Design by This must we enquire whether he intended merely to prove that Reverence is due to the Lords Supper as is generally supposed or whether he mean to prove that Some determinate Bread and Cup was consecrate by our Lord to his Supper In This Inquiry we shall proceed 1. Negatively shewing that the Former cannot be his meaning 2. Positively shewing that the Later must be so 1. The FORMER cannot be This will appear whether we consider the Subject or the Praedicate of the Proposition 1. The SUBJECT of the Proposition is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup and therefor whatever the Praedicate brings must not belong to That but to These That the Lords Supper precisely and formally considered is not the true subject of the Proposition is plain both by the express words that have not a syllabl of it and by plain reason which requireth it to differ from the Praedicate For if the Subject differ from the Praedicate only in Syllables not in sense the Proposition will be no better than a tautology a mere repetition of the same thing in other words It is true the Lords Supper is concerned in the Proposition but Mediatly because of its intimate relation to This Bread and This Cup which for its sake are advanced above All other of the kind consecrated first to the Lords Supper and thereby to his Body and Blood And This is so much the more considerable because if the Apostle had no other design but only to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper he ought in all reason to have insisted upon the very Phrase which would go far in his way For the very Name of the Lord challengeth Reverence the very Sound is an Argument it carrieth Aurhority and Commandeth Aw into the hearts of the hearers whereas on the contrary Bread and Wine in their natural State are but poor beggarly creatures servants of our Appetites at best and too often of our Corruptions and need a Law to defend them from our abuses Now that our Apostle should have No other Design but to assert the dignity of our Lords Supper yet desert that stile which would Strengthen his Argument and take up another that would Weaken it is so much the more unreasonable because he had used That more potent stile in his charge ver 20. and thereby obliged himself to inforce it So that he must now desert not only the Reason of his Argument but the very Subject of his Charge if he had no other design in This Proposition but to prove that our Lords Supper oght not to be treated as he complained 2. The PRAEDICATE of This Proposition is utterly useless or worse to such a design The Argument would run more Clearly more Briefly and more Conveniently Without the Proposition than With it For the Institution having stiled this Suppor of the Lord his BODY and BLOOD the Inference is most Natural and Cogent therefore whoever celebrateth the Lords Supper unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood So this whole 26th verse will at best be but impertinently troublesom good for nothing but to amuse our thoughts confound our minds and cloud the light of the Argument Yea the very Phrase of the Praedicate will conspire with That of the Subject not only to Darken the Argument but to Weaken it For to declare it our Lords Body and Blood must needs command our aw more than to say it setteth forth his death so that the interposition of This meaner office between our Lords Institution and his own next Inference in verse 27. in Both whereof That higher one is given it can serv to no other effect but to eclipse the Light and intercept the Influence which otherwise would stream more powerfully and directly from the One to the Other In a word let the Otherwise minded shew what Necessity yea what Use this 26th verse serveth what Light or what Strength it ministreth to the Discourse otherwise they must needs either suppose the Apostle to talk impertinently or accept of That service which his words offer which what it is will yet forther appear VI. POSITIVELY therefor This Proposition pointeth at some Determinate Bread and Cup declaring that Whoever eateth That determinate Bread and drinketh That determinate Cup doth Thereby shew forth the Lords death And now the lately disputed Particle THIS is no Less perhaps More considerable in the Apostl's mouth than we found it in our Lord's For the sake of This Demonstrative did he so solenly recite the Institution and resume That as the most important clause therein From This doth he derive All his Argument and to This doth he pay All his Service He observeth to what honor our Lord advanceth the Bread and Cup From His hand doth he take them cloaths them with the important Demonstrative as the Robe royal rendring them conspicuosly honorable in the beholders eyes Crowns them with the potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving them power to prescribe mesures to our obedience leads them in pomp and proclaims before them THIS is the Bread and THIS the cup which the Lord delighteth to honor THIS Bread and THIS Cup hath he commissioned to shew forth his death THIS Bread and THIS Cup are the Supper of the Lord and therefor whoever eateth THIS Bread and drinketh THIS Cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Process is Pompos yet withal it is Elegant he so inculcateth the important particl as to favor your ears he so indeavoreth to satisfy as not to surfeit you with nauseos repetitions and therefore having so shewed it as abundantly to fill you with his meaning he withdraweth by degrees still varying the phrase yet so as still to preserv the influence even when he quitteth the sound of the Demonstrative That you may see both his Art and Care I shall set down his very words Ver. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In verse 26. he giveth the Bread honors before denied it Equaleth it with the Cup honoreth it with the same Emphatical Article and the same potent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither of which was given it in the Institution The reason will anon be plain he now describeth the complete Supper wherein the Bread is no less necessary than the Cup thogh not equally honored with it in the Institution as we shall see and understand why anon In verse 27. He keepeth the same stile for the Bread but varieth it in the Cup saith not now THIS cup but The cup of the Lord. And here we must pause lest we seem to contradict truth for I said but now that the Apostl mentioneth not the Lords Supper whereas here he stileth the Cup the cup of the Lord. But what I said but now I spoke of the 26th verse wherein he cut out work for his whole following process Again in this very
to speak like one as not declaring rhe Doctrine of the Church but his own Private Thoghts and that how modestly how diffidently how contrary to his stile in other cases This is not the Only Doctrine wherein he took the boldness to depart from the Opinions of his predecessors and in those cases he expressed himself with confidence sufficiently why so timoros now The Reason is as plain as the change In the Other Questions they had not declared their minds plainly in this they had do'n it not only Plainly but Zelously St. Cyprian had said This bread we crave to have EVERY DAY given us lest we who are in Christ and daily receve the Sacrament for the food of Salvation by interposing of any grievos crime while restrained and not communicating we ar forbidden the Heavenly bread we should be separated from the body of Christ St. Basil had said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To communicate the body and blood of Christ EVERY DAY is good and most profitable seeing himself plainly saith He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life now then who can doubt but that often to partake of the life is nothing else but often to live St. Ambrose had said If the Eucharistical bread be daily offered why do'st thou receve it after a Year as the Greekt do in the East Receve That EVERY DAY which may profit thee every day So live that thou mayest deserv to receve every day He that deserveth not to receve every day deserveth not to receve after a year c. Saint Chrysostom complained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vain is the DAILY sacrifice c. So express and so earnest we see were the Exhortations of other Fathers both Before and In St. Augustin's time that as they gave him sufficient reason to be diffident in declaring his own contrary opinion so do they Us to except against it as singular and out-voted by his equals if it prejudice the Truth we have engaged to assert which whether it do or not we are to judge by his Determination wherein we ar to observ 1. His Design 2. His way of ferving it 1. His Design in determining this Question is the same with that of the whole Epistl which is to perswade compliance in matter of worship The Peace of Christ is dearer to him than his Supper it self which is to serv it and therefor oght principally to be regarded thogh with it's diminution Rectius inter eos fortasse quisquam dirimit litem qui monet ut praecipue in Christi pace permaneant And to This only purpose doth he bring his instance of Zacheus and the Centurion Neque enim litigaverunt inter se aut quisquam eorum se alteri praeposuit He doth not pretend by their Exampls to determin the Question but the Quarrel 2. His Way to serv this good end is by a toleration that every one should do what he thinketh best which he encorageth with This reason that nether of them dishonoreth the body of Christ if saluberrimum Sacramentum certatim honorare contendunt In which last words the good Father may seem to unty the obligation I have so much contended for For if every one may do what he thinketh best if He do not dishonor the body and blood of Christ who striveth to honor the Sacrament by forbearance in sens of his unworthiness then cannot our obligation to constancy be indispensibl but our selvs ar judges of what is best Upon This Authority of so great a Father so confirmed with pios reason have following ages proceeded to the modern way of honoring the Lords Supper Having learned to ballance Reverence against Performance to make the former the more weighty they have loaded it with so many doubts and difficulties that he must be both very good and very confident who will not prefer the Centurions safe and easie complement before Zacheus's costly and troublesom entertainment Thus while every one chuseth to excuse himself as unworthy that Christ should come under his roof He may complain that he hath not where to lay his head And All or at least much of this proceeding from the too much valuing and too little considering the good Fathers words I thoght to rescue both the Truth and Him from so great and unhappy a mistake For as These words will not Require so will not his other writing Permit that we should list Him among our Adversaries He that caled as loud as any other Father He that so earnestly expostulated with the desertors of the Holy Sacrament saying What is the reason O hearers that ye see the Table and come not to the banquet He certainly did not intend to furnish his hearers with an excuse that they did what they thoght best upon the same reason as did the Centurion Nor can we easily so mistake if we regard either the case or his very words Inter Eos and Neuter Eorum restrain his determination to Those two parties between whom he professeth to arbitrate who both of them might plead such good precedents as might entitle them to toleration at least One thinketh it best to communicate Every day Another thinketh it better to do it only upon som certain days The Former voucheth the Apostls and the Hierusalem Church who continued Daily in breaking of Bread as well as in Prayer The Later the Provincial Churches who met the First day of the week to break Bread But how wide is this from our Question wherein One thinketh himself obliged to receive the Holy Sacrament as often as it is offered and another thinketh himself free to take or refuse it as often as he thinketh fit Whether the good Father would have determined This Question Inter Nos in the same manner as he did That Inter Eos is not so apparent as it is that his Instance can here have no place Zacheus had a Command from our Lord to come down and entertene him at his house he did so and honored him by the forwardness of his Obedience The Centurion had no such command and he honored Him by the humility of his excuse Had Zacheus receved no such command who knows but he might have excused himself as did the Centurion Had the Centurion receved such a command who knoweth but he would have receved our Lord with the same alacrity as did Zacheus Had he not his own instance of his servants obedience must have condemned him Both of them honored our Lord but Both cannot be imitated by Us. For either with Zacheus we have a Command or with the Centurion we have None That we have none to receve the Lords Supper EVERY DAY we willingly acknowledge and thereby submit to St. Augustin's determination But whether we have one to receve it as often as it is celebrated that we may understand we must proceed to examin The word of Command DO PART III. Concerning the word DO CHAP. I. We must answer such a Command no otherwise but by Performance I.
