A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRAMENT OF THE Lords Super. WHEREIN THE FAITH OF THE CATHOLICK CHVRCH Concerning that Mystery Is explained proved and vindicated after an intelligible Catachetical and Easie Manner By EDWARD PELLING Chaplain to His Grace the Duke of SOMERSET LONDON Printed for B. Griffin and Sam. Keble at the Turks Head in Fleet-Street and Dan. Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple Bar and Jac. Tonson at the Judges head in Chancery lane 1685. To Her Grace THE Most Noble and most Vertuous LADY ELIZABETH Lady Dutchess of Somerset May it please your Grace IF there be any room for Books amidst our common and deep sorrows for the death of that excellent and most beloved Prince the late King Charles the Second of ever blessed Memory I am willing to hope that this little piece may not be altogether unwelcome to the World because the subject of it is of standing and most necessary use especially in Times when we are most apt to recollect our selves and can find no such solid and substantial Comfort as at Gods Altar And since I have presumed upon your leave to prefix your great Name to this following discourse I am in all justice and duty bound to give your Grace an account of this undertaking Among many great Calamities which were the effects of the late intestine War this was one That the Holy Communion was in some places so sparingly used in some so wholly neglected in most so little consider'd that we seemed to be in danger of quite losing a main part of Christianity The unity of the Church being broken variety of pernicious opinions about the Sacrament was introduced to disparage and abolish it which took such Root in peoples minds that for these five and twenty years last past it hath been a matter of no small difficulty to restore it to its due Esteem and Observation in some tolerable measure Controversies either with Papists or with other Sectaries took up the greatest part of Mens time and pains And tho' some Books of Devotion have been written upon this subject yet 't was impossible to conceive how this Mystery could be restored to its right use till Men were throughly informed of its Nature and Ends which popular Men in the late times seemed to have very little understood or very superficially to have looked into Therefore to serve the World in this particular divers have lately laboured hard but none seem to have done it with greater solidity or better success then that excellent Divine and Truly good Man Dr. Symon Patrick now Dean of Peterbourgh to whom even the learned part of the World is much indebted for his pains upon this Subject which indeed have been so aboundant that to write after him may be thought to be only the doing of the same thing over again which was better done before However considering how scandalously great the Ignorance and mistakes of many People are still concerning this matter and finding that the Government hath been awakened at the sense of those dangers which Church and State both are in by reason of mens straglings from this weighty Ordinance I thought it necessary for me in the execution of my Office to bestow some considerable time upon the Subject of the Sacrament to treat of it purposely and as fully as I could and to accommodate my self to the Apprehensions of those that are of the most vulgar and ordinary understandings by discoursing upon this Theme after a plain Catechetical manner This could not well be done but by going over the whole and by discoursing first of the Notional or Doctrinal part in the prosecution whereof as I thought it proper for me to observe the same instructive Method which others had taken so I thought it necessary to look narrowly into two things especially which the the Generality of men have not throughly examined and searched into First to look into the nature and use those Ancient Sacrifical Banquets which some few Writers of late have very luckily taken notice of For in regard that this Christian Feast doth bear a great Resemblance to those Feasts which all Mankind did anciently celebrate upon part of their Sacrifices I did conceive that to give a plain and full account of them would be the best way both to open the meaning of this Feast and to remove many great Errours which divers Opinionators especially the Socinians do entertain concerning this Mystery who have corrupted and debauched the minds of of men by those mean and unsound Notions which they have vended abroad in the World Secondly 't was necessary to look into the genuine meaning of the Real Presence of Christs Body and Bloud in the Sacrament For in this point abundance of poor people are at a loss being not able to understand it so fully and clearly as they ought And having to do in that particular with the Romanists who are wont to cheat men into the sin of Apostacy by urging those words of our Saviour This is my Body and this is my Bloud it was absolutely requisite for me to give such a fair account of the meaning of those expressions as might consist with the Faith of the Catholick Church and serve to satisfie the minds of men fully and clearly For tho enough hath been saidagainst Transubstantiation and most people among us are convinced of the falsehood and absurdity of that Doctrine yet it requires a great deal of pains to open and unfold the right Faith concerning the real presence so as to render it intelligible and clear because it is an easier matter to overthrow an Error than to establish a Truth And altho in the explication of this matter I have adventur'd more than many of our Divines have done yet am I sure that I have followed herein the sense of the Ancient Church which is enough to justifie and bear me out however I am not so vain a person as to pretend to be mine own Judge in this or any other case And now Madam since these papers are committed to the Press if any shall wonder at the publication of them I hope no man will think it strange that I presume to lay them at Your Graces feet and entitle them to your Noble Patronage if they will but consider that there are no Expressions of Dutifulness and Honour due from the Lowest Servant to so great a Personage but Your Grace may lay just claim to them from me It may perhaps be matter of some discourse that I should offer this to your Grace singly without begging the Patronage of him too who is your Noble Husband and my Natural Master and Lord. And I confess I can hardly think what to say to the World that in the Dedication of a little Book I do not joyn Both your Graces together who are Blessed by God in Interest and Affection and Religion and in all respects Undivided The truth is his Grace hath often given me the Honour to address my self to him after this manner
were properly called Sacramentaries and which is the opinion of those black-mouth'd Hereticks the Socinians now This was an Heterodox conceit indeed that was utterly against the Faith of the Catholick Church from the beginning and out of hatreed and detestation of this foul Error the Bishop of Rome and others presently fell into another extreme as foul as that as usually men do when they are in Heat and Passion Then the Doctrine not so much of Christs real as of his corporal presence was laid upon the Anvil and Lancfranck and Guitmund Berengarius his Enemies See the Confession which was extorted from Beren garius at Rome and which he afterwards retracted in Gratian de Consec dist 2. c. 24. fell a hammering at it and then they would not be satisfyed with this which yet had satisfied Christians for above a thousand years that Christs Divine Body is verily communicated after a Spiritual manner to the faithful But they would needs have it that his Natural Body is actually eaten with mens mouths and handled with their hands However this was the sense but of a few men as yet and all men were yet at liberty to opine and dispute as long as they did it Modestly For Fulbertus was against the new opinion and at the second Synod at Rome against Berengarius under Gregory the seventh Anno 1079 they did declare that there was great variety of opinions about the Body Habitus est Sermo de Corpore Sanguine Domini nostri multis haec nonnullis alia sentientibus and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament as may be seen in the Acts of that Synod and Adelmannus though he blamed Berengarius yet was he against Lancfranck not owning that Conceit of Christs Corporal presence Lancfranck maintain'd it here in England and he was the first man that planted that weed in this Island but all men were not of his opinion here though he was a man of great Authority and in Foreign parts the point continued disputable for a long time for S. Bernard who lived in the twelfth Century current was of another opinion and Peter Lombard who was fifty years after him found it to be a moot point even in his days and he tells us himself what various opinions there were about it then so that for a matter of 1200. years together P. Lomb. Sentent l. 4. dist 11. the Doctrine of Transubstantation you see was not determin'd In the Primitive times and for some Centuries after it was not thought of In later ages it was but dreamt of and when men began to talk of it they talked as if they were asleep and they declared their several opinions as men tell their Dreams 't was no Article of Faith no not in the Church of Rome till the Lateran Council Anno 1215. nay some Learned men are of opinion that it was Vide Mr. Thorndike of the Laws of the Church p. 37 Bish Taylor of the Real Pres p. 267. not determined then neither but some time after But let that rest for me I will enquire after it no further now since we have found it already a child of Fancy and an upstart too that was Begotten of Late and brought into the World by the midwifry of time but cannot derive its Pedigree from any of the Holy Fathers we must lay the Brat at the Church of Romes door it is their own and since they are so fond of it without any sense or reason let them keep it if they please so they keep it to themselves though we wish it had been an Abortive or had dyed a Chrisom specially since it hath cost so much Christian Bloud to Foster and Breed it up CHAP. IX That though there be no Transubstantiation yet Christs Body is really in the Sacrament A distinction between Christs Natural and Spiritual Body What is meant by his Spiritual Body Why so called That such a Spipiritual there is And that it is received in and by the Sacrament TO proceed though there be no grounds in the World for the opinion of Transubstantiation yet we must not conceive that Christ is not verily really and of a truth in the Sacrament he may be really present though there be no reason to believe that he is present after a Corporal manner For two different Substances and Natures may be joyned and go together though they remain distinct in themselves and in their properties as the Soul and Flesh of a man are united in the same Person and as the Humanity and Divinity of Christ were united together in the same Lord. Though we should suppose that Pillar to have been a real cloud which went before the Israelites yet it will not follow that God was not in it though we shoiuld suppose those shapes to have been true Bodies wherein the Spirits of God were wont to appear to the old Patriarchs yet this doth not argue that Angelical Substances were not present in them though we should suppose that to have been a real Dove which lighted on our Saviour and that to have been real Fire which sate upon his Apostles yet this will not argue but that the Holy Ghost was in both In like manner though we grant the Elements in the Eucharist to be Substantially and really Bread and Wine yet it will not follow by any means that Christ is not present in the Sacrament it is easy to conceive it possible for it to be Bread still and Christs Body too and to be wine still and Christs Bloud too There may be an union of these two things though we do not suppose the Nature of the one to be destroyed or turned into the nature of the other And that this is not only possible but is certainly so de facto the Scripture doth strongly oblige us to believe For 1. S. Paul tells us that the administration of the Sacrament is the Communion of Christs Body and Bloud 1 Cor. 10 16. which words are to be understood not only of that foederal Vid. S. Chrysostâ—n 1 Cor. 10. 16. Communion which we have thereby with Christ but moreover of that real Comunication which we have of him so that by drinking of the Wine we participate of Christs Bloud which streamed out of his side and which he gives us here as well as he shed it on the Cross and by eating of the Bread we do not only Partake of his Body but also obtain thereby a close Conjunction and Coherence with him whose Body it is we are united to him by the Bread even as our Flesh is united to Christ himself as S. Chrysostom affirms which doth plainly argue the real presence and communication of his Body and Bloud 2. Again whereas S. Paul saith I Cor. II. 27. Whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord he doth seem manifestly to conclude that Christs Body and Bloud is really in the Eucharist that all worthy
but remained perfectly United to it by a Substantial Conjunction and by reason of that Conjunction it was restored to life after so many hours In like manner when we give up the Ghost the Body parteth with the Soul and during this state hath no manner of sensation or Motion having lost the Natural Principle of Both but yet it is not separated from Christ though it Corrupteth in the Grave while its Mate is in the enjoyment of Bliss yet it is still United to its Lord by a Mystical Conjunction and by reason of that Union it shall be reunited to the soul in Gods good time that Both may have their Partnership in the fruition of an endless Life 3. This consideration were it duely weighed would be of very great Use and Comfort to good men when they are going out of this world But there is besides a third thing to be considered viz. that as we are united to Christ so Christs Nature is also communicated to Us by means of this Sacrament which doth further conclude an Assurance of an Happy Resurrection This Nature thus communicated is as it were a Spark of the Divine Nature which gives the Body a Disposition and Aptitude to Rise again like that Vital Principle in wheat that makes it Apt to spring out of the earth again when 't is committed to the ground though it hath been laid up a long time in the Granary S. Cyril calls Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a living Body and so corpus vitae in some of the Latines as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Glorious Body Phil. 3. 21. Living Body meaning the Virtue of it or his Spiritual Body the Quickning Seed that is in us For Christ by Divine Influences from his body giveth vitality to our mortal Bodies by that vivifick Virtue which is communicated by the Bread it entreth into the bodies of the Faithful though it be Substantially absent And hence he argues that if the dead in our Saviours time were raised to Life onely by being touched with his Holy Body out of which there went Virtue certainly the vital 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cyril in Joan. lib. 4. cap. 14. Blessing must be much more abundant which we receive who even Taste and Communicate of it because it transforms Communicants into its own Blessed Condition that is into Immortality In like manner Ireneus proved the Certainty of a Resurrection from the Virtue and efficacy of this Sacrament supposing it a thing very Unreasonable to deny that Flesh to be capable of Incorruption which is nourished with This is plainly the meaning and force of those words of Irenaeus Quomodo dicunt Haeretici carnem in corruptionem scilicet finalem devenire non percipere vitam quae a corpore Domini sanguine alitur Quemadmodum qui est e terra panis percipiens invocationem Dei jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistia ex duabus rebas constans terrena caelisti sic corpora nostra percipientia Eucharistiam jam non sunt corruptibilia spem Resurrectionis habentia Adv. Haeres lib. 4. cap. 34. Quando mixtus calix fractus panis percipit verbum Dei fit Eucharistia sanguinis corporis Christi ex quibus augetur consistit carnis nostrae substantia quomodo negant carnem capacem esse donationis Dei quae est vita aeterna quae sanguine corpore Christi nutritur membrum ejus est Id. lib. 5. cap. 2. that Bread which carrieth with it the vital Virtues of the Flesh of our Lord because those Virtues turn to the advantage of that Body as well as of the soul by reason that our Flesh being United to the Flesh of Christ by the Spirit is by the Eucharist Prepared and Disposed for and made capable of the gift of God which is eternal Life But to conclude this point besides these arguments drawn from the Reason of the thing it self and from the sense and suffrage of Antiquity our Saviours own words are abundantly demonstrative of this matter in S. Jo. 6. The bread of God is be with cometh down from heaven and giveth Life unto the world I am that bread of Life Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead this is the bread which cometh down from Heaven that a man may eat thereof and not dye for ever I am the Living bread which came down from heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall Live for ever and the bread that I will give is my Flesh which I will give for the Life of the world Who so 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 As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me These words are so plain that they need no Explication if by eating the Bread the Meat the Flesh here spoken of we understand not of Believing the Doctrines of Christianity as some most Absurdly imagine nor of eating the very Substance of Christs Body as others most Ridiculously conceive but our partaking and communicating of the Virtues of his Flesh and Bloud which is the genuine and Catholick construction Now by a right use of this Holy Sacrament we do this effectually and consequently may be assured that as we are blest with the Spirit and Life and Communion of Christ in this world by so doing so we have an undoubted Title to a Life of Glory and Immortality in the next CHAP. XII Two Practical Conclusions from the Whole Discourse I Have now done with the Speculative or Doctrinal part of this Subject having after a plain Didactical manner delivered and asserted the true Catholick Faith concerning this Sacrament and from the consideration of those blessings which it brings with it I shall briefly draw these following Inferences and so conclude the whole matter 1. That we are not to rate this Mystery according to its Face and Outward Appearance nor judge of its efficacy and Dignity by the Elements For though our Senses do infallibly assure us that it is Bread and Wine yet our Faith ought to assure us too that it is not Common bread or Bare Wine but something more By the word and Prayer and by the Secret but effectual operation of the Holy Ghost there is besides the Natural and true Substance of the materials an Addition of Grace which is chrefly und principally to be considered by us And this is that Change of the Elements which the Catholick Church ever did believe meaning not a change of their Nature but of their Use of their Quality of their Condition As when we say such a man is turned a Christian or such a Christian is turned a Minister or such a Fabrick is turned into a Church our meaning is not that
olim fuisse nunc quoque esse omnium fere gentium consuetudinem ut partim sacris quibusdam ceremoniis libationibus atque victimis partem symposiis adhibitis faedera atque contractus quibus ineantur stabiliantur atque confirmentur Stuck Antiq. convivial lib. 1. cap. 30. I proceed now to shew in the third place that this Evangelical Feast is a solemnity of the like Nature For tho we should suppose that nothing to this purpose was said at the institution of it yet the very Analogy and Resemblance that is between this and other Sacrifical Banquets doth sufficiently argue that this Solemnity was intended to be a Federal rite between the Church and Christ This is the very principle upon which the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 10. where going about to shew how unlawful it is for Christians to eat of things offered to Idols he layeth down this Proposition that by a due use of this Blessed Sacrament we Communicate of Christs Body and Blood and are Foederally united to him so that as the Loaf we eat of is one even so are we one Body with Christ our Head by being partakers of that one Loaf This is the meaning and substance of the 16. and 17. verses And to make this the more evident he draws a Parallel and shews the Analogy between this and other Sacrifical Banquets Behold Israel after the flesh ver 18. are not they which eat of the Sacrifices partakers of the Altar i. e. are they not in Foederal Communion with God whose Altar it is Why even so they who sacrifice to Devils are in Foederal Communion with Devils are joyned to Devils have Fellowship with Devils and therefore it is not lawful for us to eat of those Sacrifices because it is not possible for us to Communicate with Devils and with Christ too This is a plain and pregnant proof that this Evangelical Mystery is as other Mysteries of the like Nature anciently were a visible Rite of Covenanting But besides the Analogy of this sacrifical Feast our Saviours words at the institution do sufficiently shew it to be a Foederal Ceremony For speaking of the Cup or of the Wine in the Cup he said This is my Blood of the New Covenant for so it should be rendred instead of New Testament as if he had said this is the Representation of that blood of mine which is the Seal of that new Covenant that is now between us or as St. Luke relates it This Cup is the new Covenant in my Blood that is the sealing unto you the New Covenant As Circumcision is called the Covenant of Circumcision Act. 7. 8. because it was the Token and Seal whereby the Covenant between God and Abraham was ratified so is the Cup in this Holy Sacrament called the New Covenant because it is the Sign and Pledge whereby the New Covenant of Grace is sealed between God and all faithful Communicants Formerly it was a Custome in some parts Grot. in Matth. 26. 27. Alex. ab Alexand. lib 5. c. 3. de Medis Lydis Carmanis Scythis Armeniis Hyrcanis c. of the World for men to enter into Covenants by drinking of Blood as the Learned Grotius and others have rightly observed But because this was an inhumane way people that were more civilized were wont to enter into Pacts and Covenants by drinking of Wine instead of Blood Now since our Saviour said that the Wine in his hands which was instead of his Blood and a Symbol of it was the Cup of the new Covenant we may easily discern that he did intend this as a Foederal Solemnity as an Obsiguation of those promises and Engagements which are on the Churches part and on his part also The Socinians therefore do abuse the World with a very great Error in teaching that there is no manner of Obsignation at the Lords Supper For the thing is evident and clear that this is a Covenant-Ordinance and then it must follow as I shall shew in the next Chapter that here we do stipulate to God that we will live up to Christs Religion according to our Power and that God doth also stipulate to us that upon our so doing he will perform all those promises of Grace and mercy which he hath made to the Church in his only begotten To this that hath been said it may add a little strength if we observe that our blessed Saviour himself exprest the making of Covenants under the the notion of Eating and Drinking So he represents Hypocrites pleading for themselves Luke 13. 26. We have eaten and drunk in thy presence Meaning that some may profess to be in Covenant with him and to hold Occasional Communion with his Church too but yet that all their fair shews and pretences shall not serve their turn in that day when the workers of iniquity shall be cast everlastingly from his presence Thus also when he saith Apocal. 3. 20. Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me his meaning is that he will enter into the strictest League and ingage in an unviolable Contract of Love and Friendship with every obedient heart For those vulgar expressions are no other then Condescentions to vulgar Capacities Because such actions were reputed by all Mankind to be Symbols of Peace and arguments of good will therefore our Saviour chose to express his divine Philanthropy after that manner and when Divines do accomodate such expressions to the business of the Holy Sacrament they go upon this ground because this religious eating and drinking is a feasting with God now as it was in the days of old in a Foederal or Covenant way I have been the longer and the more particular upon this point that I might make every thing intelligible as I go along and withal might open the sense of some places of Scripture which otherwise cannot be so rightly understood Now from these premises there are two things which I shall conclude by way of application 6. First that men ought to come to the Blessed Sacrament upon great Consideration and with all imaginable Sincerity We had need be serious when we have to do with God and never more than when we intend to approach before Gods Altar lest by going to it after a rash and inconsiderate manner we take a large step towards our own destruction Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear or obey than to give the Sacrifice of Fools for they consider not that they do evil saith the Royal Preacher Eccles 5. 1. For the Sacrifice of the wicked is abomination how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind Saith the same Solomon Pro. 21. 27. 'T is enough to strike the heart even of an Infidel through with trembling and horrour to consider that people professing so much sanctity and zeal should dare to be such audacious Hypocrites as
which is a word derived from an Hebrew Radix that Rab. Levi Ben Gersom Salomon Iarchi Kimchi and others cited by Dr. Outram de Sacrificiis lib. 1. c. 11. signifies to draw near because the Oblations were brought to Gods Altar and the Offerers themselves were thereby brought very nigh unto God And for the same reason divers Hebrew Doctors thought that Peace-offerings were so called because by means thereof Peace and Concord was procured and by the eating of them Confirmed between God and those who presented them Their using of one Common Table was a Token that they were in Gods Grace and Favour that Sacrifical Feast was a Symbol of Friendship between God and all the Communicants And upon the same grounds it was also that at the eating of the Peace-offerings they were wont to rojoyce before the Lord to sing Psalms and Hymns unto him signifying that they Abarbanel loc laud. were at peace with God and that God was at peace with them whereas at the Sacrificing of sin-offerings the People did use to express their Grief and Heaviness such as become Penitents abstaining from all Banquets especially those Sacrifical Banquets which their sins had occasioned for it was not fit for De hostiis Pacificis licebat post effusum sanguinem privatis qui obtulerant eorumque uxoribus liberis epulari in signum amâ—citiae cum deo Id in oblatione simulae non licebat quia id inter privilegia erat Sacerdotalia nec in victim is pro peccato delicto ne de culpa Laetarentur Grot. in Levit. 3. 1. them to rejoyce for their iniquities when the Priests did eat of their sin-offerings as they were wont to rejoyce for Gods Friendship and Kindness to them which they were assured of when they were suffered to eat themselves of their peace-offerings as the learned Grotius hath rightly observed Once more as in general the Sacrifical Feasts among the Jews were Pledges of Gods singular love to them so was the Passeover-Feast in particular The Socinians cannot deny but that at its first institution it was a visible Sign to the Jews that God would be so favourable and Gracious to them as to deliver them out of all their distresses in Egypt for Moses told them in express terms to that purpose Those Idolaters the Egyptians thought themselves sure of the good will of their Gods when they had the Priviledge to Banquet before them Therefore God himself to confirm his own people in the belief of his promise and to make them sure of it that he would infallibly redeem them with a strong hand notwithstanding all the discouragements and difficulties they saw before them ordered them to kill in each house a Lamb and to feast upon it and to be assured thereby that he would certainly deliver them even tho the Egyptians should be never so enraged to see that Creature killed which they thought it unlawful and abominable for men to slay and eat of so that as the Rainbow was a sign of Gods Covenant with Noah and as circumcision was a Token of Gods Covenant with Abraham for so the Scripture calls it expresly not only the Seal of Abrahams righteousness as the Socinians would have it but a Token of Gods Covenant too with Abraham Gen. 17. 11. even so the Passeover Feast was now a sign and Token of his Covenant with Abrahams Children In after ages it continued to be a Pledge still of the Divine favour to them and for that reason it was that no stranger no uncircumcised Man no unclean person could partake of it because being as yet out of Gods favour they were uncapable of receiving the Token the Pledge the Earnest of his Love and Goodness Seeing then that the feasting upon Sacrifices was thought by all mankind to be a Pledge and argument that Heaven was propitious to them Seeing that the feasting upon peace-offerings in general and upon the Paschal-Lamb in particular was concluded by the Jews to be a Pledge and argument of Gods special love to them above all other Nations it evidently followeth that this our feasting upon Christ our Sacrifice this our Eating of Bread instead of his Natural Flesh this our Christian Sacrifical Banquet being Analogous and answerable to the Sacrifical Banquets of Old ought also to be looked upon as those were to be a Token Pledge and Seal of Gods favour goodness and grace to us though the Scriptures had not told us any thing to that effect in express terms But in my opinion St. Paul hath said enough to this purpose if men will but attentively listen to what he saith in 1 Cor. 10. where part of his business is to shew how unlawful it is for Christians to Eat of things that are offered unto Idols And this he doth by shewing the incongruity and inconsistency of the thing and the Evil effects of it because every professor of Christianity doth hereby make himself a most wretched Bankrupt and undoes all his interest in Christ and throws away an inestimable stock and Treasure of Blessings by his sitting at meat in the Idols Temple To make this out he shews in few words what those Blessings are 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 Though some Socinians interpret those words as if by the Communion of Christs Body and blood was meant the making and causing us to be of that Society or Church which belongs to Christs Body and Blood which is a very Trissing and far fetch interpretation as Slichtingius in 1 Cor. 10. 16. Yet in the Socinian Catechism they own and confess that such as ducly Celebrate this Rite do Communicate of Christs Body and Blood that is say they of all those good things which Christ hath brought tous by his Death though they trifle again in saying that this Rite is not any cause but only an Attestation of that Communion of the Body of Christ ver 16. were part of the Apostles meaning is this that by rightly receiving the Symbols of Christs Body and Blood we have a share in all those Blessings for which his Body was broken and his Blood was shed We have a Title Claim and Right thereby to all the Mercies of the new Covenant we receive the Vertues and wonderful effects of his Passion and so we are understood in a Mystical sense to participate of Christs Body and Blood 'T is true we do here partake of Christ not mystically only but really too we participate not only of his Bruised and Crucified but also of his most Blessed and Glorified Body as I shall shew at large hereafter in its proper place But that is not to our purpose now Though we do Communicate of Christ now while he is in Heaven yet in the place before quoted St. Paul doth directly point to those blessings which by means of this Sacrament accrue to us from his sufferings on the
