intruding into things which they had not seen vainly puffed up by their fleshly Mind If any degrees of invocating Saints or Angels had been consistent with the Christian Religion this was the proper place of declaring them But the condemning that matter so absolutely looks as a very express Prohibition of all sort of Worship to Angels And when St. Iohn fell down to Worship the Angel that had made him such glorious Discoveries upon two several Occasions The Answer he had was See thou do it not Rev. 19.10 Rev. 22.9 worship God I am thy fellow servant It is probable enough that St. Iohn might imagine that the Angel who had made such Discoveries to him was Iesus Christ but the Answer plainly shews that no sort of Worship ought to be offered to Angels nor to any but God The reason given excludes all sort of Worship for that cannot be among Fellow-Servants As Angels are thus forbid to be worshipped so no mention is made of worshipping or invocating anySaints that had died for theFaith such as St. Stephen and St. Iames. In the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 13.7 they are required to Remember them which had the rule over them and to follow their faith but not a word of praying to them So that if either the Silence of the Scriptures on this Head or if plain Declarations to the contrary could decide this Matter the Controversy would be soon at an end Christ is always proposed to us as the only Person by whom we come unto God And when St. Paul speaks against the worshipping of Angels he sets Christ out in his Glory in Opposition to it For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him which is the Head of all Principality and Power Col. 2.9 10. pursuing that reason in a great many particulars From the Scriptures if we go to the first Ages of Christianity we find nothing that favours this but a great deal to the contrary Irenaeus disclaims the Invocation of Angels The memorable Passage of the Church of Smirna formerly cited is a full Proof of their Sense in this matter Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian do often mention the Worship that was given to God only Clem. Protrep Tertul. Apol. c. 17. by Prayer and so far were they at that time from praying to Saints that they prayed for them as was formerly explained They thought they were not yet in the Presence of God so they could not pray to them as long as that Opinion continued That Form of praying for them is in the Apostolical Constitutions In all that Collection which seems to be a Work of the Fourth or Fifth Century there is not a word that intimates their Praying to Saints In the Council of Laodicea there is an express Condemnation of those who invocated Angels Con. Laod. c. 35. Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Iren. l. 2. c. 35. Orig. Con. Cels. l. 8. Tert. de Orat. c. 1. Athanas. cont Arian Orat. 1 3 4. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 40. Greg. Niss in Basil. cont Eunap Basil. Hom. 27. cont Eunom l. 4. Epiph. Haeres 64 69 78 79. Theod. de Haer. Fabul l. 5. c. 3. Chrysost. de Trinit this is called a Secret Idolatry and a forsaking of our Lord Iesus Christ. The first Apologists for Christianity do arraign the Worship of Demons and of such as had once lived on Earth in a Stile that shewed they did not apprehend that the Argument could be turned against them for their worshipping either Angels or departed Saints When the Arian Controversy arose the Invocation of Christ is urged by Athanasius Basil Cyril and other Fathers as an evident Argument that he was neither made nor created since they did not pray to Angels or any other Creatures from whence they concluded that Christ was God These are convincing Proofs of the Doctrine of the Three first and of a good part of the Fourth Century It is true as was confessed upon the former Head they began with Martyrs in the end of the Fourth Century They fancied they heard those that called to them and upon that it was no wonder if they invocated them and so private Prayers to them began But as appears both by the Constitutions and several of the Writers of that time the Publick Offices were yet preserved pure St. Austin says plainly The Gentiles built Temples raised Altars ordained Priests and offered Sacrifices to their Gods Aug. con Serm. Ar. c. 29. con Max. l. 13. c. 4. Aug. de Civ Dei l. 22. c. 10. l. 8. c. 27. but we do not erect Temples to our Martyrs as if they were Gods but Memories as to dead Men whose Spirits live with
the Phrases would grow old and sound harshly A few Alterations once in an Age will set this matter right besides that the use of such Forms does fix a Language at least as to those Phrases that are used in it which grow to be so familiar to our Ears by constant use that they do not so easily wear out It is above Eighty Years since the present Translation of the Bible was made and above One hundred and forty since our Liturgy was compiled and yet we perceive no uncouthness in the Phrases The simplicity in which such Forms must be drawn makes them not so subject to Alteration as other Composures of Rhetorick or Poetry but can it be thought any inconveniency now and then to alter a little the Words or Phrases of our Service Much less can that be thought of weight enough to balance the vaster prejudice of keeping whole Nations in Ignorance and of extinguishing Devotion by entertaining it with a Form of Worship that is not understood Nor can this be avoided by saying that the People are furnished with Forms in their own Language into which the greatest part of the Publick Offices are translated For as this is not done but since the Reformation began and in those Nations only where the Scandal that is given by an Unknown Language might have as they apprehend ill effects so it is only an Artifice to keep those still in their Communion whom such a gross Practice if not thus disguised might otherwise drive from them But still the Publick Worship has no Edification in it nor can those who do not understand it say Amen according to St. Paul Finally they urge the Communion of Saints in order to which they think it is necessary that Priests wheresoever they go may be able to officiate which they cannot do if every Nation Worships God in its own