phrases the signe called the thing signified the figure called the thing figured The Rock was Christ Christ our Passeover that is paschal Lamb Circumcision called the Covenant Gen 17. 13. My Covenant shall be in your flesh this will be allowed in every place but one and that is this one This is my body For the Lutheran stands up for a corporall presence under the Signes The Papist for a change of the Bread and Wine into Christs body and bloud No conferences no disputes no condescensions will satisfie them and yet we say very fairly the very body of Christ born of the Virgin that died on the Crosse that sits in heaven is present in this Sacrament but not in the Bread or Wine but to the faithfull Receiver not in the Elements but to the Communicants but all this will not serve turn These two Prepositions Con and Trans have bred more jarres and cost more bloud since they were born and there is neither of them in this caUse six hundred years old then can be well imagined § 4 3. The Passeover figured Christ and yet the Jews ordinarily saw not Christ in it It is plain in their celebration of the Passeover or their Rituals they take notice of and commemorate their Egyptian slavery and their deliverance and so they were commanded but of Christ not a syllable It entred not into them that a Lamb rosted should figure the Messiah as they had formed him in their thoughts and so they held the Passeover as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looking backward but as a Type looking forward no knowledge except the faithfull had some glimpse of it and this is the great fault of men in all Sacraments they minde not the inwards of a Sacrament nor look for the kernell they did so and we also not discerning the Lords body is not that it which makes us guilty of his body and bloud there is in all Sacraments res terrena res coelestis as Irenaeus Earthly men see the earthly part they eat they drink It feeds not they eat shells the inwards within the bone are marrow Christ Christ set spirituall food before our bodies viz. ayery set corporall before the soul and you illude both saith Parisiensis de Euchar sub finem § 5 4. The Passeover is Christ sacrificed not Christ a Lamb unspotted but Christ a Lamb rosted with fire and this tels you that the Passeover and our Supper represent Christ crucified Christ dying or dead It is the death of Christ not his Resurrection nor ascension that is here set forth Ye shew the Lords death till he come this is the sight which a sinful soul would see this is the comfortable spectacle to see the price paying the ransome laying down the thing in doing Hence he draws the hope and comfort of Redemption and therefore the bread was broken and the Cup was full of bloud to represent to the life this life giving Death to Christ The Papists have cheated the people of the bloud by a trick of concomitancy telling them that the bread is his body and his body hath bloud in it we have a word of Institution of both severally the life of the representation is the bloud shed the Passeover is a Lamb slain and rosted and the bloud on the door-post and by providence if the Papists will allow all to eat then we have expresly for the Cup a Bibite ex hoc omnes Mat. 26. 27. Drink ye all of it So that it is the Death of Christ here represented and which is one step further it is a Sacrifice Death which works and makes atonement this was it that all the Sacrifices that the Passeover did prefigure a Sacrifice death that should deliver and make expiation This Cup saith Christ is the New Testament in my bloud which is shed for you and many for remission of sins a death and such a kinde of death as in our Sacrament set forth a Sacrifice Death therefore it 's said sacrificed for us § 7 Now let us come to the Analogy or resemblance between the Passeover and Christ sacrificed wherein I shall The resemblance between the Passeover and Christ sacrificed endeavour to avoid the vanity and curiosity of making similitudes to run of all four which is incident to men in handling Types Parables and similitudes which like a string over-stretched makes a jar and disharmony and shews more fondnes then soundness 1. The Paschal must be a male-Lamb without blemish the son of a year taken from the Sheep or Goats Exo. 12. 5. and this resembles Christ himself and his perfection there were many blemishes which the superstitious or curious Jews Observed to the number of fifty or seventy any blemish disabled it Christ was without all blemish nothing was excepted from other men or his likenesse to them but sin in all Points tempted like as weare yet without sin Heb. 4. 15. He was of masculine perfection at the perfection of his age about 33 or 34 years of Lamb-like humility and meeknesse which are noted in him as exemplary graces He was figured out in the Lamb of the daily Sacrifice in the Lamb of the Passeover in Abrahams Ram in stead of Isaac in the Scape-goat Lev. 16. 21. and pointed out by John Baptist under this Name Behold the Lamb of God It 's implied Heb. 9. 28. he shall appear the second time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in his first coming he was not without but we must distinguish of sin ours imputed to him and so he was made sin for us so as to bear it in his body which at his second coming he shall not bear nor be loden with as he was before and therefore is said to come without sinne both his and ours 2. This Paschall-Lamb was to be separated from the flock and set apart for Sacrifice on the tenth day of the moneth but not killed till the 14. day in the Evening or according to that vexed phrase between the two Evenings that is in the afternoon when the Sun declined before Sunset and about the same time of day our Saviour the true Passeover was slain but in a further meaning it shews that Christ was set apart and fore-designed of God to be our Passover long before not in his decree but his promise and the predictions of the Prophets which have been since the world began Luk. 1. 70. but now in the end of the world hath he appear'd to put away sinne by the Sacrifice of himself Heb. 9. 26. He suffer'd between the two Evenings of the world which was in his declination when he came that was our Evening and the latter is to come the dayes of his appearance are called often the last daies and though that have another meaning shewing the unalterableness of the Gospel-Ordinances contrary to those of the Law yet we may affirm that it was past the noon of the world when he came and the time shall not be so long after unto Sun-set as before
