us And I conceive my supposition is not groundless for if God out of the abundance of his love sent his Son into the World that through him we might have everlasting life and that the World through him might be saved as the Apostle tells us John 3. 16. and his flesh in the Sacrament be given us only that we may live thereby John 6. 51. who shall deny but that when Christ is tendred to the same effect of giving us life these several tenders are only different as a general tender from a particular application especially when we consider again that both take effect only in them that believe as is plain by comparing Joh. 3. 16. with Chapter 6. 35. and shall it not then from hence follow that our receiving him as first tendred by God to the whole World and our eating him in the holy Sacrament are of the same nature preserving only that difference I have premised if believing be that which makes him ours in both offers undoubtedly receiving in one respect and eating in the other are no more than believing in both still maintaining the difference between Faith grounded upon a general Promise and a particular Application He that shall consider what belief of him was then required viz. 1 Joh. 17. 3. To know the only true God and his Son Jesus Christ whom he has sent 2 Joh. 5. 24. To hear the Word of Christ and believe on him that sent him 3 Rom. 10. 9. To confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in the heart that God hath raised him from the dead 4 Rom. 3. 25. To rely on him whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood may easily resolve what it is to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament namely that a man does then partake of Christ when he considers the death of Christ i. e. the crucifying of his flesh and the pouring out of his blood with that faith that supposes all this to be true and the ends of it to be such as God has declared him to be given for and by a further consideration of the particular tender of Christ that is in this Sacrament made to him for all those ends and effects if Christ who is thus particularly tendred be received by him as he ought to be is induced to resolve and undertake all which that belief does oblige him to and with faith grounded upon that resolution lays hold on and firmly relies on Christ for those effects for which he was first given to the World and is now peculiarly tendred unto him Then I say it is that a man truly eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ and certainly there cannot be found a more exact analogy than is between that nourishment of the body in the strength whereof it moves and those reasons whereupon the mind frames its resolutions to direct our conversation and then God having further promised to communicate his holy spirit to all that out of a true faith resolve upon the doing his will and as many as have the holy Ghost having thereby an union with Christ from whom this spirit is derived have also an assurance that by the holy Ghost that dwelleth in them their bodies shall be raised to life everlasting Rom. 8. 11. whereby they that eat the body and blood of Christ are united and incorporated into one body with him and shall not die but have everlasting life What then have I fully express'd hereby all that the spiritual eating of Christ by faith implies no certainly it is not possible to express by words that infinite love of God wherewith he tenders his Son unto us in this holy Mystery nor the mysterious supernatural but efficacious application of him unto us nor on the other side the strength the vigor the resolution the confidence of that faith wherewith the pious soul transported with that abundant love of God that infinite and peculiar mercy which it sensiblâ— feels in this Sacred Action receives embraces and lays hoâ—… in Christ nor is it possible to express the eagerness and impatience of those appetites wherewith it hungers and thirsts after him panting as the Hart after the water-brooks till it be satisfied with him or those transcendent gusts which are tasted in receiving this divine immortal Food But by what I have been able to express I cannot but think any man may apprehend my conceptions and how I clearly distinguish the participation of Christ from the partaking of his benefits the latter not being to be obtained but by first partaking of the former although all these benefits are indeed obtained so soon as we can conceive a man to have partaken of Christ And that the Church of England does fully preserve this distinction appears more evidently by her Thanksgiving after the Communion which begins thus Almighty and everliving God we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy Mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness toward us and that we are very members incorporate into his mystical body c. And hereupon I conceive I am enabled to determinate upon what ground he that eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord and eats and drinks his own damnation although he does not therein eat or drink the body and blood of Christ for he discerns not the Lords body For if this was the condemnation when God first sent his Son into the World that men believed not in the Name of the only begotten Son of God John 3. 