necessity the doom was in paradise upon mans disobedience morte morieris thou shalt dye the death Man sinned man must die The first Adam sinned and we in him the second Adam must by death expiate the sin Had not Christ dyed mankind must had not he dyed the first death we had all dyed both the first and second without shedding of blood there is no remission Heb. 9.22 Hereby therefore are we freed from the sence of the second death and the sting of the first to the unfailing comfort of our soules hereupon it is that our Saviour is so carefull to have his death and passion so fully represented to us in both his sacraments the water is his blood in the first Sacrament the Wine is his blood in the second In this he is sensiby crucify'd before our eyes the bread that is his body broken the wine his blood poured out And if these acts and objects do not carry our hearts to a lively apprehension of Christ our true passover we shall offer to him no other then the sacrifice of fools Lo here then a soveraign antidote against the first death and a preservative against the second the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World why should we be discomforted with the expectation of that death which Christ hath suffered why should we be dismayed with the fear of that death which our all-sufficient Redeemer hath fully expiated 2ly In the first institution of this passover The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled upon the posts and lintells of the doores of every Israelite so if ever we look for any benefit from Christ our Passover there must be a particular application of his blood to the believing soul even very Papists can say that unless our merits or holy actions be dyed or tinctured in the blood of Christ they can avail us nothing but this consideration will meet with us more seasonably upon the fourth head 3ly This passover must be roasted home not stewed not parboild So did the true paschall lamb undergo the flames of his Fathers wrath for our sins here was not a scorching and blistering but a vehement and full torrefaction It was an ardent heat that could fetch drops of blood from him in the garden but it was the hottest of flames that he felt upon the cross when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh who can without horrour and amazement hear so wosull a word fall from the mouth of the Son of God Had he not said My Father this strain had sunk us into utter despair but now in this very torment is comfort He knew he could not be forsaken of him of whom he saith I and my Father are one he could not be forsaken by a sublation of union though he seemed so by a substraction of vision as Leo well the sense of comfort was clouded for a while from his humanity his deity was ever glorious his faith firme and supplyed that strong consolation which his present sense failed of and therefore you soon hear him in a full concurrence of all Heavenly and victorious powers of a confident Saviour say Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit In the mean while even in the height of this suffering there is our ease for certainly the more the Son of God indured for us the more sure we are of an happy acquittance from the Tribunall of Heaven the justice of God never punished the same sin twise over By his stripes we are healed by his payment we are discharged by his torments we are assured of peace and glory Thus much of the preparation The eating of it followes in the appendances the manner the persons The appendances It must be eaten with unleavned bread and with sour or bitter herbs Of the unleavened bread we have spoken enough before For the herbs that nothing might be wanting the same God that appointed meat appointed the sauce too and that was a sallad of not pleasing but bitter herbs herein providing not so much for the palate of the body as of the soul to teach us that we may not hope to partake of Christ without sensible disrelishes of nature without outward afflictions without a true contrition of Spirit It is the condition that our Saviour makes with us in admitting us to the profession of Christianity he shall receive an 100. fold with persecutions those to boot that for his sake and the Gospells forsake all Mark 10.30 Sit down therefore O man and count what it will cost thee to be a true Christian through many tribulations c. Neither can we receive this evangelicall passover without a true contrition of soul for our sins past think not my beloved that there is nothing but jollity to be look't for at Gods table Ye may frolick it ye that feast with the World but if ye will sit with Christ and feed on him ye must eat him with bitter herbs here must be a sound compunction of heart after a due self examination for all our sins wherewith we have offended our good God Thou wouldst be eating the paschal lamb but with sugar-sops or some pleasing sauce it may not be so here must be a bitternesse of soul or no passover It is true that there is a kind of holy mixture of affections in all our holy services a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce in him with trembling saith the Psalmist It is and should be our joy that we have this lamb of God to be ours but it is our just sorrow to finde our own wretched unworthiness of so great a mercy Godly sorrow must make way for solid joy and comfort if there be any of you therefore that harbours in your breast a secret love of and complacency in your known and resolved sins procul O procul let him keep off from this holy Table let him bewail his sinfull mis-disposition and not dare to put forth his hand to this passover till he have gathered the bitter herbs of a sorrowful remorse for his hated offences And where should he gather these but in the low grounds of the Law there they grow plenteously lay the law then home to thy soul that shall show thee thy sins and thy judgment School thee Yea dear Christians how can any of us see the body of our blessed Saviour broken and his blood poured out and withall think and know that his own sins are guilty of this tort offered to the son of God the Lord of life and not feel his heart touched with a sad and passionate apprehension of his own vilenesse and an indignation at his own wickednesse that hath deserved and done this these are the bitter herbs wherewith if we shall eat this passover we shall finde it most wholesome and nourishable unto us to eternall life The manner of the eating of it followes in three particulars 1. The whole lamb must be eaten not a part of it 2. Not a bone of it must be broken 3. In