Cross And to convince us that we do hereby receive many such blessings and that we are entitled to the Love and favour of God in particular which is the Fountain and Original of all other blessings to convince us of this I say he draws a parallel between this sacrifical feast of Ours and those others which were used among the Jews Behold Israel after the Flesh saith he Are not they which Eat of the sacrifices partakers Clarius in Loc. of the Altar that is do they not partake of the Vertue of those Sacrifices which are offered upon the Altar His plain meaning is that the Jews did partake of those effects which by the Sacrifices were procured their feasting upon the Sacrifices was a Token and Pledge to them that their desires were answered that what they had offered and sacrificed for was granted them that their oblations returned into their own bosome that they had the Benefit of them and were entitled to those blessings which they were intended for There is an expression which will make this matter clear in Lev. 7. 18. If any of the Flesh of the sacrifice of his peace-offerings be eaten at all on the third day it shall not be accepted neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it When those sacrifical Feasts were regularly Celebrated they were imputed to the guests for their Good they were reckoned advantagious to them they were favourably accepted at Gods hand in order to the Ends for which the Sacrifice was designed they served to make an Atonement they were effectual to their purposes they were good to all intents they were available to the Offerers as the Hebrew Aynsworth in Lev. 7. 18. Doctors expound the Phrase This is the true meaning of being Partakers of the Altar in St. Pauls Language when by eating duely of the Sacrifices of the Altar they turned to a good Account and Men were Profited Benefited and Blest by so doing being in Communion with God whose Altar it was and receiving the Pledges of his favour which was obtained by the things that were offered upon the Altar Was the Grace of God to be beg'd and sought for by an Holocaust why eating of the Oblations which were annext to it was a Pledge to assure them that their Prayer was heard and that God would be gracious unto them Was the Wrath of God to be appeased by a sin-offering Why the feeding upon those oblations which attended it was appointed as a Pledge to certifie them that an Atonement was made Were peace-offerings presented that people might be delivered from dangers and ill changes and that God would give them Peace Prosperity and Plenty and continue his goodness to them Why the Feasting upon the Peace offerings was intended as a Pledge to satisfie them that Gods good providence and care of them should not be wanting as long as they would not be wanting to themselves Thus they were partakers of the Altar by being assured of the effects of their offerings To return now to our Apostles argument As the Jews were partakers of Gods Altar so are we partakers of the Lords Table Their sacrifical feasts were intended as Pledges of Gods manifold mercies to them And this Christian feast is intended as a Pledg of Gods manifold Mercies to us but to better purposes and in an higher degree God Covenanted with them for things temporal with us he Covenants for spiritual and Heavenly things chiefly Christ our Sacrifice was slain to purge our very Consciences from sin to endue us with the Holy Ghost and with power from on high to deliver us from the danger of Eternal Damnation to make us sure of Heaven and to make God and us one And this our sacrifical Feast is intended as a Pledge to certifie and assure us that his friendship and dearest love shall never fail us if we be but true friends to our own Souls Thus we partake and Communicate of our Saviours Body that was Crucified and of the streams of that Blood he shed for us by receiving at this Sacrament the vertues and effects of his Passion as the Jews received the Vertues and effects of their Sacrifices This Sacrament is a Token to us that Christs Sacrifice is imputed to us in a comfortable sense that is here God assures all faithful Communicants and as it were sets his Seal to it that Christs offering up himself shall infallibly turn to a good account to them that it is an effectual Atonement on their behalf that it shall be available for them to all intents and purposes and that tho' they do not eat of the very flesh of our Sacrifice as the Jews did of their Peace-oflerings but of Bread in the Room of it yet it shall be all one to them in effect and that they shall ever be the Blessed of the Lord. I have been the more prolix and exact in this matter that I might clear and vindicate the Doctrine of the Church of England In her Catechism whose Notion of a Sacrament in general is this that it is an outward and visible sign ordained as a means whereby we receive and as a pledge to assure us of an inward and spiritual grace And of this Sacrament in particular she saith that Christ hath instituted and ordained these Holy Exhortation at the Communion Second Prayer after the Communion Mysteries as pledges of his Love and that God doth assure as thereby of his Favour and goodness towards us For it is senseless to imagine that Christ should intend the Absolution of so many Mosaical Rites because they would be useless and insignificant or of very small account under the Gospel and yet should institute himself another Ceremony that would be of very mean and inconsiderable importance For such would this Mystery be were it no more than what the Socinians would have it a memorial only of Christs sufferings by using which we profess our Faith in him For the Scriptures are a memorial of Christ and that not of his Passion only but of his Nativity of his Sanctity of his Life of his Doctrine and of his Miracles and every Chapter in the Gospel doth more or less annunciate and shew forth his Love And Men have many various ways of declaring and professing themselves his Disciples tho this Sacrament were not used at all We publish our Faith daily by repeating our Creed The Ancients were wont to do it by using frequently the sign of the Cross signifying to all Unbelievers that they were not ashamed of a Crucified Jesus The Holy Martyrs shew'd their Faith by their Constancy unto death and every good man in the World shews his faith by a Life of Obedience to his Masters Laws so that were the Doctrine of the Socinians allowed this great Ordinance would soon become an useless and worthless thing and our Lords Wisdome in appointing it would not only be questioned but even traduced and blasphemed were not this Christian Feast believed to be intended for
man finds himself named in Gods promise but to all Believers in general Now as it was necessary that the Divine Grace should be first purchased for all at large and then some means used for the conveyance of this purchase to every individual Believer so is it necessary that besides the confirmation and sealing of the promises by Christs Death to all in general there should be another obsignation to the Soul of every person in particular that gives up himself to him that died for him because otherwise every ones mind would fluctuate in endless doubtings and uncertainties Now we say that this obsignation is transacted at this Covenant-Feast And how so Why here every particular Communicant that is duly prepared receives the Seal when he receives the Elements which are the Tokens and Pledges upon the Divine favour In that I am admitted to participate here of the Sacrifice of the Cross it is an evident sign and strong argument to me that that Sacrifice shall be imputed to me shall be available and effectual for me as the Sacrifice was imputed to the Jews was available and effectual for the Jews and was declared to be so when they were admitted to partake of the Peace-offerings and to feast upon them as we do here upon Bread and Wine CHAP. VI. Of the blessings we receive by a due use of this Ordinance First we Mystically participate of Christs Body and Blood What that Mystical participation is Secondly that we receive the Pardon of Sin Proved from the correspondency of this Feast to the Ancient Sacrifical Banquets in general And from its Analogy to those Feasts which were used after Sin-offerings in particular and from the words of Christ at the Institution HAving thus discoursed of the Nature and Ends of this Sacrament I proceed next according to the usual method to discourse of the Blessings which it brings us by our due Reception of it 1. And first it is the joynt Confession of all the Christian Churches in the world for I do not reckon upon the Blasphemous Socinians that we do hereby receive the Body and Blood of our Redeemer This I mention in the first place and must take the greater care and pains to clear because the proof hereof will strongly and evidently prove the conveyance of divers other blessings hereafter to be mentioned in their order Now we are said to partake of Christs Body and Blood in a twofold sense that is after a Mystical and after a real manner 1. In a Mystical sense we do partake here of our Saviours Body as it was Broken and of his Blood as it was shed for us upon the Cross that is our Feasting together at the Holy Table is by interpretation a feeding upon our Crucified Jesus in the account of God and construction of the Gospel We are reputed and esteemed to partake of that Sacrifice which he offered up and so are entitled to all those mercies which that Sacrifice was offered up for For the opening of this matter we must remember how Mankind were wont of old to participate of those things which they had first offered up in Sacrifice as the Jews for instance were wont to participate of their Peace-offerings and of the Paschal Lamb. Now this Feast being Analogous and answerable to those according to the Vulgar course and the Ordinary manner of Feasting Christians must have fed upon Their Sacrifice that is upon Christs own Natural Flesh as Jews and Gentiles were wont to seed upon their Oblations But considering that this would have been an * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cyril Alexand in Catena Thomae in Luc. 22. vide e◠ad Calofyr Item Theophylact in Marc 14. Inhumane way of feasting and considering that one and the same Body could not have served 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas in illud quicunque dixerit verbum c. for all Christians in all Ages and considering too that the feeding upon Christs very Flesh was not necessary in it self but that the ends and purposes of this Feast might be very well answer'd by our feeding upon something else in the Place of Christ therefore at the institution of this Ordinance he appointed us the use of Bread and Wine instead of giving us his very Body and Blood which he gave to God as a Sacrifice for us These Creatures are the Symbols and Representations of his Body and Blood they are substituted in the place and room of them and the manducation of the one and the drinking of the other is to all intents as valid and effectual to us as if we did actually partake of those things which they do represent and in lieu of which they are appointed This I take to be part of the meaning of our Saviours words this is my Body and this is my Blood As if he had said this Bread is instead of my Flesh and this Wine is in the Room of my blood This is a Natural and an easie interpretation 't is fair and rational and full of sense and 't would serve to silence a great many controversies among Christians were it but admitted would they put in but this one word instead and understand our Saviour to mean this is instead of that in the place and room of it Nor do I see any reason in the World against this interpretation For all men know that the Jews were wont to speak after a concise manner meaning something which they did not fully express of which there are a thousand instances and examples in Holy Writ and why may we not allow that our Saviour spake now as other Jews did nay as he himself did at other times after a short concise manner saying of the Bread this is my Body but intending thus much This is instead of my Body The Analogy of this Feast to other Sacrifical Banquets doth plainly and infallibly argue that our Saviours words are thus to be interpreted because we feed here upon Bread instead of eating the very Flesh of our Sacrifice And I am confirmed in this opinion by an observation that Bishop Taylor of the real presence Sect. 4. in fine And Dr. Hammond in his Annot on Matth. 26. 26. hath been made by two learned Doctors of our Church who have noted that the Lamb for the Paschal Supper being drest and set upon the Table the Jews were wont to call it the Body of the Passeover and the Body of the Paschal Lamb. If this be so it is reasonable to believe that our Saviour alluded to a Jewish Phrase that was ready at hand when he said this is my Body or this is in the room of me the true Passeover When he took the Bread into his Holy hands and told his Disciples that that was his Body he gave them to understand that they were not to expect to eat of his very Natural Flesh as they were wont to eat of the Flesh of a Lamb but instead of that they were to eat Bread which should be as
Kindness and gratious Intentions towards them for this is matter of Faith and Hope which are the things we must necessarily go upon in all our addresses unto the Father of mercies but yet the fruit of eating and drinking here is Joy and Peace to every honest hearted Communicant because his Faith and Hope is hereby much the stronger and built upon more sure and certain grounds 'T is true also that a mans pardon is begun before he doth make his appraoches that is if he makes his approaches regularly and like a good Christian for he must repent first of all his transgressions and that doth dispose him for Gods mercy and makes him meet to be a Partaker of it We must not presume to go to the Lords Table with guilt about us or while we are Reeking in our Sins but Repentance must wipe our defilements off because Christs Body and Bloud is not food for Swine As the Paschal Lamb was not to be eaten but by persons that were pure and clean according to the Sanctifications of the Law so this Christian Passeover Feast is not to be celebrated but by such persons as are purged by Repenance which is the Sanctification of the Gospel Yet all this not withstanding the Blessed Sacrament is an Ordinance of very great concernment and comfort to the cleanest Communicant for though he hath Repented long ago and though upon his having done so he hath great Reason to Hope that he is Reconciled unto God yet this Reconciliation is as yet but imperfect in comparison A man is not fully perfectly and finally pardoned till he hath Ended his Life well While we Live we are still Transacting our business with Heaven but do not finish our work till we dye My Pardon is Inchoa ted upon my Repentance 't is compleatd and irrevocable upon my Perseverance unto the End but t is Confirm'd to me upon my due Eating and Drinking at this Solemnity Hereby all former Grants are Ratified and Sealed anew so that now we have a fair Evidence to shew for our discharge and such an Evidence as will be valid and hold in the day of Judgement if we be not so Foolish as to Cancel the Deed our selves and render our Title to a blessed Eternity Null and void by returning again with the dog to his vomit A Release you know may pass between Parties onely by the Consent and Promise of the Injured Person but when once it is committed to Deed the act is then Confirmed and the Seal which is affixt to the Deed makes that Sure in Law with before was onely Parol or by Promise In like manner though our forgiveness be Inchoated and Begun upon our Repentance yet it is Continued Ratified and Ascertain'd unto us upon our Participation so that he who was justified is justified still and his Justification is more certain certitudine Subjecti than it was before that is a Sincere Commu nicant hath better Hopes to comfort himsurer grounds to go upon more to shew and say for himself more to plead against the clamours of his Conscience more and better Reasons to be Quiet in his mind than when he was barely a Penitent To say the Truth if he doth not Backslide and Revolt he hath a certain Title to the Kingdom of Heaven Upon this account 't is every mans Interest to Communicate often The longer he lives the Older he grows the more he draws towards his grave still he should be the more intent upon this Duty that his Peace and Comfort may still receive the more Additions and that his Assurances may be the more and more strong so that by the blessing of God he may at last use such expressions as S. Paul did which I am sure no Non-Communicant in the world can with such Reason use I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith hence forth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness 2. Tim. 4. 7. 8. CHAP. VII Thirdly We really communicate of Christ Glorified The Doctrine of Transubstantiation condemned as utterly contrary to sence Reason and the Holy Scriptures BEsides that participation of Christ Crucified which is Mystical by Interpretation and Construction as I have shew'd already there is also at this Ordinance a participation of Christ Glorified So 't is Exprest in the Prayer of Consecration which is Real by our being actually made partakers of his most Blessed Body and Bloud This is manifestely the Doctrine of our Church that the Body and Bloud of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper and that our Souls are strengthened and Refreshed by the Body and Bloud of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine Now our Bodies receive nourishment by our actual receiving the very Substances of Bread and Wine and so according to the Comparison our Souls also do receive strengh and Comfort by actually receiving and participating of the very Nature of Christ After the same manner was the Faith of the Church of England delivered in the beginning of the Reformation by that truly Learned and Great man Arch-Bishop Cranmer in that Admirable Book of his called a Defence of the true and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament wherein he doth often use Fol. 32 33 73 100. Et alibi fol. 42 76 84. that Similitude That as the Bread and Wine Corporally comfort and feed our Bodies so doth Christ with his Flesh and Bloud spiritually comfort and feed our Souls and he positively affirms that by the Communion we receive spiritual food and supernatural nourishment from Heaven of the very true Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ that our Souls by faith do eat his very body and drink his Bloud though spiritually Sucking out of the same everlasting Life and that the Hearts of them that receive the Sacraments are secretly inwardly and Spiritually Transformed renew'd fed comforted and nourisht with Christs Flesh and Bloud through his most holy Spirit the same Flesh and Bloud still remaining in Heaven So that according to the sense of the Church of England not onely the Sacrifice of Christs Death is in the account of God Sacramently Imputed unto us for the Pardon of sin but moreover the very Glorified Jesus now Living and sitting in Heaven is in the Reality of the thing Actually Communicated unto us from above and verily received by us in the Sacrament And the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are not onely Signes and Tokens much less Empty Tokens and Bare Signs of Christs Body and Bloud but are also the Means and Instruments of bringing the whole Christ to us so that his Flesh and Bloud do Really but after a Spiritual and wonderfull manner go along with the Bread and Wine to Sustain and Refresh the Soul as They do the Body I know very well that I am now entring upon the Tenderest point concerning this Sacrament perhaps upon the Nicest speculation in the whole Body of Divinity
would be whole and not whole These and the like are everlasting and certain principles which all men that will obey common reason must agree in and they are taught us both in Christian and Heathen Philosophy as common Notions and Maxims as fixt and clear as that one and one makes two So that to contradict these principles is to tell Mankind that they are all mad-men and fools that are not able to tell their Fingers And yet these principles are contradicted by the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is made up of I know not how many impossibilites which we can no more reconcile to reason than we can prove that the same proposition is both true and false in the same respect and that man who believes that Doctrine must believe the grossest and most palpable contradictions For according to this rate these monstrous Absardities will follow that Christs Humane flesh is Circumscribed in Heaven as every body must be confined to a certain place and yet at the same time is in millions of places here on Earth and yet one Body still That it is whole and yet is broken That it is divided and yet is entire that it is entire in every Wafer and yet if you break those Wafers into a thousand particles that the body of Christ is one still and whole in every the least particle That tho there be feet and hands and head and many other constituent and integral parts in Christs body and tho all these parts are the one without the other and by the other and distinct from the other yet that all are so jumbled and crowded together into a point that whosoever eateth but a piece that is no bigger than a Pins point eateth all and every part of Christs body And many more such contradictions there are so wild so irrational so inconsistent with common sense that 't is as tiresome to count them up as to tell the number of the Stars Further yet Thirdly we find by experience that what we eat and drink at the Communion doth serve for Nourishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Mart. Apol. 2. Quomodo dicunt carnem in corruptionem devenire non percipere vitam que a corpore Domini Sanguine alitur Subaud Symbolico Irer adv Haeres l. 4. c. 34. * it recruites the spirits and helps to repair the expences of Nature and they tell us of King Lewis that he lived 40 days together onely by the food which he had from the Holy Table and without question any man may sustain himself a Considerable time onely by the use of the Sacred Viands provided he receive a Convenient Quantity Now we desire a Rational answer to this Inquiry what is it that nourisheth a man in this case If they say it is Christs Body and Bloud Naturally understood and Corporally taken it is Blasphemy for then it may feed a Reprobate aswell as a Saint and a Jew aswell as a Christian nay what if some Unclean Beast should happen to light on it The Consequences thereof would be such are as enough to strike the Heart of any good Christian with Horrour but to hear them mentioned If they say it is the Species the Accidents of Bread and Wine that nourisheth without the Substance of either it is down right Non-sense And they were as good say that a Body can be sustained with a shaddow or that a man may Live upon a shew which is not so much as Air or that he may be fed by Dreaming specially if he Dream as Pharaoh's Baker did of three Baskets upon his Head full of all manner of Meats or that he may Quench his Thirst and Refresh his Spirits only by Looking upon Grapes nay though he mistake Paint for Reality as those Birds did which flew to the Picture of a Vine which Zeuxes had drawn supposing that they were Natural and Real Clusters Either they must grant that to be Bread and Wine which they feel in their Stomachs and find Refreshment and Strength from or else they must say we Trust too much to Sense and Reason and then they cannot blame us but by allowing sense and Reason to be on our side a Crime which I wish all Romanists were guilty of in every Particular To all which I add in the 4th Place that the outward parts of the Sacrament are Subject to many Alterations and Changes which without Loathsomness and Abhorrence we cannot conceive to be incident to the Blessed Body and Bloud of our Redeemer the Lord of Glory The solid part is torn in pieces with our Teeth and if men have stronger Stomachs than the Capernaites who could not away with the thoughts of eating Humane Flesh or if they can endure to go beyond the Cannibals who were wont to eat their Enemies Flesh only yet we have Reason to wonder how they can rellish the thoughts of out going the most Barbarous Pagans who ever had more Reverence and Veneration for that they Worshipt than to Devour such things as they took to be Deities Yet thus the Romanists do not stick to do for which reason Averroes would not become a Christian but when he saw some of that denomination to Eat that which they Adored as their God he cryed out with Indignation Let my Soul rather venture its Lot and take its portion with the old Philosophers Again the Bread may grow Mouldy may Corrupt may bread Worms and stink for which cause Hesychius tells us of some Christians formerly Hesych in Levit. that their custome was to Burn the Remaining Surplusage of the Sacrament Nay it may be stoln away by a Mouse as sometimes it hath been since People came to be so Superstitious as to Reserve it and to secure it from the like chance and from the Vermines teeth the Romanists are wont to keep it shut up close in a Pix So also the Liquid part in the Cup may Intoxicate the Brain being immoderately taken it may be prickt and become Eager through negligence and many accidents more 't is Subject unto which without abomination we cannot conceive can happen to the Holy Bloud of our Saviour Nay both the outward Elements may be Bellarm. de Euch. lib. 3. c. 24. mixed with Poyson and Peter Martyr well objected against the Papists neither doth Cardinal Bellarmine positively deny the truth of the Stories that Pope Victor the 3d. and the Emperour Henry the 7th were both of them poysoned with the Sacrament In a word our Saviour himself hath told us S. Matth. 15. 17. that whatsoever entreth in at the mouth goeth into the Belly and is cast out into the Draught Origen doth positively affirm the same thing of the Quod si quickquid ingreditur in os in ventrem abit in secessum ejicitur ille cibus qui Sanctificatur per verbum Dei perque obsecrationem juxta id quod habet materiale in ventrem abit in secessum ejicitur Et haec quidem de Typico Symbolicoque corpore
9. by a wilde Beast or which dyed of it self nay that they were so very Nice in these times that they would not eat any thing not so much as a Sausage that was mixt with Bloud Now to argue hence Can it be credible in the least that they would have made such Apologies for themselves had they believed that they did constantly eat of Christs Natural Flesh and drink of his Natural Bloud in the Sacrament With what faces could they then have pleaded as they did What an Argument would they have given the Heathens against Christianity How soon would the Pagans have given them the Lye What Hypocrites would they have been rendred in pretending that they durst not taste of the flesh and bloud of men no not of Cattle neither if all the while they were Conscious to themselves and were perswaded that they fed daily upon the Flesh and Bloud of Jesus Nor was it possible Tertulian ubi Super. Athenagor leg pro Christianis p. 39. for them to have concealed this matter because the Heathen Inquisitors every day apprehended their Servants who for fear of Torments and Death discover'd the Secrets of their Religion and they would certainly have discovered this too had they been taught by their Pastours that Christs Flesh and Bloud were received at the Sacrament after a Corporal manner And to this purpose serves that memorable and apposite Story of the Confession that was made by Sanctus and Blandina at their Martyrdome in the early times of Christianity The Story is related by Ireneus and though it be not to be found in those Works of his that are extant yet it stands upon record in the Comments of Oecumenius upon S. Peter and Albertinus and others have taken particular notice of it because it is a most evident Testimony in this case The Greeks saith this Author having apprehended Albertin de Euchar. l. 2. c. 3. some Servants that did belong to the Christian Catechumeni and endeavouring by force to understand from them some of the secrets of the Christians those Servants had nothing to tell so as to gratify their Tormentors but this that they had heard their Masters say how that the Divine Communion was the Bloud and and Body of Christ they supposing the meaning to be that it was properly bloud and flesh The Pagans upon this taking it for granted that the Christians celebrated such barbarous Mysteries divulged it presently among the rest of the Greeks and by tortures compelled Sanctus and Blandina the Martyrs to confess the truth Hereupon Blandina presently dealt freely with them and said How can Christians endure the thoughts of doing this the eating of the flesh and drinking of the bloud of Christ seeing that for exercise or Discipline-sake they Refrain from several sorts of flesh that are Lawful to be eaten Now several things are observable from this Relation First that this suggestion was originally grounded upon Hear-say Secondly that these Servants did belong to such Christians as were meer Novices in the faith Candidates as yet for Baptism not instructed well in the nature and meaning of this other Sacrament Thirdly that they did utterly mistake too the sense of their Masters and perhaps were willing to tell a fable for their own Security sake Fourthly that what the Pagans concluded hence was a perfect Calumny and an Unjust charge against the Christian Church And to make this evident to all the World Fifthly the Holy Martyrs argue from a custome that many Christians then had of abstaining from ordinary flesh-meats when they were not bound to such abstinance by any Law of Christ so that 't was impossible for them to conceive that they did eat of the very Flesh of their Saviour much less that they should be so Barbarous as to drink his Bloud in the Sacrament This therefore is enough to make it clear that the old Christians in the Apostolical and most Primitive times did not so much as Dream of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and 't is a most Ridiculous thing for any man to think otherwise 2. It is observable that the Ancients were wont to prove the Truth of our Lords Incarnation from this known and receiv'd principle because the Bread and the Wine at the Sacrament were Tokens and Representations the one of his Body the other of his Bloud Some Hereticks there were of old who would not own that Christ took indeed Humane flesh of the Holy Virgin nor that he really suffered or rose again but they taught their Disciples that all this was nothing but a Shew and Phantasm This Heresie was broached in the days of the Apostles 1 Jo. 4. 3. 2 Jo. 7. and was afterwards propagated in a great many places by that Arch. Heretick Simon the Sorcerer and by Saturninus Basilides Valentinus Marcion and divers more Now against these Hereticks the Catholick Doctors Ignat. Ep. argued from a known Principle of Christianity viz. that the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist were Sacraments Figures and Representations of Christs Body and Bloud This was Tertullians Argument Panis Calicis Sacramento jam in Evangelio prebavimus Corporis Sanguinis Dominici veritatem adversus Phat asma Marcionis Tertull. ad Marc. l. 5. that when Christ took and distributed Bread among his Disciples he made it his Body by saying This is my Body that is the Figure of his Body said Tertullian And hence he concluded that our Lord had indeed a true and real Body because the bread was a Figure of Corpus sum insuistum panem distributum fecit hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est Figura Corporis mei Figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus Caeterum vacua res quod est Phantasma figuram capere non posset Tertull. adv Marcion lib. 4. where note that he calls it Bread when it was distributed after Consecration it For a shadow must be the shadow of some Substance and an Image must be supposed to represent something that is Real In like manner Origen grounded an Argument against those Hereticks upon those words of S. Paul that the Bread and Cup of blessing is the Communication of Christs Body and Bloud whereupon he askes the Question that if Christ was as Quod si ut obloquuntur isti carne distitutus er at exanguis cujusmodi carnis cujus corporis qualis tandem Sanguinis Signa Imagines panem poculum ministravit Origen Dial. 3. where note again that Origen called it Bread when it was administred they said destitute of flesh and bloud of what flesh of what Body of what bloud was that Bread and Cup the Signes and Images which Christ administred Some of those Hereticks foresaw the strength of this Argument and therefore that they might not Confute their own Principle by their Practice that they might not seem to grant the Reality of Christs Humane Body by receiving the Symbol and Sign of it we are told by