18. who can deny but that this shall be the greater condemnation to all that come to this Sacrament wherein Christ is pleased to make a peculiar tender of himself requiring every one to receive him that they have not believed on nor received the blessed Son of God who is herein so peculiarly and particularly so graciously and so mercifully tendred to their reception I foresee an Objection levelled against the Doctrine that I have thus explained which must be here answered it is this That if Christ be only here eaten spiritually by faith we have many times faith and the spirit of God before and so might eat him without coming to this Sacrament To which I answer The spirit is received in divers measures and faith bestowed upon us in different degrees upon which account our conjunction with Christ may every day be made straiter and our hold firmer To receive the spirit not by measure is the priviledge of our Head we that receive it out of his fulness must daily look for it to be 1 Phil. 1. 19. supplied unto us 2 Rom. 1. 17. So also the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith i. e. from one degree and
great advantages by his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Calvinists in this point I thought my self unconcerned with his Objections the Church of England not having tyed her Faith to Calvin or any other but grounded it on the Scriptures Only that no man may suspect them to be of any force against the Doctrine held by the Church of England I saw it necessary to set down and explain her Doctrine and see whether any thing here urged can conclude it to be in the least absurd or inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures or with itself The Church of England then teaches 1 Catech. That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Prayer 2 Exhortation at the Communion That we therein spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood we dwell in Christ and Christ in us we are one with Christ and he with us 3 Art 28. 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 4 Homily of the Sacrament That we must be sure to hold that there is no vain Ceremony no bare sign no untrue figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the table of the Lord the bread and cup of the Lord the memory of Christ the annunciation of his death yea the Communion of the body and blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the souls of the faithful whereby not only their souls live to eternal life but they trust also to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality Therefore 5 Prayer of Consecration she prays that in partaking of these his Creatures of bread and wine we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood 6 Catech. That the benefits that we receive by thus partaking of the body and blood of Christ are the strengthning and refreshing of our souls by these as our bodies are by the bread and wine 7 Homily of the Sacrament Ibid. That thus much the faithful see hear and know herein the favourable mercies of God sealed the satisfaction of Christ confirmed and the remission of sins established 8 Art 28. That nevertheless there is no Transubstantiation or Change of the substance of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper 9 Hom. Ib. Wherefore we are not to regard specially the earthly Creatures which remain but always to hold fast and cleave by Faith to Christ the Rock 10 Art 28. Whose body is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner 11 Hom. Ib. Wherefore it is well known the meat we seek is spiritual heavenly and not earthly invisible and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal 12 Art Ib. The means therefore whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith 13 Hom. Ib. So that to think that without Faith we may enjoy the eating his body or drinking his blood is but to dream a gross and carnal feeding basely binding our selves to the Elements and Creatures As for those then that hold it no more than a bare sign and the Celebration and Communion thereof barely the renewing our Profession or a remembrance only of Christ Crucified whom it representeth they are wide from the Church of England on the one side as the Church of Rome on the other Nor do those who only hold it a sign effective to apply the benefits of the death of Christ not supposing it to tender Christ as present to us and to be received by us before we partake in the benefits of his death express exactly in my judgment the sense of our Church Although there is so near a conjunction of Christ with his benefits that one cannot well be apprehended without the other I conceive therefore that in the sense of our Church not only the benefits of Christ but Christ himself is tendred to us in this Holy Sacrament and is to be eaten by us before we partake of his benefits not that we are bodily to partake of him for this end but in that it seems to be the intention of our blessed Savour under these Elements to give us himself and to put us in the actual possession of himself so that in the use of this ordinance as verily as a man does bodily receive the earthly Creatures so verily does he spiritually receive the body and blood of Christ For our better apprehension of which Mystery it will be necessary more particularly to consider what it is which we do hereby receive and in what manner we are made partakers of it Concerning the first the truth which we hold you see is this that we do not here receive only the benefits that flow from Christ but the very body and blood of Christ i. e. Christ himself Crucified for as the bread and wine avails not to our bodily sustenance unless the substance of those Creatures be first received so neither do we partake of the benefits of Christ to our spiritual relief except we have first a Communion with Christ himself This the words of our blessed Saviour Joh 6. 