half proved by the very first glance upon the Text. 2. That in All their Church Fests they honored some Special Bread and Cup with Special ceremonies the Cup ever closing the Fest This will require a fuller Examination Upon these two Suppositions the Apostles Argument otherwise unintelligible and All his Expressions whereof some must be otherwise impertinent will appear most Clear Rational and Unanswerable By their help therefore I shall make a duble dissection of the Words by a Paraphrase and of the Argument by an Analysis VI. THE Paraphrase must take in the 20th Verse bicause all the rest hang to it 20. When you come together therefore into one place this is not to eat the Lords Supper 21. For in eating every one taketh before other his own Supper and one is hungry and anothor is drunken 22. What Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Shall I praise you in this I praise you not 23. For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus in the same night in which he was betrayed took bread c. 25. After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had supped saying This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me 26. For as often as ye eat this bread This bread and drink this cup you do shew forth the Lords death c. 27. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of This bread and drink of This cap. 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body 33. Wherefore my brethren when ye come together to eat tarry one for another 34. And if any man hunger let him eat at home When you meet in that publik place appointed to Gods Worship your behavior is such that you cannot be thoght to celebrate the Lords Supper For whereas the whole Fest oght to be common to all the Communicants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you on the contrary in that foregoing Supper which the Lords is to close eat every one his own Supper apart so that one taketh more than Temperance alloweth and another less than Nature requires If your debauchery be such that you cannot forbear drunkenness it were less intolerable to practise it in private in your own houses than thus impudently to affront the whole Church and insult over them who have neither houses nor such plentiful provisions I said indeed verse 2. I praise you that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them to you But in this which is an Ordinance of the first Magnitude I must make an exception In this I do not cannot praise you For this Tradition I received not as I did the rest from my fellow Apostles but from the Lord Jesus himself and since you seem ether to have forgotten or mistaken it I again repete it That the Lord Jesus in the same night wherein he was betrayed being a Festival one took Bread c. After that same Festival manner also he took the closing Cup in its proper time viz. after Supper saying As often as ye drink this Cup in this manner do it in remembrance of me and not as you have hitherto do'n it For by this Institution This Bread and This Cup is so advanced above its former dignity that it is consecrated to a representative of our Lords death and as such is to be honored and that to the end of the world so that neither you nor any other Christian Church shall ever be at liberty to use it otherwise Wherefore this bread and cup are now no longer your own but the Lords and who ever useth them in a manner unworthy of that Relation is guilty not only of Intemperance but Sacrilege as abusing not common Bread and Wine but the thereby represented Body and Blood of the Lord. But remember that it is the proper character of a Man to examin his own actions Do so in This consider what you do and act sutably to your rule Let not the fear of so great a guilt fright you from your Duty but from your Irreverence For he that doth it in a manner unsuitable to its relation provoketh our Lord to anger as leveling His Flesh with that of a Beast and His Blood with that of a Grape putting no difference but treating the one in the same rude manner as he doth the other Wherefore when you come together to your Church Fests entertain you one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you that are able communicate your meat to those who have none of their own But let no man either eat or drink immoderately in Gods House if he be given to appetite let him rather satisfie it in his Own By this Paraphrase well understood and duly heeded we shall not fail of the Apostles meaning in the whole and every Particle provided we handle them regularly which I shall now do by a Logical Analysis of the Argument VII BY the Rules of Reasoning we must First consider the Conclusion intended to be proved and Then the Media imployed to that End mesuring These by their serviceableness to That The Conclusion is the charge of Profaneness in the Corinthians relating to our Lords Supper This animates and This must interpret every word and therefore requires to be it's self most carefully heeded And one might think a litle heed sufficient since it seems impossible either to Overlook or Mistake it He doth not only plainly lay it down but thrice inculcate it And since in every proposition the Quantity is highly considerable we must carefully observe that he doth not accuse them as guilty of misdemeanors in Some more than Other meetings but in All alike Had he charged them as guilty in Some special meetings wherein the Lords Supper was more especially concerned we had then understood that it was not concerned in All assemblies as such Or had he charged them as Profaning the Lords Supper in All meetings without heeding whether it were concerned in them or no if in Those meetings they were at liberty to have celebrated or omitted it they might excuse themselves by saying they intended it not in those particular ones But because they Never met in the Church without Festing and in All such Fests they were obliged by Christs command to celebrate his Own he therefore blameth their Fests Universally and that in such language that thrice varying the Phrase he still further cleareth his meaning Verse 17. Your coming together is not for the better but for the worse Their coming together Indefinitly if it be not plainly enough equivalent to an Vniversal is more clearly made so by ver
no other That he designed to treat them as Kindly as possibl we may see in his entrance upon This Chapter Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them unto you And again in his entrance upon this very Reproof vers 17 Now in This that I declare unto you I praise you not that you com together not for the better but for the wors And again by his close upon his description of their miscarriages vers 22. What shall I say to you Shall I praise you in This I praise you not How Unwillingly How Gently and if his thoughts wer like ours how Coldly doth he put in this calm exception against his late General Praise He had in a case far less scandalos said Now therefor there is utterly a falt among you And speaking of those Divisions which are here also objected as the first instance of their unworthy coming together saith I could not speak unto you as unto Spiritual but as unto Carnal Yet here when Divisions of the Rich among Themselves and their joint contemts of the Poor their Shismatical and Uncharitabl separations eating every one his Own supper and destroying the very Nature of a Communion and their Intemperance in Those Suppers affronting not only our Lords Doctrine but his very Person when such abuses of his very Body and Bloud in his Own Hous in the face of his Own Church cryed to his utmost zele and eloquence for a Reproof loud as the Crime in so clamoros a provocation what do we meet but a cold Negative much short of Eli's however condemned reproof Not so much as his This is no good report You make the peopl to abhorr the table of the Lord but only I praise you not We shall indeed hereafter find him lift up his now calm voice and loudly thunder both Reproofs and Threats vers 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body But this in consequence of Conviction which by That time he supposeth his argument to have wrought in them After which if they should Willingly and Knowingly profane This Bread and This Cup now proved to be the Lords Body and Bloud their Crime would be uncapable not only of Praise but of Excuse The Gentl language therefore that Ushereth in the Argument compared with the Severe which Followeth it doth more than intimate a supposal that they knew not what they did and therefor were first to be Convinced of their Error by good Evidence and then Frighted with Threatnings lest they should continu in the now inexcusabl wickedness And we may perhaps yet better understand his judgment of their Disease by the Medicine he useth for its Cure which is no other but a re-minding them of what he had before Declared to them and they perhaps misunderstood in This subject wherin he seemeth thus to bespak them I am loth to believ you guilty of so horrid a contemt of our Lords Person as to drink his very Bloud in a manner so shameful as looketh more like the mockery of a contumelios Jew than the devotion of a faithful Disciple No I rather impute this to your Forgetfulness or Misunderstanding of what I declared unto you concerning this most holy Ordinance which therfor I now repete to you Then doth he proceed to recite the whole Institution so Particularly as at That time he might very well think Sufficient throghly to convince them in what he Supposed or would seem to Suppose them Mistaken I say it was at That time sufficient For it is most necessary that we distinguish between That time and Our own The Tradition where on we suppose our Lords Supper founded was Then not only in Memory but in Practice The Demonstrative had its Object not only Intelligibl but Visibl they did not more plainly Hear the Word than See what it pointed at and therfor our Lord might well think it superfluos to express How Often they wer to do This in remembrance of himself since the Tradition which That very Institution commended sufficiently declared it Do This said he This which you see Me do This which your Whole Nation in such circumstances constantly do in conformity to the Tradition Do This with the same Matter Bread and Wine In the same Order First Bread and Then Wine at the same Season After Supper and is it not equally plain with the same Frequency when Three or More fest together This mesure of Frequency might our Lord well suppose at That time in Those circumstances sufficiently plain by that known rule Exceptio firmat legem in non exceptis But it seems the Disciples wer either less Able or less Willing to understand than He had reason to expect And how the Corinthians might mistake we have made not improbable conjectures The Apostl therefor to Clear what now appeared to Need it telleth them plainly that what our Lord at the time of institution did Not Express he had since Reveled to be his meaning viz. That as often as they drank That Cup which he then consecrated after Supper they must do it in remembrance of himself Since therfor they closed or ought to close All their fests with the Same Cup his Bloud was concerned in them All. WHAT fairer account can possibly be desired of this Former part of the Apostles Process Of the Lenity of his Reproof of his Method in convincing them first of their Error and then of their Gvilt Of his Reciteing the Lords institution so to vindicate his Supper from Cheapness of his inserting the omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to assert the Interest that his Supper had in Their publick meetings and of his authorizing this insertion so to avoid the objection that might be raised from our Saviors not useing it proved by the joint testimony of the three Evangelists WHAT need the Apostl do More than baffle All their Pretences and rectifie All their Mistakes and what could he do Less than prevent that most obvios Evasion whereby they might have pleaded for Those Meetings as unconcerned in the Lords Supper If any one of a contrary judgment can give a fairer account of this Former part of the Apostl's discours he will do a Great work but he will have a Greater yet to do For the Later part wherein the Apostl draweth his Inferences will not only Offer this as the Fairest but Urge it as the Only sens of his argument V. LET us now therefor carefully examin HOW and WHAT he bildeth upon his so solen recital of our Lords Institution He beginneth his deductions at the 26th verse wherein he resumeth the Last as the most Important clause laying it down as the Sum of our Lords mind in his Institution and the Foundation of all his own intended Inferences therefrom that As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye shew forth our Lords death By This Proposition therefor must we mesur his
