Eternal Life Thou hast the Words of Eternal Life 4. I come now to the last and greatest of those Resemblances between the Flesh or Body eaten and Christ's Blood drunk in the Lord's Supper and natural Eating and Drinking viz. Life and Nourishment and this is that upon which the weight and stress of the whole matter lies and in order to the understanding of this it is most necessary well to weigh the Words Take Eat This is my Body And drink ye All for This Cup is my Blood For here the Notion of Transubstantiation hath the most proper place and here it will be most properly to be decided and here I will allow the utmost to it that can be allowed I have then as I hope made evident The real Communication of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in its spiritual saving and redemptory Effects without any change of Place is no incompossible Notion to the Divine Power of the Son of God And this being rightly apprehended It will be as evident He can convey through such mediatory Channels and Conveyances as he pleases those divine Influences It is out of all Controversie The Truth of his Word and Gospel together with Prayer and holy Meditation begetting in the Soul Knowledge spiritual Understanding Faith Repentance Love and the whole New Creation are the primary and fundamental Conveyances of such divine Influences by which the sacred Body and Blood of Jesus Christ touch the Soul and unite with it unto all the salvifick Effects of Spiritual and Eternal Life And the very effects of Truth and the Word of God uniting the Soul to Christ through the Efficacy of his Divine Power and Spirit are in the first place before the Lord's Supper Instituted compar'd to Meat and Drink And as They in the Course of that Providence or Word of God by which Man lives and not by Bread alone are Transubstantiated into the Body Flesh and Blood of those that Eat and Drink them even so the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in these saving Effects are Transubstantiated into the Soul and Spirit of every faithful Receiver of them and enliven them to a spiritual and eternal Life and there can be no fitter Notion of these Divine Effects than this Transubstantiation of natural Meat and Drink and Incorporation thereof into the Eater for even as what is eaten according to the nature of Perishables lives in the Eater dwells in the Eater and he in that and they are one in one another even so they that Eat Christ dwell in Christ and Christ in them Christ lives in his Church and Saints out of which he is pleas'd not to live as our Mediator and Head But he lives in them as in his Fullness and they in him as in their Fountain of Life Christ in them and They in him by this spiritual Transubstantiation or else they have no life in them but pine away as through want of Nourishment This then being the true measure of eating and drinking Christ and the spiritual Transubstantiation arising from it as in the general Doctrine of the Gospel it must give Law and Rule to our eating and drinking of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper that we may rightly understand it and so to the Transubstantiation flowing from it It must be all in our spiritual Transformation into Christ living in us and we in him and no other in that principal Notion But because in all Intellectual and Spiritual Communications of Truth to our Minds there are no sensible no material Images or Representations and that by the Wisdom of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper there are those sensible Images of Bread eaten and Wine drunk and these Cargoed and enrich'd with the Representation of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and that these are to awaken collect and sum all our intellectual rational and spiritual Notions of Christ the Vertue of his Sacrifice and whole Transaction of the Humane Nature and our closest Application thereunto as to our Redemption by him It must needs therefore be that the Bread and Wine as to our Understandings our Souls and all intellectual and spiritual Appetite and Action having done their very first Service of leading us through the whole suitableness betwixt Bread and Wine and the natural Life of Man and the same suitableness betwixt the Body and Blood of Christ and the Life of the Soul according to the Institution they must immediately drop their bodily and sensible Nature and become to our Minds Thoughts and Affections the Body and Blood of Christ. And it pertains to the Divine Power of Jesus Christ and his Eternal Spirit to make in a spiritual Reality that Bread and Wine his very Body and Blood in all its Efficacies to us if we are duely prepar'd so to receive them And the inward high and saving Effects to all Intents and Purposes immediately follow But yet if the true natural Realities of these Elements or the subsequent unitive Incorporating Vertues of those Elements were lost not only the Institution it self founded on those sensible Qualities would be lost but the very Body and Blood