meaning of this by and so by a progress for ever we must contend about the true meaning of every Place Therefore when we enquire into the sense of any controverted place we must judge of it by the rules of common Sense and Reason of Religion and Piety and if a meaning be affixed to any Place contrary to these we have good reason to reject it For we knowing all external things only by our Senses by which only the Miracles and Resurrection of Christ could be proved which are the means God has given us to converse with and enjoy his whole Creation and evidence our senses give being such as naturally determines our Perswasions so that after them we cannot doubt if then a sense be offered to any place of Scripture that does overthrow all this we have sufficient reason on that very account to reject it If also any meaning be fastened on a place of Scripture that destroys all our Conceptions of things is contrary to the most universally receiv'd Maxims subverts the Notions of matter and accidents and in a word confounds all our clearest Apprehensions we must also reject every such gloss since it contradicts the evidence of that which is God's Image in us If also a sense of any place of Scripture be proposed that derogates from the glorious Exaltation of the humane Nature of our blessed Saviour we have very just reasons to reject it even though we could bring no confirmation of our meaning from express words of Scripture therefore this Dispute being chiefly about the meaning of Christ's Words he that shews best Reasons to prove that his sense is consonant to Truth does all that is necessary in this case But after all this we decline not to shew clear Scriptures for the meaning our Church puts on these words of Christ. It was Bread that Christ took blessed brake and gave his Disciples Now the Scripture calling it formally bread destroys Transubstantiation Christ said This is my Body which are declarative and not imperative words such as Let there be light or Be thou whole Now all declarative words suppose that which they affirm to be already true as is most clear therefore Christ pronounces what the Bread was become by his former blessing which did sanctifie the Elements and yet after that blessing it was still bread Again the reason and end of a thing is that which keeps a proportion with the means toward it so that Christ's words Do this in remembrance of me shew us that his Body is here only in a vital and living Commemoration and Communication of his Body and Blood Farther Christ telling us it was his Body that was given for us and his Blood shed for us which we there receive it is apparent he is to be understood present in the Sacrament not as he is now exalted in Glory but as he was on the Cross when his Blood was shed for us And in fine if we consider that those to whom Christ spake were Jews all this will be more easily understood for it was ordinary for them to call the Symbol by the Name of the Original it represented So they called the Cloud between the Cherubims God and Iehovah according to these words O thou that dwellest between the Cherubims and all the symbolical Apparitions of God to the Patriarchs and the Prophets were said to be the Lord appearing to them But that which is more to this purpose is that the Lamb that was the symbol and memorial of their Deliverance out of Egypt was called the Lord's Passover Now though the Passover then was only a Type of our Deliverance by the Death of Christ yet the Lamb was in proportion to the Passover in Egypt as really a Representation of it as the Sacrament is of the Death of Christ. And it is no more to be wondered that Christ called the Elements his Body and Blood though they were not so corporally but only mystically and sacramentally than that Moses called the Lamb the Lord 's Passover So that it is apparent it was common among the Jews to call the Symbol and Type by the Name of the Substance and Original Therefore our Saviour's Words are to be understood in the sense and stile that was usual among these to whom he spake it being the most certain rule of understanding any doubtful Expression to examine the ordinary stile and forms of speech in that Age People and Place in which such Phrases were used This is signally confirmed by the Account which Maimonides gives us of the sense in which eating and drinking is oft taken in the Scriptures First he says it stands in its natural signification for receiving bodily Food Then because there are two things done in eating the first is the destruction of that which is eaten so that it loseth its first form the other is the increase and nourishment of the substance of the Person that eats therefore he observes that eating has two other significations in the Language of the Scriptures the one is destruction and desolation so the Sword is said to eat or as we render it to devour so a Land is said to eat its Inhabitants and so Fire is said to eat or consume The other sense it is taken in does relate to Wisdom Learning and all Intellectual Apprehensions by which the form or soul of man is conserved from the perfection that is in them as the body is preserved by food For proof of this he cites divers places out of the Old Testament as Isa. 55. 2. come buy and eat and Prov. 25. 27. and Prov. 24. 13. he also adds that their Rabbins commonly call Wisdom eating and cites some of their Sayings as come and eat flesh in which there is much fat and that whenever eating and drinking is in the Book of the Proverbs it is nothing else but Wisdom or the Law So also Wisdom is often called Water Isa. 55. 1. and he concludes that because this sense of eating occurs so often and is so manifest and evident as if it were the primary and most proper signification of the Word therefore Hunger and Thirst do also stand for a privation of Wisdom and Understanding as Amos. 8. 21. To this he also refers that of thirsting Psal. 42. 3. and Isa. 12. 3. and Ionathan paraphrasing these Words Ye shall draw water out of the Wells of Salvation renders it Ye shall receive a new Doctrine with joy from the select ones among the Iust which is farther confirmed from the words of our Saviour Iohn 7. 37. And from these Observations of the Learnedest and most Judicious among all the Rabbins we see that the Iews understood the Phrases of eating and eating of flesh in this spiritual and figurative sense of receiving VVisdom and Instruction So that this being an usual form of Speech among them it is no strange thing to imagine how our Saviour being a Iew according to the Flesh and conversing with Iews did use these Terms and Phrases