in respect of corporal presence is in Heaven whither he visibly ascended and where he sits on the right hand of the Father and whence he shall come again with glory a parcel of our Creed which the Church learn't of the Angels in Mount Olivet who taught the gazing disciples that this same Jesus which was taken up from them into Heaven shall so come in like manner as they saw him go into Heaven which was with wonderfull glory and magnificence Far be it from us then to think that the blessed humanity of the Son of God should so disparage it self as where there is neither necessity nor use of a bodily descent to steale down and conveigh himself insensibly from Heaven to Earth daily and to hide up his whole sacred body in an hundred thousand several pixes at once It is a wonder that superstition it self is not ashamed of so absurd and impossible a fancy which it is in vain for Men to think they can salve up with a pretence of omnipotence we question not the power of God but his will and do well know he cannot will absolute contradictions Deus hoc potenter non potest as one said truly That which we say of Christs presence holds no less of his reception for so do we receive him into us as he is present with us neither can we corporally receive that which is bodily absent although besides the common incongruity of opinion the corporal receiving of Christ hath in it a further prodigiousness and horrour all the Novices of the Roman Schools are now asham'd of their Popes Dentibus teritur but when their Doctors have made the best of their own Tenent they cannot avoid St. Austins flagitium videtur praecipere By how much the humane flesh is and ought to be more dear by so much more odious is the thought of eating it neither let them imagine they can escape the imputation of an hateful savageness in this act for that it is not presented to them in the form of flesh whiles they professe to know it is so howsoever it appeareth Let some skilful cook so dress mans flesh in the mixtures of his artificial hashes and tast full sauces that it cannot be discerned by the sence yet if I shall afterwards understand that I have eaten it though thus covertly conveyed I cannot but abhorr to think of so unnatural a diet Corporally then to eat if it were possible the flesh of Christ Joh. 6.63 as it could in our Saviours own word profit nothing so it could be no other then a kinde of religious Cannibalisme which both nature and grace cannot but justly rise against Since therefore the body of Christ cannot be said to be corporally present or received by us it must needs follow that there is no way of his presence or receit in the Sacrament but spiritual which the Church of England hath laboured so fully to express both in her holy Liturgie and publickly-authorized homilies that there is no one point of divine truth which she hath more punctually and plainly laid down before us What can be more evident then that which she hath said in the second exhortation before the Communion thus Dearly beloved forasmuch as our duty is to render to Almighty God our heavenly Father most hearty thanks for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ not only to dye for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance as it is declared unto us as well by Gods word as by the holy Sacraments of his blessed body and blood c. Lo Christ is in this Sacrament given to us to be our spiritual food in which regard also this sacrament is in the same exhortation called a Godly and heavenly feast whereto that we may come holy and clean we must search and examine our own consciences not our chops and mawes that we may come and be received as worthy Partakers of such an Heavenly Table But that in the following exhortation is yet more pregnant that we should diligently try and examine our faith before we presume to eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwel in Christ and he in us we be one with Christ and Christ with us so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily What termes can be more expresse it is bread and wine which we come to receive that bread and that wine is sacramental It is our heart wherewith we receive that sacrament it is our faith whereby we worthily receive this receit and manducation of the flesh of Christ is spiritually done and by this spiritual receit of him we are made one with him and he with us by vertue then of the worthy receit of this sacramental bread and wine we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ spiritually and there growes hereby a reciprocal union betwixt Christ and us neither is he otherwise one with us then we are one with him which can be no otherwise then by the power of his institution and of our faith And that no man may doubt what the drift and purpose of our blessed Saviour was in the institution and recommendation of this blessed sacrament to his Church it followes in that passage And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our master and onely Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his pretious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and continual remembrances of his death to our great and endlesse comfort If therefore we shall look upon and take these sacred elements as the pledges of our Saviours love to us and remembrances of his death for us we shall not need neither indeed can we require by the judgment of our Church to set any other value on them But withall that we may not sleightly conceive of those mysteries as if they had no further worth then they do outwardly show we are taught in that prayer which the Minister kneeling down at Gods board is appointed to make in the name of all the communiâ—ants before the consecration that whiles we do duly receive those blessed elements we do in the same act by the power of our faith eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so effectual and inseparable is the sacramental union of the signes thus instituted by our blessed Lord and Saviour with the thing thereby signified for thus is he prescribed to pray Grant us therefore gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our soules washed through his most pretious blood and that we may ever dwell in him and he
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
