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
draw us to him by Faith and Repentance to apply his Blood and to Trust in his Redemption to move Christians to the same Mind in every thing that we see was in Christ it hath even a Constraining Power of love to live to him that dyed for us to purifie our selves as he is Pure to be in the World as he was in the World to Walk Heb. 13. 12 13. as he Walked to go out to him without the Camp of all False Religions out of the Camp of Sensuality and Worldly-mindedness bearing his Reproach to Crucifie the Flesh with the Lusts to be Crucified to the World and the World to us to set our Affections on things Above Whither His Humane Nature removed in regard of Place But by the Preaching and Manifestation of the Gospel it is every where as thus Represented as thus set forth This is a sense of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ being every where where his Gospel and Word come that cannot be denied and as therein it is so receiv'd as to become an Argument and powerful motive of uniting our selves to Him of being like Him It may be most significantly express'd by the Metaphor of Eating and Drinking like Ezekiel's Eating the Roll and filling his Bowels with it This is a hearing Christ's Voice which strongly Rev. 3. 20. knocks or persuades to open the Door to him that he may as he will come in to Sup with us and we with Him This is a Sense so proper and natural that it is chosen by that Learned Interpreter Grotius to expound that great Discourse John 6. of eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood Grot. in Evangel John viz. such a Receiving his Word and Sayings as to be every way confirm'd in a way of Holy Rational Intellectual Spiritual Obedience to Him And as there is so particular a Representation of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper as a Sacrament summing up the whole Doctrine of the Gospel or of Jesus Christ Crucified so a particular Approbation of our selves to it and for it and the danger of an unworthy an unbecoming Eating and Drinking is so earnestly and vehemently press'd upon us by the Apostle as to infold us in the Guilt of his Body and Blood as if we had Crucified the Son of God afresh and put him to open Shame and because in the Apostolical Times the Lord's Supper and the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only two such words in the New Testament Lord's Day the only Institutions so inscribed were undivided It was a Constant Habitual Uniform Preparation that was required Now that this is Eating and Drinking Christ in a mystical Sense agreeable to the Mystery of the Doctrine and Supper of Jesus Christ is very easie to be Apprehended seeing Christ Jesus is not to be lov'd nor receiv'd in any Fleshly Figure He is no such kind of Object to our Souls even a virtuous Law-giver or Philosopher is not to be lov'd in his Flesh and Blood as Gross and Carnal but as in his Laws his Doctrine his Virtue how much more Christ If ye Love me keep my Commandments Pretend to no carnal Love to no Love to me by looking on and kissing my Pictures or Figures of fleshly Representations For he that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that thus loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will John 14. 15. 21. 23 24. come to him and manifest my self to him If a Man love me he will keep my Sayings and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our Abode with him Words equal in Sense to these He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him On the other side He that loveth me not keepeth not my Sayings and therefore Whoever keepeth not my Sayings loveth me not All others attempt to do that which cannot be done to know and to love Christ after the Flesh whereas now there is no loving Christ but in the New Creation All old things are pass'd away Behold mark it well all Things are become new All outward Representations Images Pictures Gestures Geniculations Adorations if not commanded by him are not the least signs of Love but rejected and refus'd by Christ as a knowing him after the Flesh even the Ordinance 1 Cor. 5. 16. of the Lord's Supper had been a false Love of Christ if it had not been receiv'd from him and specially by himself commanded and yet even as it is without that spiritual Approbation or approving our selves which we translate by the Word Examine our selves It is so far from Acceptance 1 Cor. 11. 28. c. that it is eating and drinking Judgment to our selves And all this is most rational if we consider That we are our selves not truly our selves but as we are thus intellectually spiritually in a way of vertuous Conformity mov'd to things by the great efficacy of Christ and his Spirit in our Hearts and move effectually by inward rational Apprehension and Affection according to the Arguments and Motives in the Word of God without which we can under any Pretensions Professions Confessions of Faith Forms of Worship Prayers outward Rites Postures and Observations be no more Christians than the Statues and Images of the Apostles or Saints are Christians because they are inscrib'd with such Names and vouch'd to be such or such Representations But when there is a single Eye and Design to this Conformity to the Word and Sayings and Commandments of Christ there is then a far more real Presence of Christ in his Word than in any of the Writings or Lives of the most excellent Men that ever were in the World for the Sense and Reason they wrote are indeed here their Actions and Vertues are drawn into History and may be preserv'd from Copy to Copy but the Soul the Spirit that wrote them is gone from them but now Christ yesterday to day the same for ever is present by that Spirit that Divinity by which he preach'd of old even in Noah's Time to the disobedient Spirits now in Prison 1 Pet. 3. 20. While his Truth operates after the manner of rational Truth his Spirit works much higher even divinely His Table therefore in the Gospel and in his Supper is a Psal 28. 5. Table richly spread a Cup running over with spiritual Efficacies of which whoever is indeed Partaker cannot be a Partaker of the Table of Devils whoever truly drinks his Cup cannot drink of the Cup of Devils either in an Idolatrous Religion or an unholy Life He cannot eat of the Sinners Dainties of Folly's Bread or of the stollen Waters she hath Prov. 9. 17. provided For by one Offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified of which the Holy Ghost is witness even of that Covenant of which he is the Mediator it being establish'd upon the best Promises of writing the Laws of God in their hearts