Language And this was indeed very necessary in those Ages in which the See of Rome did by Provisions and the other Inventions of the Canonists dispose of the best Benefices to their own Creatures and Servants That Trade would have been spoiled if Strangers might not have been admitted till they had learned the Language of the Country And thus instead of taking care of the People that ought to be edified by the Publick Worship Provision was made at their cost for such Vagrant Priests as have been in all Ages the Scandals of the Church and the Reproaches of Religion ARTICLE XXV Of the Sacraments Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only Badges or Tokens of Christian Mens Profession but rather they be certain sure Witnesses and effectual Signs of Grace and God's Will towards us by the which he doth work invisibly in us and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him There are Two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments that is to say Confirmation Penance Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles partly are States of Life allowed in the Scriptures but yet have not like Nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper for that they have not any visible Sign or Ceremony ordained of God The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or to be carried about but that we should duly use them And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholsome Effect or Operation but they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves Damnation as St. Paul saith THERE is a great Diversity between the Form of this Article as it is now settled and that published by King Edward which begun in these Words Our Lord Iesus Christ gathered his People into a Society by Sacraments very few in number most easily to be kept and of most excellent Signification that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. There is nothing in that Edition instead of the Paragraph concerning the other five pretended Sacraments Next comes the Paragraph which is here the last only with the Addition of these Words after Operation Not as some say ex opere operato which Terms as they are strange and utterly unknown to the Holy Scripture so do they yield a Sense which savoureth of little Piety but of much Superstition And in conclusion the Paragraph comes with which the Article does now begin so that in all this Diversity there is no real difference For the Virtue of the Sacraments being put in the worthy receiving excludes the Doctrine of Opus operatum as formally as if it had expresly been condemned and the naming the Two Sacraments instituted by Christ is upon the Matter the rejecting of all the rest It was most natural to begin this Article with a Description of Sacraments in General This difference is to be put between Sacraments and other Ritual Actions that whereas other Rites are Badges and Distinctions by which the Christians are known a Sacrament is more than a bare matter of Form and as in the Old Testament Circumcision and Propitiatory Sacrifices were things of a different Nature and Order from all the other Ritual Precepts concerning their Cleansings the Distinctions of Days Places and Meats These were indeed Precepts given them of God but they were not federal Acts of renewing the Covenant or reconciling themselves to God By Circumcision they received the Seal of the Covenant and were brought under the Obligation of the whole Law they were by it made Debtors to it and when by their Sins they had provoked God's Wrath they were reconciled to him by their Sacrifices with which Atonement was made and so their Sins were forgiven them The Nature and End of those was to be federal Acts in the offering of which the Iews kept to their part of the Covenant and in the accepting of which God maintained it on his part so we see a plain difference between these and a meer Rite which though commanded yet must pass only for the Badge of a Profession as the doing of it is an Act of Obedience to a Divine Law Now in the new Dispensation though our Saviour has eased us of that Law of Ordinances that grievous Yoke and those beggarly Elements which were laid upon the Iews yet since we are still in the Body subject to our Senses and to sensible things he has appointed some federal Actions to be both the visible Stipulations and Professions of our Christianity and the conveyances to us of the Blessings of the Gospel There are two Extremes to be avoided in this Matter The one is of the Church of Rome that teaches That as some Sacraments imprint a Character upon the Soul which they define to be a Physical Quality that is Supernatural and Spiritual so they do all carry along with them such a Divine Virtue that by the very receiving them the
these are of no Value being only Inventions to deceive Men and to expose Religion to Mockery But even severe and afflicting Fasting if done only as a Punishment which when it is over the Penance is believed to be compleated gives such a low Idea of God and Religion that from thence Men are led to think very slightly of Sin when they know at what price they can carry it off Such a continuance in Fasting in order to Prayer as humbles and depresses Nature and raises the Mind is a great mean to reform the World but Fasting as a prescribed Task to expiate our Sins is a scorn put upon Religion Prayer when it arises from a serious Heart that is earnest in it and when it becomes habitual is certainly a most effectual mean to reform the World and to fetch down Divine Assistances But to appoint so many vocal Prayers to be gone through as a Task and then to tell the World that the running through these with few or no inward Acts accompanying them is Contrition or Attrition this is liker a Design to root out all the Impressions of Religion and all sense of that Repentance which the Gospel requires than to promote it This may be a Task fit to accustom Children to but it is contrary to the true Genius of Religion to teach Men instead of that reasonable Service that we ought to offer up to God to give him only the Labour of the Lips which is the Sacrifice of Fools Prayers gone through as a Task can be of no value and can find no acceptation in the sight of God And as St. Paul