verse 27. it is yoked with This Bread and being thus secured from any danger of mistake might safely be clothed with That larger title more suitable for It than for the Bread because it doth not only Represent his Blood as the Bread doth his Body but Prescribe the frequeny for celebration which the Bread doth Not. In verse 28. The Demonstrative is laid aside and in the 29th not only the Demonstrative but the very Subject In both a manifest Ellipsis easily and necessarily supplied since we cannot apprehend the Action of Eating and Drinking without the Bread and Cup nor any other Bread and Cup but only THIS so earnestly inculcated in the same breath And now that I may bring the whole Argument to a closer vieu I shall from a disjointed examination of its scattered parts proceed to a reduction of All to Logik form in a Syllogism of the most perfect mode Bar As often as you shew forth the Lords death unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood ba As often as you eat This Bread and drink This Cup you shew forth the Lords death ra As often as you eat This Bread and drink this Cup unworthily you are guilty of his Body and Blood Of this Syllogism the Assumtion is set forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 26. The Conclusion thence inferred verse 27. But the Proposition which is generally look'd upon as the adaequate design the Apostle no otherwise proveth but by reciting the Institution which abundantly declareth the relation between the Lords Supper and his Body and Blood Since therefor it was necessary for him to convince them that the Lords Supper was concerned in All their meetings but not at all that the Lords Body and Blood were Represented in his Supper since accordingly he payeth All his service to This Bread and This Cup which was used in all their Meetings but None at all to the Lords Supper otherwise then by consequence therefrom Since the whole 26th verse must be utterly Impertinent and worse if it pretend only to assert the dignity of the Lords Supper but most Cogent if it intend to assert that of This Bread and This Cup since One way he shall prove a truth whose importance Deserved his service and whose Doubtfulness Needed it and the Other way one who 's Self-evidence superseded any Proof one might think the choice between them not very doubtful Yet ar we all this while no farther than the Entry For the very Life of the Argument is laid up in a Clause purposely inserted in the Close of our Lords Institution and resumed in the Head of his Own discourse as the strength of the whole yet so miserably mistaken that it is made the only Enemy to the Apostl's direct design Dispensing with the Constancy which he so industriosly laboreth to prove Indispensibl CHAP. II. Concerning the Clause AS OFTEN AS I. The unhappiness of this Clause II. The true sens of the words mesured by parallel precepts III. Serviceable remarks 1. With what care the Apostl recordeth this Claus IV. 2. With partiality he treateth the Cup. V. The justice he doth the bread joining it with the cup in his dedeductions VI. The Conclusion with an Objection answered HOW unhappy our Lords Supper hath be'n in All the means he used to indear it we have already noted He chose the Last night because the words of dying friends most forcibly affect the survivors and the horrors of the Tragical time dashed it out of the Apostl's thoghts He then made a contrary opportunity and by a Supper purposely contrived evidenced his care of This memorial of his Death equal to that of evidencing his Resurrection And then Joy and Wonder hindred them more from heeding This than from believing That Nor did Any other means prevail till the Holy Ghost broght it to their understandings But their Disciples had not the same mesur of This Spirit The Corinthians either mistook or soon forgot and St. Paul found it highly necessary not only to Remind them of their duty but further to Explain it And This very Explication suffers as much from the mistakes of Interpreters as did the Holy Supper it self from the profaneness of the Corinthians For St. Paul did no more intend to discorage our Obedience to our Lords Command than did our Lord himself to encourage Their profaneness in the Performance Yet in his Own words do we take refuge from his Reproofs as if he had taught us to place All our safety from Unworthiness in keeping distance from Obedience That we should run from One extreme to a Contrary thogh it be a great Error is no great Wonder thogh nothing be more Condemned yet nothing is more frequently practised But that Those very words whereby he indeavored to Prevent the Error should be made to Serv it That he should use his utmost care to prove Constancy indispensibl and we should take his words for a Dispensation from it is the Singular unhappiness of This Only clause perverted thereby to an utter Defaisance of our Lords Command and an utter Defait of his Own Design We shall therefor indevor to restore the Words to their due power First by shewing what must needs be their true meanang And Secundly by exposing the Absurdities of That which is vulgarly imposed upon them II. FIRST we are to enquire into the true sense of this Clause As often as And to this end we need not look back upon what we have seen in the word THIS For This Claus no less peremtorily requireth a certain Standard than That Demonstrative doth a certain Object And the Apostle plainly joineth them together in the same power as the dubl hinge whereon his whole Argument turneth These doth he jointly resume as the sum of our Lords institution These doth he fasten as a nail in a sure place and upon These doth he hang that chain of Consequences whereby he convinceth his Corinthians of their crime and discovereth the Need and Way to avoid it Let us first vieu the import of the Words and Then his care concerning them This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plainly Relative it imports Equality in point of Frequency and requireth that the new Relative should conform it self to the mesur of a Former Correlate Now it is plain that whoever is obliged to make One thing Equal to Another must certainly know the mesur of That Other which he is to conform to No Town can shew a Standard made of Air or Water but of Wood or Metal whose firm substance having a stable bigness of its own may certainly determin the Quantity of what is to be mesured by it The Apostl is very careful to prove and inculcate that Eating THIS bread and drinking THIS cup is the stable Standard whereby we must mesure our Frequency in the Lords Supper It must therefor be necessary that it self must have its Determined Frequency fixed by som praevios Law or Custom certainly foreknown and thereby capable to give mesures to any Other performance
cup you drink That whereof he said This is my blood And taking this for the sens of the 26th vers the necessity of the 27th and all that follow immediatly appears For if they be so Much and so Unavoidably concerned then whoever eateth This bread and drinketh This cup unworthily must needs be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord who hath so made Those the representatives of These that whether we receve them or no will make no difference in his imputation because the Relation dependeth not upon Our admittance of them for such but upon His own Commission constituting them for such So that in the recess by intending to Omit the Lords Supper you make your selves guilty of breaking his Command which obligeth you to Do it without escaping the other guilt of Unworthiness since his Institution hath made his body and blood concerned in all the abuses you put upon This bread and This cup. SINCE therefor this 26th vers cannot be Imperative because Grammar requireth the Indicative mode always to follow the causal FOR And since it cannot be Indicative if This bread and This cup in the whole comprehension signifie nether more nor less than the Lords Supper because then in their formal concept they will necessarily import setting forth his death and Logik requireth that the Praedicate in every Proposition should bring somthing of news concerning the Subject But if we fit the Demonstrative This with its necessary Object and the Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with its necessary Mesure then will the Proposition carry Weight enough to lay it as a foundation for all the Deductions which the Apostl bildeth upon it and Light enough to shew the use of every syllabl in his Argument and Force enogh to convict the Corinthians beyond all possibility of reply To doubt now whether we will accept so Serviceable yea so necessary an Hypothesis is no other than to put our selvs into a very hard streight For we shall be obliged either to accuse the Apostl of transgressing the plain rules of Grammar and Logik yea and of Justice too in charging the Corinthians with the greatest Crime without sufficient evidence or else to produce som Other Hypothesis of our own which shall be at least equally serviceabl towards clearing his discours from such great defects And while the adversary deliberates upon so hard a choice I proceed to examin that Other Sens shall I call it which alloweth our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No ground to Build or so much as to Stand upon CHAP. III. Concerning the Vulgar interpretation of As often as I. The Distinction between Suppositive and Absolute stated because made the mesure of obligation II. The words of the Author set forth and III. Examined IV. The merely suppositive sens enervates our Lords Command And V. The Apostl's own Argument VI. The two senses ballanced in order to Conscience THAT in so doing I may escape both the Task of setting a tolerable countenance upon an opinion so generally receved and the Suspicion of representing it disadvantageosly I conceve it most Convenient if not absolutely Necessary to exhibit it in the words of its Patrons Patron I should say For among the Many that entertein it I know but One that hath put himself to the charge of affording it any means of Subsistence by cloathing it with any proper Rules or nourishing it with any Proofs But it is Such an One as may pass for a Multitude One that may not be named without Reverence One of the greatest Ornaments and Pillars of our Church One who professeth to fit every subject with its proper Rules and Mesures and therefor One whom we may believe to have said the utmost in behalf of his Opinion This singular Person puts it to the question Whether our Lords words in This Institution amount to a Command And thogh his interest persuaded him to have Affirmed it yet the sound of These words and inadvertency to the Custom we suppose them to relate to engaging him for the Negative embarrased him in difficulties inextricable from which because he struggles to free himself by help of the distinction between Suppositive and Absolute I shall first state That distinction and Then try what service it can do in the present question A Suppositive Command Obligeth just so as a Suppositive Proposition Declareth viz. nothing else but a Connexion or Disjunction between the Parts An Absolute Proposition may be true though its Subject have no Being and so may an Hypothetical one though its Antecedent have no Truth And as a Hypothetical Syllogism Absolutely concludes Nothing without help of an Absolute Assumtion so doth not a Hypothetical Command oblige to any thing without the help of som Positive addition Hypothetical necessity is therefor consistent with Absolute liberty because the Obligation must derive half its power from the yet undetermined Position E. G. If my Father should have laid upon me this Suppositive Command As often as you