and if we see a difference between these we are sure there has been a change though we are not able to shew by what steps it was made nay though we could not so much as make it appear probable that such a change could be made To instance this in a plain case of the change of the English Language since the days of William the Conqueror that there has no such swarm of Foreigners broke in upon this Island as might change our Language One may then argue thus Every one speaks the Language he heard his Parents his Nurses and others about him speak when he was a Child and this he continues to speak all his life and his Children speak as they heard him speak Upon which a man of wit and phancy might say a great many things to shew it impossible any such change should ever have been made as that we now should speak so as not to understand what was said five or six hundred years ago Yet if I find Chaucer or any much ancienter Book so written that I can hardly make a shift to understand it from thence without any further reasoning how this could be brought about I naturally must conclude our Language is altered And if any man should be so impertinent as to argue that could not be for Children speak as their Nurses and Parents taught them I could hardly answer him in patience but must tell him it is altered without more ado If a Child were amused with such pretended Impossibilities I would tell him that Strangers coming among us and our travelling to parts beyond the Seas made us acquainted with other Languages and Englishmen finding in other Tongues some words and phrases which they judged more proper than any they had being also fond of new words there was an insensible change made in every Age which after five or six Ages is more discernible Just so if I find most of all the Fathers either delivering their Opinions clearly in this matter against the Doctrine of the Roman Church or saying things utterly inconsistent with it I am sure there has been a change made though I could not shew either the whole progress of it or so much as a probable account how it could be done If men were as Machines or necessary Agents a certain account might be given of all the events in all Ages but there are such strange Labyrinths in the minds of men that none can trace them by any rational computation of what is likely There is also such a diversity between Men and Men between Ages and Ages that he should make very false accounts that from the tempers and dispositions of men in this Age should conclude what were possible or impossible many years ago In this Age in which Printing gives notice of all things so easily and speedily and by the laying of Stages for the quick and cheap conveying Pacquers and the publishing Mercuries Gazets and Iournals and the education of almost all persons to read and write Letters and the curiosity by which all people are whetted to enquire into every thing the state of Mankind is quite altered from what it was before when few could read or write but Clergy-men so that they must be the Notaries of all Courts who continue from that to be called Clerks to this day and that some Crimes otherwise capital were not punished with death if the guilty person could but read When people were so ignorant of what was doing about them when neither Printing nor Stages for Pacquets were in being at least in Europe and when men were fast asleep in their Business without amusing themselves what was doing about them in the world it is the most unjust and unreasonable thing in nature to imagine that such things as are now next to impossible were not then not only possible but easie So that all such calculations of Impossibilities from the state and temper of this Age when applied to the Ages before ours is the most fallacious way of reckoning that can be For instance How improbable or next to impossible is this following story That the Bishops of the Imperial City of the Roman Empire whose first true worth together with the greatness of that City which was the Head and Metropolis of the Roman Empire got them much esteem and credit in the world should from small and low beginnings have crept up to such a height of power that they were looked on as the Head of all Power both Civil and Spiritual and that as they overthrew all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction the Bishops of that See engrossing it to themselves so they were Masters of almost all the Crowns of Europe and could change Governments raise up and assist new pretenders call up by the preachings of some poor beggarly Friars vast Armies without pay and send them whither they pleased That they could draw in all the Treasure and Riches of Europe to themselves that they brought Princes to lie thus at their feet to suffer all the Clergy who had a great interest in their Dominions by the vast endowments of Churches and Abbeys beside the power they had in all Families and Consciences to be the sworn Subjects of these Bishops and to be exempted from appearing in Secular Courts how criminal soever they were That all this should be thus brought about without the expence of any vast Treasure or the prevailing force of a conquering Army meerly by a few tricks that were artificially managed of the belief of Purgatory the power of Absolving and granting Indulgences and the opinion of their being St. Peter's Successors and Christ's Vicars on earth And that all this while when on these false colours of Impostures in Religion those designs were carried on the Popes were men of the most lewd and flagitious lives possible and those who served them in their designs were become the scandal and scorn of Christendom and yet in all these Attempts they prevailed for above seven or eight Ages Now if any man will go about to prove this impossible and that Princes were always jealous of their Authority and their Lives People always loved their Money and Quiet Bishops always loved their Jurisdiction and all Men when they see Designs carried on with colours of Religion by men who in the most publick and notorious instances shew they have none at all do suspect a Cheat and are not to be wheedled Therefore all this must be but a Fable and a Forgery to make the Popes and their Clergy odious Will not all men laugh at such a person that against the faith of all History and the authority of all Records will deny a thing that was set up over all Europe for many Ages If then all this change in a matter that was Temporal against which the Secular Interests of all men did oppose themselves was yet successful and prevailed how can any man think it unreasonable that a speculative opinion might have been brought into the Church by such arts and