Ignatius the Martyr who lived in the Apostolical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. S. Ignat. Ep. ad Smyrnaeos age that they would not receive the Sacrament because they would not Confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour which suffered for our Sins and which was raised again by the goodness of the Father Undoubtedly the Holy Martyr meant that they would not own the Bread to be the Sign and Figure of Christs Body as all Catholicks then believed For the Question was whether our Saviour lived and dyed and rose again in a true Humane Body The Church proved that he did so because he appointed bread to be the Figure of his Body But had they believed the Doctrine of Transubstantiation it would have proved that Christ had a Body which was made of meal not of the substance of the Virgin a Body which did not suffer upon the Cross nor Rise again but it would never have proved that which the Catholicks contented for and so they would have Lost the Question in hand and made Si propterea Corpus sibi finxit quia corporis carebat veritate ergo panem debuit tradere pro nobis Faciebat ad vanitatem Marcionis ut panis cruâ—ifigeretur Tertull. adv Marcion lib 4. themselves Ridiculous to their Adversaries Seeing then the Church in those times believed the bread to be the Figure and Image of Christs Body as Tertullian and Origen affirmed and S. Ignatius meant it is Nonsence to conceive that they believed it to be his very Natural Flesh For how can it be the Figure of a thing and the very real thing too How can I call this the Picture of Christ if I believe it to be Christ himself How can I say it is the Image Nemo potest ipse sibiâ— Imago sui esse Ambros de Fide lib. 1. Neque ipse sibi quisquam imago Hilar. Imago corporis non potest esse ipsum divinum Corpus Concil Nicaen 2. Actione 6. Pignus imago alterius rei sunt id est non adse sed ad aliud aspiciunt Bertram de Corp. Sang. Christi of his Flesh if it be the very Same This doth evidently shew that the Ancient Church did not in the least imagine that the bread is turnd into his very natural Body 3. It is observable that the Primitive Christians aknowledged two distinct Natures in the Sacrament meaning the material Element and that blessed Spiritual thing which goes along with it Thus we are told by Ireneus who was but one remove from the Apostles that the bread which is of the Earth after the calling upon God is no longer || E terra panis percipiens invocationem Dei jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistia ex duabus rebus constans terrena caelesti Iren. adv Haer. l. 4. c. 34. Common bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an Earthly and an Heavenly thing Thus also Origen doth distinguish the Typical and Symbolical body of Christ meaning the †Materia Panis Orig. in Matth. c. 25. Haec quidem de Typico Symbolicoque corpore Multa porro de ipso verbo dici possunt quod factum est caro verus cibus Ibid. Bread from his True Humane Nature which he calls the Word that was made Flesh the true Food of life So likewise * Nec panem reprobavit Christus quo ipsum corpus suum representavit Tertull. adv Marcion l. 1. Tertullian doth distinguish the Bread which represents Christs Body from the Body it self which is represented by it In like manner the Author of the book de Caena Domini ascribed to S. Cyprian doth distinguish between the bodily Substance of the Holy Viands and that Divine Virtue which is present with them Lastly S. Austin Hoc est quod dicimus hoc modis omnibus approbare contendimus Sacrificium scilicet Ecclesiae duobus confici duobus constare visibili Elementorum specie invisibili Domini nostri Jesu Christi carne sanguine Sacramento Re Sacramenti id est Corpore Christi August apud Gratian. de Consecratione distinct 2. c. 48. as he is quoted by the Collector of the Decrees is positive and plain that the Sacrifice of the Church is made up of two things consisteth of two things the visible Substance of the Elements for that is the meaning of the word species among the Ancients and the Invisible Flesh and Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ the Sacrament and the thing of the Sacrament or the thing Communicated by the Sacrament namely the Body of Christ To which purpose S. Austin speaks himself up and down in many places of his Writings By this it doth appear that the Christian Doctors for the Quia omnis res illarum rerum naturam veritatem in se continet ex quibus conficitur Id. Ibid. first 400. years acknowledged two distinct and real natures to make up the Eucharist for every thing contains in it the Nature and Truth of those things whereof it doth consist saith S. Augustin which they could not have acknowledged had they conceived the Nature and Substance of the Elements to be turned into the Nature and Substance of Christs Body and Bloud Transubstantiation implyes the total Destruction of the Earthly Nature and Substance which is utterly repugnant to the sense of the Ancients of whom we confidently affirm that as with one mouth they still called it Bread even when 't is broken distributed and received so they distinguisht it still from that which is Represented by the Bread And so true is this that the Whereas in the genuine Epistle of Ignatius ad Philadelph it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Interpolator renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. very Interpolator of Ignatius and the Ancient Interpreter of his Epistles speaking of the Eucharist say There is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus and one Bloud which was shed for us and there is one Bread or Loaf which is broken for all Which Observation makes it clear that the Bread and Christs Flesh were believed to be two distinct Natures and so that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not thought of in that age wherein that Interpolator and Interpreter did live whensoever that was 4. For the further clearing of this thing yet it is observable in the fourth place of the Primitive Fathers that they Resembled the Union of those two Natures in the Sacrament to the Union of the Two Natures in our Saviours Person To this purpose Justin Martyr discoursing of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning the words of Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Mart. Apol. 2. Eucharist saith we do not receive those things as common bread or common drink but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was by the word of God made Flesh and had Flesh and Bloud for our salvation so we believe that Food which is blessed by Prayer and by
the same heresies and even he draws one of his Arguments from the blessed Eucharist likewse and he is as Positive as can be that the Body of Christ meaning the Symbolical Body as Origen In Photii Biblioth cod 229. called it that is the Bread which is received by the Faithful doth not depart out of its sensible Substance and Nature and yet remaines undivided from the Spiritual Grace and to clear his meaning fully he shews in the very next words that the Elements in the Eucharist are no more changed than the water is in Baptism which Remaineth still water after Sanctification Thus these four Great men S. Chrysostome Theodoret Gelasius and Ephraim delivered the Sense of the Catholick Church in their times and if you add them to the forementioned Fathers who lived in the Primitive times before them it will be manifest beyond exception that for above 500 years together after Christ the Christian Doctors did no more believe the Elements in the Sacrament to be Transubstantiated into Christ's Flesh and Bloud than they did believe the Manhood of Christ himself to be Transubstantiated into his God-head or his God-head to be abolisht and turned into his Humanity Now the sense of Christians in those ages ought to satisfie the minds of Christians in these for certainly the faith of Christ was never more clearly more Learnedly more solidly maintained than in the first five Centuries and one reason of it as I conceive was this because Heresies of all sorts were then so very thick and Numerous the Providence of God permitting it so to be that the zeal of good men might be exercised continually whereby it came to pass that the Doctors of the Church were industrious and learned and the true faith was throughly sifted and establisht for so it is ever that as evil manners in the State are the occasion of good Laws so evil Doctrines in the Church are the occasion of Sound and Excellent Definitions I do not wonder if in the following ages we have not such great Plenty of witnesses to appeal to They were times wherein learning did much Decay and mens Industry and zeal were much abated for want of those Incentives which had formerly been like goads in the sides of the holy Fathers and I remember what Boniface the Martyr said of the times he lived in that whereas Golden Priests were formerly forced to use wooden Chalices Then wooden Priests did use Chalices of Gold And yet we may well be Astonisht at their Monstrous confidence who tell us that Transubstantiation was believed in those declining times If it had been so indeed the Argument from it would have Signified nothing because there can be no Prescription against truth and the sense of some in latter ages ought not carry the cause against the general Judgement of the Primitive and best times But in good earnest upon the strictest search I can make I do not find any grounds for the credit of the present Romish Doctrine either in * Unus idemque secundum humanam substantiam absens caelo cum esset in terra dereliquens terram cum ascendisset in caelum Secundum divinam verò immensamque substantiam nec caelum dimittens cum de caelo descendit nec terram deserens cum ad caelum ascendit c. Fulgent ad Trasimud l. 2. c. 17. Fulgentius or in Christi sanguis non jam in manus infidelium sed in or a fidelium funditur Gregor apud Gratian. de Consec dist 2. c. 73. Mysterium est quod aliud videtur aliud intelligitur Quod videtur speciem habet corporalem quod intelligitur fructum babet spiritualem sed cum Mysterium sit unde corpus sanguis Christi dicitur Consulens ommipotens Deus infirmitati nostrae qui non habemus usum comedere carnem crudam Sanguinem bibere facit ut in pristina remaneant forma illa duo munera est in veritate Corpus Christe Sanguis Id. in Glossa ex Alcuino ibdi Gregory the Great who lived in the sixth Century or in * Christus in caelum ascendens discessit quidem carne sed presens est majestate c. Isid Hisp Sentent lib. 1. Sacrificium dictum quasi sacrum factum quia prece mystica consecratur in memoriam pro nobis Dominicae passionis Unde hoc eo jubente corpus Christi sanginem dicimus quod dum fit ex Fructibus terrae sanctificatur fit Sacramentum operante invisibiliter Spititu Dei Id. Origin lib. 6. c. 19. Isidore Hispalensis who flourisht in the seventh or in venerable Finitis veteris Paschae solenniis quae in commemorationem antiquae de Egypto liberation is agebantur transit in novum quod in suae redemptionis memoriam Ecclesia frequent are desiderat ut videlicet pro agni carne sanguine suae carnis sanguinisque Sacramentum in panis ac vini figura substituens c Beda in Luc. 22. Panis ac Vini Creatura in Sacramentum carnis sanguinis Christi ineffabili Spiritus sanctificatione transfertur sicque corpus sanguis illius non infidelium manibus ad perniciem ipsorum funditur occiditur sed fidelium ore sumitur asl salutem Id. Homil. de Sanctis Bede who was in the eighth Age no not in Damascen himself neither tho he be brought forth by the Romanists as a Champion on their side The Learned Arch Bishop Cranmer hath drawn up the sense of Damascen into this sum that the Bread and Wine are not so changed into the flesh and bloud of Christ that they be made one Nature but they remain still distinct in Nature so that the Bread in it self is not his flesh nor the Wine his blood but unto them that worthily eat and drink the bread and Wine to them the bread and Wine be his flesh and blood that is to say by things natural and which they be accustomed unto they be exalted unto things above Nature For the Sacramental bread and Wine are not bare and naked figures but so Pithy and effectuous that whosoever worthily eateth them eateth spiritually Christs flesh and blood Wherefore saith the Holy Martyr they that gather out of Damascen either the natural presence of Christs body in the Sacraments of bread and Wine or the Adoration of the outward and visible Sacrament or that after Consecration there remaineth no bread nor Wine nor other substance but only the substance of the body and Blood of Christ either they understand not Damascen or else of wilful frowardness they will not understand him which rather seemeth to be true by such collections as they have unjustly gathered and noted out of him For Damascen saith plainly that as a burning coal is not wood only but fire and wood joyned together so the bread of the Communion is not bread only but bread joyned to the Divinity He that desires further satisfaction as to this may peruse the whole vindication of Damascen in the
third book of the Arch-Bishops defence This I shall presume to say that Church Writers about Damascens time and Damascen himself spake for the most part as other of the Ancients did They spake to the same purpose and in many places to my apprehension very clearly and very agreeably to the sense of our own Church viz. of the real presence of Christs Spiritual body which in the next discourses I shall endeavour to explain tho possibly here and there we may light upon some few expressions which may seem somewhat harsh to such as do not rightly understand the Catholick Faith in this particular point Indeed Cardinal Bellarmine doth insinuate Bellarm. de Euchar. lib. 1. c. 1. that the Doctrine of Christs Corporal presence in the Sacrament was believed at the Second Council at Nice about the year of Christ 787. And herein the Jesuite is followed by some Divines of our own who have taken the insinuation from Bellarmine at the second hand and have thence concluded that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation had its rise at that Council that thereby the Practice of Image-Worship might be the better settled and supported But this is false and I cannot tell whether this error proceeds from inadvertency or from a willingness some have to disgrace the Catholick Church as if it had been guilty of such a foul mistake in those ancient times I am sure that upon looking into the Nicene Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synod Nicen 2. Actione Sexta I cannot find any such matter They determined indeed that after Consecration the bread and Wine are rightly called the body and blood of Christ But why must this be meant of Christs Natural Body Why might they not intend his Spiritual body and his real Spiritual presence of which anon Do but observe the occasion of this their assertion and the thing will evidently appear The Council at Constantinople were against the bringing of Images into Churches for this reason among many others because Christ left no Image of himself but the Sacrament At this expression the Nicene Council afterwards took pet and would not endure such Language that the materials of the Sacrament are the Images of Christs body and blood for they supposed the meaning to be that they are bare Images naked and empty Figures without the presence of Christs body and blood and this they exploded as unsound and uncatholick Doctrine Here was the quarrel as to that point For whereas the Constantinopolitan Council had said that the Eucharist became a Divine body the Nicene Council accused them for contradicting themselves for said they if it be the Image of a Body it cannot be a Divine Body too They denied the Sacrament to be a bare Image they affirmed it to be not so much an Image as the very Body of Christ and that so it ought to be called but that they hold a corporal presence of Christs Natural flesh and blood in the Sacrament there is nothing in the whole History o that Council that constraineth us to believef and therefore the Doctrine of Transubstantiation had not its first rise then In the ninth Century Dum quidam fidelium corporis sanguinisque christi quod in Ecclesia quotidie celebratur Mysterium dicunt quod nulla sub figura nulla sub obvelatione fiat sed ipsius veritatis nuda manifestatione peragatur Quidam vero restantur quod haec sub mysterii figura contineantur aliud sit quod corporeis sensibus appareat aliud artem quod fides aspiciat non parva diversitas inter eos esse dignoscitur Bertram de Corp. Sang. Christ indeed some began to speak variously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. and doubtfully concerning the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament which in a little time was the occasion of Bertrams writing his excellent book of the Body and Blood of Christ to Carolus Calvus then Emperor De Char. c. 11. But even in that Age Rabanus Maurus taught as the received Doctrine of the Church that it is unlawful as well as im impossible Nefas is his word to eat the body of Christ with our Teeth that Christ is in Heaven and ought to be there according to his flesh and that therefore he left us this Sacrament as the visible figure and character of his flesh and Blood He distinguisheth as many of the Ancients before him did between the Sacrament De institut Cleric lib. 1. c. 13. and the virtue of the Sacrament affirming the one to be eaten with the mouth and the Inward man to be satiated with the other so that though the Sacrament De Institut Cleric lib. 1. c. 31. it self turneth to our Bodily nourishment yet eternal life is obtained by the virtue of the Sacrament And whereas Paschasius Radbertus and his followers had now vended some new conceits which had a tendency towards the introduction of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation he wrote purposely against them as erronous conceits some of late says he being not rightly perswaded of the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud have affirmed it to be that very Body and Bloud of our Lord which was born of the virgin and wherein the Lord Suffered upon the Cross and rose again out of the Sepulchre De Euchar. 33. which error saith he we have exposed with the best of our skill in an Epistle to Egilo the Abbot That Epistle indeed is not now extant but the matter of fact is certain and the faith of that great man Rabanus was so well know to be utterly destructive of the Fancy of Transubstantiation that Waldensis in an Epistle to Pope Martin the 5th almost 600 years after had the confidence to censure Rabanus for an Heretick though he were no less then Archbishop of Mentz and for all sorts of learning had few in the Christian world that were his Match Haymo likewise affirmed that the Bread and Wine for so he call the Elements In 1. Cor. 11. after Consecration are replenished with the virtue of our Lords Divinity and so become his Body but this doth no more argue Transubstantiation then it argues that Christs Humane Nature is turned into his Divine Substance because that in him the fulness of the God-head dwelleth bodily Bertram was a very learned and judicious Divine in the same age and he in the Book I mentioned but now gives the Cause against the Romanists so fully and argues against Christ's Corporal presence in the Sacrament so strongly from the Nature and Notion of a Sacramant from sense from Scripture and from Tradition that the Knavish Compilers of the Spanish Index Expurgatorius had no way Bertram de corp ' Sang. Christi left them but to forbid the Use of the Book which to my sense was the same thing as if they had said we will damn all Authors or cut out their Tongues that we can find to Speak against us Behold the Honesty and Ingenuity of those who vaunt
so much of Tradition They that had the management of the Belgick Index were somewhat more modest for they profest they would use all arts to Extenuate and excuse Bertrams errors and to put some convenient sense to them or by some device or other tell a lye for him and they were content that his Book should be mutilated and some things purged and taken away from it this I say was more modest usage then what poor Beriram received at the hands of the Other Censors and yet this was very dishonest too and a plain Sign of a very weak cause that needed such disingenuous Artifices So they might have dealt with Amalarius too the Archbishop of Triers in the same age who trod in the steps of S. Austin affirming Amalar. de Ecclesii Offic. l. 3. c. 25. the Elements to represent Christs Body and Bloud as Signes of things and that the Priest offereth up Bread and Wine instead of Christ and that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are in the Place and Room of Christ Body and Bloud T is true Paschasius Rabertus who lived at the same time differed much in his opinion from these great men though it be hard to tell what his opinion was so very Inconsistent was the man with himself as it usually happens to Heady Opiniators especially when they are on the wrong side and will be venturing upon new discoveries This is allowed that Paschasius had a Notion by himself but I think if it be searcht well into it will be found to come nearer to the Lutheran Doctrine of Consubstantiation Paschas de Euchar. c. 41. 13. then to the Romish Conceit For since he affirm'd as Rabanus did that Christ is not to be torn with mens teeth that because it was necessary for Christ to be in heaven he lest us this Sacrament to be the visible Figure and Character of his Flesh and Bloud that we drink of Christ Spiritually and that we eat his Spiritual Flesh and the like whether do these Expression and Notions tend but to destroy the fancy of eating Christs Natural Body after a gross manner as the Doctrine of Transubstantiation doth import In the 10th Century we meet with Theo-phylact who spake of the Sacrament in a Lofty strain as many others before him did and used the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to express the Mutation of the Elements Which Expression the Romanists greedily catcht hold of as if he intended the changing of things out of one Substance into another But this is very wide of Theophylacts meaning who plainly intended not a Real Essential change of the Substance and Nature of the Bread and Wine but a Mystical and Sacramental change of their Quality and Condition so that upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Justin Martyr Apolog. 2 -Qui est e terrâ Panis percipiens invocationem Dei jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistie ex duabus rebus constans c. Iren. adv Har. l. 4. c. 34. Consecration they are no longer Common things as Justin Martyr and Ireneus said of old but the Elements of Divine things unto us so that thereby the Divine body of Christ is communicated to every Holy Soul The learned Cranmer explains him rightly that as hot and burning Iron is Iron still so Defenc. lib. 3. the Sacramental bread and Wine remain bread and Wine still tho to every worthy Communicant they be turned into the Virtue of Christs flesh and blood And that this was the sense of Theophylact is clear from his own words that the kind or substance of Bread remaining and continuing a Transelementation is made in Theophylact in Marc. 14. to the Virtue of Christs Flesh which notion I shall explain hereaster In the mean time I desire the Reader to note once for all that the Romanists to support their new Doctrine of Transubstantiation have grosly abused the ancient Writers of the Church by rendring the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Species as if they signified no more then shew and appearance And this they call the accidents of the Bread and Wine which they grant to remain but without the Natural substance or essence of them so that mens senses are cousened as to the things which they see Whereas the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks signifieth not the appearance or shew but the sort and kind of a thing and when it relates to things of matter as Bread and Wine it signifies the Essence or substance of those things And thus the words form likeness and fashion are used by St. Paul himself in the second of Philippians at the seventh Verse where speaking of our Saviour he saith that he took upon him the form of a Servant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil 2. 7. and was made in the likeness of Men being found in fashion as a Man Meaning that he was really in a servile Condition and a Man in substance essence and Nature In like manner the word species among the Latines signifies the sort the kind the substance of the thing and being spoken of the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament it signifies the very natural Essence or matter not barely the appearance of the Elements And this is the true meaning of Theophylact in this place where he saith that God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth preserve the kind the Essence the substance of the Bread and Wine but doth Transelementate or change them into the Virtue of Flesh and Blood However we grant that this expression of Theophylacts gave occasion though wrongfully to the School men in after Ages to lose their time in enquiring after the manner of that change which is consest to be in the Elements But even they were divided in their opinions so that the poin was not agreed upon for some time after Theophylact. For until the controversie arose about Berengarius which was towards the end of the eleventh Century it was matter of Dispute some being of one opinion and some of another They were only agreed in this that Christ is really present in the Sacrament but they could not tell how But Berengarius raised a dust which blinded other mens eyes and his own too His true Crime seems to me to have been this not that he erroneously disputed about the manner of Christs presence but that he denied him to So his Schooll-fellow Adelmannus chargeth him in an Epistle to him which Is yet extant in the Bibliotheca Patrum wherein speaking of the Novel Doctrine which was reported to have been spread abroad by him he saith hoc est ut illorum dictis utar non esse verum corpùs Christi neque verum sanguinem sed figuram quandam similitudinem be present at all in the Sacrament affirming not only that the Elements were Bread and Wine but that they were bare bread and Wine and nothing else which was the opinion of those who in the beginning of the reformation