of Christ by such a monstrous kind of Miracle would become outward Elements to themselves for by the very Confession of the gross Transubstantialist They however Transubstantiated do no good without Faith and Repentance and so do no more than the Vntransubstantiated Bread and Wine may do and so prodigious a Miracle serves to no purpose which is most absurd For it makes the Body and Blood mere outward Elements to themselves The Bread and Wine then must as to the bodily Senses as to the natural Effects upon the Body be Themselves or keep their own Natures but as to the spiritual Sentiments and the spiritual Effects they must be thus Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Cbrist in regard of Christ really communicating them by his divine Power to the Soul as the Soul by Faith must receive them There must therefore be the Conduct of all the Instituted Actions Blessing Breaking Taking Eating the Bread Blessing Dividing among our selves Drinking All of the CUP and that in a solemn manner as in an Act of spiritual Worship with Reverence and godly Fear else it is not to eat the Lord's Supper for If a Priest not rightly ordain'd or not intending to consecrate the Bread shall in the very Judgment of the Transubstantialist defeat the sacred Institution how much more ought in the very same mens Judgments the Neglect or Omission of any of the solemn Instituted Acts evacuate the spiritual use and end of which the natural use of the Bread and Wine necessarily to that end continuing in their Natures was one great part and therefore undoubtedly if the Stomachs of Communicants were open'd as Alexander open'd the Stomach of his Souldier to find whether the Milk charg'd upon him to be taken away from the poor Woman by violence were there and there he found it so the Bread and Wine would be found in
the Assurance the Apostle gives stand for nothing Nay Must not all Scripture-Miracles whatever fall by the same stroke the Senses do in this matter and Religion be suspected but only Juggle and Imposture For here Sense is upon its own Object in its own Business All Sense that is in the World agrees and a pretended Faith only makes it void 2. Hereby that great Excellency of Scripture in giving Divine and Spiritual Things under sensible prophetical Events under Emblems mystical Things under Types of a material Nature great concernful practical Truth under Parables is made void for if it may not be allowed it to mean Spirituality under This is my Body it may be denied it in all Things else seeing in nothing it can be more necessary than when all the Senses in the World bear witness to the necessity and the sublime Spirituality of the Thing as we have set out requires it This must needs turn even the minds of Men into gross and carnal Must not that great Heresie of the Anthropomorphites as was intimated before be defended and made good because Scripture speaks spiritual Things freely and under Sensibles nay all Language does the same and is made foolish by so perverting it 3. The Amuse and Wonderment of the minds of men persuaded of such a Transubstantiation must needs be great and their Thoughts gazing after a Nothing and taken off from the greatest Business of a spiritual Application to Christ according to his Word and the whole Truth of the Gospel concerning Redemption by him 4. But that which is yet the greatest danger of all There is nothing the Scripture so much abhors as to bring God into a contemptible vile mean Appearance and that such an Appearance should claim Divine Honour a share in the Divine Glory There never was a Divine Appearance that God requir'd any Acknowledgment of himself in but there was a Retinue of Divine Power and Majesty with it to assure the minds of men and to direct them to the Apprehensions of God alone When Christ was here in the World under the Form of a Servant the Disguise of a Carpenters Son I do not find that there was any Act of Worship done to him but when the Shecinah the Presence of Glory descended upon him when the Wise men from the East worshipped him in his Infancy a Star from Heaven as an Evidence of his Divinity guided them It is never recorded the Disciples worshipped him but after his Resurrection and when they saw his Apotheosis his Ascension his receiving up into Glory or when a Ray of his Divinity shone out as in the Draught of Fishes And yet it is true that throughout the Time of his publick Luke 5. 8. Appearance though he was made Flesh and dwelt among them yet they beheld his Glory as the Glory of the only Begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth not bodily but divine spiritual was the Object of their Worship How does God caution and warn the Israelites that They saw no Similitude no Likeness of any thing when he spake out of the midst of the Fire They heard a Voice of Words but they saw no Similitude that they might not Copy God out into any such Deut. 4. 12. 