make all possible advantage of the Bread This they say must be the Lords Body in the literal sense bicause he hath categorically said so and since it is as easie for him to Do it as to Say it there is no Necessity and therefor no Reason why we should quit the most Proper sense For Reason must not be balanced against Faith This must believe the Thing though That cannot comprehend the Manner But the Wine all this while is laid aside as Unserviceable All the regard paid it is but as an Attendent It is concluded that since the Bread is the Lords Body the Wine must needs be his Blood whether our Lord have said any thing at all or any thing to the contrary concerning it or no. Yet our Lord honored the Wine No Less and the Apostle More than the Bread There are no Valves that hinder the Reflux but we may with the same Authothority and Evidence interpret That by This as This by That Now if we believe the Apostle Our Lord said not of the Wine This is my Blood but This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood And the literal sense saith not more plainly of the Bread This is my natural Body than it saith of the Wine This is NOT my natural Blood If therefore They may argue Positively That the Wine must be our Lords Blood bicause the Bread is his Body we may upon the same evidence argue Negatively The Bread is Not his Body but only the New Testament in his Body bicause the Wine is Not his Blood but only the New Testament in his Blood With the favor therefore of our better Champions I conceive we ought to learn as of the Adder so of the Papist to direct our blow to That part they are so careful to fence and restore the Cup to its due office Possibly they have denyed it its right in the Peoples celebration out of pique for the ill office it is so apt to do to their beloved doctrine let us restore it to Both its Rights its honor due by our Lords Institution and its power of interpretation due by the Laws of Reasoning We cannot more effectually silence their importunity for the literal sense than by claiming it They who deny Sense and Reason worthy to be ballanced against the Letter cannot deny One Element to be so against the Other What therefore they have put asunder if we remember our Lord to have joined together we cannot but know our selves obliged to Receive both in the same sense whether Literal or Mystical If Both are to be Mystically understood the querel is ended between us If Literally we make a new one between the Elements If One must comply he that hath One grain of it will grant that Reason must turn the scale on that side where it shall be found Those who deny it weight enough to preponderate the the Literal sense cannot deny it sufficient to turn Aequilibrate Scales So that the defect lyeth not in the Scripture but the Doctors whose partiality to One side above the Other hath made a difficulty which an equal regard to Both sides would have prevented And it is yet further considerable that they carry the same Partiality toward that side they so favor For as our Lords Institution hath two equal parts so hath their favored Proposition This is my Body And whereas the Laws of Reasoning require we should first understand the Subject and then the Predicate the Former they wholely lay aside and employ all their endeavors upon the Later which I might now insist upon as another Butcherly abuse but I shall hereafter meet another occasion to call it to account and therefore hasten to what more nearly concerns our present bisiness wherein if I should prefer reverence to persons however worthy above the Truth I am engaged to serve I ought to be branded with a worse Character than that of Irreverence to my betters which I expect to be accused of 2. Our own Divines therefore I cannot avoid impeaching as guilty of the same Partiality To cut the Higher part from the Lower is Another but no less irregular way of dissection especially when the Lower depends upon the influence of the Higher for all its Life and Motion That the 27th dependeth as a conclusion upon the Premises is manifest by the illative Wherefore From the Forgoing discourse therefore ought all the Following to derive its Life and Power Yet who is there that takes any notice of Those Premises or their Influence Doth not every one pass by All the rest and begin his endeavors at the Conclusion And as if we gloried in varying our irregularities into all possible shapes We take the quite contrary way with the next the 28th verse for whereas the Apostle there makes the Former half the harbinger of the Later we employ All our care about That and wholely neglect This which That is to serve Yea as if it were a small matter to Neglect we Countermand the express Injunction and so dash One Precept against Another Let a man examine himself saith the Apostle and so let him eat c. Let a man examine himself say we with all possible caution and so let him beware that he eat Not that Bread Nor drink of that Cup if he find himself Unworthy