eat and especially the Paschal Lamb which was a Type of Christ and that eating did in a Legal sense unite the Sacrificer and the Sacrifice and convey its vertue and efficacy to him I say hence Christ instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood i. e. Bread and Wine to be eat and drank as the symbols and signs of his Body and Blood and a Sacramental conveyance of all the merit and purchase of his death to his sincere Disciples who feed on him and therefore the Bread and Wine are called his Body and Blood because feeding on the Bread and Wine is ordained by him instead of his Body and Blood and that eating Bread and drinking Wine in obedience to his Institution and in remembrance of his Death and Passion does to all intents and purposes as much entitle us to the Merits Atonement Reconciliation and all the blessings of the New Covenant purchased by his death as eating the Flesh of the Sacrifice did the Iews to the vertue of that Sacrifice whereof they eat And since Faith in Christ is made necessary by the terms of the Gospel to an interest in his Sacrifice the symbols of Bread and Wine serve as well or better for this holy Feast than his natural flesh and blood would do for here is room for the exercise of faith we do not see the body of Christ broken and his blood shed nothing appears to our bodily senses but Bread and Wine but by an eye of faith we see him hang upon the Cross and bleeding for our sins and thus we feed on his Sacrifice eat his flesh and drink his blood Bodily eating cannot make us partakers of Christ but as the Institution of our Saviour has united the vertues of his Sacrifice with the elements of Bread and Wine in this holy Supper which makes it as much his body to all the real purposes of a feast upon a Sacrifice as if it were his natural body and blood in as proper a sense as ever the Iews did eat the Paschal Lamb which is all the Church of England means by the real presence So then we by faith eat the body of Christ and drink his blood when together with our bodily feeding on the Sacramental Bread and Wine by faith we feed on the merits of his Sacrifice And this must needs convince us how necessary it is to communicate at the Lords Table as well as to believe in Christ if we would partake of the merits of his Sacrifice for this sacramental Bread and Wine is his body and blood that is has the merits of his Sacrifice annexed to it by his own Institution and as under the Law it was not enough to offer a Peace-offering unless they eat of it so neither will the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross be of any value to us unless we feed on it in this holy Supper not only by Faith but also by a bodily eating of those Sacramental elements to which he himself has annexed the merits of his Sacrifice To feed on the Sacramental elements without faith is no more than to eat so much ordinary Bread and to drink common Wine and to believe on Christ without feasting on his Sacrifice cannot without uncovenanted Grace apply his merits to us for it is evident that Truth in its own nature cannot give us an interest in the merits of Christ for how does my believing that Christ died for sinners convey the merit of his death to me nay though I believe that Christ in particular died for me this does not actually make his merits mine but only in the performance of such conditions and in the use of such means as he hath appointed for the application of his merits to particular persons and I see no reason why men may not as well hope to be saved without holiness by Christ as without eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Sacrament for holiness will not save us without the merits of Christ and I know not how we should come by the merits of Christ but only in such ways of dispensing conveying and applying them as he himself has appointed and he has appointed no other ordinary way but this mysterious Supper Hence the Apostle tells the Corinthians The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ what does he mean by the communion of the blood and of the body of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning is very plain that hereby we partake in the body and blood of Christ that is in the efficacy of his death and passion and if we could do this any other way or without it it would be a useless Sacrament as most Christians seem now to think it is and therefore I doubt not but our Saviour in that mysterious discourse in Iohn 6. had respect to this holy Feast though not then instituted when he tells them Verily verily I say unto you except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him The only objection I know against expounding this of eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood in the Lords Supper is because the Feast was not then instituted and therefore neither the Iews nor his own Disciples could possibly understand what he meant now there are several very plain and easie answers to this as 1. our Saviour said a great many things to the Iews in his Sermons which neither they nor his own Disciples could understand when they were spoke though his Disciples understood them after he was risen when the Holy Ghost brought those things again to their remembrance and the event had expounded them such we may reckon whatever concerned his death and resurrection and spiritual kingdom 2. They might as well understand this discourse of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood as they could what he immediately before told them I am the living bread which came down from heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever and the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world For they understood as little what it was to give his flesh for the life of the world and how this made his flesh to be that living bread as what it was to eat his flesh and to drink his blood for they both signifie the same thing and these words last quoted do plainly prove that he respects the Eucharistical Feast when he speaks of his eating his flesh and drinking his blod for we must eat his flesh only as considered as the