15 16. If men say They intend to worship only the True God in Jesus Christ in the chang'd Bread Consider what miraculous Presence what Evidences of Divinity can you find to summon your Worship that you may be secure from Idolatry Consider what the Glory what the Majesty of the Divine Appearances are when he hath summon'd the Worship of his Servants some Extraordinaries of Glory have always been the Alarm of their Worship One great part of the Idolatry of the Heathens was their course Representation of God They changed the Glory of the Rom. 1. 23. 25. Incorruptible God into an Image made like to Corruptible Man and to Birds c. They changed the Truth of God into a Lye and worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator Blessed for ever or besides or missing the Creator and as against him Blessed for ever Though I would not therefore say It is Idolatry yet I heartily pray Men may not be ensnar'd in so great a danger of it I could wish it were not as the Apostle Rom. 9. 1. if it be lawful to do so I am sure the Danger is exceeding great of stooping God so low and then Worshipping him as in a piece of Bread There remains nothing now but the last Head of this Discourse viz. To draw up all into short Inferences applicatory to Practice Applic. 1 I would even put it to the Choice of any wise Man what kind of Transubstantiation is most desirable and worthy to be preferr'd Whether that Insipid one at the suppos'd Expence of a Miracle so unaccountable to Sense and Reason as changing the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ materially taken which yet offers nothing to the Sense to excite and stir up the Mind by to attend upon the Divine Presence nor contributes any thing to the Soul Or that spiritual Transubstantiation which is All Spirit and Life and certainly gives Life to the Soul that Receives it The one can be not so much as an outward Sign because not visible the other is certainly the inward invisible Grace that yet demonstrates it self in all real visible Effects with Demonstration of the Spirit and Power and that will raise us up at the last day The one does nothing For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his The other is that very Spirit of Christ that is Life and Righteousness so that the true Believer who hath the Spirit of Christ hath the whole Vertue from that within and the Bread and Wine are present to the Sense by Christ himself sanctified and appointed to do good that way which nothing unseen can do in the very nature of the Thing any more than insensible can affect Sense That then which offers not it self to Sense nor Reason and does no good without the Spirit and Life receiv'd by Faith what can it do at all To a Man without Faith it hath not so much as the outward Visibility to stir up to Faith by sense it cannot of it self give the inward Grace neither so that it indeed is nothing nor can do any thing But the Spirit and Life of the Body and Blood of Christ immediately hath the saving Effect upon the true Believer It Invites the very Unbeliever by its Excellency while it offers it self under the sensible Signs of Bread and Wine made Intelligible and Intellectual by the whole Doctrine of the Gospel It is easie therefore thus far to know what is to be chosen But on the other side There is the great Danger if this Transubstantiation be a mistake as there is so great assurance it is There is for a mistakes sake all the danger imaginable of overthrowing the whole Credit of our
SERMON Of the True Spiritual Transubstantiation Oppos'd to the GROSS CARNAL IMAGINARY Transubstantiation WHEREIN The true Meaning of the Lord's Supper is opened in order to a constant habitual and actual Preparation to it By T Beverley Printed for the Author 1687. TO THE Christian Readers ESPECIALLY MY CONTINUAL AUDITORS I Offer this Sermon to the Publick as the most satisfactory Resolution concerning the Lord's Supper and its true Transubstantiation in opposition to the false so eagerly contended I have done it with all the Modesty and Inoffensiveness I could without Injury to Truth without Denying Christ before Men. I have put the best Value and all the Value possible upon Transubstantiation that is To Interpret it into a True Scripture Gospel Notion into a Spirituality I confess the very Word nor any one Word parallel to it is found that I know of in the New Testament but the Thing it self is every where in the Gospel of Christ Christ in us and we in Christ Baptiz'd into one Body one Body one Bread a Drinking into one Spirit are favourable to it Christ being All in All the Head putting on Christ but above all dwelling in Christ and Christ dwelling in us joyn'd with Eating his Flesh and Drinking his Blood are the very same thing with this Spiritual Transubstantiation to which the Bread and Wine are the most fit and sensible Symbols and Christ is as really present in them by his Word sanctifying them into Spirituality as in his Word it self And if we Abide in him and his Words abide in us we are one with him in Both as the Vine and the Branches are one John 15. 