whatever the Apostle have said to the contrary V. BUT it is easier to find faults than to amend them and I promised not only to shew the cause of the embarra's but the way out which sure must be by the same Light and by contrary steps If we Therefor miss the Apostles tru meaning bicause we miss the tru way to trace it then must we needs be obliged to search after it in that same way which we have so discovered to be the Right and Forsaken one We must therefore carefully Anatomise the whole Discourse First observe the Design then the great Limbs then the least Particles Their proper Textures their mutual Aspects their joint Serviceableness to That Design which animates them All to its own Use But as in Dead bodies especially such as have any considerable time layen so many Dâ—cts disappear which during life were as Visible as Necessary and the Artist many times is led by mere Reason grounded upon consent of parts to Find out if possible otherwise to Suppose those secret channels whereof he finds no other evidence but necessity So are there in This Discourse very observable Suppositions which though they were sufficiently evident when the Apostle wrote and will ever be necessary for the circulation of his Argument yet by Length of time and Forgetfulness if not worse of those who should have kept them open are now so lost that without careful Probing they are not discoverable Two such Suppositions I shall now take upon Trust pawning all my labor to pay good Evidence for them in a more proper Season 1. That the Churches of Christ at That time celebrated All their Religious meetings with Fests This is more then
Reverence by bowing their Knees to the Holy Table and turning their Backs upon the Holier Sacrament their Aw putteth them to as great distance as Neglect can and this occasions others to cloak their real neglect under pretence of aw so the slothful joyn with the fearful to plead There is a Lyon in the way Many come only Once in a year as if our Lord intended to consecrate none but the Passover Others not until they are dying as if they were not to shew forth the Lords death but their own Others not at all as if it were the duty of the Priest only because Instituted in the presence of the Apostles only and upon one pretence or other the much greater part of the People never think of it at all no not to their very death In the mean time the most zealous Servants of our Lord lament that his last and therefore not least Command hath lost the Obedience due to it The greatest lovers of Piety that it hath lost one of its greatest supports in the time of greatest need The most affectionate Sons of the Church that she hath in a manner lost a Sacrament an indispensible mark of a true Church The tenderest Friends of Peace that she hath worse than lost her best Cement which is abused to an Instrument of Division And the most Prudent and Pious cry aloud that it is a shame to our Government and a wound to our Religion that our practice should give such a publickly to the Apostle when we read That we are therefor one Bread and one Body bieause we eat of that one Bread Since therefore the Work is equally necessary and Neglected he that shall labor in it will be secure from being blamed as troubling the World with repetitions of trite Discourses BUT then he shall be no less sure of the contrary censure as doing it with New ones and which is worse as vilifying the adorable Sacrament For the Temple of the Sepulchre however venerable for the Antiquity of its Buildings is much more so for the Place they stand on which though they do not so much Honor as Oppress yet whoever should endeavor to rescue it from them should be doubly censured as Sacrilegious both against the Holy Temple and Holier Ground Whoever will measure the Ground whereon the mistaking zeal of former Ages hath built so many and great Mysteries cannot avoid shewing it uncapable to bear them and consequently must run a severe gandelope lashed on one side in behalf of Antiquity and on the other in behalf of the Sacrament II. BUT once throughly convinced of the Fitness yea Necessity of the undertaking these Fears move me no otherwise than to set me forward From the Dignity of the Sacrament I conclude it worthy my service and from the Duration of the Error I conclude it to need it Did not Both these concur I should not have raised Work for the Learned or Game for the Censorious by opposing a popular error in so Sacred a subject Yet lest that which sets me forward to the Work should set me backward in the Success I think it requisite to take such notice of the double Objection as to justifie my self against both its parts 1. ONE part of the Objection concernerh the Dignity of the Sacrament who 's greatness I most heartily acknowledge I confess we may be guilty of the Body and Blood of our Lord in either sense That of the Institution or that of his preceding Doctrine Jo. 6. wherein he interpreteth eating and drinking by believing And therefor