Mysteries as pledges of his Love and for a continual remembrance of his Death And in the Prayer of Consecration the Celebration of the Eucharist is again said to be a continued or perpetuated Commemoration of Christ's precious Death till his coming again But now for our receiving the Spiritual and Divine Body and Blood of Christ such passages as these seem to intimate it In the Exhortation to the Communicants it is there said if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive this Holy Sacrament then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us we are one with Christ and Christ with us This passage plainly points to our Saviour's Discourse Iohn 5. v. 56. where he says He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him And he thus dwelling in us he enlivens us we becoming one with Christ in a manner as the Soul and Body makes one as it followeth in the next verse As the living father has sent me and I live by the father so he that eateth me shall live by me and so we become one with Christ and Christ with us we living by Christ as he by his Father that is to say as Christ lives by his Father so we live by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us Rom. 8. 11. which Spirit or Life of Christ always implies the Divine Body As he that is joined unto the Lord in this Body is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. Now this Exhortation so plainly alluding to this passage of our Saviour's Discourse which speaks not of his particular natural Flesh but of that which is his Spiritual or Divine Flesh it is plain that the genuine sense of the Exhortation in this place is that we really though spiritually that is by a fervent and devotional Faith eat or receive the real Body and Blood of Christ viz. that Divine and Spiritual Body and Blood of his above-mentioned And this passage of our Saviour's Discourse is again alluded to in the Prayer immediately before the Prayer of Consecration in these words Grant us therefore Gracious Lord so to eat the Flesh of thy Dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his Blood that our sinful Bodies may be made clean by his Body and our Souls washed through his most precious Blood and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us John 6. 56. And these two places so plainly alluding to our Saviour's Discourse in the sixth of S t Iohn it is very easie and natural to conceive that what occurs in the Thanksgiving after our receiving the Sacrament does sound to the same purpose Almighty and everlasting 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 our Saviour Jesus Christ The words even of themselves do very naturally point at a real though spiritual partaking or receiving into us the Body and Blood of Christ namely of that Flesh and Blood which our Saviour discourses of Iohn 6. And therefore we may be much more assured that they do so if we take notice the sense is so back'd and strengthned by the other two Passages which do plainly relate to the Body or Flesh and Blood Christ discourses of in the sixth of S t Iohn's Gospel I will only add one Consideration more and that is from the Title of our Communion-Service Can there be any more likely reason why the Lord's Supper is called THE HOLY COMMUNION than that it refers to that of S t Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of Blessing which 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 Because there is one Bread we being many are one Body For we are all partakers of that one Bread Which is that Bread from Heaven which our Saviour discourses of in the sixth of S t Iohn But the Words I have chiefly my Eye upon are those The Cup being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Communion of the Blood and the Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Communion of the Body of Christ and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all likely hood having the same sense that it had 2 Pet. 1. 4. in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where we are said to be called to the Participation of the Divine Nature Communion here in S t Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians must naturally imply our real receiving or partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in the celebrating of this Holy Communion and that by thus partaking of that one Divine Body and Blood of his signified by the eating and drinking the Bread and Wine we though many become one Body not in a Political Sense only but if I may so speak Divinely natural we being made all Members of that one Universal Divine Body of Christ as he is the Eternal Logos and so becoming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 1. 4. Wherefore That Passage in S t Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians does marvelous-fully set out the Nature of that part of the Lord's Supper that is distinguished from the Commemoration of his Death and gives the most genuine Reason of its being called the Holy Communion it implying the real Communication of that one Divine Body of Christ to the faithful and their real Union thereby with Christ and with one another which is a full and perfect Holy Communion indeed 5. Fourthly This Notion of the Fathers touching the Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ affords us a very easie and natural Interpretation of that Passage in our Church-Catechism touching the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper where to the Question What is the inward part or thing signified It is answered The Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper In the Answer to a former Question Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained it is answered For a continual Remembrance of the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ and the Benefits received thereby One eminent benefit whereof is the Remission of our sins through the Bloud of Christ shed on the Cross for without blood there is no Remission the other is the feeding of the Regenerate Soul or Inward man by the Real but Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ which contains in it our through Sanctification which is also a fruit or benefit of the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ forasmuch as we had not been capable of Regeneration and of growth and degrees of Sanctification by the feeding on and really receiving the Spiritual and Divine Body of Christ without our Reconciliation by his Blood shed on the Cross which our Church here calls the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ. Now as in this Answer there is contained