more peculiar manner now his very senses help to nourish his soul and by his eyes his hands his tast Christ is spiritually conveighed into his heart to his unspeakable and everlasting consolation But to put all scruples out of the mind of any reader concerning this point Let that serve for the upshot of all which is expressely set down in the 5th Rubrick in the end of the Communion set forth as the judgment of the Church of England both in King Edwards and Queen Elizabeths time though lately upon negligence omitted in the impression In these words Least yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise we do declare That it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christs natural flesh and blood For as concerning the sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians and as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ they are in Heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christs natural body to be in more places then one at one time c. Thus the Church of England having plainly explicated her self hath left no place for any doubt concerning this truth neither is she any changeling in her judgment however some unsteddy minds may vary in their conceits away then with those nice scruplers who for some further ends have endeavoured to keep us in an undue suspense with a non licet inquirere de modo and conclude we resolutely that there is no truth in divinity more clear then this of Christs gracious exhibition and our faithful reception of him in this blessed Sacrament Babes keep your selves from Idols Amen A LETTER FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE FEAST OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY Sir with my Loving Remembrance IT cannot but be a great grief to any wise and moderate Christian to see zealous well meaning souls carried away after the giddy humour of their new teachers to a contempt of all holy and reverend antiquity and to an eager affectation of novel fancies even whiles they cry out most bitterly against innovations When the practise and judgment of the whole Christian world ever from the dayes of the blessed Apostles to this present age is pleaded for any form of government or laudable observation they are straight taught That old things are passed and that all things are become new making their word good by so new and unheard-of an interpretation of Scripture Whereby they may as justly argue the introducing of a new Church a new Gospel a new Religion with the annulling of the old And that they may not want an all-sufficient patronage of their fond conceit our blessed Saviour himself is brought in who in his sermon on the mount controlled the antiquity of the pharisaical glosses of the law Ye have heard that it was said by them of old thus and thus but I say unto you c as if the Son of God in checking the upstart antiquity of a mis-grounded and unreasonable tradition meant to condemn the truely-antient and commendable customes of the whole Christian Church which all sober and judicious christians are wont to look upon with meet respect and reverence And certainly whosoever shall have set down this resolution with himself to sleight those either institutions or practises which are derived to us from the Primitive times and have ever since been intertained by the whole church of Christ upon earth that man hath laid a sufficient foundation of Schisme and dangerous singularity and doth that which the most eminent of the Fathers St. Augustine chargeth with no less then most insolent madnesse For me and my friend God give us grace to take the advice which our Saviour gives to his spouse to Go forth by the footsteps of the Flock and to feed our Kids beside the Shepheards tents Cant. 1.8 and to walk in the sure paths of uncorrupt antiquity For the celebration of the solemn Feasts of our Saviours Nativity Resurrection Ascention and the comming down of the Holy Ghost which you say is cryed down by your zealous lecturer one would think there should be reason enough in those wonderful and unspeakable benefits which those dayes serve to commemorate unto us For to instance in the late feast of the Nativity when the Angel brought the newes of that blessed birth to the Jewish shepheards Behold saith he I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people for unto you is borne this day a Saviour If then the report of this blessing were the best tidings of the greatest joy that ever was or ever could be possibly incident into mankind why should not the commemoration thereof be answerable Where we conceive the greatest joy what should hinder us to expresse it in a joyfull festivity But you are taught to say the day conferred nothing to the blessing that every day we should with equal thankfulnesse remember this inestimable benefit of the incarnation of the Son of God so as a set anniversary day is altogether needless know then and consider that the all wise God who knew it fit that his People should everyday think of the great work of the creation and of the miraculous deliverance out of the Egyptian servitude and should daily give honour to the Almighty creator and deliverer yet ordained one day of seven for the more special recognition of these marvellous works as well knowing how apt we are to forget those duties wherewith we are only encharged in common without the designment of a particular rememoration Besides the same reason will hold proportionably against any monethly or annuall celebration whatsoever the Jewes should have been much to blame if they had not every day thankfully remembred the great deliverance which God wrought for them from the bloody design of cruel Haman yet it was thought requisite if not necessary that there should be two special dayes of Purim set apart for the anniversary memorial of that wonderful preservation The like may be said for the English Purim of our November it is well if besides the general tye of our thankfulness a precise day ordaind by authority can enough quicken our unthankful dulness to give God his own for so great a mercy shall we say now it is the work of the year what needs a day As therefore no day should passe over our head without a grateful acknowledgment of the great mystery of God incarnate So withall the wisdome of the primitive Church no doubt by the direction of the holy Ghost hath pitched upon one special day wherein we should intirely devote our thoughts to the meditation of this work which the Angels of heaven can not enough admire But you are told that perhaps we miss of the day since the season