go to London go by land This would not oblige me either to the Journy or the Manner By staying at home I should have be'n as obedient as by a hundred tedios Journies But if my Inclinations or Bisiness should call me to the Journy then by vertu of the Command joined with the Urgency of my Business wer I obliged to go not by Water but by Land Such a Command would by no means have amounted to Get you a hors and away Nor can a Suppositive Command amount to such an Absolute Precept as Let a man examin himself and so let him eat But the utmost that so civil a word could amount to is this If you are pleased to eat then is it necessary you examin your self This is the true state of a Suppositive Obligation It leaveth us at full liberty thogh it expose us to be rob'd of it by som Absolute Proposition following And how impossibl it is to reconcile the Wisdom of our Lords Institution with the Weakness of such an Obligation cannot better be discovered than by the succesless attemts of so habile an Undertaker whose words I com now to examin wherein I beg the Readers just charity to believ what I most seriosly protest that it is not without great reluctancy I engage in so unwelcom an office toward a person to whom I am so much obliged and nothing but faithfulness to so great a Subject should compel me to expose the words of him whom all good men are obliged to honor His Rule is The Institution of a Rite or Sacrament by our Blessed Savior is a direct Law and passes a proper obligation in its whole integrity This one would think is as plain as heart can wish but the Gloss quite mars the Text for thus doth he endeavor to bend his Rule to his Conceptions and Other Writings concerning This Holy Sacrament THIS Rule can relate but to one instance that of the Holy Sacrament of Christs body and blood for although Christ did institute two Sacraments yet that
any be will pass from the obediently negligent Subject to the impertinently busie Law-maker who having not Required but Supposed the Action neither Found nor Made any ground for the Supposition It forbids the benevolence it begs For thogh it threaten No guilt of disobedience to the Omission it doth to the Performance While we may ly safe in our Neglect we run a great risk in our Officiosness For he that Omitteth the Performance disobeyeth no command therefor cannot incur any guilt nor deserv any punishment but he that upon such terms approacheth the Holy Table is already gilty of contemt towards the threatnings denounced against Unworthy recevers bicause he needlesly exposeth himself to them and to com safely off had need of more Piety in the Performance than we can Yet discover of Wisdom in the adventure V. IF WE can suppose the Apost'l so regardless of our Saviors command yet sure he had more kindness for his OWN ARGUMENT than to use such solicitos endeavors to destroy it and for his own Credit than to furnish the Corinthians with a Plea whereby they might non-suit his Charge He was sure a better Disciple both to Gamaliel and our Lord than to use such endeavors as by the ordinary rules of reasoning must depose both his own Discours and our Lords Command from all power But such is the unavoidable consequence of the merely Suppositive sens of those important words For it is obvious that the Corinthians Might and therefor supposable that they Would plead thus for themselves We are sufficiently sensible that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup we shew forth the Lords death and consequently that whoever eateth This bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But in these our ordinary Fests which thou so severely reprovest we have nothing to do with This bread nor This cup. We Fest indeed as often as we meet in the Church but without any Intent and we conceve without any Need to eat This bread or drink This cup. We intend to do what all Nations agree to be the proper manner of worshipping God This is the Vniversal notion of mankind in that so common Rite of Sacrificing The Votary therefor offereth his beast that he may become a guest to his God thereby at once Receiving and Expressing a confidence that he is propitious to him And thogh our Lords great Sacrifice of himself have made it needless to shed any more blood by way of atonement yet is that so far from any reason that we should lay aside Festing with Sacrificing that it is a very good one why we should take it up if it had never be'n used before since now we have much greater reason to rejoice in the Communion to which God inviteth us But that in all our Fests we should be obliged to celebrate the Lords Supper since himself hath not expressed it we understand not For either he intended we should receive it only at the same Fest whereat he Instituted it which was the Passover or els he left it wholely to our discretion to receve it as often as we should think convenient Now that we intend not to do it in our ordinary meetings thy self seemest to understand For thou declarest when ye come together it is not to eat the Lords Supper Is it not we own it we plead it It is not to eat the Supper and how do we Profane it when we do not eat it When we do Eat it if our behavior be irreverent we must confess our selves guilty for we submit to thy rule As often as we Eat This bread and Drink this cup unworthily we are guilty but it thence followeth not that we are so as often as we Fest together in the Church It is hard to say whether such a plea were more obvios to the Apostl's Observation or Destructive to his Argument It was therefor infinitely necessary he should answer it and we find no other Answer to it but in these words nor any other Use of Those words but for such an Answer This is sufficient to perswade us so to interpret them that the Argument be not Defective nor Themselves Impertinent But to fasten such a Gloss upon them as shall make them not only Useless but Pernicios and the Argument not only naked of so necessary a defence but irrefragably retorted against the Author is perhaps a greater abuse to Them than the Corinthians profaneness was to the Lords Supper VI. FOR a close of this troublesom dispute let us impartially ballance the rival senses upon This enquiry which of all others is most important viz. which of them affordeth better satisfaction to a pious soul conscientiously enquiting how often he is obliged to receve the Holy Communion A question wherein there are many things doubtful but none more than This Whether it more Deserve or Need to be answered 1 The One sens offereth full satisfaction by shewing us a Certain Mesure to which we must conform And though the change long since made in the Manner of celebrating Church Festivals seem to have confounded it yet if we once know what it was at the time of the Institution we may and must so accommodate the never decaying Reason to the Change as still to answer the first Intention For if the Corinthians were therefor obliged to Eat the Lords Supper in All their Church meetings bicause they Fested in them All in One manner so are we bicause we also Fest in them All in Another manner Since the Manner of Publik worship the Church upon competent reasons may alter but the Institution of our Lord indispensibly closing All Church Fests with his own Supper No human power may abolish at least not in point of the Obligation though possibly invincible necessity may dispense with Actual performance at som times So by This account the clear answer will be That the Church must offer the Holy Sacrament as often as she can persuade the peopl to receve it and every person is so often obliged to receve it as the Church Officers shall offer it and Both the Church and every person oght to come as neer as possible to doing it every Lords day and every Holy day i. e. All days of Church Fests 2. But the other Sens for want of a Standard will pack us off with an answer more Delusory than the Collier's If we ask How often must I do this in remembrance of Christ it will answer As often as you eat This bread and drink This cup If we then ask How often must I eat This bread and drink This cup it will answer As often as you do it in remembrance of Christ This I say is more delusory than the Collier in two respects 1. Bicause it was possible to know what the Church believed Publik Confessions Canons of Councils c. All of them independent upon the Collier or his Faith and all know'n to the Catechist But Here we have No
dishonoring the Lords Supper by their necessary connexion Either therefor we ar quite out of the reach of his Threats bicause we are free from the Character he Reproves or if we ar Not then are we most exposed to That now mentioned bent against their So Coming together as not to eat the Lords Supper since That and only That can literally be charged upon us And since his Cautionary precepts were also levelled against the Sin Reproved they must needs strike more directly upon That Omission wherein we are equally gilty than upon the Unworthiness wherein we cannot be so And that inseparabl connexion between the Churches meetings and the Lords Supper which he so industriosly proveth must needs concern us more than any such kind of unworthiness as he mentioneth Not since That is to continu till the end of the World by our Lords own Institution and This is not condemned but by Our own Reason in consequence of the Apostls reproving another kind of gilt whereof we are uncapabl V. IF therefor we must accommodate the Apostls Dissertation to the change so as to shun the Unworthiness Not expresly forbidden much more must we do so in the Constancy so Expresly and Industriosly enjoyned So that our concern must needs be this As often as the Corinthians ate that bread and drank that cup which our Lord had adopted to represent his body and blood so often they shewed forth his death and therefor whoever did unworthily celebrate That were gilty of profaning This The connexion between their Meetings and their Fests the Apostl did not bicause he needed not mention but That between Them and the Lords Supper he proved inseparabl both as to Intermission and Abolition The former connexion the Church hath changed the later she may not in either of its members We ar therefor and till the Lord com ever must be obliged in All our Church meetings to celebrate the Lords Supper and That in such manner as becometh his body and blood THIS is the Equitabl and Moral sens of the Apostls words which was so Long and Universally paid them by all Ages and Churches preceding and following the change as might create a right even by Prescription but on the other side it hath be'n lost so many Ages that the Contrary Sens pleads Contrary Prescription It is now no less impossibl to reduce the people to Constancy than it was in the time of the Laodicean Council to reduce them to Sobriety and therefor the Officers of the Church now find it necessary to yield to the hardness of hearts callos by time VI. BUT here we must carefully distinguish between Yielding and Justifying Our Church speaketh not one syllabl to Dispens with the strictest Constancy but on the contrary still recommendeth it as often as she can without exposing her Own Injunctions to the Same Contemt from which she endeavoreth to rescu our Lords She doth indeed forbid the celebration if there be not a competent number to communicate bicause if the Holy Table must needs be deserted it is less dishonorable that it be so Without the Supper than With it She therefore leaveth it to the Ministers Discretion how often it shall be offered but she intrusteth their Piety to exhort the peopl to com as often as possibl She is Both ways careful that neither the Willing may want a Communion nor the Unwilling an Exhortation She therefor complieth with the peopl's Neglect no otherwise than did the equally valiant and indulgent Captain with his Armies cowardize he Commanded he Intreated he Exhorted he Reproved but when he could by no means prevail to stop their flight he put himself in their head that they might seem rather to Follow their Leader than Flee their Enemy But as this compliance of the Captain did not justify his Disobedient Troops so neither do the Churches Rubriks justify either Ministers or Peopl that are wanting to the Constancy so plainly Urged by the Apostl