worthy Communicants the pardon of their Sins and more firmly unites them to Christ their Head and to each other and intitles them to the powerful influence of that Divine Spirit which dwells in actuates and governs the whole Church and Body of Christ. Thus we are very ignorant and very unmindful of our Duty and God in great goodness has appointed a whole Order of Men whose Business it is to instruct us to teach us what we do not know and to mind us of those Things which we are apt to forget and has made it our Duty and a part of his Worship to attend their Instructions And though I hope in such an Age and such a Church as this there are a great many Christians so knowing that they need not be taught their Duty yet it is sad to consider how many very ignorant Professors there are that want to be instructed in the first Rudiments of Christian Knowledg and warm zealous and frequent Exhortations are of great use to the most knowing Christians And though a great many who have little other Religion are forward enough to hear Sermons yet it grieves me to think how many there are who will live die and perish for ever in their Ignorance because they refuse Instruction who can never be perswaded to attend either Sermons or Catechising or so much as reading the Scripture and yet these very Men could be contented to hear a large discourse of News or Trade or Merchandize or how they might order their Affairs to better advantage and are glad to be told of any Mistake or Error which might have been prejudicial to them in their secular Affairs And I need not tell you the Reason of this Difference they are in very good earnest to get this World but are very indifferent and unconcerned about the next So that all the parts of Religious Worship as they are expressions of our Reverence and Devotion for God so they immediately tend to the happiness of our Souls the Virtue of them is seen in transforming us into a Divine Nature in obtaining the Pardon of our Sins and the Supplies of God's Grace in making us Holy here and eternally Happy hereafter and therefore if we love our Souls let us constantly exercise our selves in all the Parts and Offices of Religious Worship And me-thinks it should be no such hard Matter to perswade Men to love and take care of their Souls for can any Man have a greater Concernment in the World than this For to love our Souls signifies no more than to love our Selves and to take care of our own happiness for the Soul is the Man the Body is only the Organ and Instrument of the Soul an earthly Tabernacle wherein it dwells in this state of its Pilgrimage but it is our Soul only that is capable of Joy and Pleasure or Grief and Sorrow and therefore as the Soul is either happy or miserable so is the Man and all Men desire to be happy this they seek with unwearied endeavours this makes all that busle and stir that is in the World that all Men are a catching after happiness and scrambling for it Why then you say What is the Dispute and Difficulty since all Men do love their Souls that is desire to be happy and it is only the Soul that relishes Happiness or is the Subject wherein Happiness dwells This is true and yet very few Men love their Souls for we must consider that the Soul of Man is capable of a two-fold happiness one as it lives in this gross Body of Flesh and Blood another as it lives without it in a separate state or receives it again refined and purged made a Heavenly and Spiritual Body Now as the Soul dwells in these Earthly Bodies it is apt to be mightily pleased with sensual Enjoyments and such Objects as are represented to us by our Senses and this is the Happiness which most Men are fond of in this World which tempts them to all those sensual Lusts which St. Iohn comprises under the Lusts of the Flesh the Lusts of the Eye and the Pride of Life but now this is not the greatest happiness of the Soul because dwelling in this Body is not its most perfect State it is to dwell but a little while in this Body and then can enjoy these bodily Pleasures no longer and therefore that is called the happiness of the Soul which is agreeable to its most perfect state of Life and commensurate to an eternal duration So that the Controversy in short is this Whether we will prefer an imperfect unsatisfactory momentary Happiness or such a Happiness which is the biggest our Souls are capable of and will last to Eternity and it is strange there should be any difficulty in this choice For can an Immortal Being who is to live Eternal Ages be satisfied with such perishing Joys as wax old and expire in half an Age It would be thought very strange that an Immortal Creature should grow weary of Life and be contented to fall into nothing after threescore or fourscore Years and yet this is a much more reasonable desire than to chuse such a happiness as will last but sixty or eighty Years when we must live for ever and therefore the Atheist is much a wiser Man than an irreligious and profane Worldling Every one contemns the folly of such a Prodigal who spends a fair Estate in a very short time and wasts away the rest of his Life in Poverty and Beggary and yet three or four Years pleasure bears some proportion to threescore or fourscore Years but threescore or fourscore Years have no proportion at all to Eternity Were there no other punishment of such Folly but to live for ever in a sense of our Want to find no sutable Objects to entertain our Minds but to languish perpetually with pining and unsatisfied Desires yet this were like the pain of perpetual Hunger and Thirst some-what worse than the delays of Hope even the torment of Despair And yet it is much worse still than this for such Men when they come into the other World will be convinced what Happiness it is they have lost when they shall see them come from the East and from the West from the North and from the South and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and themselves shut out when they shall see victorious Saints who have triumphed over all the Follies and Vanities all the Smiles Flatteries and Terrors of this World cloathed with Bodies of pure Light and rewarded with immarcessible Crowns of Glory singing Eternal Halelujahs to their God and Saviour and when all the toys and pleasures of this World are gone and past and nothing is present but the happiness of the next it will infinitely more afflict them to think they have missed of Heaven than it would do now to lose their Estates and Honours and let slip any opportunity they had to make themselves the Universal Monarchs of the
