make all possible advantage of the Bread This they say must be the Lords Body in the literal sense bicause he hath categorically said so and since it is as easie for him to Do it as to Say it there is no Necessity and therefor no Reason why we should quit the most Proper sense For Reason must not be balanced against Faith This must believe the Thing though That cannot comprehend the Manner But the Wine all this while is laid aside as Unserviceable All the regard paid it is but as an Attendent It is concluded that since the Bread is the Lords Body the Wine must needs be his Blood whether our Lord have said any thing at all or any thing to the contrary concerning it or no. Yet our Lord honored the Wine No Less and the Apostle More than the Bread There are no Valves that hinder the Reflux but we may with the same Authothority and Evidence interpret That by This as This by That Now if we believe the Apostle Our Lord said not of the Wine This is my Blood but This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood And the literal sense saith not more plainly of the Bread This is my natural Body than it saith of the Wine This is NOT my natural Blood If therefore They may argue Positively That the Wine must be our Lords Blood bicause the Bread is his Body we may upon the same evidence argue Negatively The Bread is Not his Body but only the New Testament in his Body bicause the Wine is Not his Blood but only the New Testament in his Blood With the favor therefore of our better Champions I conceive we ought to learn as of the Adder so of the Papist to direct our blow to That part they are so careful to fence and restore the Cup to its due office Possibly they have denyed it its right in the Peoples celebration out of pique for the ill office it is so apt to do to their beloved doctrine let us restore it to Both its Rights its honor due by our Lords Institution and its power of interpretation due by the Laws of Reasoning We cannot more effectually silence their importunity for the literal sense than by claiming it They who deny Sense and Reason worthy to be ballanced against the Letter cannot deny One Element to be so against the Other What therefore they have put asunder if we remember our Lord to have joined together we cannot but know our selves obliged to Receive both in the same sense whether Literal or Mystical If Both are to be Mystically understood the querel is ended between us If Literally we make a new one between the Elements If One must comply he that hath One grain of it will grant that Reason must turn the scale on that side where it shall be found Those who deny it weight enough to preponderate the the Literal sense cannot deny it sufficient to turn Aequilibrate Scales So that the defect lyeth not in the Scripture but the Doctors whose partiality to One side above the Other hath made a difficulty which an equal regard to Both sides would have prevented And it is yet further considerable that they carry the same Partiality toward that side they so favor For as our Lords Institution hath two equal parts so hath their favored Proposition This is my Body And whereas the Laws of Reasoning require we should first understand the Subject and then the Predicate the Former they wholely lay aside and employ all their endeavors upon the Later which I might now insist upon as another Butcherly abuse but I shall hereafter meet another occasion to call it to account and therefore hasten to what more nearly concerns our present bisiness wherein if I should prefer reverence to persons however worthy above the Truth I am engaged to serve I ought to be branded with a worse Character than that of Irreverence to my betters which I expect to be accused of 2. Our own Divines therefore I cannot avoid impeaching as guilty of the same Partiality To cut the Higher part from the Lower is Another but no less irregular way of dissection especially when the Lower depends upon the influence of the Higher for all its Life and Motion That the 27th dependeth as a conclusion upon the Premises is manifest by the illative Wherefore From the Forgoing discourse therefore ought all the Following to derive its Life and Power Yet who is there that takes any notice of Those Premises or their Influence Doth not every one pass by All the rest and begin his endeavors at the Conclusion And as if we gloried in varying our irregularities into all possible shapes We take the quite contrary way with the next the 28th verse for whereas the Apostle there makes the Former half the harbinger of the Later we employ All our care about That and wholely neglect This which That is to serve Yea as if it were a small matter to Neglect we Countermand the express Injunction and so dash One Precept against Another Let a man examine himself saith the Apostle and so let him eat c. Let a man examine himself say we with all possible caution and so let him beware that he eat Not that Bread Nor drink of that Cup if he find himself Unworthy whatever the Apostle have said to the contrary V. BUT it is easier to find faults than to amend them and I promised not only to shew the cause of the embarra's but the way out which sure must be by the same Light and by contrary steps If we Therefor miss the Apostles tru meaning bicause we miss the tru way to trace it then