and Spirit and this Spirit or Life in the Divine Body I am the living Bread coming down from Heaven as the Manna is said to do and to which Philo compares the Divine Logos if any one eat of this Bread he shall live for ever He speaks not of the manner of eating of it but of the Bread it self to be eaten and yet immediately thereupon he calls this Bread his Flesh which he says he will give for the Life of the World that is to the end that they may be enlivened thereby he thus communicating to them his Divine Body and Spirit together And then presently upon the Iews striving amongst themselves and saying How can this man give us his flesh to eat the reason whereof was because they took him to be a meer man and thought that Christ himself understood it of his humane Flesh he affirms with greater earnestness and vehemency Verily verily I say unto you unless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man viz. of the Messias who is the Logos incarnate and drink his Bloud ye have no Life in you Whoso eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Bloud hath Eternal Life and I will raise him up at the last day For my Flesh is meat indeed and my Bloud is drink indeed And so all along to the very end of his Discourse he speaks of a really eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood not of the Manner of eating as if it never came nigh them but only they thought of Flesh and Blood God knows how far distant from them and so ate the humane Flesh of Christ by meer thinking of it and drank his Bloud after the same imaginary Manner which would I think be a very dilute and frigid sense of such high and fervid Asseverations of our Saviour if the Mystery reached no farther than so 7. But thirdly and lastly That it does reach further than so is exceeding evident from what our Saviour utters upon his Disciples being scandalized at this strange Discourse of his v. 61. When Iesus knew in himself that his Disciples murmured at it He said unto them Does this offend you What if you shall see the Son of man ascending where he was before which he must needs understand of his particular visible Body which he bore about with him and which his humane Soul did actuate and which was appropriated to his humane nature which is finite and circumscribed It is an Elliptical speech of his but thus naturally to be supplyed as I have also noted above as if he suppressed by an Aposiopesis this objurgatory sense insinuated thereby Will you then imagine so grosly as if I understood it of this very Flesh I bear about with me when as this particular body of mine after my Ascension into Heaven will be removed at a vast distance from you I tell you this Flesh of mine as to this purpose I have all this time driven at profiteth nothing you cannot feed of it at such a distance if it were to be fed on The Text runs thus v. 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is that quickening spirit I aim at in my discourse that Divine or Spiritual Body of mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Flesh which you understand and are so scandalized at the eating thereof profiteth nothing as to this purpose nor the Blood taken in your sense has any thing to do here The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life The Object of those words spoken is my Spiritual Body and Blood not as I am a Man but the Eternal Word the Divine Logos which contains in it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spirit and my Divine Body universal that belongs to that my Life or Spirit This is the true Mystery of the Matter for by these two things asserted by our Saviour 1. That we are to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood as we hope ever to have Eternal Life 2. And his declaring his Flesh profiteth nothing it is manifest that that distinction of Gratian is true which he seems to have taken out of St. Hierom or some other ancient Father who tells us the Flesh and Blood of Christ is twofold the one natural and which he bore about with him and hung once on the Cross the other Spiritual and Divine which we may really eat and drink that is really receive and draw in at the Celebrating the Holy Eucharist by a sincere fervid and devotional Faith And consequently there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in partaking of the Lord's Supper whereby our Souls are nourished to Eternal Life And in that he says his natural Flesh profiteth nothing to this purpose for it cannot be said that it profiteth nothing at all since in vertue of the Crucifixion of that Flesh and Effusion of that Blood on the Cross we have the remission of our Sins Christ plainly infers that he has which cannot be well understood but as he is the Eternal Logos another Flesh viz. that Spiritual and Divine Flesh which is mainly profitable for this purpose for the maintaining perfecting and renewing the inward man that he may attain to his due growth in Christ. And lastly How can Christ say his Flesh that was Crucified on the Cross profiteth nothing when by being meditated upon at the solemnity of the Holy Eucharist and also at other times it may serve to kindle and inflame our Love and Devotion towards him and so urge us to greater degrees of Repentance and Mortification and serious Holiness it therefore being useful and profitable for all this I say why does he then affirm it profiteth nothing but that he does on purpose advertise us that it profiteth nothing as to the present case he has spoke to all this while viz. to be the real meat and food of the inward man and to be really received into him to maintain and increase those Divine Principles in him out of which he is regenerated This his particular Flesh and Blood that hung on the Cross cannot be profitable for nor can be come at at such a distance to be taken in and received which therefore plainly implies those other which were mentioned above out of Gratian the Divine or Spiritual Flesh and Blood of Christ only to be properly useful to this purpose 8. And for this Divine and Spiritual Flesh and Blood of our Saviour distinguished from his natural besides St. Hierome you have also the suffrage of Clemens Alexandrinus in his Paedagogus lib. 2. cap. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Blood of our Lord is twofold the one carnal by which we are redeemed from corruption the other Spiritual wherewith we are anointed and by vertue of drinking thereof we attain to incorruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as he makes the Blood of our Lord twofold so we may be sure he makes his Body or Flesh because his Mystical Body and Blood go together According to that which M r Pelling in his Pious and