Communicants do indeed receive Christs very Body and Bloud by receiving the Elements and that Christs Body and Bloud are verily tendred and offer'd even to the unworthy though they receive them not For were it not thus I would gladly understand how it cometh to pass that unworthy receiving brings upon a mans Soul some peculiar and extraordinary Guilt If it be a special sin as S. Pauls words argues it to be against the Body and Bloud of our Lord it must follow that the Body and Bloud of our Lord are there For a sin is of a peculiar nature and consideration when it is acted against an Object that is more peculiarly Interested and Concern'd so the sin against the Holy Ghost seems strictly and and properly to be a malicious resisting and reproaching of the Truth in spight of those Miracles which are wrought by the Holy Ghost for the Confirmation of the Truth A man is then said to be peculiarly guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost because in the working of Miracles the Holy Ghost is concern'd and interested after a peculiar manner To this purpose it is observable that when our Saviour spoke of this sin it was after some Miracle that he had done and by occasion of the Jews reproaching it as if it had been done not by the Power and Spirit of God but by Beelzebub It was especially a sin against the Holy Ghost because in the Miracle the Holy Ghost was specially concern'd Even so here unworthy receiving makes a man guilty of a sin against our Lords Body and Bloud because his Body and Bloud are peculiarly Interested in the Sacrament Evil men strike at Christ then after a most sinful sort because his Body and Bloud are present there after a singular manner and therefore doth the sin bring an extraordinary guilt because it is the doing despight to the very Body and Bloud of Him who made himself an offering for us For these and the like reasons the Catholik Church of Christ hath in all ages believed a real presence of his Body and Bloud in the Sacrament nor do I know any one Doctrine of Christianity which hath come unto us with less Contradiction then this came down from the very days of the Apostles even to the times of Berengarius And so true is this that the Learned know well that the Ancients grounded their Faith of our real Union with Christ upon this Principle because his very Body and Bloud are really communicated to us by our receiving the Eucharist As they believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrys in 1 Cor. 10. 16. vide Iren. multos alios a Supernatural Union between the Natures in Christ so they believed a Mystical Union between all the Faithful and Christ and this they concluded because they believed a Sacramental Union between Christ and those Creatures of Bread and Wine whereby we receive Christ S. Hilary calls our Conjunction Hilar. de Trinit lib. 8. with Christ a Natural conjunction because as Our Nature was before united to his by his Incarnation so now his Nature is United to Ours by the Communion Our Church calls it the Communion of the Body and Bloud of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation and S. Austin himself Homily of the Sacram 1. Part. used the same Expression and all the Ancients acknowledged this real Union to be wrought by means of that Real S. August Ep. ad Iren. Communion of our Saviours very Body and Bloud at and by the Holy Sacrament For the Opening now of this great Mystery I shall shew these Five things 1. That we are to distinguish between Christs Natural and his Spiritual Body 2. What is meant by his Spiritual Body 3. Why it is so called 4. That Christ hath a Spiritual Body indeed 5. That this Spiritual Body is received by us in the Sacrament 1. We are to distinguish Christs Spiritual from his Natural Body not as if he had two different Bodies but because that One and the same Body of his is to be considered after a different manner Now this is S. Pauls own distinction 1 Cor. 15. 44. There is a Natural or Animal Body and there is a Spiritual Body The Apostle there treats of that Exalted state our bodies shall be in after the Resurrection how they shall be delivered from all Mortality and Corruption and shall be the everlasting Temples of the Divine Spirit and shall shine with light like the Stars and shall be like Angelical Substances and Spirits in Comparison and all this because our Saviour is risen and gone before us into heaven and there remaines in a Glorious Body as 't is called Philip. 3. 21. Now this Body of Christ may be considered either in respect of its own Natural Substance as it consisteth of Flesh Bones and Bloud and other Constituent and Perfective parts of humane nature and in this sense no man can partake of the Lords Body Or else it may be considered with respect to his Divinity as that is united to it as it is clothed with infinite Majestie as it is replenisht with the Presence and energy of the God-head as it casteth live Influences upon his Church by virtue of the God-head dwelling in it and filleth all things with Spiritual rayes and emanations of his Grace In this respect our Lord is called a Quickning Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45. the first man Adam was made a living soul the last Adam was made a Quickning Spirit because he giveth life to every Humble and Obedient heart here below and through his Humane Nature dispenseth to every one the Vertues of his Passion and in this respect every good Christian participates of Christs Body that is of the Spiritualities of his glorious Body The Ancient Christians acknowledged and insisted much upon this distinction between the Natural and the Spiritual body of Christ confessing the one to be in the Sacrament but not the other There is Saith Clemens Alexandrinus a Twofold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Paedag. l. 2. in mitio Blond of our Lord there is his Fleshly Bloud whereby we were redeemed from destruction and there is his Spiritual Bloud whereby we are now Anointed and this is to drink the Bloud of Jesus to be made partakers of our Lords Incorruption In like manner Origen Shewing that even in the New Testament there is a letter which killeth if men do not understand that which is said after a Spiritual Si enim secundum liberam sequaris hoc ipsum quod dictum est nisi manducaveretis carnem mean biberitis Sanguinem meum occider haec litera Orig. in Lev. 10. Homilt manner instanceth in that Phrase of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Bloud for saith he if you understand this according to the sound and clink of the Expression it is a killing letter S. Jerome also tells us that the Bloud and Flesh of Christ is to be Duplicitur verè sanguis Christi caro intelligitur
the Catholick Church Several advantages gained by this Notion 5. BUt yet the celebration of the Communion is the Ordinary standing and effectual means to make us partakers of Christs Virtues and Spirit And this is the last thing I shall shew for the conclusion of this whole point that the spiritual Body of Christ which in some measure is given in general to all faithful Christians is effectually certainly and abundantly given particularly to all Devout and Faithful Communicants And here to touch a little upon the Effects of the Ancient Sacrifical Banquets which have been spoken of before It is observable that those Mysteries were not things of an empty nature to those that communicated thereof but were attended with the operation and efficacy either of Divine or Diabolical Powers 1. That great care and Reverence which was required of the Jew under pain of death for the due celebration of the Paschal Supper was a clear argument that God himself intended to be with them at the time after a more Peculiar manner and to scatter his Heavenly Blessings among them The intent of that and other Religious Mysteries was that the Souls of Gods People might be united to the Divine Nature and might be Inspired by the Divine Mind as Abarbanal tells us To this purpose the Learned Masius observes Abarbanal Exord in Levit. in fine that some Hebrew Doctors believed so great a Mystery to have been in the Paschal Sacrifice as that thereby God did after some sort first of all Communicate his Divinity unto Men. And he cites a passage in a Book of Rabbi Judas where he saith that by means of the Passeover God did Masius Comment in Josh c. 5. p. 89. take men into such close Communion with himself that by his Divine Power they did abide in him as the week of a candle abideth in the Light and that this was mystically signified by those words Levit. 11. 45. I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the Land of Egypt to be your God meaning as that Rabbi interprets it that I might impart unto you mine own Divinity Where the same Author also takes notice of a saying in Philo that by the Passeover was signified the passing of our mortal and corruptible nature into God that is the changing and raising of it into the Divine Nature And for the understanding of these Mysterious That 's the true reading not withstanding what we find in the margent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo de Sacr. Abel Cain notions Masius refers us particularly to the sixth chapter of S. John as if God under the Law did bless men with such Spiritual Influences and Divine virtues at the Passoever as Christ doth now bless Communicants with at the Eucharist to be meat and drink indeed to the Souls of his Disciples 2. As the Jews did partake of God at the Paschal Supper so did the Heathens partake of Divels at their Sacrifical Banquets That there were Demoniacks of old people that were inspired by Divels and possest with Divels is out Etiam de corpuribus nostro imperio excedunt inviti doâ—entes Tertull. Apolog. c. 23. de Daemonibus of all controversie for the Ancient Christians were commonly wont to force them out of men and to put them to a great deal of Torment The Divel had many opportunities and ways of getting this power over people God permitting it so to be in vengeance for their wickednesses So Tertullian tells a story of a Christian woman that going to see an Heathen Tertull. de Spect. c. 10. Play return'd possest with the Divel and when the Exorcist demanded of the Demon how he durst meddle with one of the faithful his answer was that he found her in his Dominions But never did these Infernal Spirits take greater advantage over men nor seize them more effectually than when they did Sacrifice unto them and did eat of their Sacrifices in their Temples Then these Demons did sometimes appear unto them as they did to Julian sometimes Theodor. Ecol Hist l. 3. c. 3. they possest them so that they were besides their senses and become mad and furious as those who were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sorsan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Galen quoted by Casaubon of Enthusiasme chapt 1. celebrated the Orgia or the Mysteries of Bacchus otherwise called Omophagia from their eating of Raw-flesh whereby they grew quite Frantick yet past for men that where Divinely inspired full of the Arnob. adv Genr. lib. 5. Numen and Majesty of God Sometimes the Divels drove them into such a violent furor that they whipt and scourged one Herodot l. 2. another as the old Egyptians were wont to do when they had done Sacrificing Vide Lucian de Dea Syria nay that they would cut their Arms and other parts of their Bodies as those Lucian speaks of like the worshippers of 1. Kings 18. Baal those Demoniacks that did usually cut themselves with knives and Lances till Vid. Lucian ubi Supr the Bloud gushed out upon them Sometimes the Divels did Influence them so that they were full of Poetical strains could * So the Enthei Sacerdotes mentioned by several Authors Pleni mixti Deo vates Minut. Fael And such was that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Pythia vates like that Phythoniffa 1. Sam. 2 8. called by the Seventy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vide Gyrald-Hist Deor. Syntagm 7. pag. 222. deliver Oracles and by the help of the Demons within them could foretel things to come could Divine and presage events after they had Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to banquet upon the Sacrifices which had been sent to the Oracle for the asking his advice Eurip. in Electra p. 835. eaten of the Sacrificess Out of many Writers it Dr. Cudworths True Notion appears that the old Heathen by means of their Sacrifical Idol feasts contracted such fellowship and intimacy with the Powers of hell that they hardly ever wanted their Assistance And a learned Doctor of our Church tells us out of one of the Rabbies that the Amient Chaldeans were wont to eat Flesh and Drink Bloud with their Idols because they had thereby such Communication with Demons that they familiarly conversed with them and told them what would happen in process of time Which he also confirms out of another Rabbi who saith that by this kind of Communion with Divels at their Tables the Chaldeans were able to Prophesie and foretell things to come To all which I shall onely add that those lewd Hereticks who used Inchantments and Magical Arts as many of them did in the Primitive times of Christianity did learn to deal with Divels and taught others to deal and to be possest with Divels also by means of those Mysteries which they used in Imitation of the holy Eucharist that was used by the Catholicks and to this purpose
Ireneus tells us particularly of that Wizard Marcus Iren. adv Haer. l. 1. c. 9. that he became familiar with Demons and fascinated his Disciples especially of the female Sex after this manner Now this I take to be the full importance and design of that Phrase 1 Cor. 10. 20. where S. Paul saith I would not that ye should have fellowship with Divels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Communicants with and Partakers of Divels meaning that they should not have any the least society with them lest by sitting at their Tables they should come to be governed acted and inspired by them as Demoniacks were And this gives a great deal of Light to those places of Scripture where we are said to have the Communication of the Body and of the Bloud of Christ and to be partakers of the Lords Table For the full meaning of these expressions is that by feasting together at the Table of the Lord we do participate of our Lords Spiritual Body and of his Spiritual Bloud so as that we are Influenced by him and receive Spiritual Virtue Power and Energy from him that as the Possessed of old were thought to have a Divine Numen in them so every devout Receiver of the Lords Supper may be said to have God and Christ in them because they are lead by Hence Demoniacks were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maxim in Pseudodyonis de Eccl. c. 3. So the Saints of Christ were ancienly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ignatius the Martyr was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Trajanus dixit Quis est Theophorus Ignatius respondit Qui Christum habet in pectore vide Acta Ignatii pag. 3. c. the Spirit and receive the Graces of the Spirit of God Christ in Virtue of Christs Body and Bloud The Socinians go a great way round about to fetch a wrested interpretation of these words of S. Paul The Cup of bessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Bloud of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10. 16. For whereas they understand those words to this effect that our celebration of the Eucharist is a Declaration of that Communion we have with that sacred Society the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ the Interpretation is Impertinent Idle and Ridiculous because that place of Scripture doth plainly signifie a Communication of Christs Bloud as well as of his Body nay of that bloud which was shed and of that Body which was given for us and this cannot be meant of his Body Mystical Some again are as wide on the other hand who though they grant a Communication of Christs very Body yet never the less Deny the Reality of its presence which is a meer Riddle and an unintelligible notion for how can we conceive that we really partake of Christs Body at the Sacrament if it be not really there to deny him to be Present and yet to affirm that we receive him Spiritually Mystically and Sacramentally is nothing else but to use so many dark expressions to cover Non sense it being impossible to imagine how we can Communicate of that which is Not and 't is as plain a Contradiction to say that we eat of Christs Body and drink of his Bloud if his Body and Bloud be not Present as it is to say that we receive Christ and yet not receive him at the same time Nor doth it mend the matter to say that we receive Christ by faith For if Christ be not Present and at our hand I cannot see how all the faith in the world can help us to receive him Christ doth dwell indeed in every Believers heart and faith doth dispose and qualifie us for the reception of him but how can faith bring that to me which is not nigh me and which is not her below to be gime Faith is a perswasion of the mind and this perswasion worketh upon mine own heart but cannot work upon the object of my faith so as to bring that to me which is really above in heaven onely Nay we must suppose the Body and Bloud of our Saviour to be in the Sacrament or else we cannot Rightly believe that we do receive him for to believe that I receive Christ at the Sacrament when at the same time I believe that he is not Really there is a Lying faith that contradicteth and confuteth it self Seeing then 't is reasonable to believe that Christs Body and Bloud are actually and verily in the Sacrament it must be granted that they are there either in respect of their Natural Substance or in respect of their Spiritual but Real Virtues and in respect of those Divine Influences which are by means of the Sacrament derived from the man Christ Jesus But the first of these is a proposition so uncouth so irrational so repugnant to Scripture and all Antiquity and upon every account so impossible to be true that it nomore agreeth with Christianity then darkness doth agree with light Therefore if men well understand and speak sense they must grant S. Paul to speak in the fore-cited place of the Communication of Christs Spiritual Body and Bloud and so the thing will be obvious rational and intelligible for in regard that by the use of the blessed Sacrament we receive virtues and influences from our Lords Glorified Humanity we are very rightly said to Communicate of his Body In regard that these Virtues are not imaginary Ideas but Real things Real in themselves and of real effect and operation it is very proper to affirm that Christ is Really present in the Sacrament Lastly in regard that these virtues are of a Spiritual Nature and flow from him who is a Quickning Spirit and are dispensed by the Holy Spirit and are receive by and work upon our Spirits and are efficacious in order to our Spiritual Life and do make us partakers of the Divine Nature it is easie to conceive the reason why Christ is said to be present in the Eucharist after a Spiritual manner and so by this construction of the matter the Doctrine of Christs Real but Spiritual Presence and of the Real but Spiritual Communication of his Body and Bloud is secured and the darkest part of this Mystery lyes open and fair and easie to be understood by men of the most Vulgar capacities To this purpose Anselm understands those In 1. ad Cor. cap. 10. words of the Apostle the Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communication of Christs Bloud that is doth it not make those who drink of it worthily partakers of the Life of Christ which is designed by his Bloud doth it not make us partakers of his blessedness and Glory wherein our souls are made One with his by the Communication of the same Glory And so the Bread which we break is it not the participation of the
can we understand it but of that spiritual Energy and Virtue wherewith the Element is indued Epiphan in Anaceph and which efficaciously worketh by the power of Christ upon the soul of every worthy Communicant When Epiphanius speaketh so positively and so home that the Bread in the Eucharist and the Water in Baptism have their Virtue from Christ that 't is not the Bread it self that is efficacious but 't is the Virtue of the Bread wherewith Christ indues it and that the Bread indeed is Food but 't is the Virtue in it which serveth for vivification what can any man desire more plain more emphatical more full when St. Ambrose saith if the Book be his that we take Ambros de Sacram. lib. 6. c. the Sacrament as the Similitude of Christs body but do really receive the Grace and Virtue of Christs Nature 't is plain that he means those spiritual influences which are derived from him When St. Chrysostom Chrysostom Hom. 50. in Matth. to shew what benefits we have by receiving of Christ shews the benefits which they had who touched but the Hem of his garment undoubtedly he meant that we receive these benefits as they did by virtue which goeth out of him When St. Austin so often speaks of not the outward Symbols only but chiefly of the thing in the Sacrament of the Virtue of the Sacrament and of our eating and drinking even to the participation of the Spirit and saith that the Truth and virtue of Christs body is diffused every where what can any reasonable man suppose him to mean but that though Christ be in Heaven in his Body yet he is with us by his spirit and blesseth us all with his Spiritual influences but especially when we Celebrate the memory of his Passion When St. Cyril of Alexandria so frequently affirmeth that the Glorified Body of Christ is vivisick and makes the Sacrament vivisick too and saith that God condescending to our weakness Carene Thomae in Luc. 22. sendeth the Virtue of Life into the Bread and Wine that are before us turning them into the Energy or efficacy of his own flesh so that a quickning principle may be in us the sense is so plain and satisfactory that I will presume to say were St. Cyril alone allowed to be judge in this case there would hardly be any â—â—â—â—â—oversie at all in the Christian World about the blessed Sacrament unless it were this who should receive it oftnest and with the great est reverence This Divine and spiritual virtue derived from Christ and conveyed into the Sacrament is that which Theodoret means by that Grace which he saith Gratian. de Consecdist 2. c. 28. is added to the Nature of the Elements This is that too which Pope Leo and the Synod of Rome meant by the virtue of Theophyl in Marc. 14 Hugo de Mysteriis Eccles cap. 7. Gelas de duab Nat. in Christo this heavenly food that which Theophylact meant by the Virtue of Christs Flesh and Blood that which Hugo de St. Victore meant by the efficacy of the Sacrament by the spiritual Grace and by Christs spiritual Flesh that which Pope Gelasius meant by that Divine thing in the Eucharist whereby we are made partakers of the Divine Nature that which Beriram Bertram de Corp. Sang. de Domini meant by the invisible Bread the Power of the Divine word the Virtue of Christs Body and blood the invisible efficacy the spiritual flesh and blood of our Saviour and abundance of expressions more to the same purpose in his admirable Book to Carolus Calvus 'T is that too which Isidore Hispalensis meant Isidor Hispal de Eccl. Offis by the Divine Virtue which worketh salvation under the cover of earthly things That which Haymo meant by the grace of Haymo in Cor. 11. Sanctification whereby he saith the Plenitude of the Deity and the Divinity of Paschas Ratbert de Euchar. the Eternal Word filleth the Elements That which Paschasius Ratbertus himself meant by the Spiritual Flesh of Christ that vital Portion which every good Communicant receives of the fullness of Christs Divinity Lastly 't is that which Panis iste quem Dominus Discipulis porrigebat non effigie sed leg seu natura mutatus omni potentia Verbi factus est caro Et sicut in persona Christi Humanitas videbatur latebat Divinitas ita Sacramento visibili ineffabiliter Divina se infundit Essentia c. Pseudo-Cyprian de Caen. Dom. Et Superius lumen in inferiora diffusum claritatis suae plentitudine a fine usque ad finem attingens totum apud se manens totum se omnibus commodat caloris illius identitas ita corpori assidet ut a capite non recedat Id. ib. the Pseudo Cyprian meant by that Divine Vertue which he acknowledged to be in the Sacrament that Supersubstantial Bread as he calls it that Divine Essence and Majesty which accompany the Elements that effect of Eternal Life and that Latent Spirit whereof every devout and well disposed Christian doth participate I have not time to look into every particular Church-Writer but this I will presume to affirm that where any of the Ancients do harp upon Christs presence in the Sacrament they mean his presence by his Grace and Virtue and where they speak intelligibly and distinctly of this matter they speak plainly to this purpose intending by the body and bloud of Christ which we receive neither more nor less then those efficacious Virtues which are derived to his Church from his glorified Humanity this they call his Body and Bloud especially when they call it by way of distinction the spiritual Body and the spiritual Bloud of our Blessed Redeemer And this account is the rather to be received by us for several good Reasons 1. Because it makes this great Mystery very easie to be understood so that without any straining of our wits or forcing of Scripture we may readily and clearly conceive how we are said to Communicate of Christs Body and Bloud For do but conceive a notion of Christs spiritual Body and the account is very short and the matter is very intelligible 2. It shews the sense of the Catholick Church in former Ages to be the same with ours now For Christians did ever acknowledge two different things in this Mystery the outward sign and the inward Grace and accordingly they did every set a different Price upon these two things valuing most of all the spiritual Grace but yet Honouring the Element for the Grace sake Many times indeed they called the bread Christs Body because it signifies and represents and exhibits it but usually they called the Elements the Types the Antitypes the Figures the Images the Signs of our Lords Body and Bloud so the Author of the Constitutions Pseudo Dionysius Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Theodoret Eusebius Chrysostom Origen Cyril Basil Macarius Jerome Gregory Nazianzen and divers more so that we may well laugh
and if my Desires now are to Express this my Duty to your Grace alone I know such is my Good Lords Affection to Your Grace that he will not think it a Fault in me or if the World shall think it so will easily pardon it if your Grace will be pleased to forgive my presumption Madam I have no more to add now but to beg that your Grace will favourably accept of my humblest Acknowledgements and to beseech God whose good Providence hath knit both your Graces together that the fortunate Band may prosperously continue neither dissolved nor weakened through the long Succession of many the most happy years That those mutual Affections which are so Eminently between You Both may Vigorously Hold to a good old age and make your Graces equally Examples of the sincerest Love as of Vertue and Piety That your Grace may be a fruitful Mother of a great Race of Noble Children to inherit your Fortunes Honour and Vertue and to perpetuate your Names to the Worlds end That my Young Lord that is now in the Arms of your Love may long live a Blessing to his Parents and to the whole Nation That in the midst of those Uncertainties which the Course of this World makes us subject unto the Goodness of God may ever Rest upon your Graces and on your whole Family That God will vouchsafe to protect guide prosper and preserve you and bless you with all the blessings of heaven and earth which is the sincere and Earnest Prayer of Madam Your Graces most Humble most Obedient and Dutiful Servant and Chaplain EDWARD PELLING THE CONTENTS THe Introduction page 1 Chap. 1. Of the Nature of this Sacrament That it is a sacrifical Feast Sacrifical Feasts used both by Heathens and Jews The Analogy between those Ancient Feasts and This Especially between This and the Paschal Supper The usefulness of this observation against the Socinians p. 9. Chap. 2. Of the Ends of this Sacrament First it is a Memorial of Christs Love proved from Christs own words From its Analogy to other sacrifical Banquets and from the Proctice of the Ancient Church Two inferences the one against Romanists the other against our Dissenters p. 31 Chap. 3. The second end of the Holy Sacrament to be a Covenant Feast The Ancient and general use of Covenant-Feasts That this is such proved from its Analogy to those Ancient Covenant-Feasts among Heathens and Jews and from the Words of Christ at the Institutions Two conclusions p. 53 Chap. 4. A third end of this Sacrament is to engage us to observe the Laws of that Religion to which it doth belong Proved from the Notion of the new Covenant From the design of of Mysteries in general From its Analogy to Mystical Banquets in particular both among Heathens and Jews especially the Paschal-Supper The sense of the Church touching this matter p. 78 Chap. 5. It is to be a Pledge and a Token of Gods favour Proved from its Analogy to the Antient Feasts both among Heathens and Jews and from the words of St. Paul Two Conclusions p. 104 Chap. 6. Of the blessings we receive by a due use of this Ordinance First we Mystically participate of Christs Body and Bloud What that Mystical participation is Secondly that we receive the Pardon of Sin Proved from the correspondency of this Feast to the Ancient Sacrifical Banquets in general And from its Analogy to those Feasts which were used after Sin-offerings in particular and from the words of Christ at the Institution p. 128 Chap 7. Thirdly We really communicate of Christ Glorified The Doctrine of Transubstantiation condemned as utterly contrary to sence Reason and the Holy Scriptures p. 152 Chap. 8. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation inconsistent with and contrary to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church Proved by five Observations touching the common sense of Christians in the most ancient times A short account of the Doctrine of the Church in succeeding Ages till the twelfth Century p. 188 Chap. 9. That though there be no Transubstantiation yet Christs Body is really in the Sacrament A distinction between Christs Natural and Spiritual Body What is meant by his Spiritual Body Why so called That such a Spiritual Body there is And that it is received in and by the Sacrament p. 224 Chap. 10. That Christs Spiritual Body is actually verily and really taken and received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper Proved from the Analogy thereof to other Sacrifical Feasts among Jews and Heathens From S. Pauls Discourse 1 Cor. 10. and from the sense of the Catholick Church Several advantages gained by this Notion p. 252 Chap. 11. Other Blessings which we receive by the Sacrament As the Assistance of the Holy Spirit Proved from the Words of Christ and S. Paul The Confirmation of our Faith An intimate Union with Christ What that Union is explained and proved Lastly a Pledge of an Happy Resurrection p. 275 Chap. 12. Two Practical Conclusions from the Whole Discourse p. 306 A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORDS SUPPER The Introduction COnsidering the wretched state this distemper'd Age is in beyond the condition of former Times how many Spirits among us are infected with Atheism how Debauchery of all sorts prevaileth over our Land how negligent and supine some are that talk of Religion how hypocritical others are who make use of Religion only as a Tool to further their Factious and Seditious ends how miserably we are divided into several Parties how each Party struggles for its own preservation as if the pangs of death were come upon all how the interest of our Religion is hereby weakened and its honour blemish't how the Peace of the Kingdom is endanger'd and hoâ— mischeivous these evils are likely to prove to our establisht Government in Church and State I say considering these things I humbly conceive that the most effectual way to reform and recover us is by all possible and justifiable methods to bring men to a right Christian use of that solemn Ordinance commonly called The Sacrament of the Lords Supper For to this Ordinance Men are bound to come with all gravity and seriousness with minds possest with a deep sense of vertue and true Piety with humble and holy Souls with Spirits that are ingenuous candid and tractable with hearts void of all rancour and baseness and full of Peaceableness Goodness and Charity so that were this Ordinance duly and regularly used and with a real design to do our Souls good by the use of it it would prove a blessed Restorative of the Life of Religion a certain instrument of Concord and Love and a most excellent means of making us all what we should be Good men would be at ease in their thoughts and the evil part of the World would be under a necessity of being brought to Repentance and we should soon find a new heaven and a new earth wherein Righteousness and Peace and whatsoever is desirable by rational Creatures would then dwell among us