must we needs be obliged to search after it in that same way which we have so discovered to be the Right and Forsaken one We must therefore carefully Anatomise the whole Discourse First observe the Design then the great Limbs then the least Particles Their proper Textures their mutual Aspects their joint Serviceableness to That Design which animates them All to its own Use But as in Dead bodies especially such as have any considerable time layen so many Dâ—cts disappear which during life were as Visible as Necessary and the Artist many times is led by mere Reason grounded upon consent of parts to Find out if possible otherwise to Suppose those secret channels whereof he finds no other evidence but necessity So are there in This Discourse very observable Suppositions which though they were sufficiently evident when the Apostle wrote and will ever be necessary for the circulation of his Argument yet by Length of time and Forgetfulness if not worse of those who should have kept them open are now so lost that without careful Probing they are not discoverable Two such Suppositions I shall now take upon Trust pawning all my labor to pay good Evidence for them in a more proper Season 1. That the Churches of Christ at That time celebrated All their Religious meetings with Fests This is more then
Reverence by bowing their Knees to the Holy Table and turning their Backs upon the Holier Sacrament their Aw putteth them to as great distance as Neglect can and this occasions others to cloak their real neglect under pretence of aw so the slothful joyn with the fearful to plead There is a Lyon in the way Many come only Once in a year as if our Lord intended to consecrate none but the Passover Others not until they are dying as if they were not to shew forth the Lords death but their own Others not at all as if it were the duty of the Priest only because Instituted in the presence of the Apostles only and upon one pretence or other the much greater part of the People never think of it at all no not to their very death In the mean time the most zealous Servants of our Lord lament that his last and therefore not least Command hath lost the Obedience due to it The greatest lovers of Piety that it hath lost one of its greatest supports in the time of greatest need The most affectionate Sons of the Church that she hath in a manner lost a Sacrament an indispensible mark of a true Church The tenderest Friends of Peace that she hath worse than lost her best Cement which is abused to an Instrument of Division And the most Prudent and Pious cry aloud that it is a shame to our Government and a wound to our Religion that our practice should give such a publickly to the Apostle when we read That we are therefor one Bread and one Body bieause we eat of that one Bread Since therefore the Work is equally necessary and Neglected he that shall labor in it will be secure from being blamed as troubling the World with repetitions of trite Discourses BUT then he shall be no less sure of the contrary censure as doing it with New ones and which is worse as vilifying the adorable Sacrament For the Temple of the Sepulchre however venerable for the Antiquity of its Buildings is much more so for the Place they stand on which though they do not so much Honor as Oppress yet whoever should endeavor to rescue it from them should be doubly censured as Sacrilegious both against the Holy Temple and Holier Ground Whoever will measure the Ground whereon the mistaking zeal of former Ages hath built so many and great Mysteries cannot avoid shewing it uncapable to bear them and consequently must run a severe gandelope lashed on one side in behalf of Antiquity and on the other in behalf of the Sacrament II. BUT once throughly convinced of the Fitness yea Necessity of the undertaking these Fears move me no otherwise than to set me forward From the Dignity of the Sacrament I conclude it worthy my service and from the Duration of the Error I conclude it to need it Did not Both these concur I should not have raised Work for the Learned or Game for the Censorious by opposing a popular error in so Sacred a subject Yet lest that which sets me forward to the Work should set me backward in the Success I think it requisite to take such notice of the double Objection as to justifie my self against both its parts 1. ONE part of the Objection concernerh the Dignity of the Sacrament who 's greatness I most heartily acknowledge I confess we may be guilty of the Body and Blood of our Lord in either sense That of the Institution or that of his preceding Doctrine Jo. 6. wherein he interpreteth eating and drinking by believing And therefor we ought to examine our selves before we Receive much mote before we Publish any Opinion concerning it as carefully as before we receive the Sacrament it self But this is so far from a reason against Examination that it pleads for it For as Both ways we may be guilty of Rashness if we Receive unworthily either the Sacrament or the Opinion so may we be of Neglect if we consider not what we are obliged both to Do and to Teach I know a Gentlewoman that hardly escaped falling into water because a poor neighbor that stood neer her and might easily have helpt her forbore that good office upon this reason as she afterward excused her self because