we ought to examine our selves before we Receive much mote before we Publish any Opinion concerning it as carefully as before we receive the Sacrament it self But this is so far from a reason against Examination that it pleads for it For as Both ways we may be guilty of Rashness if we Receive unworthily either the Sacrament or the Opinion so may we be of Neglect if we consider not what we are obliged both to Do and to Teach I know a Gentlewoman that hardly escaped falling into water because a poor neighbor that stood neer her and might easily have helpt her forbore that good office upon this reason as she afterward excused her self because she durst not be so bold Whoever accuseth me of boldness toward the Holy Sacrament let him consider whether he would be pleased with such reverence in a time of such need Whatever others do certainly none of those good men who so sadly complain of the neglect will blame him who labors the remedy No though he should abate somewhat both of Fear toward the Sacrament and of Reverence toward those former Ages which teaching men to Dread have by consequence taught them to Shun it Yet is there no such danger For neither will the Institution be a loser if in stead of the Superstitious Dread which contradicts it's Nature we pay it the Obedience which it requires and the Love which it deserves nor true Antiquity if instead of the Middle ages we venerate the First III. 2. TO that OTHER part therefor of the Objection I answer that we ought to take none but the first and best Ages of the Church for our guides in all such Controversies as are capable so to be determined That those which concern Matter of Fact are Such since the Practices of those Ages are visible but not alway their Opinions especially in such Modern Questions as never troubled them to declare their judgments That the publick Offices of Christian Worship are visible and therefor it must needs be a great crime for Later ages therein to depart from their Fathers All this I not only acknowledge but urge and I hope no man will deny that it was as true a thousand years since If therefor it appear that the Middle ages have departed from the First we must nor follow but reform the Error and whoever shall retrive the long lost truth ought not to be look'd upon as a Contemner but faithful Servant of Antiquity and so much the more deserving by how much longer the Error hath continued That this is the present case needeth no other proof than the Records of Matter of Fact never in any case more legible whereby we may easily discover by what steps we are go'n so far from the authentick examples of the Apostles and several immediatly succeeding Ages This though we shall meet another occasion to examine yet for preventing prejudices which perhaps might hinder some from reading so far I conceive fit here to offer in a more contracted Landschape THAT the Apostles and Primitive Christians for some hundreds of years were as constant at the Lords Table as at his House is so manifest that those who wanted not the Tentation ever wanted the Face to deny it And the Evasions whereby some have endeavored to shun the unavoidable Evidence are as plainly false as the denyal it self can be True it is saith the most excellent of them the Apostles did indefinitely admit the
worse But 't is no such jesting mater For as Opinions are Multiplied without Number so are they Valued without Mesure and what is spoken without Reason is imposed without Moderation No Province in Religion is so pestered with Controversies among the Scholastical Mysteries among the Contemplative Scruples among the Practik none prosecuted with greater heat and less satisfaction Every ones zele for his Opinion taking its mesure or unmesurableness rather from his value for the Subject II. WERE there no other Disputes but such as concern the precarious Mysteries which have no other Parent but fanciful mens Inventions nor no other Nurse but Curiosity in niceties not practical however great the Troubl might be the Scandal would be litle toward the Scripture which might with Gallio refuse to be judge of such matters But when the Question is as Important as the Subject is Venerable when it pretends not to gratifie Curiosity but to satisfie Conscience and that not in some Inferior but the Capital Critical duty That our Lord and All his Churches should value it so High and yet the Scripture treat it so Slightly is a Mystery as Great and as Fals as any among the multitude imposed upon it How then shall we escape the Scandalous Dilemma Either the Scriprure cannot be Sufficient if defective in so Capital a subject or the Institution must not be so Valuable if the great Author both of it and the Scriprure did not think it worthy to be Legibly written Wer not the Recrimination more obvious than the Objection did not Tradition leave the Romanists under as great uncertainty in these great questions as the Scriptures do us they would undoubtedly so Urge that we should