our Saviour Instituted this Sacrament was when they had been eating the Passover which was a Feast much of the same Nature among the Jews that this is among Christians that was appointed by God in memory of thier Deliverance when the Angel of God destroyed the First-born of all the Egyptians and this in memory of that much greater Blessing to Christians by the Death and Sufferings of Jesus Christ As therefore the Master of the Family when he distributed the Paschal Lamb was to say This is the Lord 's Passover as being Instituted in memory of the Lord 's passing over the Houses of the Israelites so now being to Institute a new Sacrament for his Church of Christians as that was for the Jews he appoints a memorial of the breaking of his Body and the shedding of his Blood and in the very same figure of Speech that the other was This is my Body or this is the Lord's Body could be no strange form of Speech to them who just before had heard him say This is the Lord's Passever and who had been constantly used to that form of Speech And accordingly we do not find that they were in any difficulty or surprize in the Matter which they could not have avoided if the Words are to be understood just as they sound for it was a Matter more than a little amazing especially to those who never had been used to such sort of Mysteries that their Master should take a piece of Bread in his Hand and with speaking a few Words should make it become without any apparent change that very Body which was then standing before them That he should hold his own Body whole and entire in his own Hand that they should put the same one Body whole and entire into each of their Mouths that they should eat him first and drink him afterwards and yet that he should stand by them untouched all the while besides the very uncouthness and horror of the Institution to eat their Master a Person whom they loved and had reason to love and to drink Human Blood these are things one would think should at least surprize them a little and make them ask some Questions about it for they are indeed strange monstrous Absurdities whereas the sense we give to the Words is natural and easy especially to the Persons to whom they were spoken as being used to such expressions and who had heard the like but just before in a like Case I have this one thing more to add in this Matter That as the Jewish Sacraments were Signs and Representations as well as ours and so were commonly called by the Name of what they represented so the inward Blessings conveyed to them was the same that is conveyed by the Christian Sacraments and therefore the Apostle tells us they did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.3,4 Now here is altogether as plain evidence that the Jews did eat and drink Christ before he was Born as the Christians do since But that is a way of Transubstantiation which those of the Church of Rome don't yet acknowledge and we may conclude that if the Apostle had known any thing of that Doctrine among Christians he would have been more wary in his Expressions and not have weakned the credit of it by using the same sort of Words where nothing of the same thing was meant From hence we may give an account of that large Discourse of our Saviour in the Sixth Chapter of St. John My Flesh is Meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed c. For if he were Meat and Drink to the Jews so long before he was born he might in the same manner be Meat and Drink to them still without the portentous way of putting his Body into their Mouths Christ is said to be a Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World and in the same sense was Meat and Drink to all good People from the Foundation of the World that is the benefits of his Death reach backward even to the beginning of the World though he were put to death several Thousand Years after And they are the Benefits of his Death which are the great Food of Souls that which gives and preserves Life in them as the Life of the Body is kept up by Meat and Drink And this suggests another Consideration That we may know what sort of eating this is if we only consider what sort of Life is kept up by it The eating and drinking of a Body is proper to keep up the Life of a Body but it 's only the inward Grace and Assistance of God that keeps up the Life of a Soul and therefore we then eat and drink for that when we do by Faith or any other method take in that Spiritual nourishment In a Word Our Saviour says He gave his flesh for the life of the World and we may then not improperly be said to eat his Flesh when we receive in that Spiritual Life and Nourishment procured by it And that this is the Sense is apparent from several expressions in that Discourse as in v. 35. And Jesus saith unto them I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst in which words there are Two things which directly contradict this gross sense of eating his very Body First that he alters here the expression of Eating and so explains himself whosoever comes to me and whosoever believes in me which shews that this Blessing comes by Believing in Christ and not by gross carnal Eating Secondly The Blessing it self is such as does not belong to all that only externally receive the Sacrament but to such only as come to Christ with true Faith as may be seen not only in this Verse but every where through that Discourse thus v. 51. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever And v. 53. 54. Verily I say unto you except ye eat the Flesh of he Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you whosoever eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day Which words are very true if understood of the feeding our Souls by the Benefits received from the Body and Blood of Christ but cannot be understood of external eating of him in the Sacrament for very wicked Men often do that according to the Opinion of the Romish Church and are only the worse instead of being the better for it This I believe is abundantly sufficient to shew that the Sense we put upon the Sacramental words This is my Body c. is natural and easie agreeable to the design of a Sacrament and other expressions of the same kind in Scripture and if it be so we need not be solicitous to prove any thing