said that if he gave all his goods to the poor and had not Charity he was nothing 1 Cor. 13 1 2. So the greatest profusion of Alms-giving when done in a mercenary Way to buy off and to purchase a Pardon is the turning of God's House from being a house of prayer to be a den of thieves Upon all these Reasons we except to the whole Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome as to the Satisfaction made by doing Penance And in the last place we except to the Form of Absolution in these Words I Absolve thee We of this Church who use it only to such as are thought to be near Death cannot be meant to understand any thing by it but the full Peace and Pardon of the Church For if we meant a Pardon with relation to God we ought to use it upon many other occasions The Pardon that we give in the Name of God is only declaratory of his Pardon or supplicatory in a Prayer to him for Pardon In this we have the whole Practice of the Church till the Twelfth Century universally of our side All the Fathers all the ancient Liturgies all that have writ upon the Offices and the first Schoolmen are so express in this Matter that the thing in Fact cannot be denied Morinus has published so many of their old Rituals that he has put an end to all doubting about it In the Twelfth Century some few began to use the Words I Absolve thee Yet to soften this Expression that seemed New and Bold some tempered it with these Words in so far as it is granted to my frailty and others with those Words as far as the accusation comes from thee and as the pardon is in me Yet this Form was but little practised So that William Bishop of Paris speaks of the Form of Absolution as given only in a Prayer and not as given in these Words I Absolve thee He lived in the beginning of the Fourteenth Century so that this Practice though begun in other Places before that Time yet was not known long after in so publick a City as Paris But some Schoolmen begun to defend it as implying only a declaration of the Pardon pronounced by the Priest And this having an air of more Authority and being once justified by Learned Men did so universally prevail that in little more than sixty Years time it became the universal Practice of the whole Latin Church So sure a thing is Tradition and so impossible to be changed as they pretend when within the compass of one Age the new Form I Absolve thee was not so much as generally known and before the end of it the old Form of doing it in a Prayer with Imposition of Hands was quite worn out The Idea that arises naturally out of these words is that the Priest pardons Sins and since that is subject to such abuses and has let in so much corruption upon that Church we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a Sacrament but likewise to affirm that they have corrupted this great and important Doctrine of Repentance in all the Parts and Branches of it Nor is the matter mended with that Prayer that follows the Absolution The Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ Rituale Romanum de sacr poeniten the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints and all the good that thou hast done and the evil that thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of Sins the increase of Grace and the reward of eternal Life The third Sacrament rejected by this Article is Orders which is reckoned the sixth by the Church of Rome We affirm that Christ appointed a Succession of Pastors in different Ranks to be continued in his Church for the Work of the Gospel and the Care of Souls and that as the Apostles setled the Churches they appointed different Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons And we believe that all who are dedicated to serve in these Ministries after they are examined and judged worthy of them ought to be separated to them by the Imposition of Hands and by Prayer These were the only Rites that we find practised by the Apostles For many Ages the Church of God used no other therefore we acknowledge that Bishops Priests and Deacons ought to be blest and dedicated to the HolyMinistry by Imposition of Hands and Prayer And that then they are received according to the Order and Practice setled by the Apostles to serve in their respective Degrees Men thus separated have thereby Authority to perfect the Saints or Christians that is to perform the Sacred Functions among them to minister to them and to build them up in their most Holy Faith And we think no other Persons without such a Separation and Consecration can lawfully touch the Holy Things In all which we separate the Qualifications of the Functions from the inward Qualities of the Person the one not at all depending on the other The one relating only to the Order and the good Government of the Society and the other relating indeed to the Salvation of him that Officiates but not at all to the Validity of his Office or Service But in all this we see nothing like a Sacrament Here is neither Matter Form nor Institution here is only Prayer The laying on of Hands is only a gesture in Prayer
the Word baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you By the first Teaching or making of Disciples that must go before Baptism is to be meant the Convincing the World that Iesus is the Christ the true Messias anointed of God with a fulness of Grace and of the Spirit without measure and sent to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the World And when any were brought to acknowledge this then they were to Baptize them to initiate them to this Religion by obliging them to Renounce all Idolatry and Ungodliness as well as all secular and carnal Lusts and then they led them into the Water and with no other Garments but what might cover Nature they at first laid them down in the Water as a Man is laid in a Grave and then they said those words I baptize or wash thee in the Name of the Father Rom. 6.3 4 5. Son and Holy Ghost Then they raised them up again and clean Garments were put on them From whence came the Phrases of being baptized into Christ's death Col. 2.12 Col. 3.1 10. Rom. 13.14 of being buried with him by baptism into death Of our being risen with Christ and of our putting on the Lord Iesus Christ of putting off the Old Man and putting on the New