she durst not be so bold Whoever accuseth me of boldness toward the Holy Sacrament let him consider whether he would be pleased with such reverence in a time of such need Whatever others do certainly none of those good men who so sadly complain of the neglect will blame him who labors the remedy No though he should abate somewhat both of Fear toward the Sacrament and of Reverence toward those former Ages which teaching men to Dread have by consequence taught them to Shun it Yet is there no such danger For neither will the Institution be a loser if in stead of the Superstitious Dread which contradicts it's Nature we pay it the Obedience which it requires and the Love which it deserves nor true Antiquity if instead of the Middle ages we venerate the First III. 2. TO that OTHER part therefor of the Objection I answer that we ought to take none but the first and best Ages of the Church for our guides in all such Controversies as are capable so to be determined That those which concern Matter of Fact are Such since the Practices of those Ages are visible but not alway their Opinions especially in such Modern Questions as never troubled them to declare their judgments That the publick Offices of Christian Worship are visible and therefor it must needs be a great crime for Later ages therein to depart from their Fathers All this I not only acknowledge but urge and I hope no man will deny that it was as true a thousand years since If therefor it appear that the Middle ages have departed from the First we must nor follow but reform the Error and whoever shall retrive the long lost truth ought not to be look'd upon as a Contemner but faithful Servant of Antiquity and so much the more deserving by how much longer the Error hath continued That this is the present case needeth no other proof than the Records of Matter of Fact never in any case more legible whereby we may easily discover by what steps we are go'n so far from the authentick examples of the Apostles and several immediatly succeeding Ages This though we shall meet another occasion to examine yet for preventing prejudices which perhaps might hinder some from reading so far I conceive fit here to offer in a more contracted Landschape THAT the Apostles and Primitive Christians for some hundreds of years were as constant at the Lords Table as at his House is so manifest that those who wanted not the Tentation ever wanted the Face to deny it And the Evasions whereby some have endeavored to shun the unavoidable Evidence are as plainly false as the denyal it self can be True it is saith the most excellent of them the Apostles did indefinitely admit the
singular Demonstrative and Dignity Our Lords stile is the very same and plainly alludeth to the same form of Consecration This cup said he is the New Covenant and therefore This blood of the New Covenant must as well as that of the Old have some Praevios singularities preceding the Proposition and Fitting it for the honor whereto merely by reason of That fitness it was so preferred above All other As we know what Honor it receved from the Institution so we must enquire what was the Singular fitness it broght to it We are not yet com'n to the word of command DO THIS where the Demonstrative following the Action may derive a singularity from it but we are yet in the porch in the Declaration THIS is c. and desire to learn what THIS can signify before any other word be spoken which may change it to some other state than what belonged to it before V. HITHERTO we have looked upon it in its Single capacity Logik further considereth it as a Part and the principal Part too of a Proposition It is no less than the Subject considerable Always as the Foundation whereon the Praedicate is to be bilt and Oftentimes as the Standard whereby its meaning is to be mesured For the sense of the Praedicate must ever be fitted to the capacity of the Subject and if the ordinary signification appear too big or too little the Inrerpreter must imitate the Prophet who applied his Own Eyes Hands and Mouth to the Childs wherein he must derive his mesures from the Speakers mind somtimes discoverable by common Reason and somtimes by the Speakers annexed Exposition E. G. Jacob categorically affirmeth of several of his Sons that they are Beasts of several kinds and immediatly limiteth the extravagant Expression to some determinate Resemblance Juda is a Lions whelp Not in all respects but this From the prey my son thou art not go'n up Issachar is a strong Ass What in the whole form No but in This couching down between two burthens Dan shall be a Serpent in the way Not in All but this One respect He biteth the horse heels Our Lords stile is the same at other times as well as now And we may as reasonably say Our Lord was not a Man but a Plant because he said I am the Vine thogh he interpreted himself by adding In Me ye bring forth fruit Yea not so much as a Living plant because he said I am the door thogh he immediatly added by me if any enter in he shall be saved As we may that this is not Bread because he said This is my body when he immediatly glossed upon the word by adding Do This in remembrance of me But on the contrary we are as much obliged to mesure This Proposition by the annexed Limitation as either of the Other and so to confess that