Practiced by the Best ages and Recommended by her Self The Sum of all is this Since the Church had no Authority nor no Intention to slacken the Power either of our Lords Command or the Apostls Argument we must therefor still own them to have the same Power now as ever and must accommodate them to our Present meetings as if they still were Festivals not only in Name or Spiritually as we acknowlege them still to be but in Reality and Sensually as at the time of his Writing they were and in the Recess the Obligation is no less indissolubl against the teeth of time and the constitutions of Governments than against any evasions of singl persons But All this the More it Obligeth the Less it Persuadeth It may perhaps Compel us to submit to the Duty but cannot Invite us to Embrace the Favor And our Lord doth not use to Drive us like Beasts we know not Why nor Whither But to Lead us with the cords of a Man with bonds of Love with strong Reason and sweet Allurements the savor of his sweet ointments which so draw loving souls as to make them not only Follow but Run after him And This duty above All others is That way most attractive The Command made Reasonabl by a good End and the End made Amiabl by Relation to our Lord 's own Person as we now com to see in the remaining words In remembrance of me PART IV. Concerning the End In Remembrance CHAP. I. It is the badge of a Christian I. This the only rite whereby we honor our Lords Person Three Considerations 1. Every Religion distinguished from Every other by som proper rite This Nature taught the Heathen and Gods Law the Jews II. The New Testament contracteth the multitude of Jewish rites to two whereby Christians ar known as ar the Knights of the Garter 1. By a rite of admission III. 2. By continual wearing the badge IV. Those distinguishing rites must be highly valued It was mortal to a Jew to omit any of them and to a Heathen to wear them V. 'T is wors in a Christian upon several accounts 1. The Law-giver 2. The Rites VI. 3. The Obligation HITHERTO we have seen nothing but Dry Law the rough Issu of Authority and Will haling us to the unrecommended performance by chains of Compulsion without any gentler Attractives that may Invite our Affections or Persuade our Reason And as the Country hath be'n dry and barren so have the Ways be'n craggy Troublesom to the Best and Unpassable to the Most understandings The Reader must understand the Rules of Reasoning and must be ar no litle pains to mesure the Apostl's discurs by Those Rules We now com to a pleasanter Country and smoother ways From the Apostl's Argument to our Lords which is full of endearments to our Affections and free from difficulties to our Understandings thogh we never sate at the feet of Gamaliel or any other Tutor but Love For whoever loveth our Lord's person can no sooner hear that He is concerned but he findeth abundant
greater Mysteries If saith he I tell you Earthly things and ye believe not how will ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things Meaning by Earthly and Heavenly as St. Paul afterward did Phil. 2.10 and in several other places by the Former the Jewish by the Later the Christian Mysteries whereof he giveth a Specimen in his coming from Heaven his returning Thither and his being There and his crucifixion for the salvation of the world That which we mention This for is to shew that our Lord manifestly adopted the Jewish Tradition of Baptism into the Gospel making it then a necessary badge of a Disciple as he also afterward did when he returned to Heaven requiring his Apostles to go and Disciple all nations Baptising them for this reason bicause whoever believeth and is Baptised i. e. publikely professeth his Discipleship shall be saved By all which it is apparent that our Lord appointed this as a Livree whereby his servants must profess to own Him for their Master if they should by him be own'd and saved III. YET is not this the Adaequate nay nor the Principal badge of a Christian For we receve This but Once and that without our own consent As were we when this Seal was put upon us so was its Impression when we came to age we wer at liberty to Own or Reneg it and whether we do This or That appears by no other visibl mark but only our Receving or Neglecting This more Critical Sacrament in due season appointed by our Lord as a more Lasting and Alway Visible cognisance I say our Lord appointed this Other Sacrament in Due season For had he do'n it sooner his Disciples would have forgotten his Command before they understood it yet could he not forbear to Prophecy of it saying He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life But since his Death must needs be understood when he had suffered it even by Those who before knew not what it meant he therefor took the time when it was in a manner Present as fittest for the Institution which was both to Commemorate it and Distinguish his Disciples by such constant Repetitions whereof Baptism was incapable Those who are honored with the Noble Order of the Garter as they are solenly Installed so ar they Obliged ever after to wear the George and the Star as permanent badges of the Honor and Vow they have receved and if Any person however solenly Installed shall afterward lay his Habit aside he doth not only Offend against the Law of the Order but Disclaim his Interest in it as refusing to be esteemed a Brother of that Royal Fraternity This Sacrament is our George and our Star This if we constantly wear not we tacitly renounce our Christianity Those very Persons who perhaps will not Admit certainly do not sufficiently Press this for a Necessary Duty abundantly urge it to other purposes When they are required to assign the marks of a true Church they name Administration of the Sacraments for One and it will troubl any reasonabl man to deny that if the Administration be the mark of a True Church the Reception must be so of a True Member of the Church And som Ultramarine Churches have found it necessary to declare as the Council of Agatha did of old that those who receve not the Sacraments oght not to be reputed as Christians For which censure thogh we have already seen Reason sufficient yet perhaps we may see more IV. 2. THOSE Rites whereby One Religion is Crititically distinguished from Another however slight the Mater may seem ar highly to be esteemed for That office Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing said the Apostl yet was the One mortal in the Old Testament and the Other in the New and Both upon the same Reason He that was circumcised was a debtor unto the whole Law To eat an Apple or any other Fruit of a Tree is a small matter but when the forbearance was made a Sacrament i. e. a Specimen of the new made Creatures owning the dominion of the Creator Then Eating was condemned not only as an act of Misdemeanor but Rebellion and the Smith which thoght it too much that God should be so severe for an Apple might be answered that it was not for the Apple but for the experiment he thereby gave of his disowning Gods authority over him And for This reason did God make Those offences Capital which had otherwise be'n Venial He that was uncircumcised He that kept not the Passover He that brake the Sabbath c. That soul must be cut off from his people bicause God had said of every one of those otherwise slight performances This shall be a sign between Me and You. This dubl care of God as well in Negative as Positive Ceremonies taught his peopl to infer That if a Jew must forbear the Rites of Gentilism then must the Gentile as for the same Reason so upon the same Penalty forbear those of Judaism Since the One no less than the Other was necessary to the Discriminarive which was the Adaequate vertu of the Law As God therefor made it mortal to the Jew to Neglect such Rites so did the Jews make it to a Gentile to Usurp them as thereby robbing them of their proper vertu since by being common to Both they wer disabled to distinguish the One from the Other The Gentile saith the Gemera Babylonica which observed the Law of Moses was guilty of death How so bicause it is said Moses commanded us a Law for an Inheritance It is an Inheritancs to Us not to the Gentile Yea their most Learned Maimonides saith that if a Gentile celebrated a Sabbath thogh he mistook the day yet if he did it with intention to keep the Sabbath he was guilty of death They did not indeed inflict death on such offenders but stripes only yet not without admonition that he was guilty of death thogh not punished with it Since therefor our Lord left us This Law as Moses did His Ceremonial for an Inheritance the Reason being the Same in the Law the Crime must be the Same in the Disobedience V. THE Same in its Reason but incomparably Greater in Haynosness For by how much the Covenant is Better the Law-giver Greater the Redemtion more costly c. by so much more criminal must it be to omit This than any Mosaical Rite And how much That is if we enquire we must do it in the stile of the Author to the Hebrews not to seek satisfaction but to express amazement He that despised Moses 's Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath do'n despight to the Spirit of Grace I grant that This dreadful Thunder is not leveled against the neglect of This Institution as
Her Power to preserv him in a great part of All Three especially That which of All was dearest to him He had Long made her heart his Throne and Now desired to have it for his Monument he therefor prayed both the Gods and Her to take care of That life wherein was preserved the remains of his Own To this purpose but infinitely more obligingly spake our dying Lord not in the language of a faint but quiet sickness but in the Agonies of a tormented Soul not in a few Complemental words suddenly offering themselvs to Augustus's mind and perhaps as suddenly flitting out of Livia's certainly dying with her but upon a premeditated Design to settle a lasting Monument whose firm durablness should Fix the fugitive impression and by constant returns perpetually Renew it so to keep his Bloud from Drying up and his Death from Dying His Last Command oght to be as powerful to work Obedience in his Disciples as wer his last Cryes to work Faith in the Centurion since These shewed no less the Strength of his Love than Those did the Vigor of Life at the very point of Death 2. But much more when we further consider that as it was the Last so was it the most Dreadful night This Passover had not onely the same bitter herbs with others but much bitterer Gall. He had the Devil for his guest and he that dipped with him in the dish was about to Betray him And he had his merciless enemies for his attendants waiting with swords and staves to take and destroy him This was That dreadful night wherin his Soul oppressed with horrors complained That it was exceeding heavy even to the death The same dismal night wherin the stabbing agonies of his tormented mind made every pore of his body a wound bleeding great grumos drops and those so plentifully as to run down to the ground The same terribl night wherin the dreadful prospect of his approaching sufferings so confounded his faculties that with dubled and trebled importunities he prayed to have That Cup taken from him for drinking whereof he came into the World The same amazing night wherin he was so near sinking that he needed an assisting Angel to support him under his burthen Even in That most hideos night did his care of This Institution so prevail over All Those Horrors which prevailed over his faculties as to bring him to a truce and he seemed almost to forget what night it was To Forget No but what was incomparably more to Long for it to Desire it With a Desire i. e. with a vehement desire with such a desire as outvoiced all the cries of his terrifying and tormenting passions Could we possibly understand the load that made him complain That his Soul was exceeding heavy even unto death and how much his Longings for This very season outweighed so great a load then possibly may we adjust the esteem he had for This his Dear Institution V. BUT if on the other side we compare the Affection wherewith We Receive it shall I say with that wherewith we find our Lord Recommended it we shall find Solomons words most perversly verified