Sacrament and so dies without it he may have everlasting Life therefore they must conclude that Christs Flesh may be eaten by Faith even without the Sacrament Again in the next verse he says Whoso eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal Life These words must be understood in the same sense they had in the former verse they being indeed the reverse of it Therefore since there is no addition of worthily necessary to the fence of the former Verse neither is it necessary in this But it must be concluded Christ is here speaking of a thing without which none can have Life and by which all have Life therefore when ever Christs Flesh is eaten and his Blood is drunk which is most signally done in the Sacrament there eternal Life must accompany it and so these words must be understood even in relation to the Sacrament only of the spiritual Communicating by Faith As when it is said a man is a reasonable Creature though this is said of the whole man Body and Soul yet when we see that upon the Dissolution of Soul and Body no Reason or Life remains in the Body we from thence positively conclude the Reason is seated only in the Soul though the Body has Organs that are necessary for its Operations So when it is said we eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood in the Sacrament which gives eternal Life there being two things in it the bodily eating and the spiritual communicating though the eating of Christs Flesh is said to be done in the worthy receiving which consists of these two yet since we may clearly see the bodily receiving may be without any such Effects we must conclude that the eating of Christs Flesh is only done by the inward Communicating though the other that is the bodily part be a divine Organ and conveyance of it And as Reason is seated only in the Soul so the eating of Christs Flesh must be only inward and spiritual and so the mean by which we receive Christ in the Supper is Faith All this is made much clearer by the words that follow my Flesh is Meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed Now Christs Flesh is so eaten as it is meat which I suppose none will question it being a prosecution of the same discourse Now it is not meat as taken by the Body for they cannot be so gross as to say Christs Flesh is the Meat of our Body therefore since his Flesh is only the Meat of the Soul and spiritual Nourishment it is only eaten by the Soul and so received by Faith Christ also says He that eateth my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in him and he in him This is the definition of that eating and drinking he had been speaking of so that such as is the dwelling in him such also must be the eating of him the one therefore being spiritual inward and by faith the other must be such also And thus it is as plain as can be from the words of Christ that he spake not of a carnal or corporal but of a spiritual eating of his Flesh by Faith All this is more confirmed by the Key our Saviour gives of his whole Discourse when the Iews were offended for the hardness of his sayings It is the Spirit that quickneth or giveth the Life he had been speaking of the flesh profiteth nothing the words I speak unto you are spirit and they are Life From which it is plain he tells them to understand his words of a spiritual Life and in a spiritual manner But now I shall examine N. N. his Reasons to the contrary His chief Argument is that when eternal Life is promised upon the giving of Alms or other good Works we must necessarily understand it with this Proviso that they were given with a good intention and from a good Principle therefore we must understand these words of our Saviour to have some such Proviso in them All this concludes nothing It is indeed certain when any promise is past upon an external Action such a reserve must be understood And so St. Paul tells us if he bestowed all his goods to feed the Poor and had no Charity it profited him nothing And if it were clear our Saviour were here speaking of an external action I should acknowledge such a proviso must be understood but that is the thing in question and I hope I have made it appear Our Saviour is speaking of an internal action and therefore no such proviso is to be supposed For he is speaking of that eating of his Flesh which must necessarily and certainly be worthily done and so that objection is of no force He must therefore prove that the eating his Flesh is primarily and simply meant of the bodily eating in the Sacrament and not only by a denomination from a Relation to it as the whole man is called reasonable though the reason is seated in the Soul only What he says to shew that by Faith only we are not the Sons of God since by Baptism also we are the Sons of God is not to the purpose for the design of the Argument was to prove that by Faith only we are the Sons of God so as to be the Heirs of eternal Life Now the Baptism of the adult for our debate runs upon those of ripe years and understanding makes them only externally and Sacramentally the Sons of God for the inward and vital Sonship follows only upon Faith And this Faith must be understood of such a lively and operative Faith as includes both repentance and amendment of Life So that when our Saviour says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved that believing is a complex of all evangelical Graces from which it appears that none of his Reasons are of force enough to conclude that the universality of these words of Christ ought to be so limited and restricted For what remains of that which he desired might be taken notice of that we ought to prove that Christs Body and Blood was present in the Sacrament only spiritually and not corporally by express Scriptures or by Arguments whereof the Major and Minor were either express words of Scripture or equivalent to them it has no force at all in it I have in a full discourse examined all that is in the Plea concerning the express words of Scripture and therefore shall say nothing upon that head referring the Reader to what he will meet with on that Subject afterwards But here I only desire the Reader may consider our Contest in this particular is concerning the true meaning of our Saviours words This is my body in which it is very absurd to ask for express words of Scripture to prove that meaning by For if that be setled on as a necessary method of proof then when other Scriptures are brought to prove that to be the meaning of these words it may be asked how can we prove the true meaning of that place we bring to prove the