1. c. I consider nothing is so likely to satisfie so deeply an engraven Notion in some mens minds as this true and faithful Account of it as nothing could satisfie the confused Lineaments of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream in his own mind but Daniel's Prophetical Revelation of the Thing and of the Truth it self to him I look upon this True Presence of Christ given from the Word of God as the most effectual means to recover those to the Truth who live in Error concerning it to settle the Wavering resolve the Doubtful to confirm and stablish in the one Truth always present the True Christian This is far above all Reasons of Philosophy Vindication from Antiquity and the Fathers concerning it When we find we have that which answers all the Notions of Scripture and is worthy to be its meaning we may be at rest Here the Romanists Zeal for a Transubstantiation the Lutherans for a Consubstantiation other Protestants for a real Presence may find full Reception and just Entertainment in a sense worthy of them if they will accept it Besides this I have aimed at possessing the Minds of Christians with so high a spiritual Notion to recommend the Gospel as Preach'd as in the Lord's Supper in its highest Intendments and Efficacy and to win mens Souls to the outward Observation by their being impregnated with the inward Life and Power In which Pursuit many excellent Truths and of great moment have risen up and offered themselves There remains nothing but to beseech the God of all Grace to give his Blessing to it and to you particularly My very Honoured and truly Loved Hearers to whom it is my constant Endeavour through the Grace of God to open to you together the Spirituality and the Reasonableness of Divine Things whom I commend to God and the Word of his Grace to build you up strengthen stablish settle you and shall thereunto labour while God allows me opportunity with most conscientious Meditations most earnest Prayers and dearest Affections Your very faithful Servant in the Work of the Lord Beverley THE CONTENTS OF THE SERMON AN Introduction upon the general view of the Institution of the Lord's Supper as given by three Evangelists and by the Apostle Paul as a fourth compos'd into a Harmony and our Lord's Discourse John 6. lying as a Foundation Page 1. to Page 5. General Observations upon the Harmony giving Advantage to the right understanding the Institution p. 6. to p. 9. The method of the Sermon is laid down in general p. 9. The first general Head shews How Christ gives his Body or his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink in four Points p. 10. Point 1. The Humane Nature of Christ is in sacred Writ most expressively set out by his Flesh his Body and his Blood p. 11 12 13. Point 2. The Flesh Body and Blood of Christ and all his Actions therein are as so many Preparations that he may be spiritually eaten and drunk p. 14. Point 3. The Humane Nature of Christ and all his Sufferings and Actions in it are so many Rests and Repositories of the Divine Power p. 14 15 16 Point 4. The Divine Power of the Son of God extends the Body and Blood of Christ his Action and suffering therein in their saving virtue without limitation to Time or Place This is branch'd into three Points p. 17. Point 1. The Divine Nature of the Son of God acting in the Humane Nature united to him can draw out such spiritual Efficacies from his Actions and Sufferings therein as shall be most conducive to the Salvation of Souls that believe in him and this is display'd briefly in some Resemblances of Nature though found insufficient to decipher so great a Mystery p. 17 18. Therefore these Efficacies are drawn out into four Causalities according to Scripture 1. Of an eternal propitiatory expiatory Cause p. 19. 2. Of an exemplar Cause p. 20. 3. Of an efficient unitive Cause p. 22. 4. Of an argumentative Cause fill'd also with divine Efficacy p. 23. to p. 26. Point 2. and 3. The Divine Efficacy of Christ cannot be hindered by distance either of Time or Place p. 27 28. General Head the second propounds to shew how clear the Passage is to those Words Take Eat c. from the Point of Christ giving his Flesh to eat by shewing That as there is a rich Communicativeness on the part of Christ giving his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink so there are receiving Faculties and Powers of Man fitted by Grace that may be truly said in a spiritual sense to eat and to drink as Christ is said to give p. 29 30. This Eating is therefore resembled with eating and drinking 1. As in pledge of Peace and Reconciliation with God p. 31. 2. As a solemn Act of Worship p. 32. 3. As Eating and Drinking is made a Symbol of Eternal Glory p. 32. 4. Principally as Eating and Drinking are in order to Life and Nourishment where the Notion of Transubstantiation hath its most proper place and is most fully discours'd in its spiritual sense p. 32. to the end of p. 38. General Head the third offers a fair Accommodation so as that there may be no Encounter betwixt the Mystery and the Letter or betwixt the grand Sense and the very Words This is my Body discours'd upon the Harmonical Context