Head Add hereunto This is most particularly the Language of Scripture in Sacramental or Testamentary Discourses Discourses concerning the Covenant according to that famous Instance Heb. 9. 19. 20. When Moses had spoken every Precept to the People according to the Law he took the Blood of Calves of Goats with Scarlet-wool and Hysop and sprinkled both the Book and the People saying upon the whole This Thing this whole Thing is the Blood of the Covenant which God hath enjoyn'd you Thus the Bread Blessed Broken Taken Eaten is the Body of Christ and proportionably the Blood This whole Thing the whole Doctrine and Law of the Gospel always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consider'd and embrac'd first and then the Bread so Blessed Broken Taken Eaten is the Body of Christ and accordingly this Cup or Wine particularly Blessed Divided Drunk And that not only in a figurative cold sacramental or commemorative Sense for that Divine Power that Eternal Spirit of Christ does infinitely propagate the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ representing his whole Humanity in all the saving Efficacies and mighty Effects proper thereunto as perpetually in the Doctrine and Truth of the Gospel in an intellectual way so in this Supper as in a sensible material Representation but yet only confirming assuring making present a divine spiritual Efficacy as hath been all along declar'd And even as the Bread and Wine have an undoubted evident Appearance to Sense are Eaten Tasted Concocted in the Stomach converted into Flesh Blood and Spirits so are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ really present in the Bread in the Wine viz. in their spiritual Effects justly called his Body and Blood So that the Bread is in true spiritual Sense the Body of Christ to be eaten spiritually to be tasted spiritually to be turn'd into spiritual Life to the Soul in which Body and Blood go hand in hand with the Elements in all their natural Progress by their Spirituality and so that the want of due spiritual Action in all that profess Christ Jesus whether at or not at the Sacrament however particularly applied to that is an Offence against the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and brings a Guilt proportionable to the Offence All which hath the Full of a spiritual Transubstantiation and is the Thing we have pursued Head 4 I am come down now to the fourth Head viz. To enquire into this Thing How there came into the Christian Church such a Notion as that Fleshly Transubstantiation so earnestly contended for And I account it to these four Causes Cause 1 That this Great and Excellent Doctrine of the Gospel especially in that so often magnified Sixth of John and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper give great Warranty to observe a great and divine Mystery in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in his Supper That there must be some real sense of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ as preach'd in the Gospel as presented in the Lord's Supper Transubstantiated so as to be Meat and Drink indeed and to give Life to our Souls All this Mystery cannot be exhausted and drawn out in no more than a plain Assent to this that Christ dyed as an Attonement for the World if so much be allowed as Socinianism denies and gave a Body of Holy Precepts and Commands of an excellent Nature and that whoever lives in Obedience to these with Sincerity shall have that their Obedience imputed to them for Righteousness through the Covenant of Grace and justifie Men as perfect and unsinning Obedience should have been and done by the first Covenant with Adam Rationalists and Moralists draw down this Gospel-Mystery too low while they seem to acquit themselves to Reason and general Understanding and to carry all Things plausibly before that They lose the high Spirituality of Christianity which they are too ready to esteem no better than Jargon Cant and Non-sense There is a Gospel middle betwixt gross portentous carnal Transubstantiation and such an emaciating and shrinking up the great and unsearchable Treasures of the Gospel as if they did not much excell a Lecture out of Plato Plutarch Epictetus or some of the great Sages of Morality joyn'd to some Articles of Faith and Forms of Worship The way and manner of the Gospel speaking of these things and especially as our Lord and Saviour spake who spake as never man spake might well raise the Minds of Christians to look for something high and surpassing in the Mysteries of Christian Religion and beyond common Sense or common Reason 2. Many of those we call the Antients or Fathers coming out of the Heathen Learning and Eloquence into the Profession of Christianity Men of great Holiness Innocency and Sanctity of Conversation Contempt of the World Readiness to dye for the Name of Christ and generally Martyrs of curious and delicate Reason of very sublime Notion and Sentiments of a flowing Language softness and sweetness of Speech and accomplish'd with all the Gracefulnesses of Rhetorick taking the Scripture-Expressions and displaying upon them with that Magnificency and Gallantry of Words and all kind of Wit but not pursuing strongly and closely the Reason Strength and whole Analogy of Scripture nor guarding their Discourse by a Nervous Compare of Scripture with Scripture launch'd out into many free and liberal Expressions concerning these Things which not ballanc'd limited defended against possible Mistake at some Times and in some Veins of their Writings in this Matter might give occasion to the more grievous and dreadful Mistakes to such a course of Times as we may easily observe succeeded them And this they did at the higher rate undoubtedly out of a great Zeal for the Honour of Christian Religion for the Jews and Pagans speaking high of their Cabalaes Great Mysteries and Secrets of Religion and their Mystae who had the guard of these Mysteries their Priests and Devotoes The Fathers of the Christian Church knowing the true Excellency of Divine Mysteries and pitching upon this as easily the most remarkable viz. the Doctrine of eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of Christ and this Doctrine in an especial manner consigned into the Mystery of the Lord's Supper to which is adjoyn'd that severe Discourse of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. It was very obvious to them here especially to exalt the Glory of Christianity and of the holy Ministers of it as highly surmounting the Poor if true but therefore most poor because false Mysteries of outdated Judaism and much more of Paganism It is most evident at the very same Time in the very same Places of their Writings they in the same kind of flowing Eloquence intermix other Expressions that sufficiently argue How free they were from any Misapprehensions in these Things But their way of Writing being not by way of severe Examination of Scripture Notions and Texts not by the austere Beam of Scripture in its several Portions of Revealed Truth and of the Sacred Context nor having any surmise of the after