This is no more our Lords Body than himself was a Door or Issachar an Ass Now if it be true that the Praedicate must be thus accommodated to the Subject then the less capable the Subject is the less must we giv it of the Praedicate If therefor Bread as such cannot be understood to be our Lords body Then perhaps as THIS it may carry such diminishing characters as may write it less capable For This reason it is probable that former Ages have be'n industriously silent concerning it and for This reason is the enquiry necessary Thogh This be a quite different question yet it is not unserviceable even toward our understanding the Other It is one question which asketh what Jacob meant by the word Ass when he put it upon Issachar and another to ask which of his sons it was whom he so stiled So it is one thing to enquire what our Lord meant by the word Body when he said of the Bread This is my body and another to enquire what extraordinary Bread that was which he preferred to that dignity THE Eunuchs first question was Not concerning the Things to be suffered but the Person that was to undergo them He asked not what was meant by being led like a lamb to the slaughter his judgment taken away in his humiliation or the obscurity of his generation But of whom speaketh the Prophet this And the same must be our method if we will understand our Lords Institution Before we enquire what he meant by calling the bread his Body we must ask of what bread speaketh the Lord this We may probably better understand Into What our Lord changed it if we first know From What. Many Therefore understand not What they say because they know not Whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.7 Many wold not have Spoken Others would not have Believed what All confess they cannot Understand in the Praedicate of this unhappy Proposition if they had first understood its true Subject as they ought to have do'n 1. That our Lord spake only of that individual Bread and That individual Cup which he then distributed so as to make Those Individuals the adaequate Subject as well of his permanent Institution as of That One Distribution cannot be imagined since Those Individuals must perish in the useing but for ever live in such successors as may be the Same in the General Nature of Bread and Wine and in the Special circumstances wherewith those were accompanied even before their preferment 2. That he spake of the Whole kind Any Bread and Any Cup we may not believe both because of the now mentioned difference of stile in This text and That concerning Children and because such a sense would oblige us to Consecrate All bread and All wine seeing the Demonstrative would have pointed to All alike This sense is as much too Wide as the former was too Narrow yet some will have a yet Wider For 4. They conceve that our Lord was so far from pointing to any determinate Bread that he did not to any determinate Thing But the Hoc must be taken Indeterminately Hoc i. e. Hoc aliquid This Somthing That they may destroy the nature of Bread they begin with that of the Pronown For whereas the Proper office of This Pronown is to make the Object More determinate by singling One out of Many contracting the General to a Special or Particular This sense will make it Less Determinate and More General 't will be so far from distinguishing This bread from Other bread that it will take away the Specifical difference whereby it is distinguished from an Egg a Stone or a Scorpion c. Which is so contrary to the nature of a Demonstrative as Black is from White whereof One is said to Congregate the Other to Segregate And the Constant Practice of All mankind contradicts it For whoever sheweth any thing to another and stileth it This Doth not pretend to disable him from judging what it is in its kind but to difference it from Others of the same kind doth not pretend to Contradict his sense but to Direct it If Caius shew Titus a
induced to pardon a multitude of his friends after a solen Procession receved the Communion in his behalf as did also the Cardinal de la Valette in a mass celebrated by the Bishop of Faviers Yea Those very persons we dispute with Those who neglect it all their lives ar careful in the End to obtain it When they look death in the face Then by all means must the Minister be sent for and the necessary two or three must accompany the Sick person however at that time most unfit to receve the hitherto neglected Supper Whence this new care but from a persuasion that Now more than ever there is great need of effectual prayer and that this holy Sacrament is most efficacios for inforcing it But have we no need of effectual prayer 'till we com to dy Need we no Pardon nor no Blessing Ar our Lusts so mortified our Graces so perfect our Salvation so secure our Happiness so complete Can we answer the kind offers of this Sacrament as the Shunamite did those of the Prophet Elisha when he asked what is to be do'n for thee Do we so live upon our own as to want No Favor Or have we No friend No child No relative that needs our prayer Have we No petition to offer for our King or Country Our Church or any Comember Ar all things so perfectly well within and without us that we need no further favor If we think so we need this Sacrifice to obtein pardon for That very thoght And