from p. 38. to p. 44. General Head the fourth is taken up in an Enquiry How there came such a Notion into the Christian Church as that fleshly Transubstantiation so earnestly contended for and finds it arising from four Causes 1. From the great mystery of spiritual Transubstantiation given in that our so magnified Sixth of John and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper p. 44. 2. From the Ancients and Fathers discoursing with high Eloquence of this Point not sufficiently guarded p. 45. 3. From the Ignorance and Barbarity which after them invaded the Christian Church p. 46. 4. From the rising of a Church-Power at the same time over mens Consciences and pressing this as an Article of Faith p. 47. General Head the fifth shews the danger of such a Doctrine as fleshly Transubstantiation 1. As it shakes the Credit of all our knowing and judging Faculties p. 48 49. 2. As it makes void the Divineness of Scripture-Language expressing spiritual things by sensible and indeed perverts the Wisdom of all Language so doing p. 49. 3. As it amuses Mens Minds and draws them off from spiritual Action in Holy Mysteries p. 49. 4. The great danger especially lies in bringing down God into a contemptible vile Appearance and allowing divine Honour to it which is one sort of Idolatry Scripture most abhors p. 50 to 52. General Head the sixth draws all into six practical Applications p. 52. to the end 1. By proposal to our choice the most worthy of these two The spiritual or the carnal Transubstantiation 2. By raising us to high Thoughts of the Redemption of Jesus Christ so uniting it self to us as by eating and drinking his Body and Blood 3. By lifting up our Hearts to Christ eating the Passover and drinking the very same Fruit of the Vine with us by his Intercession in Heaven which he did here on Earth 4. By obliging us to a high value of this Ordinance of the Lord's Supper in which we so unite to Christ. 5. By perswading us to an earnest care against violating so great a Mystery as Christ eaten and drunk in the Gospel and the Lord's Supper 6. By lifting up our Heads in Prayers and Desires to the Table of Christ in his Kingdom A SERMON OF THE True Spiritual Transubstantiation oppos'd to the Gross Carnal Imaginary Transubstantiation MATTH 26. 26. Compar'd with Mark 14. 22. Luke 22. 19. 1 Cor. 11. 23. c. This is my Body I Take all these Scriptures as the common Subject that by the Grace and Assistance of God I intend to discourse at this time and especially to Treat the Sense of these Words This is my Body And This Cup is my Blood of the New Testament And as I have earnestly begg'd of God that he would waken me morning by morning that he would waken my Ear to hear as the learned concerning it so that He would give me the Tongue of the Learned to speak of it and grant you also to hear with the Ear of the Learned that so in this whole Duty the Preparations of the Heart the Answer of the Tongue and the Hearing of the Ear may be from the Lord. Now I shall endeavour so to treat of it as if there were no other Point of Controversie between us Protestants and the Roman Persuasion but only the Sense of these Words This is my Body And I shall consider that Transubstantiation as it is generally called that is built upon it as if there were no other Fault nor Errour in that Doctrine but only a Zeal for the Mystery of the Lord's Supper and the Letter of Scripture in this Institution though it be not according to Knowledge and therefore I will allow the utmost both to the Words and the Sense that can be allowed the very utmost that can be made of This is my Body This Cup is my Blood of the New Testament And I shall endeavour so to treat of it that there may be nothing that may be offensive except the plain Evidence and Reason of Things the Evidence of Truth without any umbrage any shadow of a Railing Accusation I will discourse only upon the single Account of Scripture and the Reasons drawn from it And therefore I do allow That these Words This is my Body and This Cup is my Blood they do carry a most high and important Sense And I shall consider the utmost Tendency they can have to such a thing as is called Transubstantiation though the Word it self be not indeed found in Scripture yet I will allow the thing in its due sense And I shall endeavour so to do this that you may have the clearest understanding of the Intention and Meaning of the Lord's Supper and the Institution of it and of these Words This is my Body and so as may tend most to the real Sense and Impression upon your Hearts of so great an Expression of our Saviour both in the general Doctrine of the Gospel and in the particular Sense and Meaning of the Lord's Supper and that sacred Solemnity and also may be most practical and may most serve to the good of every man's Soul who desires spiritually to understand this great Doctrine and the particular