As in water face answereth to face so doth the heart of man to man For as the Reflex is directly Opposite to the Incident answering the Right side with the Left so doth our Obedience shall I say or our Performance no but our Neglect answer our Lords Care He chose the Last night of his Life for the Institution and many answer This by chusing the Last of theirs for the Performance as if appointed to shew forth not His Death but Their own When they have receved the Sentence of death in themselvs and ar immediatly to receve That of God Then first do they think fit to receve the Body and Blood of Christ as a kind of Charm somwhat better than the Sign of the Cross to fright the Devil from seising his own When the Physician hath declared or other Indications make it apparent that there is no hope of returning to Those sins which Therefor only they repent of bicaus they ar Past when the Will is sealed wherin they bequeath That soul to God whereof they had so long given the Devil possession Then in commutation for a whole life spent in contemt of This and All other holy exercises the Minister is sent for som good words spoken Absolution granted and Sealed with This Sacrament And now what uncharitabl Infidel can doubt but that the man is Pardoned in vertu of the One and receved into Eternal joys in that of the Other since our Lord himself promised that Whosoever Eateth his flesh and Drinketh his bloud hath Eternal life or how can This Bread and Wine possibly be imagined ar Any time fuller of Vertu than when so lately receved that the digestive faculty of the stomach hath not at all impaired it BUT others do not Thus put it off to the very Last Many own it if not a Duty yet an acceptabl act of Devotion Laudably thogh perhaps not Necessarily to be performed in the mids of life Yet even Those thogh not in the Same in Another wretched sens make it their Last Care When All other Interests and Inclinations ar served Then perhaps shall This have it's turn But if any thing els crave it however Slight or Trifling it be This Holy Office must yield it Precedence Pretences so Slender that a hundred twisted together shall not be sufficient to draw one from a Gossiping or any other Meeting shall singl be abl to draw him from the Lords Table With Solomons yawning Sluggard he cryes there is a Lion in the way a Lion in the streets when indeed he fears no danger But to his Lust or Ease I had business says one But pray Sir what was That Business Was it greater than what our Lord had in That last horrid Night wherein he forced all his dreadful crouds of griefs and fears to give way to This Care Was it so Importunate that it could not be Neglected or so Urgent that it could not be Delayed or so Suden that it could not be Prevented Didst thou use all indevors to Keep or Dispatch it out of the way Did it Surprise thee just in the nick when thou wert going to the Church and upon the very spot Disable thee from performing thy then fixed resolution Didst thou Wrestle against it with thy utmost Strength and yield to it no otherwise than as to an Invincibl Necessity If so thou art so far excusabl For Necessity hath This only of good nature that it Defends those most who have most Resisted it But if thou hast either Wilfully Draw'n this pretended hindrance upon thy self or Carelesly Suffered it to surprise thee or Tamely Yielded to it or be'n any way Defective in striving against it look how many grains the Hindrance falleth short of Insuperabl and thy Endevors of Perfect so many doth thy Excuse of Justifiable BUT the business which is too Slight may be otherwise Innocent
shew forth the Lords death by them This Consequence we have all this while be'n proving to be his aim 2. The Other Consequence argueth back again from the Reverence due to our Lords Person to Answerabl Reverence due to his Representatives Bicaus the Lords Body and Blood ar concerned in it therefor you must not eat This bread and drink This cup Vnworthily And this he presseth by two important inferences the Former setting forth the Crime in the 27 vers The Later prescribing the Remedy in the 28. Upon these two turn all the Interpretative Prohibitions which must revers our Lords Command to DO this and all his own forgoing argument inforceing it For by the Former All Unworthy persons ar ipso facto excommunicated and by the Later every one is bound therefor to examin himself that if he find himself unworthy he may execute the sentence It must therefor needs be worth our Labor seriosly to enquire into the true import of those two considerable words which I shall do in their Order CHAP. II. Concerning Unworthiness I. What Unworthy importeth 1. In it 's singl signification 1. In Grammar it is an Adverb 2. In Logik a Relative II. The degree of the Crime not expressed why We need not be so fearful as the Papists We deny not the Real Presence III. 2. The Aspect of the word upon the Apostls designe 1. Personal worthiness dishonourabl to our Lord. 2. Different from the Apostls mesure IV. The Apostl oght to have warned the Corinthians of it 1. For the Lord's Tables sake 2. For his own arguments sake V. 3. For the Corinthians sakes who were such as oght to have be'n forbidden THE Former is set forth in vers 27. He that eateth This Bread and drinketh This Cup UNWORTHILY is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. And again vers 29. He that eateth unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself In the 27. is declared the Guilt in the 29. the Punishment And Both of them incurred by doing this UNWORTHILY Our main business therefor must be to mesur the import of the word Unworthy And first we must view it in it's Singl Interpretation and then in its Aspect 1. It 's Singl import may be considered in Grammar and in Logik 1. In Grammar we ar to consider the Root and the Termination 1. The Root is Worthy which Rigidly importeth an Equality of worth but in a Milder sens is satisfied with som Proportion thogh short of Full value The Chancery of the Gospel abateth much of what Strict Law requireth Is satisfied with Suitablness for Worthiness This Allowance doth it perpetually give All such words as import Righteousness And with This Latitude doth our Apostl frequently use This very word E. G. Eph. 4.1 Col. 1.10 Thes 2.12 c. For if any one think he can in a Proper sens Walk Worthy of the Gospel Worthy of the Lord or Worthy of God That very thoght will make him Unworthy of the mercy offered by That Lord in That Gospel 2. The Termination speaketh it an Adverb qualifying the Manner of the Action Not an Adjective subjected in the Agent It is not He that eateth and drinketh being Unworthy but he that doth it Unworthily however his Person be qualified The Difference between These two is so Wide so Evident and in This place so Important that it could never escape such acute eys as som of our adversaries enjoy were they not muffled with that Proverbial partiality which maketh None so blind as him that will not see For the first sight of it will expose the impertinence as to This performance of all those Schemes and Directories for Self-Examination which are so carefully set forth as if it wer the same thing to do this in a Manner worthy of the Office and to make one's Self Worthy to be the Officer This can never be too carefully observed I again insist upon it that This Difference between UNWORTHY and UNWORTHILY duely considered will let in such light as will abundantly discover the many and great flaws in That hypothesis to which so many good and wise men have so enslaved themselvs that they ar somtimes as we shall anon see a pitiful exampl forced to offer violence to their ingenuity 2. In Logik it is a Relative wherein beside the now considered Relation and Subject is also considerabl the Correlate which is the Party concerned in the Worthiness or Unworthiness of the Action And this is Generally Grossly and Unhappily mistaken for our Lords Person whereas we have sufficiently proved it to be This Bread and This Cup. Bicause so much depends upon it I again desire is may be considered that the Apostl reproveth the Corinthians just as a sober person would a rude Bully if he should see him abuse a Justice of Peace in execution of his Office Sir might he say Take heed what you do you seem to take this Gentleman for your Equal or perhaps your Inferior but then are you mistaken for This Gentleman This plain Gentlman what ever you think of him represents the Kings person And therefor the Abuses you offer Him ar not private incivilities to an Ordinary Person but Publik Misdemeanors c. In such an Admonition Nothing is intended to be urged but what needs it viz. The Character of the Officer which once known the Nature of the Crime and the Kings concern immediately appears II. THE Nature of the Crime but it 's Degree is not so plain The Apostl in This place by a most unusual stile leaveth it to our Own Reasons to judge He is guilty saith he of the Body and Blood of the Lord but whether of Trampling it under foot or only of Contemning it or in what degree of Affronting it the strange Ellipsis hath left uncertain This is very Certain and no less Considerabl That the affront which passeth through the Officers person loseth much of it's force There and cannot strike so strong upon the Kings as if it were Directly and Immediately aimed at him The Character doth indeed dignify the Otherwise inconsiderabl Person But the Person hath it's Reaction upon the Character We make great allowances for the Meanness of the One even when we pay our Honor to the Other For we think not the same Aw due to the Justice's Worship as to the King's Majesty nor do we judge the Crime Equally great in the affront offered him As the Corinthians Crime had be'n much aggravated so had the Apostl's own Argument be'n much strengthened if he had not made This Bread This Cup but our Lords body and bloud the proper object of the abuse Had therefor This Bread be'n the Proper Body and this Cup the Proper Bloud of our Lord he was now obliged both to Declare and Urge it In a case so urgent an Omission is equivalent to a Negative It was his business so to set forth the Dignity of This abused Bread and Cup that by Proportion with it their Guilt may be Aggravated Would Truth have Consented
his Design would have Required him to have raised his voice Higher He must have said he that Eateth this Bread and Drinketh this Cup eateth the body and drinketh the bloud of the Lord and not have com'n off with a Cold Indefinite Ellipsis which not expressing in What Measure maketh nothing plain but this that it is in a measure much Inferior and consequently his own argument much Weaker than if he had declared them guilty of contemt to the body and bloud of Christ immediatly by Using Them in such manner as they did This Bread and This Cup. Those indeed who still believ This Bread and This Cup not to be our Lord's Representatives but Himself may justly fear the Unworthiness not only of their Persons however carefully Prepared but of their Worship too however carefully Performed But we who believ them no other than what the Apostl stileth them even Then when he most Studiosly Recommendeth them to our Reverence when upon due Self-examination we find how unworthy We ar to Receve our Lords body and bloud may check our fears by considering how Vnworthy This Bread and This Cup ar to Represent them not doubting but the same goodness which bestowed such honor upon the unworthy elements will pardon and accept of Us if we receve them in a Manner suitable to their Office tho not in a Degree worthy of his own Person Let me not be mistaken I deny not the Reality of Christs presence in the Sacrament When I call This Bread and Cup Representatives I mean not that our Lords body and bloud ar thereby no otherwise Represented than the Kings Person is by his Picture which ar the proper goods of the Possessor and may be treated according to his pleasure or than a King is by a Stage-player which only Imitateth but Shareth not his power But as the King is by his Officer who so Representeth his Person as to Execute his Authority with whom he is tho not Personally yet Politikly present Ratifying whatever he doth in his Name and stead This kind of Real presence our Lord himself promised not to Affright but