and sent portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy unto our Lord. Now this very custome was observed in the Primitive Church of Christ to be sure in Justin Martyrs time when the holy Sacrament was done For so that very ancient Writer tells us expresly that the distribution and participation of the Holy Bread and Wine being ended the remainders were sent by the Deacons to those Christians the Sick and Infirm that were Just Martyr Apol. 2. absent which Conformity of their with Pagans and Jews in point of practice doth plainly shew that they reckoned this their Solemnity to be Analogous and like to those other which were used by Pagans and all the Jews over world Viz. a Sacrifical Feast But St Pauls discourse doth seem to put the thing beyond all manner of controversie in 1 Cor. 10. where he argues against the lawfulness of participating of Idol-Feasts from that plain Analogy which the Lords Supper beareth thereunto And thus he demonstrates the point First that they who did eat of the Jewish Sacrifices did profess to be in Communion with the God of Israel Behold Israel after the flesh Are not they which eat of the Sacrifices partakers of the Altar ver 18. Secondly that in like manner they who did participate of the Heathen-Sacrifices which had been offered unto Demons did profess to be in Communion and to have fellowship with those Demons ver 20. Thirdly the Apostle infers that the Christian-Feast being the participation of the Body and Blood of Christ as he shew'd ver 16. it is impossible for men to partake of meats offered unto Idols without renouncing Christianity these two things being so utterly incompatible that we cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of Devils we cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and the Table of Devils ver 21. As the Idol-Feasts were Sacrifical Banquets proper to the Heathens and as the Mosaical-Feasts were Sacrifical Banquets proper to the Jews so this our Feast is a Sacrifical Banquet proper to Christians and we may no more dare to eat of this and the other Feasts too then we may dare now to be Circumcised and turn Pagans after Baptism This is the meaning and argumentation of St. Paul and it plainly shews that there is a great Analogy likeness and resemblance between this and those other mysteries as to the nature thereof though the reasons the uses and respects are far different and utterly irreconcilable It is indeed a Sacrifical Feast as the others of old were but such a one as was instituted for the Disciples of Christ such a one as is intended for our participating of Christ for the tying of us to Christ such a one as immediately Refers to Christ such a one as directly tends to the Worshipping of Christ and of God in Christ But then we must note that of all the Sacrifical Banquets under the Law the Paschal Supper was that which this Christian Feast beareth the greatest Analogy unto This appeareth several ways 1. Because the Holy Jesus is called Our Passeover the Lamb that was slain to this purpose among others that we might Feed on him with all manner of inward Spiritual purity Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the Feast not with old Leaven neither with the Leaven of Malice and wickedness but with the unleavened Bread of sincerity and Truth 1 Cor. 5. 7 8. 2. Because this Banquet was instituted at the close of the Passeover-Supper Dr. Hammonds Annor on Joh. 13. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft T. 5. p. 559 edit Sav. when our Saviour and his Disciples had done their meal after he had washed their feet after he sate down the second time and probably before the Traitor Judas was gone out of the Room St. Luke and St. Paul both expressly affirm of the Cup that Christ took it after Supper 3. The material parts of this Christian Feast are the same with what were used at the Paschal Supper excepting such things as were either Typical or of peculiar signification to the Jews For the bitter herbs were in memory of those bitter afflications they endured in Egypt and so they were of Proper and Peculiar use to the Sons of Israel In like manner the Lamb was a figure of Christ to come and the roasting of the Lamb upon a Spit was a representation of * Justin Martyr Dial. cum Tayph pag. 259 edit Par. the Passion of Christ upon the Cross which being accomplished once for all there was no further need of any Figure But the other parts of the Paschal Feast the Bread and Wine Christ continued the the use of them and order'd them to be used still by his Church in all places and to all Ages 4. The manner of celebrating the Paschal Feast was very like to that after which this Banquet was celebrated and that in two respects besides that of distribution 1. First in respect of those Benedictions See Godwyns Antiq. 1. 3. c. 2. which the Jews then offered up to God for creating bread and Wine for their present Festival for their deliverance out of Egypt for the Covenant of Circumcision and for the Law According Christus hoc loco non pro veteri tantum creatione sed pro novâ cujus ergo in bunc orbem venerat preces fudit gratiasque deo egit pro Redemptione humani generis quasi jam peractâ Grot. in Matth. 26. ver 26. unto which our Blessed Saviour consecrated the Materials of this Feast with eyes lifted up blessing God over the Bread and Wine and adding no doubt such other Praises as were Proper for the occasion for the recovery as well as for the Creation of the World and for the Redemption of Mankind which was then in a manner actually accomplisht 2. Secondly in respect of those Solemn Commemorations which did attend the eating of the Passeover For this peculiar Ceremony the Jews used at that time that the Master of the house where the Lamb was eaten did instruct the rest touching that Solemn Mystery and did open unto them the meaning of it declaring unto them that the Lamb before them was called the Passeover because God passed over Godwyns Antiq. lib. 3. cap. 4. the houses of their Fathers in Egypt that the bitter Herbs were in memory of those hard usages whereby the Egyptians made the Lives of their Fathers bitter and that the Unleavened Bread was in token of the great haste their Fathers made out of Egypt by reason of which their Dough was not leavened and this Rite was called Haggadah that is the annunciating the declaring the shewing forth of the Passeover In like manner this Christian Ordinance is a standing Memorial of the Divine Philanthropy at which the Love of God in giving his everlasting Son and the Compassions of Jesus in giving up himself to die for us are solemnly Agnized and the Redemption of the whole World publickly Celebrated
and therefore St. Paul calls it the Annunciation the Declaration or the shewing forth of the Lords death 1 Cor. 11. 26. alluding manifestly to the Haggadah at the Jewish Passeover By this that has been spoken it doth plainly appear that this Holy Solemnity is Analogous and answerable to those Religious Feasts which were used of old and especially to the Paschal Feast which observation will help us not only to understand fully the purport of this Mystery but also to baffle the pretences of those Monsters of Hereticks the Socinians who give a very mean and contemptuous account of the Lords Supper For they take no notice of any strict engagements it lays upon us to an Holy Life they believe not the Sacrament to be a Seal of Gods favour and Grace so far are they from owning this that Socinus had the confidence Multo praestantior sine dubio respectu veteris faederis fuit sanguis ille pecudum quam respectu novi sit panis ille vinum Socin ad Epist Niemojevii to say that the blood of Beasts under the Law was of Greater efficacy and value than the Bread and Wine in this Ordinance They utterly deny that we hereby Receive any thing at the hands of God nor will they indure us to say that Gods Spirit is here given or that our Faith is here increased or that pardon of sin is here tendered or that we receive here any Pledge of a blessed Resurrection and a glorious Immortality No they explode all doctrines of this nature and teach Is finis est vitûs istius usurpandi ut beneficium a Christo nobis praestitum commemoremus seu Annunciemus nec ullus alius Cat. Eccles. Pol. that the proper end for which the Lords Supper was instituted is this that we may Commemorate the Lords Passion Nay Socinus was of opinion In caena Domini ne ipsam quidem mentionem Christi corporis pro nobis traditi sanguinis fusi disertis verbis faciendam necessariam plane esse Socin de usu fine Caenae Dom. that 't is not necessary so much as to make express mention of Christs Body being delivered or of his blood being poured out for us which yet is inconsistent with his own Principle for how can we Commemorate the Death of our Blessed Saviour without making mention of it Briefly these Blasphemous Hereticks look upon this Holy Ordinance only as the memorial Vide Excerpta ex ore Socini in fine disputationis de usu fine caenae Domini of a Friends kindness This is all they will allow and so they conclude that we may Celebrate it either sitting or standing or with our Heads covered or with Water if we will instead of Wine but to kneel or so much as to sigh with eyes lifted up at the Celebration is in their account a kind of Idolatry I confess these ill conclusions do for the most part follow from that unsound Principle that the Supper of the Lord was intended only in Commemoration of him But what reason and ground have they for this Principle Why Non ullus alius praeter hunc a Christo est indicatus finis Cat. Eccl. Pol. because say they at the institution Christ mentioned only this end Do this in remembrance of me But this is not a reason and ground sufficient For the mentioning of one end is not the excluding of others though Christ in express terms had said no more yet it doth not follow that no more was intended The very Analogy which this Feast beareth to other the like Sacrifical Feasts of old and especially to the Paschal Feast is enough to shew us the several Ends of it had our Saviour mentioned no end at all And this is the Reason that I have now taken notice of that Analogy For if such Feasts were commonly reputed to be Covenant-Rites between God and Man then we may reasonably believe that this is to be reputed so too If to eat the body of a roasted Lamb was a Pledge of Gods favour to the Jews then we may infer that to eat Bread instead of Christs body is a pledge of Gods favour to us Christians If the use of other Sacrifical Feasts did entitle the partakers to all those Benefits for which the Sacrifices were offered then we may conclude that the use of this Sacrifical Feast doth entitle the Communicants to all those benefits for which Christ our Sacrifice offered up himself and which he purchased for us Therefore the Socinians do but trifle and are very vain in pretending to teach us the full meaning of this Rite when they take no notice of that correspondence and Analogy which is between this and other ancient Rites of the like nature For this is a principal thing to be taken notice of and we cannot easily conceive what else it was which satisfied the Apostles touching the purport of this Ordinance when it was instituted first For that they presently discerned the meaning of it is clear because we do not find that they desired of our Lord any explanation at all of this mystery In other cases they were very inquisitive and sometimes about matters which we think had little need of explication being obvious to Men of common and ordinary capacities And yet at the institution of this Holy Sacrament tho it containeth some things so difficult and dark to us that they have occasioned Quarrels in all parts of the Christian world yet the Disciples were who ly silent being very sensible what such Sacred Feasts did mean in those days and what the general sense of Mankind was about them They could not but know that by eating of things which bad been offered at the Altar men undertook to observe that Religion to which that sacred Rite did belong and whereof it was a part They could not but know that by such an action they had a right to those benefits which the Sacrifice had been offered up for and so they became very nearly related to God as his Favourites and Family And when they found by our Saviouts discourse that he would offer up himself a Sacrifice for them and heard him now say of the bread in his hands this is my Body they might easily apprehend him to mean that they were to eat of Bread in the Place and Room of his flesh and instead of feeding upon his Natural Body Considering that the Lamb which was drest for the Paschal-Supper was usually called the Body of the Passeover no sooner did Christ call the Loaf His Body but they did instantly conceive it was appointed to be eaten for his Body and in liew of it especially since he had told them before that they were not to feed on him as they were wont to feed upon the Lamb after a carnal and cross manner because the Flesh profiteth nothing Joh. 6. 63. Hence they saw presently that this institution did very much resemble the Sacrifical Banquets which had been observed of old only it was
recte est redditum Armachan not in Ignat. Ep. ad Magnes Num. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or Altar-place because it is there or should be there before the Lords Table that we present to the Divine Majesty of God all our Christian Sacrifices and perform the Offertory as I shall hereafter shew at large that all Christians were wont to do in the Primitive and Apostolical times of the Church But to call the Sacrament a Sacrifice or the Holy Table an Alter upon presumption that Christ is really Sacrificed and in his Natural Body offered up there is a Solaecism in Divinity and that which is utterly against the sense of the Ancient Doctors of the Christian Church For though in many Liturgies and other Ancient Books we often find mention to be made of Oblations and Sacrifices at the Celebration of the Holy Sacrament yet this is meant of those sacrifices and Offerings which I have now spoken of and which all Reformed Churches allow of and particularly the Ancients point to those Liberal Gifts which Christians in those times brought with them to the Church to be presented and offered up to God on the Holy Table as an humble acknowledgement that the whole Earth was the Lords and as a Grateful Recognition of his Right to all of his Dominion over all and of his propriety in all the possessions they did enjoy To this purpose I shall note a passage or two out of that very ancient Writer Irenaeus Oblations in general are not forbidden us says he there 1. 4 c. 34. are oblations under the Law and there are Oblations under the Gospel there were Sacrifices among the Jews and there are Sacrifices in the Church And again Our Lord incouraging his Disciples to offer unto God the first Fruits of his Creatures not for that God hath any 1. 4. c. 32. in fine need thereof but that they might shew themselves neither unfruitful nor unthankful he took that Bread which was made of his Creatures and gave thanks saying this is my body and he likewise acknowledged the Cup consisting of the Creature which we use to be his Blood and thus he taught the New Oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles offers throughtout the world unto God And elsewhere speaking of the same thing c. 34. in initio he saith that the Oblation of the Church which our Lord taught and appointed to be offered through all the World is accounted a pure Sacrifice with God If any of the Fathers have spoken as if Christ was offered up in the Holy Sacrament they are to be understood as speaking figuratively and improperly because the Signs and Symbols of Christs Body and Blood are presented upon the Table Their meaning was and they said so when they spake strictly and distinctly that they offered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb dem Evang 1. I. c. 10. a Memorial instead of a Sacrifice as Eusebius said And to instance in no more nothing can be more plain then what S. Chrysostome hath said upon this subject viz. That though we offer every day yet we do but make a Commemoration of Christs Death that this that is done now is in Remembrance of that which was done before Hom. 17. in Heb. that we offer not another nor a different Sacrifice as the Jewish High Priest did but still one and the same or rather saith he we perform the Remembrance of a Sacrifice which is the very same that Justin Dial. cum Tryph. pag. 260. Martyr affirmed of our using the Bread in the Sacrament that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Memory of that Passion which Christ was pleased to undergo for us Men and for our salvation I have noted all this to shew how grosly the Romanists are deceived in that which many poor wretches among them take to be a main part of Religion tho I am afraid their Crafty Guides tell them so for their own Interest and Advantage For do but take away the Doctrine of Christ being really Sacrificed under the species of Bread and Wine and their Masses for Quick and Dead must go away next then the Doctrine of Purgatory must down too then the Practice of praying for souls supposed to be in Torments there must down also and then the conceit of Absolutions and Indulgences and divers other Lucrative Arts whereby the Knavish Priests cheat ignorant and Easie People out of their Mony till in the end by taking away first one shore and then another the old rotten House drops down upon their Heads which hath been held up hitherto by this Artificial Prop among others that our blessed Saviour is Really and Truly offered up a Sacrifice for all men in this Mystery whereas indeed it is not a Sacrificing of him but a Representation and memorial of the great Sacrifice upon the Cross 2. That which I would note in the second place is that this Blessed Sacrament was intended to be not a Memorial of the Passeover-Supper which Christ Celebrated the same Night that he was betray'd but a Commemoration of his Passion and Death on the day following This indeed is very obvious and easie to be observed And yet for want of minding this thing well many weak people among our selves have been unfortunately lead aside into wrong and superstitious conceits about some Circumstances which relate to this solemnity Because the Passeover was eaten at Night therefore some conclude that this Sacrament ought not to be solemniz'd at any other time And because our Saviour and his Disciples did as they suppose eat the Passeover Sitting therefore these men infer that it is not lawful for us to receive this Sacrament in a Kneeling posture They would have us to be guided by those Usages and Rites which were observed at the Paschal-Feast as if the Customes then were presidents to govern and direct us now and as if this Feast of ours were not only Analagous unto but also a Representation and Memorial of that Festival among the Jews But all this is nothing but a Rope of sand and any man may find it so that will but consider the thing rightly For this being a sacrifical Banquet at which we do Commemorate the intollerable sufferings and infinite Love of the Son of God such Rituals are to be observed now as are most Congruous and suitable to the Nature and Ends of this Mystery As for the Passeover-Supper it is ceased and out of doors long ago together with those observances which were belonging and appendant to it and we have nothing to do with them because they were grounded upon special rea sons and were of proper use and of peculiar significancy to the Jews Thus the Time of its Celebration was to be at Night because it was in the Night time that the Lord smote the first born of the Egyptians and passed over the houses of the Israelites and this concerns us no more than it concerns us to Celebrate the very
Day of their deliverance out of Egypt Thus also for the Posture used at the eating of the Passeover at first it was probably a Standing posture because the Jews were commanded to eat it with their Loyns girded with their shooes on their Feet and with their Staff in their hand But there were proper and peculiar reasons for this Ceremony for it was Significative and in Token of their great Haste and that concerns us no more neither than it concerns us to eat Unleavened Bread which was in token of their Haste also In our Saviours time the Posture was Altered as I shall shew in its due place and 't was neither standing nor sitting as many ignorant mem conceive but a Recumbent and Leaning posture one guest lying along in the bosome of another as St. John lay in our Lords Bosome so making part of a Round or Oval figure And even This posture was of peculiar fignificancy to the Jews too for it was in Token that their Journey and Travels were at an End and that they were possest of the Land of Rest which God had sworn to their Fathers that he would give them So that neither from hence can we gather any thing that bindes us unless it be this that in circumstantial matters we should submit to those innocent usages which either the Laws or Customes of a Nation or the Reason of times have introduced as our Blessed Saviour himself did who took such Customes as they were and observed them as he found them not troubling the World with debates and Controversies about things of nothing So then the Rites used at the Passeover are no Leading Rites to us nor are we to Copy out that pattern any more than we are Commemorate the Jews feast This Sacrament of ours is not a Memorial of the Paschal Supper but of our blessed Redeemers Death and accordingly we are to use such Rituals as are most proper and suitable to the meaning and purpose of this Mystery and most significative unto Us. Considering that it was between Nine and Three of the Clock that our dear Lord was hurried to Golgotha nailed to the Cross and there hung upon four wounds languishing bleeding dying with pangs and throws unspeakable unconceivable it is proper for us to Celebrate about Noon this Blessed Sacrament which is the Memorial of his Great Passion Considering too the Intendments of this Mystery that it serveth as I shall prove as I go along to engage us to be faithful and True to the Redeemer of our Souls and to convey unto us all those benefits which he purchased for us by his Passion as Pardon of Sin the Communication of his Blessed body and Blood the assistance of his Holy Spirit a close Union with him and an assurance of a glorious Immortality and considering also what We are that the Divine Goodness should be thus propitious and kind to us his Unworthy Despicable because Sinful Creatures I appeal to any man of sense and true humility if it be not most proper most becoming us were Laws and Customes altogether silent to receive the blessed instruments and Pledges of the Divine Grace in the Lowlyest in the most Reverent in the most Humble posture and after such a manner as is most expressive of that sense we ought to have of our own Vileness and nothingness and of the Love of Jesus When I who am so unworthy that the Lord should come under my Roof am invited to come so near unto him as to lie as it were not in his Bosome but in his Heart too and to take into my hands the Holy Seals of his dearest Love of his tenderest and everlasting Compassions then be thou Prostrate O my Soul let me then Worship and fall down and Kneel before the Lord my Redeemer and if there be any thing viler than the Dust or any place lower and baser than the Earth let my sinful Body grovel and lie there Thus the Nature and Ends of this Sacrament and the consideration that it serves to Commemorate not what the Jews did at their Paschal Supper but what Christ our true Passeover did in being Sacrificed for us are enough to take any humble man off from that regard which Superstitious Persons have of supposed Jewish postures because we are not to represent and Commemorate their Actions but to shew forth the bitter Passion and Death of the Holy Jesus And this shall suffice to be said as the Use and Improvement of this matter that this Eucharistical solemnity was intended to be a a perpetual and standing Memorial of our Saviours sufferings and Love Do this in Remembrance in Commemoration of me That 's one great End of this sacrifical Banquet CHAP. III. The second End of the Holy Sacrament to be a Covenant-Feast The Ancient and general use of Covenant Feasts That this is such proved from its Analogy to those Ancient Covenant-Feasts among Heathens and Jews and from the Words of Christ at the Institutions Two conclusions BY the leave of the Socinians we will go further and confidently affirm that this Holy Sacrament is intended to another End too viz. that it may be a Federal Rite or a Covenant banquet between God and the Communicants By a Covenant is meant such a Communion Allyance and League with God whereby he claimeth a peculiar right interest and propriety in us as in those who have devoted our selves to his Worship and service and expect good things at his hand And by a Covenant-Banquet is meant such a Religious Feast whereby a League of that nature is contracted or Confirmed This at first may seem somewhat dark to you because the generality of us are not well acquainted with the old Customes of of other Countries especially of the Oriental Nations the right understanding whereof will give us a great deal of light into this matter For the opening of it therefore we must know that it was very usual for People especially in the Eastern parts of the World to make and ratifie Contracts by eating and drinking together Of this the Holy Scriptures give us some plain Exemples For that Feast which Abimelech and Isaac celebrated together Gen. 26. 30. was a Covenant-Feast a token and symbol of Friendship between them Labans eating with Jacob upon an heap of stones Gen. 31. 46. was no other then a Foederal rite The Israelites eating of the Gibeonites Victuals Josh 9. 14. was the contracting of a League with those crafty people which the Israelites were blameable for doing without asking Counsel at the mouth of the Lord for had they first enquired of God they had not been Circumvented as they were into a confederacy with them When David after an upbraiding manner spake of his friends treachery in words which are very appicable to Judas Psal 41. 9. mine own familiar Friend said he in whom I trusted which did eat of my Bread hath lift up his heel against me He meant one that had entred into Covenant with him by a Feast as you
Beneficial to his Church as the eating the body of the Passeover had been unto the Jews it should be all one to us as if we did eat of his very Body His speech may be rightly Paraphrased after this manner Whereas hitherto it hath been customary among people to feast upon the Dead Carcass of a dumb Animal in Token that they were in Covenant with God and were entitled to all the mercies of the Covenant And whereas the Lamb is a Type of me to the intent now that you and the rest of my followers may be assured that you shall have a certain interest in my Sacrifice and shall receive infinite blessings by my death though you are not to feed upon my very natural Flesh Lo instead and in the Room of that I appoint you to Feast after this manner and to look upon it as a feasting upon me and upon my Sacrificed body tho you do not eat of the very identical oblation as hath been usual hitherto and I would have you be satisfied that as often as ye shall eat this bread and drink this Cup ye shall be supposed interpreted and reckoned to participate of me my self Now this I call the Mystical partaking of Christs body and blood because by the celebration of this Mystery we are presumed and reputed to do so we do in effect partake of both by partaking of those things which do represent and are appointed to be taken in the place of both and we are as truly said to partake of our Sacrifice as the Jews were said to partake of theirs when they did eat of their very oblations This is the first and great blessing we receive 2. Hence we conclude in the second place that every Communicant who is rightly prepared and dispos'd hath hereby solid and substantial grounds for his hopes touching the Pardon of his Sins For since by this visible Pledge of Gods Love we gain an interest in the Sacrifice of Christs death since we are reckoned to participate of Christs Body and Blood since we are partakers of the Cross as the Jews were of the Altar it necessarily follows that we have all the Benefits of our Lords Passion and so that we ought to be assured of the Truth and sincerity of Gods promise that he will forgive and blor out all our miscarriages because it was for that end that Christ died But this will more evidently yet appear if we consider 1. The Correspondency of this Feast to the ancient Sacrifical Banquets in general 2. The Analogy of it to those Feasts which were used after Sin-offerings in particular And thirdly if we consider the words of our Saviour at the institution of this Rite 1. First then it is already proved that Gods ordering his people to Feast upon part of their Sacrifices was a sign and Token to them that they were in favour and Covenant with God that they had a Right unto all his promises that their Sacrifices were accepted Kindly and were Imputed unto such as had offered them By the visible Solemnity of Eating and drinking in Gods presence they were assured that now they were in a State of Reconciliation and Peace with him and had a Title to all those mercies which their Sacrifices were intended for Seeing therefore that this Feast is answerable unto those it argues plainly that as the Eating of Sacrifical Feasts was an Evidence unto the Jews that they were benefitted by the oblations and were in Gods Favour so the partaking of this Sacrifical Feast is an evidence unto us Christians that we are Benefitted by Christs Oblation of himself and are in Favour with God also and consequently that we have a Right to his Promise that he will Forgive and Pardon us that being a main part of Gods Covenant one of his Principal Promises an Eminent Blessing and such a Singular Expression of his Favour as every Soul of man is Highly concern'd most earnestly to Hunger and Thirst after 2. But for the further confirmation of this matter we are to note that this is not a Feast upon a Sacrifice at large but a Feast upon a Sacrifice for Sin in Particular you must remember that there were certain Oblations appointed by the Law which were called Sin offerings and Trespass-offerings because they were intended to make an Atonement for all iniquities whatsoever both of the Heart and of the Hand whether they were offences against the First or against the Second Table Of these Sacrifices the People of the Jews were never suffered to eat no nor the Priests themselves sometimes as when it was a whole burnt offering or a Sacrifice of Expiation that was to be burnt without the Camp wich was a Lively Type of Christ wo was Sacrificed without the City Nevertheless these Sacrifices were attended with Other sorts of Oblations which the People were allowed to eat of and their eating thereof was a Pledge and Assurance to them that their Atonement was now made and their Pardon given Why now Christ was made Sin for us that is he was made a Sacrifice for our sins though be knew no Sin And as he was our Sin offering so our eating at the Holy Table is a Token and Argument to us that God is at Peace which us and that our Atonement is made for all our iniquities trangressions and sins Nay we have a far greater Priviledge in this respect than the People of the Jews had for they were not permitted to eat the the flesh of a Sin-offering but we are that is we are permitted to eat of Bread instead of it They were never allowed to Drink the Bloud of any of their Sacrifices but we are that is we are allowed to drink wine instead of Christs Bloud These a Nova est hujus Sacramenti doctrina Scholae Evangelicae hoc primum magisterium protulerunt doctore Christo primùm haec mundo innotuit disciplina ut biberent Sanguinem Christiani c. Autor Serm de Caena Dom. Cipriano ascript are Singular Priviledges to us and so they are Greater Assurances also of our Pardon and Atonement Christ gives us his Body and Bloud too for our plenary Conviction and Consolation touching the Remission of our Sins In this respect our Christian Feast doth far out go all those which they used under the Law For they could participate but of some of their Sacrifices and but of Part of them too we participate even of our Propitiatory Sacrifice nay of our whole propitiation Whereas the Bloud of every Sacrifice was wont to be poured out at the Altar and not so much as one Drop of it was to be tasted of either by the Poeple or Priests behold saith our Saviour to his Disciples you have liberty to participate even of the Bloud of my Sacrifice as this Bread is in the Room of my Body so is this Wine in the place of my Heart Bloud and I give you this particular command and Priviledge that ye Drink of it every one of you