not be able to Answer the Scandal But to Recriminate is a poor justification Or if the Papists be to be answered What say we to the Jews If the Lord took off the vele from Moses 's face and put a thicker on his Own How shall the Light of the Gospel triumph over the Obscurity of the Law Not all the Ceremonies of the Mosaik Law put together will thicken to so opake a mask as this One They hid indeed the Significance but not the Obligation of the Law The vele was upon their Hearts but not upon their Eyes They saw not the full meaning of Circumcision but they did the Certain Time wherein they were to celebrate it They understood not the utmost signification of the Paseal Rite yet were they sure How often and in what Day they were to Sacrifice and eat the Lamb. But This great office is obscure even in its Obligations We as litle know what we are to Do as the Jews did what they were to Believe How then shall we justifie the Scripture in point of Sufficiency against the Papists or in point of Clearness against the Jews without reneguing the Honor due to the Sacrament We find a kind of Composition offered by one of our greatest Assertors both of the Sufficiency of the Scripture and Dignity of the Sacrament It is saith he not much opened in the writings of the New Testament but still left in its mysterious nature it is too much untwisted and nicely handled by the writings of the Doctors and by them made more mysterious and like a Doctrine of Philosophy made intricate and difficult by the aperture and dissolution of distinctions But if the New Testament hath left it a Shining cloud and the Doctors reasonings varied it into Contingent shapes as he expresseth it what can we say but either there is no need to unvele the Mystery and then the Sacrament must be degraded from its Dignity as not Worthy to be understood or celebrated or we must have some better Oracle to fix its signification and since other Doctors make it more Intricate where can we hope to find satisfaction but from the Infallible Chair This most excellent Author hath written so Much and so Well both for the Scripture and the Sacrament that I cannot doubt him willing to sacrifice This One assertion to Their Reconciliation which also is as worthy our labor as the advancement of Either in prejudice of the Other AND why should we not improve the offer now made us wholely free the New Testament from Mysteriousness and lay the whole blame upon the Doctors as having not encreased only but first caused the entanglement He that shall do this and Prove it true if he appear Rude toward so many Reverend Persons may well hope to be justified by the Necessity And if he further discover not only the Cause of the entanglement but the way to clear it if he take the right Thred and so draw it as to Untwist the whole without leaving any Knot untied he may deserve no worse usage than a Child that with better Luck than Art hath disentangled a skein of Silk which his Parent had snarled and could not unwind The former half of this so justifiable work will not require much time or labor It is but observing and it is obvios to the first glance what is the regular way to discover the mind of any Author and we shall soon find how Generally how Grosly and how Mischievosly it hath be'n forsaken in this Subject If we look upon the Anatomist dissecting a dead Body we may thence learn how we are to examine a Discourse The Artist who aims at no other design but to trace the ways of life first takes a General vieu of the whole Body and then a Particular one of every Member examins the Texture of every Particle the mutual Aspect of each to other and the joint Usefulness of All to the life But the Butcher who aims at nothing but his Profit chops off such members as may best advance it makes of Them the most he can leaving the Bowels as inconsiderable because unprofitable to himself thogh most serviceable to the life Can I help it if truth oblige me to say the Doctors have handled those parts of Scripture which relate to This Sacrament not like Anatomists but like Butchers that they cut off such a Particular clause as they think most advantageous for their own preconceved Opinion treat it as a distinct Body by it self regard not its Office in the Discourse it ought to serve but make the utmost they can of that One without respect to all the Rest c. In matter of Fact nothing is rude that is true I need not therefore stand upon manners but boldly say that the Doctors on both sides have so Treated as if they had agreed to Abuse the Apostles Discourse and our Lords Institution For the Papists cut the Institution alongst and lay aside One Side our Own Divines cut the Apostles Comment athwart laying aside the Upper half IV. 1. THE Papists that they may maintene their beloved Transubstantiation cut our Lords Institution into Sides make all possible advantage of That which seems most Serviceable and lay by the Other as wors than Useless For whereas the Elements are two they