and all the Vessels of the Ministery were sprinkled with blood nay not only this general Covenant was confirmed by Sacrifice but all good men when they offer Sacrifices to God are understood to make renew or confirm their Covenant with him whence is that expression in the Psalms Gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice Thus the death of Christ did ratifie and confirm the Gospel Covenant between God and men and therefore the blood is called the blood of the Covenant and to feast on the memorials of his death and passion is a signification that we are in Covenant with God and God with us that we still own our Covenant and are resolved still to do so it is to put God in mind of his Covenant with us and us of our Covenant with him and if we have been guilty of any breach of Covenant with God by venturing upon the commission of any sin when we have with tears bewailed our sin and renewed our repentance here we must renew our Covenant and by approaching the Table of our Lord declare that though we are sinners yet we are not Apostates that we still own our Covenant and by the Grace of God which we now implore and hope to receive resolve to continue stedfast in it while we live And is not this an inestimable priviledge to be in Covenant with God and to have this Covenant as it were signed and sealed to us as often as we please by a foederal Rite of God's own appointment especially is it not a mighty favour for such frail sinners who are so exposed to temptations and so often conquered by them to have liberty granted upon their sincere repentance to return to Gods Table and to renew their Covenant and to be received again into Covenant by God Is it not a mighty affront to God when he invites us to his Table as those who are in Covenant with him to live in so great a neglect of it Is it not a kind of renouncing our Covenant when we refuse to own it by such publick solemnities as he himself has appointed for that purpose 2. These Religious Feasts signifie a state of Peace and Friendship with God and therefore those Sacrifices of which the Sacrificers were allowed to eat are called Peace-offerings in the Law of Moses Under the Law it was not permitted to them to eat of the Sin-offering that Sacrifice which was offered for the expiation of sin but when they had offered a Sacrifice for sin they might then offer a Peace-offering and feast before the Lord on the Sacrifice as a token of peace and reconciliation with God And thus it is under the Gospel Christ offered himself once for all a Sacrifice or Offering for sin and has obtained eternal redemption for us and therefore there is no more expiatory Sacrifice to be offered for sins but when through the frailty of humane nature and the powerful temptations of flesh and sense of the World and the Devil we have defiled and polluted our consciences with sin and guilt instead of those particular Sacrifices for sin which the Iews were directed to offer we must offer up the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart to God that is we must truly repent of our sins and turn from them and arm our selves with powerful resolutions against them for the future and then we may approach the Table of God and receive the pledges of his love and the fresh assurances of our pardon and acceptance through our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not use to receive and entertain any at our Tables but those who are our Friends or at least are not our enemies others are intruders and if they be not turned out again yet must make themselves welcome and indeed a Covenant made by Sacrifice alwayes signifies a Covenant of Peace and such to be sure the Gospel Covenant is of which the Lords Supper is the Seal and Sacrament a Covenant of peace and reconciliation between God and men None ought to come to this Table but the Friends of God as all holy men and all true humble penitents are and such men shall be sure to receive a joyful welcome and all the peculiar marks of Gods favour for such this holy Supper it self is to all worthy receivers 2. In the Supper of our Lord we do not only eat at his Table but we feed on his body not as if in a carnal sense we eat his natural flesh and drink his blood as the Church of Rome teaches contrary to the common sense and experience of mankind and without any colourable pretence from Scripture or Primitive Antiquity but we eat his flesh and drink his blood in such a spiritual manner as they are exhibited to us in the Sacrament of his own Institution As to explain this in as few words as may be The Lords Supper I told you before in General did answer to a Feast upon a Sacrifice in the Jewish Law And now I add that it is a Feast upon the Sacrifice of Christ who dyed upon the Cross and bore our sins in his own body upon the Tree and therefore it is called eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. For under the Law the Iews did in a literal sense eat the flesh of the Sacrifice for part of it was burnt upon the Altar and part they eat and this eating of the Sacrifice did give them a right and interest in the vertue of the Sacrifice and all the blessings purchased by it Now though Christ dyed upon the Cross for us yet he could not in a literal sense give us his natural flesh to eat for he was to rise again from the dead with a glorious and incorruptible body and ascend up in the same body to Heaven and there to continue united to this humane but glorified body till he return again to judge the World This Sacrament of his body and blood was to be celebrated in all parts of the World where a Christian Church should be planted and though he himself who is over all God blessed for ever more is present also in all places and especially in all the Assemblies of his Disciples who meet to worship him yet his body though glorious and perfect as a body can be yet is but matter still and therefore confined to one place and cannot at the same time be at Rome and Constantinople nor in ten thousand places at once more remote than they and this Sacrament is to be celebrated his flesh eat and his blood drank as long as the Church and the World lasts and it is contrary to the nature of a body to be so often eat and yet continue the same body and at best were the thing possible it would be no better than an inhumane and barbarous Rite to eat the flesh of a man and of our Friend And therefore since by the Institution of God a Sacrifice for a Peace offering was to be