which the wine was a Figure was now to be shed for the Forgiveness of All. So that were this argument driven home upon the Romanists they must be brought to confess if they will speak out either that the Cup is to be given to Lay-people or else that Christs blood was not shed for Lay-peoples Sins I will not enter into that enquiry how many and what the persons were to whom our Saviour spake at that time Though some are ready to tell us that they were only the twelve Apostles who were then in the quality of Priests yet this is a confident assertion which we need not grant For though it be said that he sate down with the twelve yet it doth not follow that no more than twelve were there It is probable that the good man of the House who is supposed to have been a Believer might be there among the rest at least it is improbable that the Holy Virgin of whom he took such care at his Death should not be with him at his last Supper especially since he admitted the Traitor Judas But suppose none but the twelve were Communicants yet they were the representatives of the whole Church and what he said unto them he must be understood to have spoken in reference unto All that every Member of his Family should drink of the Cup as well as eat of the Bread Accordingly was the practice of all Christians in the days of old Wheresoever St. Paul speaks of the administration of this Sacrament he speaks of both Elements that they were communicated of and this he saith was that which he had received of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 21. And that the same was the usage of the times following is undeniably clear out of the writings of many antient Fathers both of Greek and Latine Churches who Celebrated this Mystery as we do which I note the rather that I may lay open those Lyars who to palliate their corruptions confidently tell poor ignorant people this Monstrous falsity that Antiquity is on their side This their custome of half-Communion is a most Notorious Innovation and the general practice of it was never authoriz'd till that blessed Assembly of Divines forsooth at Constance about the year 1415. and yet those very men though they were so bold as Licet Christus post Caenam Instituerit suis Discipulis ad ministraverit sub utraque specie panis vini hoc venerabile Sacramentum tamen hoc non obstante c. Et similiter licet in Primitiva Ecclesia hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie tamen c. Praecipimus sub paena excommunicationis quod nullus Presbyter communicer populum sub utraque specie panis vini Concil Constans Sess 13. acknowledged by their own Caranza Sum. Concil p. 626. to appoint Communion under one kinde onely yet they were so ingenuous as to confess that the thing was contrary to Christs Institution and that the custome of the Primitive Church had been to the contrary also Hoc tamen non obstante as they then declared not withstanding all this they prohibited the administration of the Cup to the Lay-people But whether their Prohibition or our Saviours Institution and the custome of the old Catholick Church ought to take place let the indifferent world consider Indeed 't is no news to hear of the Dishonesty of the Roman Clergy there are so many palpable instances of their soul dealing with the world But 't is an unaccountable injury they do to mens Souls to defraud them of that by a due reception whereof we receive the remission of our Sins And though Bellarmine and the rest have taught them to come off with this Pretence that the whole Christ is in each part of the Sacrament and so that the very Bloud of Christ is even in the wafer yet this is a groundless suggestion and untruth at least it is too vain an imagination for men to trust to in a case of such vast Importance and Concernment For they themselves do confess that the a In una specie non habetur perfectè integrè Sacrificii ratio sed utraque necessaria est c. Bellarm. de Sacram-Euchar lib. 4. c. 22. Sacrifice of the Mass as they call it is not perfect without both Kinds b So Alexander Alensis Gaspar Cassalius and Ruardus as Bellarmine doth confess ubi Supr c. 23. And some of their Doctors have declared their Opinion that there is less spiritual benefit by Half Communion and the Learned c Objicit Georgius CassAnder quòd Sancti patres tribuunt peculiarem effectum sanguini domini qui ex Calice sumitur sic enim Ambrosius Ioquitur si lib. 5. de Sacram. c. 3. Quotiescunque bibis Remissionem accipis peccatorum inebriaris Spiritu Et Cyprianus lib. 1. Ep. 2. Quomodo docemus aut provocamus eos in comfessiore nominis sanguinem suum fundere si eis inibitaturis Christi Sanguinem denegamus Id. ibid. Cassander objected justly that the Ancient Doctors of the Christian Church laid a great deal of stress upon the administration of the Chalice ascribing a peculiar efficacy to the Sacrament of our Lords Bloud not but that his Body is the means of our Justification too but because our Saviour Dignified the Cup after a peculiar manner saying this is my Bloud of the New Co. venant which is shed for the Remission of fins I wish therefore that the deceived members of that Church would consider this seriously 'T would be enough to make their Hearts ake to think how their Hopes of the forgiveness of their Sins are wonderfully weakened by this Unchristian practice It would be a wonder how any of the Laity among the Romanists could enjoy one quiet hour in their lives or ever go to bed in Peace and with any tolerable Satisfaction especially such of them as are Conseious to themselves of those flagitious Crimes they have acted did they but sadly consider what a miserable case they are in Were there nothing else to frighten them but this that they confidently Trust to a few fruitless Absolutions which onely keep up a Market but are Deprived of that which to penitent Souls is a Certain instrument of Pardon Blessed be God that we lye in the bosome of a Church which administreth to all her devout children the Seals of Gods mercy according to her Lords own mind and appointment and agreeably to the way of the Catholick Church And as this should set all our desires upon the wing and make us fly on every occasion to the Holy Table that our wearyed Souls may find a Resting place and Sure footing so should it replenish us with Comfort and Joy of Heart when we go away being fully assured of Gods purposes of Grace towards us and being satisfied in a good measure that we are now in a Happy condition 'T is true before men go to the Sacrament they ought to be well satisfied of Gods merciful
Nor am I insensible how wary and Cautious Divines are what they say and how they unfold their thoughts of this matter Indeed it is that which requires of us a great deal of Consideration and Pains aswell to Conceive a Right notion of it as to Express it so as to make it Intelligible to others But not withstanding the Difficulty of the thing it being so very Usefull and Necessary for the Satisfaction of every mans mind I shall take upon me to discourse of it at large but without trangressing I hope the due bounds of Modesty and Truth To clear my way as I go from one foul mistake we are to note that Christ is not so present in the Sacrament as to be eaten after a Carnal and Gross manner neither are the Elements so changed by any act of Consecration as to be turned out of one substance into another out of the Substance of Bread and Wine into the Substance of our Lords Natural Flesh and Bloud This indeed is the Faith of the whole Roman Church and they have Invented the word Transubstantiation to signifie and Express their Faith and it implyeth these three things 1. That the Nature and Matter of the Elements vanisheth away 2. That the Accidents thereof as they call it meaning the Colour the Smell the Taste the Quantity of the Elements do all remain without their Proper and Natural suject 3. That Christ's Natural Body supplyeth the room of Bread and that this Bloud is in the Place of Wine Now I might pass over this with quick dispatch by referring you to a great many Learned and Unanswerable Books which have been written against this Monstrous Error to say no worse of it but to save you the charge and pains of so much travel I desire you 1. To Consider in general that there are four things which are Infallibly able to satisfie a mans Judgement as to the Truth or Falsity of any thing whatsoever viz. The Use of our Senses the Suffrage of Right Reason the Authority of Divine Revelation and the help of Tradition And if men will pertinaciously contend for a proposition in spight of the Concurrent Evidence which is given against it by all these Demonstrative mediums which ought and are enough to Convince every man they were as good tell us plainly that they are Resolved to be Infidels or Scepticks or to believe no more than what they themselves please for stronger arguments than these four can never be offered to any Now thus stands the case between Us and the Romanists they dispute for their beloved Doctrine of Transubstantiation and to maintain the Controversie they appeal to the Definitious of their own Church that is they will be Parties and Judges too We plead against their Doctrine that 't is contrary to every Test which should govern Rational Creatures in their Sentiments And though the very Mentioning of this palpable Error be enough to Expose it to Scorn and Laughter yet for the further discovery thereof observe in particular 1. How it contradicted the Testimony of our very Senses We cannot conceive but that God gave us our Senses as helps to inform our Understanding nor can it be supposed with any Colour of Truth that all men should be Constantly deceived in the perpetual use of their Senses when their Faculties are Good and the Object of their Sense is Adequate and Proper this would be as Ridiculous and Absurd as to say that none of us yet ever saw the light tho our eyes be open and the Sun every day Appears Now that which we contend for is as clear to our Sense as the Sun is at high Noon For we see it we smell it we taste it we feel it by Four of our Senses we find what we receive at the Communion to be Bread and Wine and why should we fancy our selves deceived in this case more then S. Thomas was when he put his finger into our Saviorus Side why should not we be satisfied by so many of our Senses that it is Bread and Wine when He was convinced by his bare Touch that it was his Lord and his God Upon two accounts it is impossible for Considering men to think that a Fallacy can be put upon us in this matter For 1. should we Suppose the Omnipotent power of God could turn Bread into Flesh the Species of Bread remaining still yet it would not at all answer that great End for which Miracles have been ever wrought and therefore it is not Reasonable for us to believe that God would do it It would be indeed the Greatest of all Miracles and infinitely beyond that which our Saviour Himself did when he turned Water into Wine for there the Colour the Taste the Smell the Operation of Water was changed as well as the Substance And as it is not in the least probable that every the Meanest Priest should every day do a Greater Miracle than ever our Lord himself did so it is not in the least Credible that God Himself would do a Miracle but to convince men of Some Necessary and Important Truth Should he do a Miracle for no other end but onely to shew his Power of necessity it must must be Seen it must be shewed in some sensible instance for otherwise it could not be a Demonstration of his Omnipotence But God never yet did any Miracle for the Miracle-sake but that thereby he might Attest the Truth of some Doctrine and might Convince men of Something which they could not well be convinced of but by Gods setting his own Seal to it after that manner For which reason all Miracles have been still Apparent and Open to the Senses and 't is Necessary they should be so because they would be of no Use were they not perceived neither could they prove any thing unless they themselves were Manifest And if we reckon up all the Miracles that ever were done in the world from the days of Moses to the times of the Gospel we shall find that instead of being Concealed and Hid from men they have been always Exposed and made Plain to mens Senses Now this doth utterly baffle the groundless pretence of Transubstantiation for that Doctrine supposeth God to do the Highest Miracle that ever was done to no Necessary purpose neither to edifie Us not to shew Himself and how can we think that he will make Wonders and his Power Cheap and with an Almighty hand alter the Course and Nature of things so as not to Glorifie himself nor to do Us Good by so doing This would be a Miracle that could not in any wise serve the Ends of all Miracles and it becomes us not to believe that the All-good and All wise God will deceive four of our Senses at once to no End at all since it hath been all along the method of his Providence to satisfie All our Senses for the Best purposes But this is not all there is secondly a Worse thing behind yet The Romanists by crying down the
Declaration of their Church probably they would have been contented that those words at the Institution should have born such a construction as would not have shook the Reason of men so notoriously 2. If we frame notions of things just according to the clink of a Phrase we must needs entertain very strange apprehensions of our Saviour himself because he is usually called a Lamb a Lyon a Shepherd a Rock a Door a Way a Vine and the like 3. As Christ saith here This is my Body so in Job 6. he saith also that he is the Bread of life and that his Flesh is Meat and his Bloud Drink He speaks as plainty and positively in the one place as he doth in the other Now if men affirm that the bread is changed into Christs Flesh because Christ saith positively This is my Body they have equally the same reason to affirm that Christs Flesh is turned into Bread and his Bloud into Drink because he said as positively My Flesh is meat indeed and my Bloud Drink indeed A latitude must be allowed to be as to the sense of those expressions or else men must fall into a Labyrinth of absurdities and contradictions which they can never wind themselves out of by the help of any clue 4. If we observe what our Saviour said to the Capernaites upon the like occasion we cannot but conclude that his meaning at both times was mystical The story we have in the 6th of S. John verily verily saith our Lord except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you vers 53. This seem'd a very Harsh expression because they conceived as the Romanists do now that Christ intended his Flesh should be torn in pieces with their Teeth and that his Natural bloud should be suckt out of his veins with their mouths The bare apprehension of this matter turn'd their stomachs so that they were scandaliz'd presently and fell off from him Therefore to rectifie their mistakes he expounded himself telling them that they were not to understand him in a literal and carnal sense no the words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life vers 63. meaning that he spake Mystically and that they were to interpret So that place was understood by the Ancients his words after a Spiritual manner and of a Spiritual and Divine way of feeding upon him and so we feed upon Christ who laughd at the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and so all good Christians fed upon him for many hundreds of years before that Doctrine was dreamt of or thrown about to debauch and intoxicate the world CHAP. VIII The Doctrine of Transubstantion inconsistent with and contrary to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church Proved by five Observations touching the common sense of Christian in the most ancient times A short account of the Doctrine of the Church in succeeding Ages till the twelfth Century 3. 'T Is true the Papists are wont to crack of Tradition and Antiquity as if all the ancient Fathers of the Catholick Church were on their side And nothing hath prevailed more with ordinary people to turn or continue Papists than an opinion that Transubstantiation was all along the Faith of the Christian Church I confess I wonder much that common people will pretend to be judges in this case when they understand little of Greek or Latine much less have skill to tell which of the Books that are ascribed to the Fathers are Genuine and which are supposititious But alass they are taught by their leaders to believe any thing and to talk by Rote like a sort of men among our selves who are readily perswaded to act any thing that is for the Cause for the Cause for their darling and dearly beloved Cause though they venture their Necks and their very Souls for an evil cause sake Therefore to clear this matter fully we will once for all try the point by unquestionable authorities and examine particularly what the sense of the Christian Church was chiefly in the Primitive times and ex abundanti in the times following And I am fouly mistaken if we do not find upon the whole enquiry that Tradition which the Romanists brag of so much is plainly against them for above a thousand years In the prosecution of this thing I beg leave to go a little out of the common rode not to trouble my self with an endless fatigue of collecting a world of sentences out of the Fathers a course which tho it be proper enough for a Disputant yet may be liable to a great many Cavils I shall rather chuse to argue from some observations that may be made upon those Controversies the Ancient Church had with Infidels and Hereticks which will evidently shew the sense of the Ancient Christians as to the point under our hands for this is certain that we can never better learn the sense of the Ancient Church than out of their Disputations especially when they go upon the same grounds and use the same way of Argumentation 1. Now first it is easie to observe what the sense of the Ancient Church was as to the eating of Humane Flesh and the drinking of Bloud The Pagans were wont for a long time to throw this in the teeth of the Primitive Christians that they celebrated Thyestean banquets and stories ran about that at their sacred Assemblies they killed a Child and then junketed together upon the tragical dish The Christians granted that the feasting upon Humane Flesh and Bloud was a most Barbarous and Flagitious crime but they proved themselves Innocent they abominated the very thoughts of any such detestable practice and in all their Apologies they declared their utter Abhorrence thereof so Justin Martyr in the Age next to the Apostles then Tatian after him Athenagoras and Theophilus Justin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Apolog. 2. Tatian Orat. cont Graec. P. 162. Athenagor legat pro Christian P. 4. 35 36. c. Theophil ad Autol. lib. 3 P. 119. 126. Tertullian Apologet. cap. 9. Origen cont Cels l. 6. P. 302. Minut. Felix in Octavio the Patriarch of Antioch After these Tertullian after him Origen and after him Minutus Faelix For an hundred years together were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theop. ad Autolyc the Primitive Christians busie in vindicating themselves from that Atheistical and Savage Practice as Theophilus calls it of eating mans flesh And to make this evidently appear the ancient Christians did appeal to their very Enemies who could not but know that some Christians were wont to refrain from all flesh whatsoever that none of them would taste of that which was strangled or which was destroyed Tantum ab Humano sanguine cavemus ut nec edulium pecorum in cibis sanguinem noverimus Minut. Felix P. 34. Denique inter tentament a Christianorum botulos cruore distentos admovetis certissimi scilicet illicitum esse penes illos c. Tertull. Apol. c.
his word whereby our Flesh and Bloud are by alteration nourisht to be the Flesh and Bloud of our Incarnate Saviour As Christ was God and man by the union of two real and distinct Substances the Humane and divine Substance so must the Eucharist be believed to consist of two real and distinct Natures the visible and invisible nature which Joannes Langus observed to be so strong an Argument against Transubstantiation that the Expurgatory Indexes have ordered his Annotations upon those words of Justin to be Quod Transubstantiationem non agnoseit sed apertè contendat cum corpore sanguine Christi remanere veram panis vini Substantiam Ind. Belgic p. 76. blotted out So he that wrote the forementioned book of the Lords Supper affirmeth that as in the Person of Christ the Humanity was seen and the Divinity was hid so in the visible Sacrament the Divine Essence infuseth it self after an invisible and ineffable manner S. Augustin S. Hillary and others of the Antients use the very same similitude and conclude that the Mystery of the Eucharist where two real Vide Augustin in Gratian de Consecr Distinct 2. c. 72. Hilar. de Trin. 1. 8. Ibid. c. 82. Natures go together in the same Sacrament is like the Mystery of the Incarnation where two real Substances were united together in the same Person For the Romanists themselves dare not say that only the Accidents of Humanity were in our Lord at his Incarnation and therefore they ought not to say neither that only the Accidents of bread and wine are in the Eucharist after Consecration At least they ought not to appeal to Antiquity for this conceit it being plainly the sense of the Primitive Church that as the Nature of Man was neither abolisht nor changed into Christs Divinity when 't was united to it so neither is the nature of bread abolisht or changed into Christs Body when 't is administred with it 5. It is observable that whereas some Hereticks in the Ancient times denyed our Saviour to have two several Natures the Catholicks proved he had so by this known received Principle because there are two several Natures in the Sacrament which is a Figure of Christ This is a thing which requires particular observation because it will clearly and undeniably prove that the sense of the Church which I have shewn for the first 300. years was the same still and indeed more plain if possible for the two Centuries next following The occasion of their speaking so plainly was this Between the third and fourth Century there brake out the pestilent heresie of Apollinaris S. Aug. de Haeres c. 55. who held that our Lord took not his Body of the holy Virgin but that the Word was made Flesh so that the Deity was turned and transubstantiated into the Manhood Against this Heresie S. Chrysostom undertook the defence of the Catholick Faith that Christ at his Incarnation was both God and Man one Person of two Natures joyned together which are not one Substance but each hath its Properties distinct from the other And how doth he prove this Why he argues from the condition of the Holy Sacrament wherein there are two Natures so that neither is the Bread turned into Christs Flesh nor his Flesh into Bread but both are distinct Sicut enim antequam Sanctisicetur panis panem nominamus Divina autem illum Sanctificante gratia medinate Sacerdote liberatus est quidem ab appellatione Panis dignus autem habitus est Dominici Corporis â—appellatione ersi Natura panis in ipso Permansâ—t non duo corpora sed unum flii corpus praedicatur sic hîc divina insidente corpori natura unum filium unam personam utraque haec fecerunt S. Chrysoft Ep. ad Caesarium contra Appollinarem in themselves though they go As saith S. Chrysostom before the Consecration of the bread we call it bread but when the Grace of God hath sanctified it by the Priest it is delivered from the name of Bread and is exalted to the Lords Body though the Nature of Bread remaineth still and so two things make one Eucharist so here the Divine Nature is in the Body of Christ but these two Substances are distinct and make one Son and one Person This is a very plain testimony on our side Afterwards the Apollinarians were divided in their opinions for they shifted and were Unstable for want of truth and then Theodoret took up the quarrel against them all in his book entitled Polymorphos For then the Heresie of Eutyches appeared abroad whose opinion was that though Christ had at First two Natures yet after the Union of them the Humanity ceased was quite absorpt and Transubstantiated into the Divinity To prove this those Hereticks drew an argument from the Eucharist Christs Body said they was turned into his Deity at the Ascension even as the Bread and Wine are turned into his Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret Dialog 1. and Bloud upon Consecration But to his Theodoret answered roundly that Christ honoured the visible Symbols with the name of his Body and Bloud not changing their Nature but to their Nature adding Grace And whereas it was urged again by those Hereticks that the Symbols of the Lords Body and Bloud are one thing before Invocation and another thing after Theodoret told them that they were taken in their own nets because the Mystical Signs do not Id. Dialog 2. depart from their own Nature after Sanctification but Remain in their former Substance aswell as in their Figure and form If this be not Home and Plain I know not what can be and yet we have a Further Testimony from the mouth of Gelasius who was Bishop of Rome too about 500 years after our Saviour He wrote an Excellent Book of the Two Natures of Christ against the Eutychians and Nestorians and how doth he argue Why he clears the Catholick Faith by arguing from the Eucharist too and these Gelas de duabus Naturis in Christo are his words Indeed the Sacraments of Christ Body and Bloud which we receive are a Divine thing for by them we are made partakers of the Divine Nature and yet it doth not cease to be the Substance or Nature of Bread and Wine The Image and Similitude of Christs Body and Bloud is in the Action of the Mysteries and by this it appears that we must think that to be in Christ which we Profess celebrate and take in the Image that as they pass into a Divine Substance by the Operation of the Holy Spirit the Nature of the things remaining still in their own Propriety so is the Principal Mysterie the Efficiency and Virtue whereof the Sacraments do Represent by their Continuing what they were it appears that they shew one entire and true Christ to continue also If this be not enough yet we will produce Ephraim the Patriarch for another witness after Gelasius He wrote very learnedly against