Ordinance of the Lord's Supper And because it is agreed among all men that profess any Reverence to the Lord's Supper that as it is not a humane Device so not a natural Duty made known by natural Light nor written in natural Conscience it is not like the Reverence of the Divine Being or Prayer to God or the desire to know his Mind or Will or any moral Duty but it depends wholly upon Divine Institution and Ordination 'T is wholly from Scripture or else there could never have been such a Worship of God known in the World as the Solemnity of eating Bread and drinking Wine in the Lord's Supper in Remembrance of him To introduce therefore this matter I consider There are Four inspired Writers who have given us this Institution from our Lord the Evangelist Matthew the Evangelist Mark the Evangelist Luke and the Apostle Paul and then the Evangelist John although it was not committed to him as every Evangelist had throughout the whole Evangelick History his Portion of every Matter and the proper Words of it committed to him to write of this Institution yet he had a sublime and highly spiritual Discourse intrusted with him all along the last part of his sixth Chapter concerning the eating the Flesh of Christ and drinking his Blood which must needs be the Foundation of eating the Flesh of Christ and drinking his Blood in the Sacrament for a Sacrament must have a Doctrine to sustain it that it may not be an insignificant Ceremony and what can have nearer Relation to the Sacrament of eating the Body of Christ broken for us and drinking his Blood of the New Testament shed for many than eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood which he gave for the life of the World which is Meat indeed and Drink indeed
is not receiv'd it then does not work Good where that Preparation is not because it is not receiv'd but if it be receiv'd it hath its certain Effect On the other side when it is not receiv'd it does hurt by way of increasing Guilt because a spiritual Offer of so excellent a Nature is refus'd and contemn'd and because the Soul by such pretence of receiving and yet Refusal grows much more confirm'd in Evil. But this is not all for though the Holiness and Spirituality of a Holy Created Finite Spirit may by Instruction Suggestion or Example offer much Good to other Spirits and be instrumental in affecting them aright yet this is in all Regards in so finite and limited a way that the Effect may be very small or none at all and so it is not possible in any more than a very low and abated sense to eat or to drink of the Communications of any Angel or Saint above or below But now whatever is divine is communicative even to what degrees it pleases All Finite is Poor and Scanty and hath not for it self but as received But the Son of God in Humane Nature hath all Fulness dwelling in Col. 1. 19. Him and so can derive and convey to what degrees he thinks fit Of which is to be spoken in the next Particular But this Assures in Christ there is Meat and Drink abounding to the Life of the World The Divine Power of the Son of God and its Efficacy Point 4 extend the Body Flesh and Blood of Christ and his Action therein in their saving Virtue and Effect without limitation to Time or Place and to all dimensions and degrees of Effect And under this Head I will undertake these three Particulars 1. To shew that the Divine Nature of the Son of God acting in the Humane Nature united to Him can draw out such spiritual Powers and Efficacies from those his Actings and Sufferings as shall be most conducing to the Salvation of Souls that believe in Him now this I shall make good by shewing what kind of Causalities and what answerable Effects are by the Word of God ascribed to the Divine Power of Christ Acting in the Humane Nature 2. I will shew that they cannot be prejudg'd nor hindered by any distances of Time because of the Eternity of Jesus Christ the Son of God 3. That they cannot be intercepted by any distances of Place because of the Omnipresence of Jesus Christ the Son of God Now I shall not presume to speak of these Particulars but as I am guided by the Spirit of God in his Word For Who can describe the way of the Divine Spirit in Nature Such Knowledge is too wonderful for me I cannot attain to it if not in Nature how much more not in Grace and supernaturals But yet it is not unworthy to be taken notice of That all Philosophy owns some kind of Effluviums some flowing Atomes Ramenta or little Globules of matter that fly every way or if but some Sympathies in Nature that pass up and down and fly unknown ways and unmeasurable distances without the Load Cumber Presence of those Bodies from which they flow which cannot move nor pass as they do if Spirits of much greater Efficacy are extracted more agile more portable and more easily conveyed than the Bodies themselves from which they are extracted if there are some Relations of unknown Communications of Minds at great distance of Bodies These may be taken notice of as some Illustration of