After Baptism was thus performed the baptized Person was to be farther instructed in all the Specialities of the Christian Religion And in all the Rules of Life that Christ had prescribed This was plainly a different Baptism from St. Iohn's a Profession was made in it not in general of the Belief of a Messias soon to appear but in particular that Iesus was the Messias The Stipulation in St. Iohn's Baptism was Repentance but here it is the Belief of the whole Christian Religion In St. Iohn's Baptism they indeed promised Repentance and he received them into the earnests of the Kingdom of the Messias but it does not appear that St. Iohn either did promise them Remission of Sins or that he had Commission so to do For Repentance and Remission of Sins were not joined together till after the Resurrection of Christ Luke 24.47 that he appointed that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Ierusalem In the Baptism of Christ I mean that which he appointed after his Resurrection for the Baptism of his Disciples before that time was no doubt the same with St. Iohn's Baptism there was to be an Instruction given in that great Mystery of the Christian Religion concerning the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which those who had only received St. Iohn's Baptism knew not They did not so much as know that there was a Holy Ghost Acts 19.2 3 4 5. That is they knew nothing of the extraordinary Effusion of the Holy Ghost And it is expresly said that those of St. Iohn's Baptism when St. Paul explained to them the difference between the Baptism of Christ and that of St. Iohn that they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus For St. Iohn in his Baptism had only initiated them to the belief of a Messias but had not said a word of Iesus as being that Messias Joh. 3.3 5 6. So that this must be fixed that these two Baptisms were different the one was a dawning or imperfect beginning to the other as he that administred the one was like the Morning Star before the Sun of Righteousness Our Saviour had this Ordinance that was then imperfect and was to be afterwards compleated when he himself had finished all that he came into the World to do he had I say this visibly in his eye when he spake to Nicodemus and told him that except a man were born again he could not see or discern the Kingdom of God By which he meant that entire change and renovation of a man's mind and of all his powers through which he must pass before he could discern the true Characters of the Dispensation of the Messias for that is the sense in which the Kingdom of God does stand almost universally through the whole Gospel When Nicodemus was amazed at this odd expression and seemed to take it literally our Saviour answered more fully Verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God The meaning of which seems to be this that except a man came to be renewed by an ablution like the Baptism which the Iews used that imported the outward profession of a change of Doctrine and of Heart and with that except he were inwardly changed by a secret power called the Spirit that should transform his nature he could not become one of his Disciples or a true Christian which is meant by his entring into the Kingdom of God or the Dispensation of the Messias Upon this Institution and Commission given by Christ we see the Apostles went up and down Preaching and Baptizing And so far were they from considering Baptism only as a carnal Rite or a low Element above which a higher Dispensation of the Spirit was to raise them that when St. Peter saw the Holy Ghost visibly descend upon Cornelius and his Friends he upon that immediately Baptized them and said Acts 10.44 47 48. Can any man forbid or deny water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we Our Saviour has also made Baptism one of the Precepts tho' not one of the Means necessary to Salvation A Mean is that which does so certainly procure a thing that it being had the thing to which it is a certain and necessary Mean is also had and without it the thing cannot be had there being a natural connexion between it and the End Whereas a Precept is an Institution in which there is no such natural efficiency but it is positively commanded so that the neglecting it is a contempt of the Authority that commanded it And therefore in obeying the Precept the value or vertue of the action lies only in the obedience This distinction appears very clearly in what our Saviour has said both of Faith and Baptism Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Where it appears that Faith is the Mean of Salvation with which it is to be had and not without it since such a believing as makes a man receive the whole Gospel as true and so firmly to depend upon the Promises that are made in it as to observe all the Laws and Rules that are prescribed by it such a Faith as this gives us so sure a title to all the Blessings of this New Covenant that it is impossible that we should continue in this state and not partake of them and it is no less impossible that we should partake of them
and the full Evidence of an Object that is before us and that is clearly apprehended by us So there is a great difference to be made between our Reasonings upon Difficulties that we can neither understand nor resolve and our Reasonings upon clear Principles The one may be false and the other must be true We are sure that a Thing cannot be one and three in the same respect our Reason assures us of this and we do and must believe it but we know that in different respects the same thing may be one and three And since we cannot know all the possibilities of those different respects we must believe upon the Authority of God revealing it that the same thing is both one and three tho' if a Revelation should affirm that the same thing were one and three in the same respect we should not and indeed could not believe it This Argument deserves to be fully opened for we are sure either it is true or we cannot be sure that any thing else whatsoever is true In confirmation of this we ought also to consider the nature and ends of Miracles They put Nature out of its channel and reverse its fixed Laws and Motions and the end of God's giving Men a power to