57 Encline me to believe where he says that he that eateth him shall live by him intimating that we must be partakers of him before we can have life from him So the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16 The bread which we break Is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ evidently imply that we are therein to partake of Christ himself This I take to be that great mystery of our union with Christ whereby we are made members of his body of his flesh and of his bones And this I look upon to be that 〈◊〉 the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God in the 6th of St. John But now if it be demanded how we can eat the flesh of Christ and partake of his body and blood to conceive this eating in a carnal sense is as gross an imagination as that of those Joh. 6 who asked within themselves How can this man give us his flesh to eat we must not think then that we cannot truly feed on Christ unless we receive his substance into our bellies but must consider that the eating and drinking our Saviour speaks of must be spiritual according to the nature of his Gospel and therefore we must enquire therein what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now then if we consider what appetites are in our souls and what those appetites crave or ought at least to long after we shall easily discern what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now we know that in the 5th of St. Matthew our Saviour intimates to us that we ought to have a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness which
Institution of our Lord who blessed Bread and Wine for this only purpose that we might take eat and drink and thereby partake of his Body and Blood in that it not only lays aside the End of his Institution but sets up a new Action of a greater value as is pretended in that also whilst it pretends to apply the Benefits of Christ's Death by this new means it takes off the necessity of using that of our Saviour's own appointment and occasions men to be wholly careless of it when hereby they are warranted to partake of all his Benefits and incur not the danger they would if they should come to partake of the Sacrament with impenitent hearts in that likewise it pretends this Sacrifice propitiatory for men after Death thereby in a great measure voiding the necessity of a Christian Life especially considering that Doctrine which is commonly taught in that Church that this Sacrifice avails ex opere operato that all the Benefits of Christ are derived upon the People by the very external Work done the people not being concerned in or assisting to the Sacrifice either in their Prayers or participation and withal their practice of sacrificing for any whatever dying within their Communion to free them from the pains of Purgatory SECT XI Of his Reflections BY the Grounds then upon which I have proceeded I am little concerned with the Explication he gives of the Epistle to the Hebrews to shew that their Doctrine of the Sacrifice ascribing all the virtue wholly to the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross does not impeach or prejudice its efficacy which the Apostle there pleads Which if it were granted as that it cannot well be for that they have set up a Sacrifice which shall make God more propitious to us than the Sacrament which does possess us of all the Benefits of Christ's Death yet this could no way justifie them in setting up a Sacrifice representative of Christ's Death to Effects which he had not appointed pretending thereby to make application of his Sacrifice on the Cross which he has not warranted them to apply by such means and to such persons also as they cannot from Scripture warrant it beneficial to However notwithstanding M. Condom seems to remove all Equivocation in the Word Offer he either still uses it equivocally or expresses not the Sense of those of his Communion for Bellarmine places not the Sacrifice only in presenting to God Christ crucified but in destroying the Elements that were there before and making Christ present under their Species as dead on the Cross And the Catechism favours this Sense when it says The Priests that sacrifice act not in their own persons but in the person of Christ when they make to be present his Body and Blood So that if we consider this especially if joyned with the Doctrine of Eckius that those Representations which the Church makes of Christ as dead by making his Body as such to appear before God and his Blood as separate from it by these Ceremonies that are used in this Action are the things that constitute the Sacrifice Against whom Chemnitius disputes so largely from this Epistle to the Hebrews If this be considered it will be evident that in this Epistle was not made use of to such impertinent purpose against them as this Gentleman pretends In his Reflections there is little material for me to consider the Grounds of all their Doctrine being overthrown But because he presses it so earnestly I must take notice of the main thing in it Here then he would first perswade us that the main difference between us is that of the Real Presence This we indeed allow That their Error in this Point