bread of life which came down from Heaven and his flesh is bread considered as given for the life of the world and therefore to eat his flesh and drink his blood must signifie the Sacramental eating of it as the memorials of his death and passion 3. Suppose we should understand this eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the son of man of feeding on Christ by faith or believing yet they could understand this no better than the other it is plain they did not and I know not how they should for to call bare believing in Christ eating his flesh and drinking his blood is so remote from all propriety of speaking and so unknown in all languages that to this day those who understood nothing more by it but believing in Christ are able to give no tolerable account of the reason of the expression Now if this place in St. Iohn be meant of the Lords Supper as I do not in the least doubt but it is our Saviour has made it as necessary to us as we think eternal life to be for he has expresly told us except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you We must not indeed expound these words to such a sense as to make the Sacrament necessary even to Infants themselves as St. Austin did who therefore administred the Eucharist as well as Baptism to Children which was plainly contrary to the nature of it for it must be eaten with Faith or else it is not the body of Christ to the receivers and God does not make any ordinance necessary to those who are under a natural incapacity nay a moral impossibility will excuse this when men are desirous to communicate in all our Saviours institutions but have no opportunity to do it for God will dispense his grace in extraordinary ways to all well disposed minds when his providence denies those which are ordinary but those who wilfully neglect the ordinary means of grace have no reason to expect those which are extraordinary how God will deal with those who are guilty of such neglects not out of a contempt of his institutions but out of ignorance of their necessity or a superstitious awe and reverence for them I will not determine Having thus proved that we cannot in an ordinary way partake in the benefits and blessings which Christ hath purchased by his death but by a Sacramental eating of the body and drinking the blood of Christ to make you still more sensible of the infinite hazard and danger of this neglect I shall briefly consider what those blessings are which we partake of at the Lords Table and which we cannot expect any where else And I shall name but these 1. The pardon of our sins for this was the purchase of Christ's death he died for our sins and expiated them with his own blood and therefore we may observe that we do not only eat the body of Christ in this holy Feast but we drink his blood the blood of expiation the blood of the Covenant which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel now this was never permitted the Iews to eat any blood much less the blood of the Covenant which was sprinkled about the Altar to make Atonement nay we feed in this holy Supper on a Sin-offering nay that great expiatory Sacrifice whose blood was carried into the Holy of Holies which the High Priest himself was not allowed to eat of to which the Apostle alludes in the Epistle to the Hebrews We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the Sanctuary by the High Priest for Sin are burnt without the Camp i. e. no body was suffered to eat the flesh of the Sacrifice on the great day of expiation which was a general atonement for the sins of the whole Congregation not so much as the High Priest himself but their bodies were burnt to ashes Now the death of Christ upon the Cross was peculiarly typified by that great expiatory Sacrifice whose blood was carried into the Holy of Holies as he had discoursed at large in the ninth Chapter and plainly refers to here wherefore Iesus also that he might Sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the gate This is the Sacrifice we eat of to which he plainly refers in what he adds by him therefore let us offer the Sacrifice of praise or the Eucharistical Sacrifice which is the Lords Supper to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name but to do good and to communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased which refers to those oblations for the relief of the poor and other religious uses which were always made at the Lords Table Now what is the meaning of this that we are allowed to drink of the blood of the Sacrifice and eat the flesh of the great Sin-offering and Propitiatory Sacrifice which the High Priest himself under the Law was not allowed to touch I say what is the meaning of it but to exhibit and convey to us the full and perfect remission of all our sins in the blood of Christ. So that we eat the flesh of an expiatory Sacrifice and drink the blood of atonement and thereby partake of that pardon and expiation which was made by Sacrifice and if we were sensible what the guilt of sin is and what will be its punishment we should not fail frequently to come to this holy Table to renew the pardon of our sins in the blood of Christ. 2. Another fruit of Christs death which we receive at the Table of our Lord is the assistances of his grace and Spirit and the communications of a divine life to us Hence our Saviour tells us he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him which signifies such a close and intimate union whereby we receive the communications of his own life and spirit from him and therefore all Christians are said to be made to drink into one Spirit which signifies the communications of the divine Spirit at this Holy Table the whole Gospel administration is called the Ministration of the Spirit as being accompanied with a divine power much more this divine Feast wherein we become one with Christ eat his flesh and drink his blood as members of his body of his flesh and of his bones as St. Paul speaks and it is impossible the Spirit of Christ should be separated from such an uniting ordinance as makes us members of his body 3. By eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ in this holy Feast we have a pledge and earnest of immortality So our Saviour expresly tells us Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day As the living Father hath sent me