work them is that by them the World may be convinced that such Persons are Commissionated by him to deliver his Pleasure to them in some Particulars And as it could not become the Infinite Wisdom of the Great Creator to change the Order of Nature which is his own Workmanship upon slight Grounds so we cannot suppose that he should work a Chain of Extraordinary Miracles to no purpose It is not to give credit to a Revelation that he is making for the Senses do not perceive it on the contrary they do reject and contradict it and the Revelation instead of getting credit from it is loaded by it as introducing that which destroys all credit and certainty In other Miracles our Senses are appealed to but here they must be appealed from nor is there any Spiritual end served in working this Miracle for it is acknowledged that the effects of this Sacrament are given upon our due coming to it independent upon the Corporal Presence So that the Grace of the Sacrament does not always accompany it since unworthy Receivers tho' according to the Romish Doctrine they receive the true Body of Christ yet they do not receive Grace with it And the Grace that is given in it to the worthy Receivers stays with them after that by the destruction of the Species of the Bread and Wine the Body of Christ is withdrawn So that it is acknowledged that the Spiritual effect of the Sacrament does not depend upon the Corporal Presence Here then it is supposed that God is every day working a great many Miracles in a vast number of different Places and that of so extraordinary a nature that it must be confessed they are far beyond all the other Wonders even of Omnipotence and yet all this is to no end that we can apprehend neither to any sensible and visible end nor to any Internal and Spiritual one This must needs seem an amazing thing that God should work such a Miracle on our behalf and yet should not acquaint us with any end for which he should work it To conclude this whole Argument We have one great advantage in this matter that our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament of a Mystical Presence of Christ in the Symbols and of the effects of it on the worthy and unworthy Receivers is all acknowledged by the Church of Rome but they have added to this the Wonder of the Corporal Presence So that we need bring no Proofs to them at least for that which we teach concerning it since it is all confessed by them But as to that which they have added it is not necessary for us to give Proofs against it it is enough for us if we shew that all the Proofs that they bring for it are weak and unconcluding They must be very demonstrative if it is expected that upon the authority and evidence of them we should be bound to believe a thing which they themselves confess to be contrary both to our Sense and Reasons We cannot by the Laws of Reasoning be bound to give Arguments against it it is enough if we can shew that neither the words of the Institution nor the Discourse in the sixth of St. Iohn do necessarily infer it and if we shew that those Passages can well bear another sense which is agreeable both to the words themselves and to the style of the Scriptures and more particularly to the Phraseology to which the Iews were accustomed upon the occasion on which this was Instituted and if the words can well bear the Sense that we give them then the other advantages that are in it of its being simple and natural of its being suitable to the design of a Sacrament and of its having no hard consequences of any sort depending upon it then I say by all the Rules of expounding Scripture we do justly infer that our Sense of those words ought to be preferred This is according to a Rule that St. Augustin gives to judge what Expressions in Scripture are Figurative and what not Lib. 3. de Doct. Chris. c. 16. If any place seems to command a Crime or horrid Action it is Figurative And for an Instance of this he cites those Words Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you Which seems to command a Crime and an horrid Action and therefore it is a Figure commanding us to communicate in the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our Memory with delight and profit that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for us And this was given for a Rule by the great Doctor of the Latin Church so the same Maxim had been delivered almost two Ages before him Hom. 7. in Levit. by the great Doctor of the Greek Church Origen who says that the understanding our Saviour's words of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood according to the Letter is a Letter that kills These Passages I cite by an Anticipation before I enter upon the enquiry into the Sense of the ancient Church concerning this Matter because they belong to the words of the Institution at least to the Discourse in St. Iohn Now if the Sense that we give to these Words is made good we need be at no more pains to prove that they are capable of no other Sense Since this must prove that to be the only true Sense of them So that for all the Arguments that have been brought by us against this Doctrine arising out of the Fruitfulness of the Matter we were not bound to use them For our Doctrine being confessed by them it wants no Proof and we cannot be bound to prove a Negative Therefore though the Copiousness of this Matter has afforded us many