is the Foundation of the Doctrines they build upon it but this makes it not necessary that their consequent Doctrines and Practices shall not be judged more prejudicial to Christianity than their first Error There scarce ever was a Heresie but pretended to deduce all its Errors from some Doctrine that had appearance of Truth and that did not in itself expresly contradict or prejudice the Faith though by the progression they drew from it the whole Faith has been subverted But then he farther argues That the Real Presence is owned by the Lutherans though they consider not the consequences of it That the Calvinists themselves have declared the Lutheran Doctrine to have no poyson in it and that it does not subvert the Foundations of Faith That further some Calvinists have said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans whence he concludes It is an established Truth that the Roman Doctrine in this point contains nothing but the Doctrine of the Real Presence rightly understood An Inference that has not the least coherence with the Premises Can any man of Sense allow this a rational Argument The Lutherans hold a Real Presence the Calvinists say There is no Poyson in their Doctrine The Lutherans admit not such Consequences as we do the Calvinists say we reason better than the Lutherans therefore it is an established Truth that our Doctrine contains nothing but the Real Presence rightly understood But to answer it so far as it may seem any way to give him an advantage The Lutherans do indeed hold a Real Presence in a Sense different from that I have explained but then they do no obtrude their Sense upon others as a necessary condition of Communion so that we may communicate with them without professing their error nor do they hold such a Local Presence as the Church of Rome nor does their Opinion lead them to the Worship of any Creature nor do they acknowledge any Presence of Christ therein but only in the act and to the end of his Institution of this Sacrament and if this has led some to a Declaration that the Lutheran Opinion does not subvert the foundation of Faith upon this account that it proceeds not to any further Effects destructive of it shall this be taken for an acknowledgment that the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which obliges to such practices upon it as are inconsistent with the Faith is not such as ought to break communion with her And suppose it to have been said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans if it has been said by any of those that allowed Communion with the Lutherans it 's manifest that when they said so they did not think but that the Roman Doctrine was much more inconsistent with Christianity And that the World may see it is so I shall transcribe the difference which a Lutheran gives us between the Adoration they tender Christ in the Eucharist and that which is given by the Church of Rome He places the difference chiefly in two Particulars First that the Church of Rome requires that the Sacrament Gerhard Loc. Com De sacra Caena de Vener it self or all that which according our Lord's Institution we receive should be adored with the honour due
to God himself The Lutherans on the contrary knowing the Sacrament to consist of two things the one earthly the other heavenly direct their Adoration not to the Elements that remain lest worshiping them they should be found Worshippers of a Creature but to Christ alone God and Man who in that Action gives them his Body and Blood Secondly That the Romanists when they plead for the Adoration and worship of the Sacrament do not principally intend that Christ God and Man should be adored in the Action or Vse of his divine Institutions but labour to establish an Adoration of the bread at other times than in the use commanded by Christ namely when they carry it about in Processions which the Council of Trent does in the very Chapter wherein it commands the Adoration of the Sacrament And then afterwards he fully informs us of the manner of the Lutheran's worship viz. That they look not upon Christ as locally present in the bread or that there is any personal union between the bread and the body of Christ but that Christ hath promised in that action his presence by his grace after a peculiar manner Therefore as the Israelites worshipp'd not the Wood nor Gold nor the Cherubims that were upon the Ark of the Testimony but God alone who promised his presence there so the Adoration which they give to Christ in the Sacrament is to be understood to be directed to him only not at all to the outward Elements And the reason why they did not worship him out of the Sacramental exercise he says was because the promise of Christ's presence cannot be extended beyond the intent and action which he instituted So that there appears a visible and most considerable difference between these two the one cannot be Idolatrous because it directs not any worship to a creature the other certainly is if the creatures remain because their worship is terminated in the Sacrament as its object Again whereas M. Condom further endeavours to persuade us That their Sacrifice is a consequent Doctrine upon the real Presence and that the Lutherans understand not themselves so well as they in that they have not admitted it The Reader may judge which have the better understanding if he does but consider that the reason upon which the Lutherans reject the Sacrifice is the same