Incorage us When two or three said he ar gathered together in my name there am I in the mids of them He meant doubtless no less than a Real presence which must needs be most Eminent in Such assemblies as ar gathered together not only in his Name but upon his Invitation And to make such a Promis an argument to fright men away is a strange way of honoring the Author From this dissection of the very words we find them fall very short of the force ascribed to them They no way barr any man from Obedience for want of Worthiness Require not a Legal Worthiness in the Person coming Make not the Person of Christ the Object of the Worthiness required in the Performance And upon the whole make not the guilt of the Unworthy Performance equal to that of Disobedience since This Directly affronteth our Lords Person in his Command That only Indirectly in his Representative III. VVE have said that the Anatomist is not only to vieu the Intrinsic Texture of the part dissected but it 's Serviceablness to the Life to what therefor we have seen of the proper sens of the word we shall add it's aspect upon the Apostls design which will be a Further Evidence that he meant not so much as is generally believed bicause such supposal of Personal worthiness would have be'n 1. very dishonorabl to our Lord 2. very Deferent from that Mesure himself stateth it by and 3. very Unfaithful to the Corinthians he requireth it of 1. It wer a great DISHONOR to our Lord to suppose it possibl that any one can be Worthy yea or com within any Neerer distance than Infinite Unworthiness For Worthiness is Relative signifieth if not Full Equality yet som Proportion between the Merit and the Reward the Fest and the Guest And take which of the Correlates you please you find a Saint reproving the concept To those that fear their Own Unworthiness thus speaketh St. Chrisostom Thou sayest thou art not worthy to Do this neither art thou worthy to Pray c. We may go on neither art thou worthy to Hear So far art thou from being Worthy to take our Lords Body that thou art not Worthy to take His Name into thy mouth so far from Worthy to injoy his Bloud that thou art not so to injoy the light of the Sun the fruits of the Earth or any of those sensual delights which Beasts may Injoy but not Abuse as much as Thou On the other side to those who fear the Greatness of the Sacrament thus speaketh another Saint Thou abstainest from the Blessed Sacrament bicause it is a thing so sacred and formidabl that thou not thinkest thy self worthy of it well suppose That But I pray' who is worthy Is an angel worthy enogh No certainly if we consider the greatness of the Mystery Let us well consider these two Sayings and their Reasonablness and then judge of those so frequent phrases A Worthy Communicant A Worthy Guest c. whereby many unwary persons ar more Scared than with any thing derived from the word of God which never taught us either to think so Slightly of our Lords Bloud or so Highly of our Selvs as to believ it possibl by any endeavors to becom Worthy of it 2. The vulgar sens is very different from that Mesure the Apostl stateth the reproved Unworthiness by He expresly caleth it a not discerning the Lords body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 putting no difference between This which our Lord declared his Own Body and Common bread Our Learned Mede very well confirmeth the Jewish definition of Holiness that it signifieth Separation We Sanctify what we honor with Discrimination and on the contrary we Profane what we use as Common The heavenly vision confirmeth this warning St. Peter from an Error in opinion analogos to this Crime What God hath sanctified that call not thou Common To call Common and Unclean was all one in St. Peters sens and not to discern the Lords body from Common bread is all one as to Desecrate it in St. Pauls And this he so presseth upon the Corinthians as dubly to convince them What saith he Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Possibly he might urge this not as Another Crime but as an Evidence of their unexcusablness in the Former They might perhaps plead Ignorance in That but in This they could not For thogh possibly they might not understand that they were obliged to Discern This Bread as the Lords body yet must they needs know they oght to Discern the Church as his Hous If they knew it not to be Sacrilege to make the Lords Cup an instrument of drunkenness they could not but know it so to make his Hous a Tavern With what partiality do som for som others do not treat these two parts
of the Apostls reproof With what Colossik strides do they reach both sides of Superstition On one side they dread the Lords Supper for want of worthiness in Themselvs on the other side they fear to own any reverence toward Gods Hous for want of worthiness in It How do they rob Peter and cloath Paul make the Lords Hous Common that they may dubly Sanctify his Tabl And all the while the Apostl makes This the Corinthians crime that they discriminated not the Lords Body from Common Bread and This either another Instance or an Evidence of their Profaneness that they discriminated not his Church from their Own houses But I may not now insist upon Any other error than That of the Corinthians which the Apostl saith consisted in This That they So used our Lords Body and his Hous as if they had Both be'n Common He chargeth them not Here thogh elswhere he do with any Other crime but such as Directly and Immediately desecrate the One and the Other and that in This very exercise Taketh no notice of their Other habitual vices confineth his charge to This performance in This place Forbiddeth not to approach either the Lords Table or his Hous bicaus they ar intemperate at their Own Yea he So expresseth himself as if he would even Compound with them indulge them their Domestik debaucheries provided they would forbear them Here. Not that indeed he Justifyeth what he elswhere plainly enogh Condemneth but to aggravate This incomparably Greater wickedness whereof the Sacrilege so Exceedeth as even to Hide the Immorality The Glutton is guilty of the Flesh of his Beast and the Drunkard of the Bloud of the Grape but the Unworthy Communicant of the Body and Bloud of the Lord. To be drunk with Common Wine in a Common Hous is to abuse both Gods Benefits and ones Own Body but to Desecrate the Lords Hous into a Tavern and his Bloud into a Cup of Drunkenness to make That the Instrument and This the Scene of Leudness is a wickedness not only above Drunkenness but even above Sacrilege it self As it hath no Match so it hath no Name If therefor you will not divorce your beloved debaucheries if you will needs be eating and drinking intemperately yet know your Place do not heap Sacrilege upon Lust make not the Lords Hous yea his very Body and Bloud Servants to the leudness they would Check This is the Utmost reach of the Apostls reproof It comprehendeth indeed not only the Lords Table but his whole Hous Yet breaketh not open any Private one Judgeth no Other unworthiness but of This Performance Requireth a Difference not between one Communicant and another but between This and other Places and Suppers and Consequently Forbiddeth not Any Person to Do This which we have found All indifferently obliged to Do but forbiddeth Every one to Do It in such a Manner as shall make That Common which our Lord hath Sanctified IV. 3. THE Apostl must be mortally unfaithful to his Corinthians if upon so urgent an Occasion he did not warn them in Terms as Plain as the Crime if any must be Great I say upon so Urgent an Occasion for a most Urgent one it is Whether we look upon the 1. Lords Supper which he professedly endeavoreth to rescu from Profanation 2. the Argument whereby he laboreth to do it or 3. the Persons to whom he addresseth all 1. He professeth to rescu the Lords Tabl from Profanation and to That End to Close it with such a Rail as shall Fence it from abuse If therefor he leaves that rail so wide as to Admit Such persons as he oght to have kept out he must be dubly and inexcusably unfaithful both to the Lords tabl which he shall so have exposed to dishonor and to All those souls which finding no contrary warning may com to it with as great Sincerity as Danger If I find this the Purlieus of the Corinthians guilt that they Distinguished not the Lords Body then may I be secure of One of those Two Either he who distinguisheth the Lords Body is free from This how full soever he may be of Other Crimes Or the Apostl must be More guilty than the most Unworthy Communicant since professing to shew the True Extent of the Danger he warned them not to distinguish between Persons Worthy and Unworthy but between This and Common Bread Were his words Ambiguos yet must they here cary a sens usual in a case so Important he oght to have Explained how much they must Now signify above what at All other Times and by All Persons is ascribed to them and which can Intend No more but This That every one is obliged So to Distinguish between the Lords Supper and his Own as to shun Those indecencies which ar ordinary in Private Houses 2. He must be no less unfaithful to his Own Argument bicaus contrary to all Reason he must have neglected to strengthen it with the most Considerabl and Obvios Corroboration For if the exclusion of Unworthy Persons wer as agreeabl to our Lords Institution as the Consequence would have be'n serviceabl to his Own Purpose he Might and therefor Oght to have urged it and so put the holy Sacrament at the Greatest and Safest distance from profanation For if none must com to This Table who abuse their Own it will be out of danger of any Other abuse than Desertion If none drink This Cup who is ever drunk with Common Wine it will be secure from Promoting the Drunkenness which it cannot Tolerate If none Partake This Bread who break not Their Own to the hungry there will be no more danger that any one shall be hungry than that any other shall be drunken And since the Apostl was now obliged to speak whatever Truth would permit we ar reduced to This choice whether He wer fals to the Lords Supper his Own Argument and his Disciples souls or whether it be Not Forbidden to every Unworthy Person but enjoined to every one thogh as unworthy as wer the Corinthians to Do this 3. The Persons to whom this reproof is addressed wer such as may induce us to believ that Gods Providence concurred with the Apostl's Words to prevent any possibility of believing what we now dispute against For they wer the Corinthians a peopl of all other the most Obnoxios Proverbially Infamos for debaucheries This City vyed with Sodom as for fulness of bread so for excess of Leudness and dismalness of Destruction Yea so strangely inseparabl was Luxury from every thing of Corinth so much more incurabl than that strange Leprosy of Jewish houses that the very Burning of the City did not Purge but Propagate it The confusion of Metals melted by the raging flames from her multitude of rich Statues made That famos mixture which by the luxurios Romans was preferred above Gold it self as a more precios mater for their drinking cups and to be Supremely Luxurios something of Corinth must contribute Yet was not Leudness conveyed