delivered Hymenaeus and Alexander unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme And he ordered that the incestuous person at Corinth should be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Iesus Certainly a Vicious indulgence to Sinners is an encouragement to them to live in Sin whereas when others about them try all methods for their Recovery and Mourn for those Sins in which they do perhaps Glory and do upon that withdraw themselves from all Communication with them both in Spirituals and as much as may be in Temporals likewise this is one of the last means that can be used in order to the reclaiming of them Another Consideration is the Peace and the Honour of the Society S. Paul wished that they were cut off that troubled the Churches Gal. 5.12 Great care ought to be taken that the Name of God and his Doctrine be not blasphemed and to give no occasion to the Enemies of our Faith to reproach us as if we designed to make Parties to promote our own Interests and to turn Religion to a Faction Excusing such as adhere to us in other things though they should break out into the most scandalous Violations of the greatest of all the Commandments of God Such a behaviour towards Excommunicated persons would also have this further good Effect It would give great Authority to that Sentence and fill mens minds with the Awe of it which must be taken off when it is observed that men converse familiarly with those that are under it These Rules are all founded upon the Principles of Societies which as they associate upon some common designs so in order to the pursuing those must have a power to separate themselves from those who depart from them In this Matter there are Extremes of both hands to be avoided Some have thought that because the Apostles have in general declared such persons to be accursed 1 Cor. 16.22 or under an Anathema who preach another Gospel and such as love not the Lord Iesus to be Anathema Maranatha which is generally understood to be a total cutting off never to be admitted till the Lord comes that therefore the Church may still put men under an Anathema for holding such unsound Doctrines as they think make the Gospel to become another in part at least if not in whole and that she may thereupon in imitation of another practice of the Apostles deliver them over unto Satan casting them out of the protection of Christ and abandoning them to the Devil Reckoning that the cutting them off from the Body of Christ is really the exposing them to the Devil who goes about as a Roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour But with what Authority soever the Apostles might upon so great a matter as the changing the Gospel or the not loving the Lord Iesus denounce an Anathema yet the applying this which they used so seldom and upon such great occasions to every Opinion after a Decision is made in it as it has carried on the Notion of the Infallibility of the Church so it has laid a Foundation for much Uncharitableness and many Animosities It has widened Breaches and made them incurable And unless it is certain that the Church which has so decreed cannot err it is a bold assuming of an Authority to which no fallible Body of men can have a Right That delivery unto Satan was visibly an act of a miraculous Power lodged with the Apostles For as they struck some blind or dead so they had an Authority of letting loose Evil Spirits on some to haunt and terrify or to punish and plague them that a desperate Evil might be cured by an extreme Remedy And therefore the Apostles never reckon this among the Standing Functions of the Church Nor do they give any Charge or Directions about it They used it themselves and but seldom It is true that S. Paul being carried by a just zeal against the Scandal which the incestuous person at Corinth had cast upon the Christian Religion did adjudg him to this severe degree of Censure But he judged it and did only order the Corinthians to publish it as coming from him with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ That so the thing might become the more publick and that the effects of it might be the more conspicuous The Primitive Church that being nearest the Fountain did best understand the Nature of Church-Power and the Effects of her Censures thought of nothing in this matter but of denying to suffer Apostates or rather scandalous persons to mix with the rest in the Sacrament or in other parts of Worship They admitted them upon the profession of their Repentance by an imposition of Hands to share in some of the more general parts of the Worship and even in these they stood by themselves and at a distance from the rest And when they had passed through several Degrees in that state of Mourning they were by steps received back again to the Communion of the Church This agrees well with all that was said formerly concerning the Nature and the Ends of Church-Power Which was given for edification and not for destruction 2 Cor. 10.8 This is suitable to the designs of the Gospel both for preserving the Society pure and for reclaiming those who are otherwise like to be carried away by the Devil in his snare This is to admonish Sinners as Brethren and not to use them as Enemies Whereas the other method looks like a power that designs Destruction rather than Edification especially when the Secular Arm is called in and that Princes are required under the Penalties of Deposition and losing their Dominions to extirpate and destroy and that by the cruellest sort of Death all those whom the Church doth so Anathematize We do not deny but that the form of denouncing or declaring Anathemas against Heresies and Hereticks is very Antient. It grew to be a Form expressing horror and was applied to the Dead as well as to the Living It was understood to be a cutting such Persons off from the Communion of the Church if they were still alive they were not admitted to any Act of Worship if they were dead their Names were not to be read at the Altar among those who were then commemorated But as heat about Opinions encreased and some lesser matters grew to be more valued then the weightier things both of Law and Gospel so the adding Anathemas to every point in which men differed from one another grew to be a common practice and swelled up at last to such a pitch that in the Council of Trent a whole Body of Divinity was put into Canons and an Anathema was fastened to every one of them The delivering to Satan was made the common Form of Excommunication an Act of Apostolical Authority being made a Precedent for the standing practice of the Church Great Subtilties were also set on foot concerning the force and