that great Benefit of the Remission of our Sins in the Blood of Christ and thereby of our Reconciliation to God so in the Answer mentioned before is contained that singular Benefit of perfecting our Sanctification by the nourishing and corroborating our inward man by eating or partaking of the Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of our Saviour which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Verily that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly in counterdistinction to Typically or Symbolically the Bread and Wine being but Types or Symbols of this Touching which in the Answer to the Question What are the Benefits whereof we are made partakers thereby it is said The strengthening and refreshing our Souls by the Body and Blood of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine viz. which are but Types of the true spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ but they have a very handsome Analogy the one to the other But we proceed to the following words And indeed that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reverâ or really not as one scoptically would make us to profess that this real participation of the Body and Blood of Christ has no reality any where but in our phancy which we call Faith To which sense the Translator of the peaceable method for the re-uniting Protestants and Catholicks speaks in his Preface to his Translation To which exception this Notion of the Primitive Fathers according to which our Communion-Service is framed and our Homilies allude to and we so much insist upon is not lyable By the Faithful and that only by them which Body and Blood the Faithful do not receive by champing it with their Teeth and swallowing it down their Throat But by a fervid and living devotional Faith more than ordinarily kindled at the Celebrating the Holy Eucharist they draw this Divine and Celestial Food the true Manna from Heaven into their Hearts whereby their inward Man is fed and strengthened and nourished up to Eternal Life and so the New Birth getting growth daily arrives at last to the due measure of the stature of Christ. 6. This is the Priviledge of the faithful Receiver But for those that are devoid of this true and living Faith though the Divine Body and Blood of Christ is every where present to the faithful yet they who are unregenerate and consequently devoid of the Divine Life are capable of no union therewith nor of any growth or strength therefrom But it is like the light shining into a dead man's eye of which there is no vital effect But for those who are regenerate and consequently have a real hunger and thirst after the Righteousness of God though the great Feast upon this Heavenly Food is more especially and copiosely injoyed in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist yet they may in some good measure draw it in day by day by Faith and Devotion as without the Presence of the Bread and Wine we may at any time devotionally think of the Sacrifice of the Death of our Saviour But certainly this solemn Institution of Celebrating his last Supper being particularly and earnestly injoyn'd us by Christ if we conscientiously observe the same it will have a more than ordinary efficacy in us for the ends it was appointed 7. Sixthly and lastly as those words of the Catechism the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received c. have considered in themselves a very easie and natural sense so explained as we have according to the Analogy of the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers and our Church's Homilies that allude to them explained them so do they not at all clash with those words of the Rubrick affixed at the end of the Communion-Service where it is affirmed That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remains still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one There is I say in this no contradiction to what occcurs in the Catechism which affirms that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper though here a Real Presence is denyed of the natural Body of Christ. But it is to be considered that this Affirmation and Negation is not of the same Body of Christ and therefore can be no contradiction and further to be observed how the very Rubrick suggests to us this distinction of the Natural Body of Christ which is appropriated to his particular Soul and which hung on the Cross and was Crucified and his Divine or Spiritual Body the Body of the Essential Life or Spirit of the Eternal Logos and therefore rightly termed the Body of the Logos incarnate or of Christ. And therefore when passages of the Ancient Fathers in the Primitive Times before the degeneracy of the Church came in may some of them favour a Real Absence other a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ according as different places of the Scripture might occur to their minds touching this matter the controversy might well be composed by distinguishing betwixt the Natural Body of Christ and his Divine or Spiritual Body According to the former whereof is the Real Absence according to the latter the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood to be received by the Faithful in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist CHAP. VIII 1. Monsieur Maimbourg so cunning and cautious as not to attempt to bring the Protestants to Transubstantiation by their common consent in the Real Presence but by a more general Maxime which he says we are all agreed in 2. The aforesaid Maxime with the Explication thereof 3. Six Supposals surmiz'd for the strengthening this Engine for the pulling the Protestants into the belief of Transubstantiation 4. A Counter-Engine consisting of sixteen common Notions in which not only the Romanists and we but all mankind are agreed in 5. An Examination of the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's Engine by recurring upon occasion to these Common Notions The first Prop examined viz. the Churches Infallibility by assistance of the Spirit and discovered to be weak from the Dissention of Churches in matters of Faith in his sense 6. From the promise of the Spirit being conditional 7. And from the Predictions in the Prophetical Writings of a general Degeneracy of the Church 8. The Examination of the second Prop that would have Transubstantiation believed upon the Synodical decision of a fallible Church 9. The Examination of the third Prop that would have the Synodical decision pass into an Article of Faith 10. The fourth Prop examined by defining truly what