this matter But such things are too slippery and incertain and also too gross to rest so great a Point upon seeing what so infinite an Agent as the Spirit of Holiness can do cannot be grasp'd or comprehended by any material Likenesses its Extractions its Abstractions are more subtile than our gross Apprehensions can find out or receive or natural Agents imitate There are yet in common Observation some Instances that may come nearer this great Point From the vertuous Actions of great Personages in Bodies there is an Honour an Esteem a Dignity an excellent Example flowing out that continues Ages beyond the very Actions and beyond the Persons continuance in Bodies that perform'd them and may be imputed to their Posterity and are as it were Abstracts from Persons in Bodies and yet of a spiritual kind of Diffusiveness as to both Time and Place and much exceed the Places whereupon they were acted that have a kind of Universality both as to Time and Place are nearer the matter we are upon and yet they are but dark and dull shades of so great a Truth Let us therefore come to the Holy Word of God it self and we shall find four kinds of Causality attributed to God manifested in Flesh and to all his Divine Action and suffering therein 1. The Causality of an expiatory propitiatory or meritorious Cause 2. Of an exemplar Cause 3. Of an efficient Cause by way of Union to himself 4. Of a rational argumentative Cause so effecting a Conformity of the Souls of his People to himself There is nothing more evident than that the Gospel ascribes Causality 1 to the Body Flesh and Blood of Christ the Efficacy of an eternal propitiatory expiatory Cause By one Offering Heb. 10. 14. of the Body of Christ and that once for all He hath for ever perfected that is reconcil'd and consecrated them who are sanctified because it was offered by the Eternal Spirit Heb. 9. 24. His Body is an Offering a Sacrifice of an eternal sweet-smelling Ephes 5. 2. savour because he offer'd himself now himself is God in our Nature so the Offering is in the hand of Divinity Thus his Blood offered by the Eternal Spirit purges the Conscience from dead Works to serve the living God The Blood of Christ more precious than Silver or Gold redeems from a vain Conversation All these are plain and high Effects of a spiritual Nature and they are deriv'd from the humane Nature of Christ call'd his Flesh his Body his Blood acted by an intellectual holy humane Soul which delighted to do the Will of God and the Law of God was within his heart And Psal 40. 8. all this by being in the hand of the Divinity of Jesus Christ is infinitely communicative both as to Time and Place The Righteousness of Angels or of Men though they had continued Holy as the standing Angels could not have done this but what Christ the Lamb did he did by the Eternal Spirit which is infinite Now these expiatory Extracts Abstracts drawn from the Body of Jesus Christ are so DIVINIZ'D if I may so speak by the Eternal Spirit That they are every where Christ's Body in this sense may be every where even as his Divinity is with Pardon of Sin Reconciliation to God Peace with him sprinkling the Heart from an evil Conscience and all other great Effects For where is it that the Gospel is and true Christians are where this Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World
danger there being so little occasion or appearance of Fear at the Time left Things so as that the following Times deprav'd their Innocent Glory of Learning and sublime Ingeny dyed deep with Love of Christ 3. Through the many Devastations of the Christian Empire by the Barbarous Nations by the Saracens and Turks in a long Tract of Time through the daily Decay of Christian Knowledge Zeal and Holiness there ensued a great Darkness Ignorance Barbarism upon the Christian World in which Men of the best Note seiz'd upon such Expressions of Scripture and the Fathers whose Sepulchres they built and garnished their Tombs all manner of ways I add no more and it may be as it seem'd to them most to make for the Honour of Christian Religion But their Understanding being heavy course sinking into the thick and impure matter bearing also a deep Grain of Paganism they grievously err'd neither knowing the Scriptures the true Sense of the Fathers nor of the Power of God And hereunto they proportion'd all their Notions of the Christian Religion their Worship of God and Christ and most miserably especially They stuck in the mirey Clay as to this great Mystery of the Lord's Supper and the Doctrine of Eating the Flesh and Drinking the Blood of Christ out of which it was drawn and degraded the most losty Spirituality of the Gospel into the poorest and even vilest of carnal Apprehensions concerning it in the Doctrine of a Carnal fleshly Transubstantiation 4. At the same Times and by the same Degrees grew up a Despotick Arbitrary Church power that imposed what it pleas'd under Anathemaes Curses Excommunications Brands of Heresie and all Cruelty upon the Bodies Names