to the Practice of the second Branch of it We see what particular Care God took of the Poor in the Old Dispensation and what variety of Provision was made for them all which must certainly be carried as much higher among Christians as the Laws of Love and Charity are raised to a higher degree in the Gospel Christ represents the Essay that he gives of the Day of Judgment in this Article of Charity and expresses it in the most emphatical words possible as if what is given to the Poor were to be reckoned for as if it had been given personally to Christ himself And in a great variety of other Passages this matter is so oft insisted on that no man can resist it who reads them and acknowledges the Authority of the New Testament It is not possible to fix a determined Quota as was done under the Law in which every Family had their peculiar Allotment which had a certain Charge specified in the Law that was laid upon it But under the Gospel as men may be under greater Inequalities of Fortune than they could have been under the Old Dispensation so that vast variety of mens Circumstances makes that such Proportions as would be intolerable Burdens upon some would be too light and disproportioned to the Wealth of others Those words of our Saviour come pretty near the marking out every mans measure Luk. 21.4 These have of their abundance cast into the offerings of God but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had Abundance is Superfluity in the Greek which imports that which is over and above the food that is convenient Prov. 30.8 that which one can well spare and lay aside Now by our Saviour's design it plainly appears that this is a low degree of Charity when men give only out of this though God knows it is far beyond what is done by the greater part of Christians Whereas that which is so peculiarly acceptable to God is when men give out of their Penury that is out of what is necessary to them when they are ready especially upon great and crying occasions even to pinch Nature and straiten themselves within what upon other occasions they may allow themselves that so they may distribute to the necessities of others who are more pinched and are in great extremities By this every man ought to judg himself as knowing that he must give a most particular Account to God of that which God hath reserved to himself and ordered the distribution of it to the Poor out of all that Abundance with which he has bless'd some far beyond others ARTICLE XXXIX Of a Christian Man's Oath As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Iesus Christ and James his Apostle so we judg that Christian Religion doth not prohibit but that a man may swear when the Magistrate requireth in a Cause of Faith and Charity so it be done according to the Prophets teaching in Iustice Iudgment and Truth AN Oath is an Appeal to God either upon a Testimony that is given or a Promise that is made confirming the Truth of the one and the Fidelity of the other It is an Appeal to God who knows all things and will judg all men So it is an Act that acknowledges both his Omniscience and his being the Governor of this World who will judg all at the Last Day according to their deeds and must be supposed to have a more immediate regard to such Acts in which men made him a Party An Appeal truly made is a committing the matter to God A false one is an Act of open defiance which must either suppose a denial of his knowing all things or a belief that he has forsaken the Earth and has no regard to the Actions of Mortals or finally it is a bold venturing on the Justice and Wrath of God for the serving some present end or the gaining of some present advantage And which of these soever gives a man that brutal Confidence of adventuring on a false Oath we must conclude it to be a very crying Sin which must be expiated with a very severe Repentance or will bring down verry terrible Judgments on those who are guilty of it Thus if we consider the matter upon the Principles of Natural Religion an Oath is an Act of Worship and Homage done to God and is a very powerful mean for preserving the Justice and Order of the World All Decisions in Justice must be founded upon evidence two must be believed rather than one therefore the more Terror that is struck into the minds of men either when they give their Testimony or when they bind themselves by Promises and the deeper that this goes it will both oblige them to the greater Caution in what they say and to the greater Strictness in what they promise Since therefore Truth and Fidelity are so necessary to the Security and Commerce of the World and since an Appeal to God is the greatest Mean that can be thought on to bind men to an exactness and strictness in every thing with which that Appeal is joined therefore the use of an Oath is fully justified upon the Principles of Natural Religion This has spread it self so universally through the World and began so early that it may well be reckoned a Branch of the Law and Light of Nature We find this was practised by the Patriarchs Abimelech reckoned that he was safe if he could persuade Abraham to swear to him by God Gen. 21.23.26.28.31.53 That he would not deal falsly with him and Abraham consented so to swear Either the same Abimelech or another of that Name desired that an Oath might be between Isaac and him and they sware one to another Iacob did also swear to Laban Thus we find the Patriarchs practising this before the Mosaical Law Under that Law we find many Covenants sealed by an Oath and that was a Sacred Bond as appears from the Story of the Gibeonites There was also a special Constitution in the Iewish Religion by which one in Authority might put others under an Oath and adjure them either to do somewhat or to declare some Truth The Law was That when any Soul i. e. man sinned Lev. 5.1 and heard the voice of swearing Adjuration and was a witness whether he hath seen it or known it if he do not utter it then he shall bear his Iniquity that is he shall be guilty of Perjury So the Form then was the Judg or the Parent did adjure all persons to declare their knowledg of any particular They charged this upon them with an Oath or Curse and all persons were then bound by that Oath to tell the truth So Micah came and confessed Judg. 17.2 upon his Mother's Adjuration That he had the Eleven hundred Shekels for which he heard her put all under a Curse and upon that she blessed him 1 Sam. 14.24 28 44. Saul when he was pursuing