more about it for there are so many Absurdities and gross Contradictions in the contrary Opinion that we ought to lay hold of any thing that can but make sense of the Words and avoid those Monstrous Absurdities But I shall now indeavour to prove from the Words themselves that the sense which the Church of Rome puts upon them cannot be the true sense of them 1. The Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that our Saviour by pronouncing these words this is my Body made that to be his Body which before was only Bread but certainly the literal sense of the words does not import any thing of this and it 's the literal sense which they must stick to or else the whole support of their cause is gone now according to all the Rules of speaking it ought to have been his Body before he could truly pronounce it to be so but this they deny and say it was only Bread till these words were pronounced and that the calling it his Body made it become so which is a form of Speech quite unknown to the World and I challenge them to bring any Author either Sacred or Prophane that ever made use of words of this kind in such a Sense Since therefore it is confessed that what our Saviour took into his Hands was Bread and that it remained Bread till the speaking of these words This is my Body and since those words in their natural construction cannot be understood to effect any Change it must remain Bread still and be only the Body of Christ in such a sense as Bread may be called his Body that is in such a sense as the Lamb they eat of but just before was called the Passover by being a Representation and Commemoration of it 2. Another Argument I would make use of is this that our Saviour did not by pronouncing those words make what he gave them to be his very Body and Blood because after the pronouncing of them he calls what he gave in the Cup the Fruit of the Vine Verily I say unto you I will drink no more of the Fruit of the Vine until that day that I drink it new in the Kingdom of God In which words are contained these three I think plain Reasons which prove that it was Wine and not his Blood that he gave them 1. That He expresly calls it the fruit of the Vine and the Words they say are to be taken in the literal Sense and literally nothing else is the fruit of the Vine but Wine at least the Blood of Christ is not 2. In his saying that he would drink no more of it till he drank it new in the Kingdom of God it is supposed that he had heretofore drank of what he then gave them But I suppose it will hardly be said that he ever before drank his own Blood 3. As the Words suppose that he had drank before of what he then gave them so they do that he would drink of it again which very likely must be understood of his eating and drinking with them after his Resurrestion for then the Kingdom of God that is the new State of the Christian Church was come And therefore unless the Blood of Christ can be properly called the fruit of the Vine unless it can be supposed that he had drank his own Blood before and did design to drink it afterward these Words must evince that it was Wine which he then gave them I would not conceal that tho' St. Matthew and St. Mark recite the Words which I have Quoted after the Consecration of the Cup yet one of the Evangelists St. Luke recites them before and so they may seem to relate to a Cup that went about the Table at the Paschal Supper But this Objection if well considered does rather the more confirm what I have been proving for two of the Evangelists do place it immediately after the Consecration and delivery of the Sacramental Cup and in them it is apparent they can referr to nothing else but that Now if our Opinion about this Sacrament be true the difference betwixt the Evangelists in this Case is not material as importing no difference at all in the Doctrine of the Sacrament though our Saviour's Words are reported different ways and so this secures the Honour and Authority of all the Evangelists But if our Saviour's Words are to be understood as the Church of Rome understands them it 's impossible in any tolerable manner to reconcile the Evangelists for St. Matthew and St. Mark must upon this supposition not only put his Words wrong together and out of that order he spoke them but must also quite misrepresent his meaning and that in a Point of great Consequence Which I believe can be no way consistent with the Opinion which the Church of God has always had of these Gospels But I shall consider this Matter a little more fully in that which I have to urge in the Third Place 3. I desire it may be considered that the Words of our Saviour in the Institution of this Sacrament cannot be understood literally because as they are recited by the Evangelists they are not literally the same but differ as to the literal meaning very materially Mat. 26.28 Mark 14.24 Luke 22.20 St. Matthew and St. Mark in the Instistution of the Cup recite our Saviour's Words thus This is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for you St. Luke recites them thus This is the New Testament in my Blood Now from this difference among them I would observe these Two Things 1. That the Evangelists being so little curious to recite the very same Words that our Saviour spake could not have any Notion of a strict necessity of a literal meaning and of such a strange Doctrine which could have no foundation but in the literal interpretation of the very Words that he spake this had been at best very strange negligence in a Matter of so great Consequence 2. I would observe that if our Interpretation of the Words be true the Evangelists are easily reconciled as agreeing in the same general Sense tho' differing in the Expressions because both of them denote a Commemoration of the Blood of Christ and of the New Testament or Covenant founded upon it and it is not then very material which is placed first but if they are to be taken literaly it's impossible ever to make them agree and so one of the Evangelists must not only have mis-recited our Saviour's Words but quite have mis-understood his meaning and have done what he could to lead People wrong in a great Point of Faith For certainly the true real Blood of Christ is a very different thing from the New Covenant or Testament which is founded upon it But it will appear still of greater Consequence to keep to the very Words which Christ spake if the Opinion of the Church of Rome be true that it is the repeating the Words of our Saviour which effects the