Estates of those who even to Syllables did not Say as they Said and do as they did while at the same Time also there Invaded Persons of as honest and sincere a Devotion as Ignorance could produce a Veneration for the Name of the Catholick Church and the Governours of it and their Canons Now the Impress the Stamp of this Authority being set so particularly and Imperially upon this Doctrine of Transubstantiation it is no wonder it prevail'd so far and sunk so deep into the Minds of Men through what every Age from those Worthies before-nam'd contributed both to the Grossness and Authoritativeness of this false Article of Faith I forbear because I would be as inoffensive as may be consistent with Truth to remark upon that Apostacy that Mystery of Iniquity which the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour foretold were even then beginning and to rise higher and higher in the Latter Times to which even many Things innocent and inoffensive in themselves at first and indeed all Contingencies fathally concurr'd and which it is most certain are not yet remov'd Nor do I think fit at this Time to Animadvert upon the Covetous Practices Cruelties and Inhumanities into which Transubstantiation hath been Transubstantiated not only in the true real sense of spiritual Wickedness but in a sense as corporeal as Corporeity it self I hasten therefore to the fifth Head viz. To represent to you the Danger of such a Doctrine as that Fleshly Transubstantiation not so much as it is a contemplative Thing a Notion a manner of Apprehension or matter of Discourse though that also but as it carries the Practice of Worship and Adoration Now in these Great Points we may very plainly and convincingly understand the great Danger of that Transubstantiation 1. The believing it must needs shake the Credit of all the knowing and judging Faculties of our Natures and Beings than which nothing can be more destructive to Religion or put all Things into greater Disorder and Confusion that concern God our Selves or our Motions in relation to another World For if our Faculties are not true we have nothing to guide our selves or to be guided by Now the Faculties of our Minds first judge and act by Sense then by Reason then by the Notices or Sentiments of Natural Conscience then by Faith and these must be all sound in due state They have all their proper Objects they are all finite and by these Rules they are limited they must not go out of their Limits It is true these are each as so many Stories one above another and the lower must not presume into the Region of the higher for then they will be mistaken and in Error yet the highest is supported and sustained by the lower And seeing they all are from God whatever is true in the lowest cannot be contradicted in the highest and therefore whatever is pretended in the highest cannot be true there if it be justly denied in the lowest Now it were easie to shew this Notion of Carnal Transubstantiation must be false in all the judgment of our Faculties but I shall only instance in Sense And if the Bread be Bread in the Judgment of every one of our Senses of the Senses of all Men in all Places at all Times and in all Ages under the most advantageous Circumstances for sense to judge by the contrary can never be true in Reason in natural Conscience nor in Faith for then either there must be no such Faculty as Sense or that fundamental Faculty of the Souls Judgment by Sense must be false and so all our Faculties will lose their Credit for they may be false too seeing he that gave us one gave us all of them and this of Sense is that we most live and act by in this World If any attempt to parallel this with the Doctrine of the Father the Word and the Spirit being ONE to which Reason say they can never subscribe the Case is manifestly different seeing it is certain our Faculties are finite and cannot judge of Infinity but by Faith in divine Revelation Infinite Being is too High too Deep too Broad too Long for Job 11. 7 8 9. a Finite Reason to judge of It is not its proper Object But Colour Taste Figure Hard Soft Sound may be all judg'd by Sense and properly are so to be judg'd Or if any should make the same Objection against that Spiritual Transubstantiation we have made out by Scripture 't is certain It is only cognisable and to be judg'd of by Faith and Revelation Sense hath no Title to judge of it If it be maintain'd by Faith it is maintain'd in its proper Court But it is certain The Judgment whether this Bread be Bread or Wine be Wine is to be made by some one or more of the Senses at least in the Universality of all the Senses of all Persons Times Places Let any one then lay that place 1 Epist John c. 1. v. 1. That which we have heard that which our Eyes have seen which we have looked upon and our Hands have handled c. to the being born down That in these Senses and all others we are mistaken in judging Bread to be Bread when it is no Bread and Wine when it is no Wine Must not all the Argument the Evidence