certainly the Continuance of so uniform and complete happiness is a blessing worth Desiring and therefor worth Asking and if so the Sacrament is worth Receving that such Prayers may be more Prevalent and our Minds more Satisfied as having deposited our requests in the most Succesful manner For if on our Death-bed we find comfort much more reasonably may we hope it in the mids of Life as by the more probabl soundness of our Repentance so by the more efficacios vertu of the Sacrament receved then with greater both Worthiness and Appetite than the Death-bed can promis which can naturally operate no better in acts of Spiritual than of Temporal life so much Less Vigorosly by how much More against all Appetites VI. 4. IF the Pleasures of Prayer be so great those of Thankfulness must needs be much greater For Prayer proceedeth from sens of Want Thankfulness from sens of Abundance That is the work of the Indigent This of the Rich That is the happiness of the Earth drawing down the former and later rain to satisfy it's drought This the blessedness of Heaven whose inhabitants have no other Imployment nor greater Joy than to bless God We cannot perhaps better understand the pleasures of Thankfulness than by comparing it with That which of all others the world thinketh both most Pleasant and most Honorable Revenge above all other Human if it be not wors than Human passions may bost of the destructions it hath wroght upon the earth of Persons yea of Families yea of Nations and He is branded for a Coward who will spare life Temporal or Eternal when This shall require them for Sacrifice Now Thankfulness is no other than White Revenge more Glorios and more Innocent The One saith as doth the Other I will Requite I will do to him as he hath do'n to me I will render to him according to his work c. And is it not more Noble and Pleasant to requite Good than Evil Ar not the satisfactions of Love sweeter than those of Anger Both glory in Justice but the One while it pretendeth to Do Justice Violateth it by invading Gods right who hath said Vengeance is mine The Other more than dubleth the glory of Justice by the addition of Love TO THIS so excellently pleasant exercise is this Sacrament designed St. Paul caleth this the Cup of Blessing The Fathers the Eucharist Our own Church saith it was for a Thankful remembrance of the Death of Christ and of the benefits which we receve thereby And requireth Every communicant to receve it with thankfulness And since the Pleasures of Revenge grow in exact suitableness with the Resentments of the Passion thereby gratified and the Passion with the Injury offered so also must the Pleasures of Thankfulness answer the Benefit which giveth it birth Whence it must necessarily follow that as the Benefits Here communicated ar the Greatest so must This exercise be of All other the Pleasantest especially bicaus the very Passion is hereby most vigorosly excited which is a dubl advantage 1. The Benefits hereby commemorated ar the Greatest I hope This will not need much proof Since it cannot be imagined what our Lord could have do'n More than suffer the Death we hereby Commemorate A Benefit which as it Requireth so doth it Exceed our highest raptures of Thankfulness Excellently well doth our Ingenios and Pios Herbert express this He resolveth upon this noblest Revenge Surely I will revenge me on thy Love And try who shall victorios prove He instanceth in several Benefits finding ways of suitable Returns but coming to the Passion First he adjorneth it as difficult saying And for thy Passion but of that anone When with the other I have done And at last after several Other instances closeth all by acknowledging it not only Difficult but Impossibl to answer it saying Then for thy Passion I will do for that Alas my God I know not what And beginneth his next meditation with the same acknowledgment I have considered it and find There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion But our Lord himself hath be'n pleased to help us as by his Death against our Guilt so by This Institution against our Inability to find a way wherein to express our Thankfulness for That death When our Best wits and Carefulest considerations cannot tell what to do he biddeth us Do This. Whether David Prophesied of it is not so plain as that he was very happy in So speaking as if he had for he pitched upon the same Answer to the same Question What shall I render said he to the Lord for all the benefits that he hath do'n unto me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. But with This difference that All the Benefits which so posed David came incomparably short of our Lord's Passion and consequently This Cup as it much better deserveth the Title so doth it exceed in Pleasantness That which he stileth the Cup of Salvation 2. By this Cup our Thankfulness is most vigorosly incited For as No benefit can be greater than our Lords death so cannot our Affections be more powerfully stirred than by This Representative which assalts our very Senses and strikes our Hearts by the most Lively Representation as we have already seen Other Festers pretend no more than to provide Viands and Wine as delicios as possibl Our Lord takes care that our Palates may be quickened As he provideth the Best Mater for our Thankfulness so doth