they recompenced the thus injured Season with a succedaneos Sacrament in the Grace-cup as the Jews did their unattended Temple with a succedaneos Sacrifice in the Tradition The concurrence of two such Names evidently derived from the same Cup no less remarkable than that of all other circumstances dubleth the evidence All this may well justify a challenge to the gainsayer either to accept of This or produce a better Yea perhaps it might be urged that we cannot avoid but that we must own either the cup of the Lord or the cup of divels there being no other imaginable Original for the unaccountable Grace-cup Yet as I will not disparage the Table in our Chappel by equaling it with That in our Hall so neither will I my better Evidences by leveling them with a mere Conjecture how ever Probable I therefor take it not as we may suppose it delivered down by our Ancestors but as it is still practised among our Selvs not as a Proof of a pios custom in the Churches of Christ but as an Illustration of his Own meaning Suppose we then that our Lord should again visit the Earth convene a Council truly General make a publik Fest declare his great satisfaction in the Opportunity and then in its proper Season and with all due Circumstances take the Grace-cup and deliver it about with the same Words as he did that in his Institution saying This is c. would we then doubt but by the Particl This he pointed at That Cup so in his hand under the long knowen character of a Grace-cup If This would not put us out of doubt let us further suppose that our Lords chief Secretary should profess that he had to him declared his meaning and that this unexceptionable person should not only describe the Grace-cup by its proper characters but even it by its proper name and in plain words tell us that the Grace-cup which we drink is the Communion of the blood of Christ Would any one now doubt but the Grace-cup so Circumstanced and so Named and so pointed at must be the peculiar cup of the Lord which must cary its old Constancy to a new Dignity If this amount not to Full Evidence yet sure we cannot deny it to be more then Half and then the Civil Law will allow us to bring a Suppletory The Bread then joineth its Evidence with this of the Cup. In our Lords Institution it holdeth the same Place as in the Jewish Tradition In the Apostles Argument by loss of its Place it is advanced in Power for by its Deposition so alloyed it appeareth that thogh rhe Apostles Argument were yet was not our Lords Institution complete without it for which there can be no other reason given but this that it was an equally Necessary part of the Tradition whence the whole Supper was derived Let us therefor carefully compare them What Lineaments what Feature what Meen what Motion is there in the Tradition that is not answered both in our Lords Institution and in each of the Apostles Arguments What Family can shew a Son so lively resembling both Father and Grandfather what Artist a Picture more exactly representing the Original what Wisdom less then that of the wonderful Counsailer could have invented a Rite more perfectly setting forth the Tradition it copieth the Passion is commemorateth the Benefits it exhibiteth c. I do not upon all these Evidences crave your Sentence There remain other necessary Enquiries to be made We have rejected the Passover because it answered not the Apostles Argument thogh it better did so our Lords Institution we must bring them to the same Test and if it agree not with every title confess all our hopes vain and labor lost VI. VVHICH yet I am so secure against that I cannot forbear to anticipate the Observation That this notice must silence a multitude of trifling troublesom questions concerning the definition and qualifications of a Sacrament For Both This and its Twin Sacrament upon examination confess themselvs nothing els but Jewish Traditions sublimed by our Lord to Evangelical Commands requiring all Christians to wear them as badges of his service as we shall have another occasion more fully to discover And from this we may well take occasion to warn som too zelos persons that they need examin whether there be as good agreement between their own Spirits and that of our Lord as we have found between these two Cups The Jews were no less zelos of Moses's Law in opposition to the Gospel than any Papist can be of his Superstition in opposition to Reformation Our Lord as much abolished Legal Ceremonies as our Reformers did Popish He as much declared against the Traditions of the Scribes as our Church doth or needeth to do against Superfluos Ceremonies Yet behold he was so far from refusing their Customs for This only reason because they were Theirs that for This very reason he chose them He could doubtless have invented som other rite for Matriculating Disciples no less proper than that of Baptism and som other for Commemorating his death than This of the Grace-cup yet did not disdain to borrow Both his Sacraments from those implacabl Enemies of his Person and Gospel while he abolished all those Divine Ordinances that prefigured Both Leaving us an example so to shun what is prejudicial as to retain what may be serviceabl and make our adversaries practice a reason not to Fly but Embrace it PART II. Concerning the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. I. The Apostl's design was not to assert Reverence to the Lords Supper I. The Apostl's proper design first to be enquired into II. Three steps 1. What might be the Corinthians case III. 2. What might becom the Apostl to do in such a case IV. 3. How doth the Apostl's procedure agree with such Suppositions 1. The former part very well agreeth with them V. 2. The later part necessarily requireth them Proved 1. Negatively He did not design to assert Reverence due to our Lords Supper precisely taken The subject of the Proposition ver 26. is not the Lords Supper but This Bread and This Cup. The Praedicate is utterly useles and wors toward such a design VI. 2. Positively The Proposition pointeth at som Determiminate Bread and Cup. The Argument reduced to a Syllogism HAVING thus found our Key as Fit as Necessary to unlock our Lords Institution we may with the better corage prove it upon the Apostl's Discours concerning it Wherein as there are More and som of them cross Wards so if it answer them All in All their turnings we shall have so many the More Evidences that it is the tru one That we may work regularly it will be necessary in the First place to Enter it in due manner i. e. begin with a right understanding of the Apostles proper Design whereto every word is to be serviceable For it is no small help to a travailer to know which way his journies end lies and to cast the
the better half of our Lords Supper and the Whole of the Apostl's Argument which cannot out-live this lose but would not have be'n wounded so mortally by That of the Bread V. 3. MY last remark is that in the Deductions which which himself draweth from our Lords purposly recited Institution he payeth to the Bread joint honor with the Cup which he had denied it for no other reason but only for its unserviceableness to his Argument Those Deductions ar ushered with ver 26. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he com 1. Here we see he applieth These relative words to Both elements whereas in recital of our Lords Institution he had not at all applied them to the Bread And this contrary to that know'n rule which forbids the Conclusion to infer more than was conteined in the Premises Hereof what other account can there be given or what better desired than the Tradition offereth In the former verse he was to state our Lords mind reveled to himself concerning Frequency And thereof the Cup was the only Standard because That alone distinguished Festival Suppers from Common But in This he is to describe the Supper it self wherein the Bread hath right not only to be joined with it but to be preferred before it Had he now excluded the Bread he must have intimated concerning It what som without any such color declare concerning the Cup that it were needless bicause the Supper were complete without it But by this care he preventeth any such concept 2. He addeth another Claus not mentioned in the Institution 'till he com thereby either to obviate an evasion in point of Duration if possibly the Corinthians might pretend to shift from his reproofs by supposing the Obligation worn out or to strengthen the command by shewing how great esteem our Lord had for it as extending it to all times future as well as present 3. But the most remarkable is this that the Imperative is changed to the Indicative A change so Considerable and otherwise so unaccountable that our glorios Dr. Hammond thinketh it not to be made The Greek is indifferent to both but in the Imperative there appeared a grain of sense and none at all in the Indicative For if in the Subject of the Indicative proposition we see no other difference between This Bread and Cup and and any Other Bread and Cup but what our own actual Consecration hath advanced it to if this stile be only a Periphrase of the Lords Supper differing therefrom only in Syllables then will the Proposition tell us no news at all Every child will without its help understand that as often as we eat This bread and drink This cup upon no other reason but this that we may thereby shew forth our Lords death we shew forth our Lords death And that the Apostl should so carefully bring a candl to shew us the Sun seemed no way probable to our learned Doctor But if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be read Imperatively not ye do but do ye then may there be so much of reason in the Precept as there is of possibility to do otherwise For look how much danger there is that we may do this without shewing forth our Lords death just so much need there is of Caution and just so much reason will there be in the Command which hath no other use but to prevent such danger whereas in the Indicative as there can be no possibility of error since the very naming of the Subject makes the Praedicate self-evident so can there be no reason for the Proposition Yet all this while if there be Any at all there can be â—ut a very small difference for the Performance containeth the End almost as necessarily as the Subject doth the Praedicate it is almost as hard to do this without shewing forth our Lords death as it is to doubt whether we oght to do it or no And all that can be gotten by the change is this that upon supposition of the Reverence which every one will certainly pay our Lords Person the command enjoining an action in remembrance of our Lords death will by consequence mind them of doing it with such Intentions But be the gain litle or great we must quit it because the word FOR which ushereth the declaration necessarily requireth the Indicative mode Had it be'n an Illative wherefor or therefor the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had be'n indifferent to the other mode Therefor do ye had be'n all as proper as Therefor ye do But the Causal FOR will by no means indure any other than an Indicative It s proper office is to confirm our Belief or instruct our Understanding not to command our Will No Author ever speaks so nor will our Ears indure such an incongruos sound so that our excellent Doctor must lose on one hand whatever he may seem to gain on the other and he will reap but small thank from the Apostle by delivering him from a supposed Solaecism in Logik and casting him upon a real one in Grammar I say it is but a supposed Solaecism in Logik and That supposition is grounded upon our inadvertency For grant once that our Demonstrative This and our Relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 point to some praeviosly singular Bread and Cup and immediatly we discover a sens so far from trifleing that probably it will appear too severe certainly most worthy of so great an Apostle most serviceable to his Argument and most worthy our utmost consideration For thus will it convince the Corinthians It is in vain for you to pretend that you do not celebrate the Lords Supper in Those your intemperate meetings FOR I have so recited our Lords Institation that you may plainly perceve it to be his meaning that as often as you drink This cup which he Then consecrated and which is the same with that wherewith you close All your Church Fests you must do it in remembrance of Him FOR he hath not left it in your power to make his Supper Concerned or Unconcerned by celebrating it as often or as seldom as you please in such meetings yea or to choose which way you will be guilty whether of Disobedience to his Command by Omitting the duty or of Contemt to his Person by Doing it unworthily FOR he hath inlayed it upon All such Fests so inseparably that thogh you would you cannot take Any of them without it FOR YOU DO whether you intend it or no whether you will or no notwithstanding any contrary Intention You Do you cannot but Do what he hath thus made not only Unlawful but utterly Impossible for you to Omit It is not only a Command obliging you but an Institution necessitating you and you cannot avoid the Actual doing it if you avoid not All Church Fests FOR as often as ye eat This bread you eat That whereof our Lord said This is my body and as often as you drink This