is not done to this day in the Greek Church and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the Offices of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries so copiously this I say of their not adoring it is perhaps more than a presumption that this Doctrine was not then thought on But since it was established all the Old Forms and Rituals have been altered and the Adoring the Sacrament is now become the main act of Devotion and of Religious Worship among them One ancient Form is indeed still continued which is of the strongest kind of Presumptions that this Doctrine came in much later than some other Superstitions which we condemn in that Church In the Masses that are appointed on Saints-days there are some Collects in which it is said that the Sacrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint and it is prayed that it may become the more valuable and acceptable by the Merits and Intercessions of the Saint Now when a practice will well agree with one Opinion but not at all with another we have all possible reason to presume at least that at first it came in under that Opinion with which it will agree and not under another which cannot consist with it Our Opinion is that the Sacrament is a federal act of our Christianity in which we offer up our highest Devotions to God through Christ and receive the largest Returns from him It is indeed a Superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint but howsoever upon the supposition of Saints hearing our Prayers and Interceding for us there is still good sense in this but if it is believed that Christ is Corporally present and that he is offered up in it it is against all Sense and it approaches to Blasphemy to do this to the Honour of a Saint and much more to desire that this which is of infinite value and is the foundation of all God's Blessings to us should receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the Merits or Intercession of Saints So this tho' a late practice yet does fully evince that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was not yet thought on when it was first brought into the Office So far I have gone upon the Presumptions that may be offered to prove that this Doctrine was not known to the Ancients They are not only just and lawful Presumptions but they are so strong and violent that when they are well considered they force an assent to that which we infer from them I go next to the more plain and direct Proofs that we find of the Opinion of the Ancients in this Matter They call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration Iustin Martyr calls them Bread and Wine Apolog. 2. and a nourishment which nourished He indeed says it is not common Bread and Wine which shews that he thought it was still so in Substance And he illustrates the Sanctification of the Elements by the Incarnation of Christ in which the human Nature did not lose or change its Substance by its Union with the Divine So the Bread and the Wine do not according to that Explanation lose their proper Substance when they become the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Irenoeus calls it that Bread over which thanks are given and says it is no more common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and a heavenly Lib. 4. de haer c. 34. Lib. 1. adver Marcion c. 14. Lib. 3 adver Marcion c. 19. Tertullian arguing against the Marcionites who held two Gods and that the Creator of this Earth was the bad God but that Christ was contrary to him urges against them this that Christ made use of the Creatures And says he did not reject Bread by which he represents his own Body And in another Place he says Christ calls Bread his Body That from thence you may understand that he gave the figure of his Body to the Bread Origen says we eat of the Loaves that are set before us Lib. 8. contâ—a Celsum Which by prayer are become a certain holy body that sanctifies those who use them with a sound purpose St. Cyprian says Christ calls the Bread that was compounded of many grains Ep. â—6 Ep. 63. his Body And the Wine that is pressed out of many grapes his Blood to shew the Vnion of his People And in another Place writing against those who used only Water but no Wine in the Eucharist He says we cannot see the Blood by which we are Redeemed when Wine is not in the Chalice by which the Blood of Christ is shewed Epiphanius being to Prove that Man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he is not like him urges this In Anchoreto That the Bread is not like Christ neither in his invisible Deity nor in his Incarnate likeness for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue Gregory Nyssen says the Bread in the beginning is common In orat de baptis Christi but after the Mystery has consecrated it it is said to be and is the Body of Christ To this he compares the Sanctification of the mystical Oil of the Water in Baptism and the Stones of an Altar or Church dedicated to God St. Ambrose calls it still Bread De Benedict Patriarch c. 9. Hom. 24. in Ep. ad Cor. and says this Bread is made of the food of the Saints St. Chrysostom on these words the Bread that we break says What is the bread The Body of Christ What are they made to be who take it The Body of Christ. Which shews that he considered the Bread as being so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers became his Body which is done not by a change of Substance but by a Sanctification of their Natures St. Ierom says Christ took Bread Comm. in St. Matth. c. 26. that as Melchisedeck had in the figure offered Bread and Wine he might also represent the truth that is in Opposition to the Figure of his Body and Blood St. Augustin does very largely compare the Sacraments being called the Body and Blood of Christ Cit. apud Fulgent de Baptismo with those other Places in which the Church is called his Body and all Christians are his Members Which shews that he thought the One was to be understood Mystically as well as the other He calls the Eucharist frequently our daily Bread and the Sacrament of Bread and Wine All these call the Eucharist Bread and Wine in express Words But when they call it Christ's Body and Blood they call it so after a sort or that it is said to be or with some other mollifying Expression St. Augustin says this plainly Aug. Ep. 23. ad Bonifac Serm. 2. in Psal. 33. Chrys. Ep. ad Caesâ—r in coâ—ment in Ep. ad Gaâ— c. 5. after some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and