upon which they reject Adoration out of the Sacramental Action namely because we have no warrant to promise our selves Christ's Presence in the Eucharist but only in that Action which he commands and for those ends for which he instituted it This I remember is that which Chemnitius pleads at large in his Book de Sacrificio Missae SECT XVI Of Communion in both kinds UPon this point the Church of England declares The Cup Art 30. of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-People for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be administred to all Christian men alike And certainly nothing can be more plain from our Lord's institution of this Sacrament when he blessed both bread and wine and said Take eat drink do this in remembrance of me that all that are obliged to any part of it are obliged to the whole There being not the least limitation of the Lawgiver's intent in the precept itself nor in any other part of Scripture nor which is more in the practice of the Church originally under the Apostles or generally throughout Christendom Now because we are so frequently desired by these Gentlemen to take special notice of the first grounds of the separation I am obliged to take notice here that this was one of the principal causes of it their with-holding the Cup being that which was universally complained of that which was most expresly desired and Petitioned for both to Pope and Council but in vain We therefore may reasonably expect something satisfactory in this Point To answer our expectation M. Condom lets us know That under one Species all that is essential to the Sacrament is received in that there being now no real separation betwixt the Body and the Blood we receive entirely him who is solely capable to satiate us And this he tells us is the solid foundation upon which his Church interpreting the precept of Communion has declared we may receive the satisfaction which this Sacrament carries with it under one sole Species and has reduced her Children to it But now if this be the foundation she builds upon and it be solid too we may well seek for it in the Apostles or in Christ himself but certainly neither of these support the building nay the foundation which Christ has laid is rejected and laid aside hereby For to what purpose does this Doctrine serve but to make it appear that our Lord instituted this Sacrament in both kinds to no end since as much must needs be received in one as in both But whereas he endeavours to ground this Doctrine upon the real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament it 's certain that if he be really present by virtue of the Consecration he can be present only according to it if therefore his words This is my body make his body present in the bread and the other This is my blood render his blood present instead of the wine then his blood can be no more present in the bread than his body in the wine neither can any thing more be present under bread than his body nor under wine than his blood according to their Principles which found the necessity of his presence upon the literal sense of the words And to how little purpose has M. Condom laboured to persuade us that it is a Sacrifice because the word of God is the spiritual Sword which makes a mystical Separation betwixt the body and blood of Christ if now at last there be no sacramental Separation of his blood from his body but they are both together under one species But the Church says he has not thus reduced her Children to one Species out of dis-esteem of the other but on the contrary to hinder those irreverences which the confusion and negligence of the People had occasioned in these later Ages Had he told us what Irreverencies had been occasioned that could not have been prevented but by this means he had said something that possibly might have shewn the care of his Church but because he has not been so kind I shall transcribe the many and those said to be great and important Reasons which she gives as the account of her so doing to her Children in her Catechism First Because special care ought to be taken that the blood of Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Euch. Sac. quando sumend the Lord be not spilt on the ground which cannot easily be avoided in administring to a great multitude Secondly Because the Eucharist being to be kept for the sick it was greatly to be feared that the Species of the wine would not keep but might sour
appetites being necessarily required in us no man can hence have so gross an imagination as to conceive that we must take in the righteousness thus hungred and thirsted after at our mouths as we do our bodily food Consider then withal the words of our Lord Joh. 6. 