receive from Christ are called his Body his flesh and Blood upon these three accounts 1. First because they have the like Natural Properties which Flesh and blood hath and tend to the like Ends and Purposes to which flesh and blood serveth For as this helpeth to corroborate and animate our Bodies so do these Divine Virtues help to strengthen and enliven our Souls In which respect Christ Panis est esca sanguis vita caro substantia panis propter nutrimenti congruentiam sanguis propter vivificationis efficientiam caro propter assumptae humanitatis proprietatem Panis iste communis in carnem sanguinem mutatus procurat vitam incrementum corporibus ideoque ex consueto rerum effectu fidei nostrae adjuta infirmitas sensibili argumento edocta est visibilibus Sacramentis in esse vitae eterne effectum c. Author de Can. Domini Cyprian is to us meat indeed and drink indeed for these Spiritual Influences which spring from him are as Flesh to feed and as Bloud to preserve our Spirits to Life everlasting 2. These Spiritual Virtues do issue immediately from Christs Humane Nature and therefore when we receive them we are truly said to participate of Christs Body For the Body of Christ by being united to the Deity is become a Quickning Body This S. Cyril 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Cyril Alex. in Joan. l. 4. of Alexandria teacheth us that the Son of God is by Nature Life as being begotten of the Living Father yet nevertheless that his Holy Body is Vivifick too as being joyned and United after an ineffable manner to the Word which Quickneth all things This S. Cyril of all the Ancient Doctors I know of hath given the Fullest the Clearest the most Substantial account of this matter though what he says is very agreeable to the sense of the Rest who by Christs Real Presence in the Sacrament understood nothing else but the Presence of those Heavenly Virtues and Influences which are called his Body because they are the Distillations and Effects of his Glorified Humane Nature For as a Learned Doctor of our own Church hath confidently affirmed though the Divine Nature be the Prime Fountain of life to Dr. Jaekt son vol. 3. l. 2. c. 3. all and an inexhaustible Fountain in it self yet a Fountain it is whereof we cannot drink save as it is derived to us through the Humane Nature of Christ And though God the Father doth convey unto us many inestimable blessings yet he conveys them only through his Son and not only through him as our Advocate or Intercessor but through him as our Mediator that is through his Humanity as the Organ or Conduit So that we are as truly said to partake of Christs Body when we partake of these Blessings as we can be said to partake of a Spring when we drink of the Waters which stream and flow from it 3. Besides nothing is more usual among Mankind than to give the Denomination of things to the Virtue and efficacy of those things So we are said to be warmed with the Fire when we onely feel its Heat and to have the benefit of the Sun when we are comforted onely with its Rayes Which Two Similitudes I make use of the rather not onely because they serve to illustrate the matter in hand but also because S. Chrysostome calls that Heavenly thing we receive at Sacrament Spiritual Fire and because the Holy Scripture it self calls our Ad Pop. Antioch Hom. 60. Saviour the Sun of Righteousness And as it is not Improper to say that the Sun though it be at a vaste distance from us reacheth every corner of the Earth so that in the Fields in our Houses in our Closest Retirements we feel it and nothing is hid from it from the moss upon the wall to the Vegetables that are wrapped up in the bosome of the earth when yet all these are cherisht not by the Sun it self but by its Beans onely so it is not a Paradox to believe that the Sun of Righteousness casteth his Influences from above and quickens his Church and every part thereof so that every heart that is not quite Dead in Trespasses and Sins Ecclesia corpus Christi effecta obsequitur capiti suo superius lumen in inferior a diffusum claritatis suae plenitudinae a fine usque ad finem attingens totum apud se manens totum se omnibus commodat caloris illius identitas it a corpori assidet uta capite non recedat Panis itaque hic azymus cibus verus sincerus per speciem Sacramentum nos tactu Sanctificat c. De Caena Dom. opusc S. Cypriano ascript like a Rotten Root Receives the benefit of his Operations neither is it any Impropriety of speech to say that our hearts are wrought upon by the Body of Christ that we are Partakers of his Body that we are enlivened and comforted by his very Body when we receive those Spiritual Virtues which are darted from that Glorified Body of his which is in Heaven 4. By this time I hope it doth appear how necessary the distinction is between Christs Natural and Spiritual Body and what is meant by that Spiritual Body and why it is so called I proceed next to shew that He hath indeed such a Spiritual Body wherewith he really quickneth and strengthneth every faithful Christian For the clearing hereof we must observe our Saviours discourse which the Jews in the sixth chapter of S Johns Gospel by occasion of their speaking of the Miracle of the Manna he told them that he would give his followers the true Bread from Heaven that his Flesh which he would give for the life of the World should be that Heavenly Bread that his Flesh should be meat indeed and his Bloud drink indeed and that it was necessary for every one who hoped for life to eat that Flesh and to drink that Bloud of his To conceive as the Socinians and some other modern Writers do that by his Flesh is meant his Doctrine only and that by eating his Flesh and drinking his Bloud is meant the Believing of his Doctrine and no more to me seems a forced a foreign and very weak Notion and an inexcusable act of Singularity For all the Fathers of the Greek and Latin Churches do with one mouth interpret our Saviours discourse of that Spiritual Communication of his Flesh and Bloud wherewith every good Christian is blest Now that our Saviour might make this credible and easie to his Auditors that his Flesh and Bloud should be meat and drink to the Souls of his Disciples he opens the matter to them these two ways 1. By intimating to them that he was to Ascend up in his Body into Heaven vers 62. what if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before For this reason saith Athanasius he put them in mind of his Ascension 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas in illud si
quis dixerit verbum contra filium c. Tom. 1. P. 979. Edit Par. into Heaven that he might draw off their minds from Gross and Carnal Apprehensions and that they might thenceforth know that the Flesh he speak of was to be Food from above Heavenly and Spiritual nourishment that he S. Cyril Alex. in Joan. lib. 4. c. 22. was to give them And this was no more impossible for him to do than it was impossible for him to fly through the air he could as easily make his Body Spiritual and vital as he could make an Heavenly of an Earthly Substance especially since he was God which he put them in mind of by telling them that he was in Heaven before 2. But to clear the matter fully he Id. 16. c. 23. Interpreted himself to them vers 63. It is the Spirit that Quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing meaning as S. Cyril excellently understands it that though his Flesh considered in it self could not quicken any thing as standing in need it self of a quickning principle yet considering the Mystery of the Incarnation and how the Word dwelleth in the Flesh we are to conclude that even the Body of Christ hath a quickning Faculty being united to that Word which giveth life to all For the corruptible Nature of Man did not degrade the Word by being joyned unto it but became it self exalted into a far better condition so that though it Quickneth not of it self yet it doth by the Energy and Operation of the Word the Spirit or Deity of Christ the plenitude whereof dwelleth in our Saviours Flesh bodily and so maketh it Vivisick This truth being laid down that our Lords Body is full of Vital virtue by being united to the Godhead it followeth very plainly that we must not think of eating the Natural and Heavenly Substance of our Lords Body after a Bodily manner with our mouths But of receiving into our Hearts and Souls the Spiritual Virtues of his glorified Flesh with a lively Faith the words that I speak Ubi supra unto you they are Spirit and they are Life saith Christ meaning thus much according to Athanasius that my Body which is given for the World shall be given for food to be ministred to every one after a Spiritual manner his words are Spiritual and to be spiritually understood as S. Cyril S. Chrysostom and the rest all say that is to be interpreted of that Spirit which is Life and which giveth life and of those Spiritual Influences which come from Christs Heavenly Body by the virtue energy and operation of that Eternal vivifick Word which abideth in it From this whole discourse of our Saviour especially as it is explained by those two great Luminaries of the Church S. Cyril and Athanasius we are to conceive that the Humane Nature of Christ being taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Cyril in Joan. lib. 4. c. 24. into God at his Incarnation and being vested with the Glories of Heaven upon his Ascension is so full of the Energy of the Divine Spirit that it is become a Spiritual Body Not that it hath lost the Nature of Flesh but because it is Hypostatically united to the Godhead by reason of which Union it is endued with an enlivening Quid est eundem nisi quia eum quem etiam nos S. Aug. Tom. 10. Hom. 27. Power and the Man Christ Jesus that Quickning Spirit doth through his Glorified Humanity dispense those Spiritual Virtues which are the proper Food and Nutriment of the Soul and are fitly called Christs Spiritual Body Christs Spiritual Flesh and Bloud This may be further illustrated yet by considering what S. Paul saith 1 Cor. 10. 3 4. how that our Fathers in the wilderness did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same Spiritual drink meaning that they had the same Spiritual meat and drink with us For they drank of that Spiritual Rock that went with them and that Rock was Christ And how did they eat and drink of Christ but by receiving from him those Graces and Vertues which have all along been the Portion and Sustenance of the Faithful For Christ was with all Believers under the Law before his manifestation in the Flesh they were continually under his care and Providence their Souls lived by his Divine Influence as their Bodies were supported with Manna and were refresht by waters out of the Rock Now these were Figures of good things to come that when Christ the true Manna should descend from Heaven and should be smitten upon the Cross as the Rock which prefigur'd him was smitten with Moses Rod he would ever be life and aliment to those that should believe on his Name and that that Body of his which was to be smitten as the Rock was should send forth such abundant salutary streams of Living waters as would Quench the thirst of every true Israelite to all Eternity And this real but Ineffable presence of Christs Grace and Virtues is that which the Doctors of the Christian Church meant when they speak with such ravishment of the Presence of the Holy Jesus with us poor mortals in this vale of misery They entertain'd not any mean and nauseous conceits of the presence of Christs Natural Body whether in or out of the Sacrament but they were taken up with Noble and Lofty speculations and they fixt their minds upon the Divine and Mysterious consideration of those Beatifying streams of Grace which spring from Christ the Fountain of everlasting life and are conveyed unto his Church through his Humanity by the efficacious operation of his Divine Spirit The Anciens considered that the eating of Christ Natural Flesh and the drinking of his Natural Bloud were the thing possible and consistent with Humanity could not be profitable could not be to any purpose in comparison of those vital and operative Virtues which flow from Christ and Quicken all that are capable and apt to be quickned and therefore their meditations soared high they listed up their own minds to Heaven instead of bringing down Christ upon the Earth they minded and spake of the real presence of his Spiritual Body only And when we find some of them to speak as if the Nature and Substance of Christ were exhibited to us we should consider what they themselves meant by those and the like expressions For they spake like Divines that were full of Lofty and Seraphick notions and were forced to speak of Mysteries in a high strain giving the Elements in the Sacrament becoming and honourable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Cyril ubi Supr Names but intending by the Flesh and Bloud of Christ the Virtue the Grace the Spirituallities and Efficacy of his Humane Nature as it is Quickned and made quickning to us by the Power of the Eternal Word in conjunction with it As S. Austin says Secundam Majestatem suam secundum providentiam secundum Ineffabilem Invisibilem Gratiam impletur quod ab
eo dictum est Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem seculi Secundum carnem vero quod verbum assumpsit secundum id quod de Virgine natus est secundum id quod a Hudaeis prebensus est quod ligno confixus quod de cruce depositus quod linteis involutus quod in sepulchro conditus quod in resurrectione manifestatus non semper habebitis vobiscum S. Aug. Tractat. 50. in John plainly in respect of that Body which was assumed by the Word which was born of the Virgin which was apprehended by the Jews which was nailed to the Tree which was taken down from the Cross and was wrapped up and laid in the Sepulchre in respect of that Body we have him not with us but in respect of his Majesty in respect of his Providence in respect of his Ineffable and invincible Grace that promise of his is fulfilled lo I am with you alwayes even unto the end of the world And speaking of the Eucharist he doth distinguish between Nam nos bodie accipimus visibilem cibum used aliud est Sacramentum aliud virtus Sacramenti S. Aug. Tractat. 26. in John Usque ad Spiritûs participationem manducemus bibamus Id Tract 27. the Sacrament it self and the virtue of the Sacrament calling that the Grace of Christ which is not consumed with our Teeth and the participation of the Spirit This is that which S. Austin elsewhere calls the Intelligible the Invisible the Spiritual Body of Christ that which Ireneus calls the Heavenly thing that which Clement and Jerome call the spiritual Flesh and Bloud of the Lord That which Pseudo-Cyprian calls the Divine Virtue the Divine Essence the Divine Majesty the participation of the Spirit the drink which flowes and streams from that Spiritual Rock Christ Jesus That which S. Ambrose calls the spiritual Aliment and the Body of a Divine Spirit that which others call the Lords Immortality his Divine Body the Truth of his Body the Nutriment of the Inward Man the vital Pulment of the Incarnate Deity and divers other expressions we meet with in old Authors signifying the wonderful vertues of Christs Glorified Humanity whereof every Faithful Soul is made Partaker S. Ifidore Pelusiot conceived that the roasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidor Pelus Ep. 219. l. 1. of the Paschal Lamb with Fire did Typically fignifie that Christ the true Pasleover was to unite the Fire of the Divine Essence to his Flesh to be eaten of us That 's his Experssion and it shews his opinion that we receive the virtue of his Divine through his Humane Nature Among modern Foreign Writers none seems to me to have explained this thing better than the moderate and Judicious Author of the Diallacticon Eucharistiae a Book written about 130. years ago to compose all controversies Hoc corpus hunc sanguinem carnem hanc substantiam corporis non communi more nec ut humana ratio dictat accipi oportet sed it a nominari existimari credi propter eximios quosdam effectus virtutes proprietates conjunctas quae corpori sanguini Christi natura in sunt nempe quod Pascat animas nostras vivificet simul corpora ad resurrectionem immortalitatem praeparet Dialact pag. 33. 34. Non hic cogitandûm est nos crudas bominis carnes comedere vel sanguinem bibere Sed verba spiritalia esse spiritualiter intelligenda carnem quidem sanguinem nominari sed de Spiritu Vita idest vivifica dominicae carnis virtute debere intellagi c. Ibid. pag. 25. Quia figur a veri corporis panis est jure Corpus appellatur quia virtutem ejusdem vitalem conjunctam habet multo magis tum vero maxime quod utrumque complectitur Ibid. pag 54. Panis Domini Corpus Christi est quia gratiam virtutem ejus vitalem conjunctam habet Quod outem haec non commentitia aut nuper nata sententia est sed ab antiquis recepta approbata Scriptoribus claris ipsorum testimoniis confirmabimus Ibid. pag. 57. about the Sacrament and he too goes altogether this way shewing that that Body of Christ which is present with us is his spiritual Body and that we communicate thereof by deriving Efficacy Power and Vital Virtue from the Body of the Lord. And this account I am the better pleased and satisfied with because it was a Notion that was en tertained and really asserted by a very Learned Doctor of our own Church with Dr. Jack vol. 3. p. 325. Seq whose words I shall conclude this consideration we must not collect saith he that Christs Body because comprehended within the Heavens can exercise no real operation upon our Bodies or Souls here on Earth or that the live Influence of his Glorified Humane Nature may not be diffused through the World as he shall be pleased to dispense it no we must not take upon us to limit or bound the Efficacy of Christs Body upon the Bodies or Souls which he hath taken into his Protection there are Influences of Life which his Humane Nature doth distill from his Heavenly Throne And the Sacramental Bread is called his Body and the Sacramental Wine his Bloud as for other reasons so especially for this because the Virtue and Influence of his most Bloudy Sacrifice is most plentifully and most effectually distilled from Heaven unto the worthy Receivers and many more things he saith to the same effect By this account we may easily undergand the meaning of the sixth chapter of S. John which hath so puzled many Learned Interpreters and we may fairly give the reason of the Sentence of our Lords Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his Bloud ye have no life in you For the Principle of life comes from our Lords Glorified Humanity and unless we receive into our Souls the vital Virtue which distilleth from it we can be in no other than a dead Condition I do not mean that 't is impossible to have life without receiving the Sacrament no there is that which Divines call a Sacramental and Spiritual receiving of Christ and a Spiritual receiving only when men eat and drink after a right manner they receive both the Sacrament and also the thing or virtue of the Sacrament but yet men may derive and by Faith do derive virtue from Christ without the Sacrament if they do not abstain through negligence or the love of sin and the like The Grace of God is not tyed to Sacraments so but that God may dispense it as he pleaseth nor are we to conceive that the Blessed Body of Christ doth quicken none but at the Communion CHAP. X. That Christs Spiritual Body is actually verily and really taken and received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper Proved from the Analogy thereof to other Sacrifical Feasts among Jews and Heathens From S. Pauls Viscourse 1 Cor. 10. and from the sense of
at those who are pleased to talk as if the Fathers believed Transubstantiation Yet nevertheless they all with one mouth confessed the Body of Christ to be in the Sacrament and so do we now but in that sense which the Ancient Church meant they believed the presence of Christ spiritual Body and after a spiritual manner and that is our Faith also and we cannot be condemned for Hereticks but the old Catholick Church must lye under the Anathema too 3. This account serves for ever to break the neck of their pretences who to defend their new Doctrine of Transubstantiation and other pestilent Errors which are built upon it do stifly urge the literal and strict construction of those words this is my Body and this is my Bloud supposing that it passeth the skill of the Protestants to give a better Interpretation whereas this account gives such a fair such an Intelligible such a Rational such a Catholick explication of the thing that the Romanists themselves if they would consider it well may look upon their Construction not only a very absurd but as a very needless one too 4. This account may serve to reconcile and make up those differences which are between some Reformed Churches about this matter For whereas 't is granted by us on all hands that the Elements retain still their own Nature and Substance even after Consecration and yet the Lutheran Churches hold that Christs Real and Substantial Body is delivered together a long with the Elements methinks this should not be enough to maintain a breach if men were considerate and candid and would not insist too much upon Phrases For if by Christ real and substantial Body be meant as I believe the old Lutherans did mean the real and as they may be called in some * For the Ancients themselves used the words Nature Substance c. to this sense as is well observed by the Judicious Author of the Diallacticon commended by Lavater in his Historia Sacrament Cum agitur de Sacramentis mentionem faciunt Patres Naturae Substantiae non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc est non ut Philosophi naturales loquuntur sed ut homines de Divinis rebus disserentes Gratiae Virtuti Efficacitati Naturae Substantiaeque nomen impertientes nimirum Sacramenti natura id postulante Diallact .. pag. 63. Edit Anno 1557. Est autem virtus corporis Christi efficax vivifica quae per gratiam Mysticam benedictionem cum pane vino conjungitur vino conjungitur variis nominibus appeilatur quum res eadem sit Ab Augustino Corpus intelligibile invisible spirituale Ab Hieronimo Caro Divina Spiritualis Ab Irenaeo Res Caelestis Ab Ambrosio Esca Spiritualis Corpus Divini Spiritus Ab aliis aliud simile quippiam Et hoc multo etiam magis efficit ut hoc Sacramentum dignissimum sit veri Corporis Sanguinis nomenclaturâ quum non solum extrinsecus figuram imaginem ejus prae se ferat verùm etiam intus abditam lâ—â—entem naturalem ejusdem corporis proprietatem hoe est vivificam virtutem secum trahat ut ham non inanis figura aut absentis omnino rei signum existimari posset sed ipsum Corpus Domini Divinum quidem Spirituale sed presens gratia plenum virtute potens efficacitate Ibid. pag. 56. 57. sense the Substantial Virtues and Influences of Christs Body I do not see but all Reformed Churches in the World mightshake hands and be Friends as to this matter 5. This account serves to the clear meaning of several Doctors of our own who are wont to say that Christ is present in the Sacrament and received in and by the Sacrament and that really but yet Spiritually Mystically Sacramentally Effectually Virtually and the like all which expressions otherwise hard to be understood are very Intelligible if we do but take this notion along with us that the Virtues and Influences which flow from Christ are by the due use of this Sacrament actually really and effectually dispensed CHAP. XI Other Blessings which we receive by the Sacrament As the Assistance of the Holy Spirit Proved from the Words of Christ and S. Paul The Confirmation of our Faith An intimate Union with Christ What that Union is explained and Proved Lastly a Pledge of an Happy Resurrection THis then being a Fixt principle that by means of the Holy Bread and Wine we do really participate of Christs Body and Bloud divers other Blessings do necessarily follow which depend upon this as upon the Prime and Fundamental Blessing And as I have shewed already that pardon of Sin is the effect of our feeding upon Christ in a Mystical sence so I am to shew you next that there are more Blessings which accrue to us by our Communicating of Christ after that real and spiritual manner which has been explained now And the next is this that hereby we receive such large supplies and measures of Christs Spirit as are suitable to our necessities Our condition by nature is so miserable that we are not sufficient of our selves no not to think any thing that is good as of our selves therefore unless we receive supernatural aids and assistances from Heaven it is impossible for us to make our selves meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Without me ye can do nothing as our Saviour told his Disciples Joh. 15. 5. without the communications of his Holy Spirit 't is in vain to conceive that either we can have our fruit unto Holiness or reap in the end everlasting life For this reason he there compares himself unto a vine and us unto the branches because as the branches cannot bear fruit of themselves except they abide in the Vine so neither can we except we abide in Christ That spiritual assistance which is derived from Christ unto every particular Christian is like that vital Sap which is conveyed from the Root unto every particular Twig And by means of his vital Spirit it is that we thrive and grow and bring forth fruit unto perfection Hence Christ is called our Life because he is the Authour of that quickning Principle whereby we live unto righteousness and from Him it is that the whole Body of the Church by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and being knit together increaseth with the increase of God Col. 2. 19. Now this Heavenly assistance this quickning Principle this Divine Nutriment is given to every Soul by the Mysterious and Gracious Energy of the Spirit and by the due celebration of the Eucharist the assistances of the Spirit are the more plentiful and his Irrigations are the more abundant a dew is then increased into a showre and every thirsty Communicant is largely refresht with distillations from above as the parched ground in Summer is refresht with Rain This appears two ways first because as hath been proved by this Blessed Mystery we are
to mean purposes but his office is by kindly and gracious operations to renew mens minds and to bring their hearts still more and more to such a temper and frame as is suitable to the Laws of the Gospel So that our drinking of the Spirit at the Holy Communion must necessary have this effect that those good things are establisht which were wrought in us before by the Spirits Energy Noâ— is this any more than what Devout Communicants find to be true by their own experience their minds are then fixt upon things of Heaven their sense of Christs Love is then strong their affections to him are then warm their hope in him is then lively and comfortable their Charity to others is then great and their whole Soul is full of the most ravishing Pleasures so that were men careful not to stifle or resist the Spirit but to keep themselves so well disposed all their time as they are when they go from the Lords Table it would be impossible either for their salvation to be insecure or for their minds to be uneasie And yet Faustus Socinus will by no means allow our Faith to be at all Confirm'd by the use of the Lords Supper He looks upon that Holy Rite as a work of our own as he is pleas'd to call it as an ordinary thing that we do among one another in Commemoration of the Lords Death but not as a Mystery whereby we receive any benefit any advantage from God But though the Heretick be so admired as a great man of sense and reason yet he trifles altogether and talks Impertinently and Idly upon this as he doth Sophistically upon the Rest of his own notions For why doth not the celebration of this Mystery confirm our Faith Why saith Socinus the distribution of the bread and wine cannot do it because they are mean things which testifie Nec enim panis ille fractus a nobis comestus vinumque in poculum infusum a nobis epotum oftendunt nobis aut suadent vere Christi Corpus pro nobis fractum fuisse c. Socin de usu S. Caen. nothing which shew no reasons for our Faith nor contain any thing that perswadeth us to believe that Christs Body was Broken or that his Bloud was shed for us Now the Heretick and his followers in this argument do first mistake the Question for we do not say that the bare distribution of the Elements is the thing which serveth to help and strengthen our faith but that this is done by the whole action Now the whole Action containeth Prayers and praises a rehearsal of the Institution and a declaration of Christs Passion as well as a division of the Creatures of Bread and Wine All these things come under the Notion of the Eucharist and each of them ministreth to the confirmation of our faith especially since they all concur in the same Action because they were appointed by Christ himself to be done in Commemoration of his death and consequently do suppose and argue that he died indeed 2. So that Secondly these men are false and deceitful in this their way of reasoning that the Sacrament is no Proof of our Lords Passion For 1. St. Paul saith plainly that as often as we eat this Bread and drink this Cup we do shew forth the Lords Death 1 Cor. Nec oftendunt nobis aut suadent c ubi supr 11. 26. which in express terms contradicteth the Doctrine of Socinus This is an outward Testimony for my faith to rely up on 2. The Holy Spirit is given as hath Nonne ad credendum Evangelio Spiritus sancti interiore dono opus est Non Catech Sect. 6. cap. 6. been proved with the Bread and Wine and by his secret operation I am perswaded to believe the Article of Christs Passion to be true That 's an inward Confirmation of my Faith though I suppose the Socinians may not value that because they allow not Faith to be the effect of the Spirits operation 3. Considering that this Ordinance was instituted by Christ himself as a memorial of his death and that he hath appointed us the use of it for that reason and upon that account this is evidence and proof enough to convince me that he suffered and died of a truth The Divine institution and command together with the meaning End and Design of it this is that which we ought Quid insulsius quam si quis ita argumentaretur nos panem istum frangimus comedimus idque ut praedicemus Christum corpus Sanguinem suum pro nobis tradidisse Igi ur verum est ita Christum fecisse Socin in Append ad scriptum de Caena Dom. particularly and carefully to regard and then if I argue thus we eat Bread and drink Wine by the Divine appointment and institution that we may declare that Christ gave his Body and blood for us and therefore it is very true that Christ did so this is no absurd argumentation as that wicked Impostor had the confidence to say it is rather a very rational and clear way of reasoning for why should I believe that Christ would command me to commemorate that which is an untruth It is a plain argument that Christ did dye because he hath required us to Celebrate this Mystery in memory of his Passion and consequently it is true that the Celebration of this mystery is for the confirmation of our faith The meaning and signification of this Mystery is the thing which we are principally to consider and to illustrate this matter briefly by two familiar instances let us consider that common Phaenomenon in the air which we call the Rainbow If you ask a Philosopher about it he will tell you that t is nothing but a Meteor the Natural effect of such and such Natural causes but the Christian will tell you that it is a Token of that promise which God made of old unto Noah and therefore when we see the Rainbow we may assuredly believe that tho the World was once drowned with a Flood it shall never be destroyed by Waters again Thus the signification and meaning of that thing is for the Confirmation of our Faith tho' there be not groundse nough for this perswasion from the Nature of the thing it self 2. Again let us consider that ancient Mystery the Passeover Supper the eating of a Lamb with bitter Herbs to the ignorant Pagan might seem but an Ordinary meal or perhaps a silly because unpleasant Ceremony but to the Jews it was a Rite of great signification because it was a memorial of Gods Mercy to their Fathers in delivering them out of Egypt and therefore God commanded even their Posterity to keep it with all diligence and solemnity Now let me ask the Socinian was not this memorial thus instituted thus appointed sufficient grounds for all the Jews in after-ages to believe that the History of that deliverance was true Nay are not all the Jews in the