35 36 I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst But I said unto you You have also seen me and believed not And compare it with Vers 63 64 It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh prositeth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life But there are some of you that believe not And judg from hence Whether our Lord does not propose himself as that food which can give satisfaction to the spiritual hunger and thirst of our souls and if so whether it can be thought that he is to be received any otherwise than spiritually for the satisfaction of those appetites that are spiritual And then withal consider Vers 27 Labour not for the meat that perisheth but that which shall endure to eternal life and Vers 28 What shall we do to work the works of God And 29 This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent And I suppose it will perfectly appear that our Saviour speaks not here of any eating but what is spiritual and that inasmuch as when the People questioned him What they should do to work the works of God upon his exhorting them to labour after the meat that endureth to life eternal he answers them that to do his works is to believe on him whom he hath sent and again tells us that he that cometh to him shall never hunger and he that believeth on him shall never thirst and again that his words are spirit and life but 〈◊〉 of them would not believe them Hereby he fully shews us thâ—… â—…at him is to believe and lay hold on him by Faith As for the Corporal eating we are expresly told that the flesh thus taken if it might be so taken prositeth nothing whereas taken after that manner that Christ recommendeth to us it is of such profit that it preserveth the eater from death and maketh him to live for ever It is not therefore such an eating with which every man that brings a bodily mouth can receive him but a spiritual uniting of us to Christ whereby he dwelleth in us and we in him Neither is it in the least necessary that Christ should be bodily present which were indeed necessary were our eating corporal or carnal but being altogether spiritual and supernatural there is no necessity of his local presence It is sufficient for a spiritual union with Christ that he and we though distant in place be knit together by that spiritual nexture which is intimated to us by St. John namely the quickning spirit derived from him our Head to us his Members and a lively faith wrought by the same spirit proceeding from us to lay hold on him That this operation of the spirit is that which constitutes our union with Christ cannot be doubted by any that will consider how the Scripture tells us on the one hand 1 1 Cor. 15. 45. That Christ is made unto us a quickning spirit 2 Joh. 5. 21. That he quickneth whom he will 3 Joh. 1. 16. That he having received the spirit without measure we all partake of his fulness And on the other side 1 1 Cor. 6. 17. That he that is joyned the Lord is one spirit 2 Eph. 4. That we are all partakers of the same spirit 3 1 Joh. 4. 13. That hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us by the spirit that he hath given us For what can give a more plain evidence than this that our union with Christ is wrought by the operation of this spirit of his descending from him upon us and working those graces in us that lift up our souls to take hold on and cleave unto him The same is also plain from hence that the Just are said to live by faith for are we not properly said to live by that whereby we receive our food Thus Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3. 17. That this is perfectly the sense of the Church of England is evident from what I have made appear already in that she teaches 1 Artic. 28. That the body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Lord's Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner and the means whereby it is received and eaten is faith And again 2. That this marvellous incorporation of Christ with us is wrought by the operaration of the holy Ghost the very bread of our conjunction with Christ through faith in the hearts of the faithful And having thus truly received the body and blood of Christ by faith and being hereby perfectly united to him we partake in all the benefits of his Death and Passion and are put in the possession of these benefits by our first possessing him But if still it be pleaded by M. Condom that we cannot thus distinguish between the participation of our blessed Saviour and our participation of the fruits of his Death unless we distinguish between the participation of his divine body and all spiritual participations by faith and that if we participate of both spiritually by faith we cannot participate of them as things distinct I may upon good reason deny his supposition and say that we do perfectly distinguish them and yet participate of both by faith spiritually for what should hinder but that a man may conceive he partakes of things distinct and yet partakes of both the same way as a man eats different meats in one way of eating but yet discovers them to be different If he should yet require me to explain what I mean by eating Christ spiritually by Faith he puts me upon a thing very difficult not because it is not easily conceived but because it is most obvious to our apprehensions for who can by plainer words express what our Saviour means by hungring and thirsting after righteousness whereas it is not any difficulty of apprehending his meaning that makes it thus difficult to be expressed otherways but that those words are so obvious to our understandings that nothing can better express it to our conception But however to give a more full satisfaction I shall endeavour if possible to be yet more plain For this purpose therefore I must suppose That God's tender of his Son Christ to us in the Sacrament does not greatly differ from his tender of him to the World when he became flesh and dwelt among us any further than a general tender to the whole World from a peculiar tender to this or that particular person and an offer of him as of one that was sent to be the Saviour of the World from the offer of him as he has saved