the Root doth Convey its Quality to the Boughs so doth the Son of God give Cyril Alex. in Joan. l. 10. c. 13. to his Saints an affinity of his Own and his Fathers Nature by giving them his Spirit so that by the participation of his Spirit whereby we are conjoyned unto him we Communicate of his Nature To the same purpose are those words Jo. 17. 21. where the Holy Jesus prayed that his Disciples might be One that as the Father is in him and he in the Father so his Disciples might be One in or with them Which words do import something more than an Unity of Affection and Will for the Son is One with the Father and the Father One with the Son by being Both of the same Divine Essence so that we may conceive the full meaning of that Prayer to be that all Christians might be One not onely with themselves by the Unity of Faith and Love and with God by Consent and Agreement of Will but that they might be One with the Son and the Father by bearing in them the Divine Image by a likeness Similitude and Resemblance of Nature though they cannot be One by Identity of Substance Thus I am sure some of the Ancients understood this and the other place of Scripture where Christ is called a Vine And the Faith of the Old Catholick Church was this that by the efficacious Energy of Gods Spirit some Rays of his Divinity are conveyed into us whereby we are made partakers of the Divine Nature and that this Participation of Nature is the closest Ligament * S. Ignatius calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. ad Ephes pag. 22. Bandage and Instrument of Union between Us and our Redeemer This will evidently appear by this one Argument Some Hereticks did of old as the the Socinians do now Deny the Divinity of our Saviour and when they were put hard to it by the Catholick Doctors who argued against them from those words of Christ himself I and my Father are One and from other places of the like importance the Hereticks returned this answer that Christ is One with the Father by * Id quod ait Ego Pater unum sumus tentant Haeretici ad unanimitatis referre consensum ut voluntatis in his Unit as sit non naturae id est ut non per id quod idem Sunt sed per id quod idem volunt unum sunt Hilar nitate lib. 8. pag. 119. Ed. Par. Unity of Love and by agreement of Will but not by Identity of Essence But this would not by any means Satisfie the Catholicks who proved an Unity of Nature between Christ and his Father by shewing that Unity of Nature which is between Christ and Us in some Cvril Alex. in Joan. lib. 10. c. 13. measure and Degree We do not deny saith S. Cyril but that we are joyned to Christ by a True Faith and Sincere Love but that there is no Union at all between him and Us in respect of his Flesh that saith he we do utterly Deny For Christ is in Us by the Communication of his Nature And again besides the Unity of Consent and Will Id lib. 11. c. 26. there is saith he a Natural Union whereby we are Tyed unto God And again we are made the Sons of God and Heavenly men being made one with Christ by the participation of the Divine Nature and so we are One not onely by Affection and Consent but one also by the Communion of his Holy Flesh and one by the Participation of One Holy Spirit S. Cyril was very prolix and very Positive and Dogmatical upon this point and so was S. Hilary before him for he did argue the same way and did plainly assert a Natural * Eos nunc qui inter patrem filium voluntatis ingerant unitatem interrogo utrumne per naturae veritatem bodie Christus in nobis sit an per concordiam voluntatis Si enim vere verbum caro factum est nos vere verbum carnem cibo Dominico sumimus quomodo non naturaliter manere in nobis existimandus est qui naturam carnis nostrae jam insepar abilem sibi homo natus assumpsit naturam carnis suae ad naturam aternitatis sub Sacramento nobis communicanda carnis admiscuit Hilar. de Trin. lib. 8. Haec vitae nostrae causa est quod in nobis carnablibus manentem per carnem Christum habemus victuris nobis per euin ea conditione qua vivit ille per patrem Si ergo nos naturaliter secunduim carnem per eum vivimus id est naturam carnis suae adepti quomodo non naturaliter secundum spiritum in se patrem habeat cum vivat ipse per Patrem Id. ibid. Unity between Christ and Us meaning such an Union as is wrought by the Communion of his Nature This is saith he the cause of our Life that we have Christ abiding in us according to his Flesh that is his Spiritual Flesh and we live by him as he himself liveth by the Father c. Now Christ liveth by his Father through the Communication of his Divine Substance and we live by Christ through the Communication of his Holy Nature * By the Communication of Christs Nature to us is meant the Communinication of the Divine Virtues of his Flesh which are like sparks conveyed into Our nature and by means of this Communication of Christs Virtues that Union is wrought between him Us which S. Hillary and S. Cyril call a Natural Union Sensus est Christum in nobis esse non per corporis sui Substantiam sed per Efficaciam carnis suae quam in Eulogia Mystica participamus unde resultat cum eo inter nos vera Unitas Quis enim negare posset aut participationem efficaciae earnis ejus veram ac Realem esse aut ex ejusmodi participatione veram Realem unitatem inter illum nos consurgere Albertinus de Sacr. Euchar. lib. 2. pag. 765. The Notion of our Union with Christ being thus explained it is easie to prove now that this strict and most blessed Union is effected by a due use of this Holy Sacrament For since we do hereby participate of his Blessed Body and Bloud and are endued with a plentiful measure of his Spirit it necessarily and plainly followeth that we receive such a portion of his Nature as is suitable to our Capacities and so that we are One with him because we receive of His and are enlivened and quickned by the same Spirit which dwelleth in him and are of one and the same Nature with him But besides the words of Christ himself are plain Jo. 6. 56. He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in Him Perhaps the words are to be understood as if they were to be read Thus as he dwelleth in me so I dwell in him meaning that as our Nature was United to
his when he became Incarnate so his Nature is United to Ours when we eat his Flesh and drink his Bloud And this we infallibly do when we worthily celebrate this Holy Mystery Though in some cases men may eat his Flesh and drink his Bloud Spiritually and by faith alone without the Sacrament yet we do it much more and more effectually by the Sacrament and consequently we must be supposed to be more nearly United to him by means of this Ordinance then by any other means whatsoever Hence it was as some of the Ancients tell us that Christ appointed the use of such Creatures as are of a Nourishing faculty for so Bread and Sicut cibus materialis forinsecus nutrit corpus vegetat ita etiam verbum Dei intus animam nutrit roborat c. Raban de Serm. proprietate lib. 5. cap. 11. Wine are to shew that as there is a Natural Incorporation of our nourishment into our Flesh so there is a Spiritual Incorporation if I may so speak of Christ into our souls And hence it is that others of them compare the Spirit of Christ which is received by the Sacrament to Leaven representing to us by that Similitude that there is such a Diffusion Cyril Alex. in Joan. l. 4. cap. 17. of Spiritual Virtue throughout the soul as there is of ferment that leaveneth the whole Lump into which it is cast And Id. lib. 10. c. 13. hence it is that S. Cyril also compares the Mixture of Christ's Nature with Ours to the Mixture of wax with wax when several pieces of wax are melted and incorporated together All these Notions and Similitudes and divers more such which we meet with in the writings of the Ancients do shew that by eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Bloud especially at and by the Sacrament we do so participate of his Spirit of his Virtues Influences and Divine Nature as that Christ and we do become One * Quemadmodum intelligit Cyrillus Glaphyr in Genes lib. 7. Christum se in animas immittere per Gratiam virtutem Spiritus sic etiam sensus ipsius est eum corpora ingredi per virtutem corporis sui Eucharistiae communicatam nec ulterius urgendae sunt comparationes quas affert mixtionis scentillae ignis caerae fermenti Albertinus ubi supr pag. 761. And thence followeth the last inestimable blessing that I shall mention a Blessing that we carry with us to the very Grave viz. an Assurance and Pledge of a Glorious Resurrection It is appointed unto man once to dye Heb. 9. 27. This Sentence having past upon our Parents in Paradise Nature it self doth now Execute it upon their Posterity For as none can bring a clean thing out of an Unclean so none can bring an Incorruptible thing out of a Mortal We dye of course Christ that took on him the burden of our sins did not take off this weight from us though he delivered us from all Necessity of tumbling into Hell yet there are wise and great Reasons for which he did not think it fit for him to keep us from falling into the Grave But yet that we may dye in Hope in hope of a joyfull Resurrection as corn is committed to the earth in hope of a good Harvest Christ doth by this Sacrament take Seisure of our Bodies by communicating to us his Own and so uniting us to himself that he may change our vile Body and make it like unto his own Glorious Body according to the mighty Energy whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 13. Hence it is that the Church in her wisdome hath thought it convenient that men should often receive this Sacrament especially in times of danger distress and Sickness to the end that they may make their peace with God and with their own Consciences and may go out of this world with firm and well grounded hopes both of a plenary Absolution and of an Happy Resurrection For this Sacrament is an Earnest to assure all worthy Communicants that these very Bodies of theirs in which Infirmities and death do now Lodge shall be raised again out of the dust being nourisht as it were out of the veins of our Redeemer These Elements are the Symbols of our Resurrection the Medicine of Immortality the Antitode that keeps us from Final Corruption the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Ep ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanal Conservatory for a Resurrection to Eternal Life That which hath been spoken already doth make this evident sufficiently 1. For first it is sure that by the Sacrament we receive the Spirit of Christ and since the same Spirit is communicated to Us that dwelleth in Him it must necessarily follow that it shall have the same power over our Flesh which it had over His to raise it up again at the day appointed Thus S. Paul himself argueth Rom. 8. 11. If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you 2. Secondly seeing the Holy Communion is an instrument of Uniting even our Bodies unto him who is the Head over all so that the members of our Bodies are the very members of Christ and we become as it were bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh less cannot follow then that our Bodies shall be made Immortal as His is it being impossible that any thing which is His should perish everlastingly To effect such an Union as is between Christ and his Church it is not necessary nor possible that there should be a confusion or conjunction of bodily Substances It sufficeth that there is a Contact of Spiritual Vertue from the Flesh of Christ Now this Vertue goes along with the Sacrament and is received by every faithful Communicant so that it doth affect even his Body Sanctifying and Appropriating it to the Saviour of our Souls and Bodies both and making our whole man His. And this Union cannot in any wise be dissolved by Death because Death is onely a Separation of the Soul from the Body so that for that time the one loseth all vital activity from the other but neither of them doth or can lose its Title to Christs Protection the Body continueth still related unto its Head as in time of its Life and the Union between Christ and it remaineth entire and so its Right to a glorious Resurrection through Christ is indefeisable In this respect our Condition is very like to the Condition of the Son of God when he himself was in a state of Death He dyed as we do though to purposes infinitely Great and with torments unspeakably Excessive his Spirit was actually sever'd from his Flesh when he gave up the Ghost Nevertheless though his Flesh had no manner of vitality from his Humane Soul being really Separated from it yet it was not separated from the Deity
there is a Substantial but an Accidental So Philo saith of Cajus Caesar when he changed the Temple of God at Jerusalem into a Temple bearing his own Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo. lib. de legatione noted by Eusebius Eccles Hist 2. cap. 6. mutation an alternation of the state Condition and Quality of the man or the thing but not of the Substance or Nature for the Convert is a man still but something more that is a Servant of Christ and the Minister is a Christian man still but something more that is an Ambassadour of the Gospel and the Fabrick is an House still but something more that is the House of God In like manner when St. Chrysostome and the rest of the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Prodit Judae Tom. 5. p. 559. say that upon repeating the words of Institution the things which lye before us on the Holy Table are Changed the meaning clearly is not that their Nature or Substance is Destroyed but that the Condition of them is altered so that they are Bread and Wine still but something more that is they are now become Sacraments the vehicles of Grace the means and Instruments whereby the Spiritual Body and Bloud of Christ are conveyed and communicated to us Upon this account when we go to the Holy Communion we should think we go as indeed we do to an Ordinance of the greatest Consideration and Consequence we should value it highly for that Divine stamp which the Holy Jesus hath set upon it we should prize it according to the Purport and Ends for which it was first instituted and we should regard not so much the things themselves which we eat and drink as the Institution of the thing together with the Power and Blessing of God which doth attend it Men that do not look into the Inside of this heavenly Mystery but judge according to Appearance are apt to entertain mean and low thoughts of it because they see none but a weak and Sinful man that Ministreth and nothing but the Common Creatures of Bread and Wine that are distributed But when we present our selves before the Lords Table we should Lift up our Hearts and Raise our Thoughts above those things which are obvious to the Sense we should bear in our Hence that very Ancient Admonition extant in S. Cyprian de Orat. Dom. and in divers Ancient Liturgies Sursum corda Lift up your hearts minds the Truth the Goodness and the Power of God and consider that it is the Usual method of his Providence to bring the Greatest Ends about by the use of such means as to our thinking are the most Unlikely and incompetent for those purposes Thus it was as to his choice of Persons in the beginning of Christianity he employed such men for the great work of the Ministry as in the esteem of the world were of the least and Meanest consideration One a Publican another a Tent-maker many that were Fishermen few that were Learned none that were Noble or that bore a great Figure in the world and yet by these weak these contemptible Instruments I mean weak in themselves and Contemptible in the account of others by these instruments were Philosophers Princes Kingdomes and infinite numbers of Jews and Idolaters Captivated and brought in obedience to the Faith of the Son of God we have this Treasure of the Gospel in Earthen vessels that the Excellency of the Power may be of God and not of Us saith the Apostle 2. Cor. 4. 7. Thus it hath been Gods method too as to his choice of things He hath been wont to use the most Ordinary the most Contemptible means to effect his purposes of Grace and Mercy that he might shew the greatness of his own Power and convince the world that nothing is so mean but that it shall be serviceable and effective of Noble ends as long as it is the hand of an Almighty Agent What was Circumcision that it should be the Seal of Abrahams Righteousness and a sure Token of Gods Covenant with him and his whole Issue what was the noise of a few Rams-horns that it should tumble down the walls of Jericho or a Cake of barly bread that it should be seen to overturn the Tents of the Midianites or a Brasen Serpent that the sight of it should cure the wounds of the Israelites or a little lump of Figs that it should presently heal Hezekiah what was a manger that it should be the Cradle of the Lord of Glory or a Cross that it should be the Altar for the great Propitiatory Sacrifice to be offered up upon it what was St. Peters Shadow that it should restore the sick and cast Unclean Spirits out of their Holds and Possessions nay what is a little Water that it should Cleanse and Sanctifie all our souls and make Baptized persons the Vessels of Election And yet S. Paul calls it the Washing of Regeneration Tit. 3. 5. And the operations of Christs Spirit are so effectual by Baptisme that to every Faithful man it becomes the instrument of Salvation And why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should bless the use of the Bread and Wine or make it productive of those Spiritual Benefits which have been afore-mentioned Our Faith ought not to stumble at this we should not look upon the Elements but upon the Institution not take an estimate of this Ordinance by the Creatures we receive but by the Divine Benediction that cometh down upon them For when Christ Blessed the Bread and the Cup and commanded the use of them he intended that this Mystery should ever be successful and effectual to every Soul that should be rightly Disposed 'T is S. Chrysostoms observation S. Chrys ubi Supr that when God blessed his Creatures in the beginning and commanded them to be Fruitful and Multiply that word though it was given so long ago yet 't is powerfull still and will be powerful to the worlds end and by Virtue thereof the least grain of mustard seed groweth up to a great plant In like manner that Blessing wherewith the Son of God blessed the bread and Wine at the Institution of this Solemnity ceaseth not now but is as effectual as ever so that they are still the Instruments of Our growth in Grace as they were to the Disciples in the beginning not indeed by any Natural Causality that is in them but by the good Pleasure and Blessing of God and by the Operation of the Holy Ghost For the workings of the Spirit though they be Mysterious and Secret yet are they certain and True and at this Heavenly Solemnity the work of the Spirit is done So that we must draw our minds off from the things which are below which are before us which we see and taste of and Fix our thoughts upon the Spiritual Body and Bloud of Christ which are as it were wrapped up in them and as the Ancients were wont to admonish we
should prepare not so much the Mouth as the Heart And this is the true reason of those Rhetorical Expressions of some of the Fathers S. Chrysostomes especially where they seem to speak as if it were not Bread and Wine but something of a more Noble and Excellent nature that we Communicate of Such forms of speech were not Pure Negatives but Negatives by Comparison as hath been admirably well proved and explained by the Learned Archbishop Cranmer in several the like instances both in the old and New Testament It is not Bread and Wine that is it is not so much the Bread and Wine as the Body and Bloud of Christ which is to be considered The Elements are nothing at all in Comparison of that which they do Represent Exhibite and bring to us And the design Defence pag. 36. of those Fathers was to draw our minds upwards to Heaven that we should not regard so much the Bread the Wine the Priest and the Natural Body of Christ as we should consider his Divinity and Holy Spirit given unto us to our Eternal salvation That we should not fix our thoughts and minds upon the things themselves before us but lift up our hearts higher unto Christs Spirit and Divinity without which his Body availeth not as he said himself it is the Spirit that giveth life the Flesh profiteth nothing The Arch-Bishop is very copious upon this and I shall transcribe his words the rather because the passage is very useful and the Book is not very common This form of speech saith he is Negatives by compason commonly used not only in the Scripture and among all good Authors but also in all manner of Languages For when two things be compared together in the extolling of the more excellent or abasing of the more vile is many times used a Negative by comparison which nevertheless is no pure Negative but only in the respect of the more excellent or the more base As by example When the people rejecting the Prophet 1 Reg. 8. Samuel desired to have a King almighty God said to Samuel They have not rejected thee but me Not meaning by this Negative absolutely that they had not rejected Samuel in whose place they desired to have a King but by that one Negative by comparison he understood two affirmatives that is to say that they had rejected Samuel and not him alone but also that they had chiefly rejected God And when the Prophet David Psal 22. said in the person of Christ I am a Worm and not a Man By this Negative he denied not utterly that Christ was a man but the more vehemently to express the great humiliation of Christ he said that he was not abased only to the Nature of Man but was brought so low that he might rather be called a Worm than a man This manner of speech was familiar and usual to St. Paul as when he said It is Rom. 7. not I that do it but it is the sin that dwelleth in me And in an other place he saith Christ sent me not to baptise but 1. Cor. 1. to preach the Gospel And again he saith My speech and preaching was not in words 1 Cor. 1. of mans perswasion but in manifest declaration of the Spirit and power And he saith also Neither he that grafteth nor he 1 Cor. 3. that watereth is any thing but God that giveth the increase And he saith moreover It is not I that live but Christ liveth Gal. 2. within me And God forbid that I should Gal. 6. rejoyce in any thing but in the Cross of our Lord Jesu Christ And further we do not Ephe. 6. wrestle against flesh and blood but against he Spirits of Darkness In all these sentences and many other like although they be Negatives nevertheless St. Paul meant not clearly to deny that he did that evil whereof he spake or utterly to say that he was not sent to Baptize who indeed did Baptize at certain times and was sent to do all things that pertained to salvation or that in his office of setting forth Gods word he used no witty perswasions which indeed he used most discreetly or that the grafter and waterer be nothing which be Gods Creatures made to his similitude and without whose work there should be no increase or to say that he was not alive who both lived and ran thro' all Countries to set forth Gods Glory or clearly to affirm that he gloried and rejoyced in no other thing than in Christs Cross who rejoyced with all men that were in joy and sorrowed with all that were in sorrow or to deny utterly that we wrestle against flesh and blood which cease not daily to wrestle and War against our Enemies the world the flesh and the Devil In all these sentences St. Paul as I said meant not clearly to deny these things which undoubtedly were all true but he meant that in comparison of other greater things these smaller were not much to be esteemed but that the greater things were the chief things to be considered As that sin committed by his infirmity was rather to be imputed to original sin or corruption of Nature which lay lurking within him than to his own will and consent And that although he was sent to Baptize yet he was chiefly sent to preach Gods word And that although he used wise and discreet perswasions therein yet the success thereof came principally of the power of God and of the working of the Holy Spirit And that although the Grafter and Waterer of the Garden be some things and do not a little in their Offices yet it is God chiefly that giveth the increase And that although he lived in this world yet his chief life concerning God was by Christ whom he had living within him And that although he gloried in many other things yea in his own infirmities yet his greatest joy was in the Redemption by the Cross of Christ And that although our spirit daily fighteth against our flesh yet our chief and principal fight is against our ghostly enemies the subtil and puissant wicked Spirits and Devils The same manner of speech used also St. Peter in his first Epistle saying that the apparel Pet. 3. of Women should not be outwardly with broidred Hair and setting on of Gold nor in puting on of gorgious apparel but that the inward man of the heart should be without corruption In which manner of speech he intended not utterly to forbid all broidering of Hair all gold and costly apparel to all Women For every one must be apparelled according to their condition state and degree but he meant hereby clearly to condemn all pride and excess in apparel and to move all Women that they should study to deck their Souls inwardly with all virtues and not to be curious outwardly to deck and adorn their bodies with sumptuous apparel And our Saviour Christ himself was full of such manner of speeches Gather
2. Whence I proceed to the Second Conclusion that if no special Law had been given us for the celebration of this Mystery if no Positive Command had been annexed to its Institutions were we so wholly left to our own Liberty whether we would Receive the Communion or no that we should not sin against God by not receiving we should nevertheless be very much wanting to our selves and sin against our own souls should we Turn our backs upon this great Ordinance as to their shame many Ill men do some that never yet Communicated in all their Life some that Despise it and Hate to do it some that pretend they are Afraid to do it though it be not the Ordinance but their own Wickedness that scares them some that strive against their own Convictions for the sake of this world some that are so supine and Listless that they care not to set about it and some that do it so seldome that they seem Indifferent whether they do it at all or no. To bring all these wretches to a due Sense and Practice of their Duty I would beseech them to Consult their own Best thoughts if they be ever Thoughtful and Seriously to consider what mercies they wilfully Forsake Is it a slight thing is it Nothing to be made a Partaker of that Great Sacrifice for sin which was offered upon the Cross when we daily lye at Gods mercy and stand in need of his Pardon and are utterly Undone if we have it not when we feel in our own Breasts the miserable Effects of our Follies those Twinges and Sores in our Consciences those wounds and gashes in the Spirit which are so full of intolerable Anguish that some have hurryed themselves out of the world on purpose to be rid as they thought of the sense of their Torments when we are sensible how the Judgements of God go abroad in the Earth to Punish men for their Impieties when we have seen so many sad Examples of men who have roared and sometimes Despaired upon their death-beds under the burden of their guilt and when none can tell but that he may be tortured punisht and visited after the same manner these things and the like being considered well what can any man desire so much as to have his iniquities forgiven and then what Fools are they that neglect to receive the Holy Sacrament which is the Seal of our Pardon Is it a mean thing not worth our craving or longing for to be nourisht with the most Blessed Body and Bloud of our Redeemer to receive Vitality and Influences of Grace from him to be Refresht and strengthned with that Divine aliment which hath been the Support of Apostles Prophets and Martyrs and without which our Souls can no more live a Life Spiritual and Divine than our Bodies can continue in plight and strength without Sustenance Is it not a mercy invaluable to have the Guidance Aids and Comforts of Christs Spirit when our Natural Corruptions are so strong when the Enemy of our Souls is so malicious and Buisie when the Temptations we meet with are so Thick and ensnaring when the Common course of Humane Life is such that we walk continually among Dangers and Deaths Lord what a Miserable Creature would man be without the care Assistance and Succours of the Spirit In times of Errors and Delusion to be assisted and kept stedfast by the Spirit of Truth in times of Tryal to be led by that Spirit of Power which helpeth our infirmities in times of Impiety to be guided and governed by the Spirit of Grace and Holiness in times of Affliction and Distress whether they be Publick or Private calamities we groan under then to have the Spirit of Comfort to speak peace to our Consciences to take away the Bitterness of our pottage to sweeten and lighten our Griefs with salutary Breathings from above to Support us in all our sufferings to carry us safe through all Difficulties and at last to lead us into a Serene and Calm world Oh! what an Happiness is this and what Improvident people are thy who neglect an Ordinance that is Productive of this Happiness that is so Beneficial and Useful to all these purposes Again to have such a lively Faith as will not fail us however we may be winnowed sifted and tost to have a vigorous Hope that will keep our Heads up when storm and tempest beat down thousands to be full of those Graces which are sweeter then Nard under our nostrils to be United to him who Loved us and gave himself for us and to have this Testimony within us that we are the very Members of Christ and in the end to Dye with Satisfaction and with a strong Confidence that one day we shall rise again and see the Salvation of God in the Land of the Living these are Felicities than which the Nature of man is not capable of Greater in this Life and I have shew'd you particularly one by one that these are the Blessings wherewith God crowneth every Constant and Devout Communicant Briefly there is no Ordinance of God but what doth carry its Advantages with it where men use it after a Regular and Due manner But all other Ordinances seem to center and meet in this so that it is a certain Instrument of an Holy Life and of that which will be Dear and Valuable to us when all the Gayeties of Life are over I mean a Comfortable Death And so I leave it to the thoughts of every Understanding and Thinking Christian to consider what Unwise as well as Unthankfull men they are who are so willing to go from an Ordinance at which others gather up Life and Immortallity It is no wonder that the world groweth so vain and wicked and that the Souls of men are so Improsperous One great reason is because they have Itching ears but Insensate Hearts that neither Crave for the Influences of Heaven nor care to Receive them though they come down in streams God be merciful unto them but they will one day find what a crime and Folly they are guilty of in forsaking thus the mercies of the Cross and in trampling under their feet the Bloud of the Son of God after this manner Not that their imprudence or unthankfulness is their only sin No there is an addition of impiety too which helps to aggravate it For in this case we are not in our own hands neither are we left to our own liberty and Pleasure The Command of Christ whereby we are obliged to solemnize this Mystery is as plain and as peremptory a command as any other in the whole Bible and if a law from Heaven can make any thing necessary then is this so But I will not now meddle with that consideration There being that and many more which relate more immediately to our practice that I see will cost another just Discourse as of the necessity that is incumbent upon us and of the necessity of preparation also together with the Nature and Extent of that preparation which is requisite and divers other the like matters which deserve to be well considered and to be treated of by themselves in their due order and by degrees Here we will end this Discourse beseeching God to help us to a right understanding and to enable us to keep a good Conscience in all things for Christ Jesus his sake to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost three Persons in the Unity of the God-head be all Glory and Honour and Praise for evermore Amen FINIS