3. This paschal Lamb must be killed the bloud taken into a basin sprinkled with hysop shall be on every door the flesh rosted with fire not eaten raw or boyl'd in water the head the legs the inwards Exod. 12. 7 8 9 22. and this may set forth unto us the unutterable sufferings of Christ both in his soul and body which the Scripture sets out to the life with such an emphasis of words I mean especially those of his soul scorched with the sense of Gods extream wrath which are exprest by words extraordinary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sweating like drops of bloud with expression of strong cries and tears Oh man thou understandest not the sufferings of this Passeover rosted with fire forbidden to be boyl'd in scalding water for that expresses not the sufferings in extremity and what is all this for Even to make Christ more pleasant meat to thee which if thou feed upon and with a bunch of hysop sprinkle this bloud applying it by faith eating this rosted flesh and drinking this bloud poured forth it will feast thy soul and secure thee from the wrath of God which is the next 4. The destroying Angel seeing this blood on the door posts passes over the hoUse goes and kils the Aegyptians first-born and executes Gods last plague upon them in the mean time the Israelites were safe within the protection of blood Exod. 12. 12 13. and here is the safety of those Israelites Believers that have applied by faith the blood of Jesus Christ when God shall let loose his last and final plagues upon the world they shall be safe Hell and wrath and condemnation shall not touch them When I see the blood saith he I 'le pass over you Exod. 12. 13 23. nothing else will save you God looks at nothing but the blood of Christ upon you Happy they that before God ride his circuit of destruction to make a cry in all Aegypt are gotten under the Sanctuary of blood for then the plague shall not be upon you when I smite the Land of Aegypt Exod. 12. 13. 5. After the Israelites had been secured from the stroke of that dismall night then presently they march away are hired by the Aegyptians to be gone the four hundred and thirty years were out and God being punctual in his times finishes their captivity that hour and begins to fulfill his promises that he had made to them of bringing them to their promised Land Exod. 12. 31 32 33 c. 41 42. and here we see that when a soul hath long lien in the base bondage under sinne and the devil and comes to take hold of Christ and is sprinkled with his blood and enters Covenant with God in Christ then is he set free from his bondage and then he goes out of Aegypt and then all the promises begin to open upon him and he sets upon his heavenly journey and no Pharaoh can hinder him any longer All the sweet promises of peace and comfort and hope begin to be made good to him for they are all Yea and Amen in Christ the Devil and all his power and instruments cannot hold him the blood is upon him from that hour he is a free-man to own no Lord but God and yet still he hath a Wilderness to go thorow but he is miraculously carried as Israel was thorow it but this must not be expected that they should eat the Passeover and stay in Aegypt still they must go out of their bondage that are sprinkled with this blood by the blood of thy Covenant I have sent out thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water saith he in a like case Zech. 9. 11. and haply this Type is yet to be fulfilled in the Gospel Churches whom the Lord will deliver out of the hands of their oppressing tyrants Pope or Turk not by the Sword but Ordinances of his Covenant and then if they shall pursue a people under blood as Pharaoh did there will be a red Sea to swallow them horse and man And so much for the Passeover as referring to Christ our Sacrifice for that it doth so is plain by this That which is said of the Paschal Lamb Exod. 12. 46. is expresly applied to and fulfilled in Christ John 19. 36. So much for the Passeover as a Sacrifice or as the figure of our Sacrifice and theirs Christ Jesus § 8 Now we proceed to consider it as a Sacrament not ours but theirs nor yet a figure of our Sacrament in Considered as a Sacrament propriety though often so called in transitu and much contended for by Papists For what Jew could ever have found out our Supper figured in that Passeover and in what propriety can our Sacrament be the Sacrament of another Christ is the res Sacramenti of theirs and ours there they meet as the inward Circumcision and Regeneration is the thing of their Circumcision and our Baptism but that one Sacrament should be the figure of another is absurd and void of Reason As two pictures of one man are both resemblances of that one man but one is not the picture of another and yet becaUse the Passeover hath the common nature of a Sacrament doth set forth the same Christ as our Supper and that the Apostle draws an Argument from it to perswade Gospel-Christians to holiness Therefore we shall consider what significancy there is in it for though the signs be not ours yet the significancy is § 9 First The Passeover or Paschal Lamb as killed and rosted and the blood sprinkled was a Sacrifice The signification of the Passeover as eaten by the Israelites and feasted upon it was a Sacrament and in after-times both by Jewish Records and by Scripture I conceive it appears 2 Chro. 35. 11. Ezra 6 20. that the Levites killed the Paschals the Priests sprinkled the bloud on the Altar and then they took the Lamb to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Families or Chambers in Jerusalem and there did eat it so in our Supper there is a Sacrifice slain and offer'd up for atonement and that is Christ his body and bloud and then there is an eating and drinking of this Sacrifice in the Sacrament of bread and wine as in many Sacrifices of the Law there was first an offering up to God and then a feasting on the remainder we have a true Sacrifice Christ offer'd up to God for us we have a true Sacrament as that Sacrifice is eaten and drunk by us the oblation belongs to God to propitiate and redeem the communication belongs to us to be refresht and nourisht their eating the Passeover was no Sacrifice but a Sacrament our eating and drinking bread and wine is no Sacrifice but a Sacrament their killing and rosting of the Lamb made it eatable Christ his sacrificing of himself for us renders him fit nourishment to us Had he not been a Sacrifice offer'd up for us what profit had there been in eating and drinking sacramentally and spiritually that body
and bloud This consideration is of special remark you feast upon a sacrifice you live you feed upon a sacrifice tolle Sacrificium tolle Sacramentum the mouth eats the Sacrament the eye of faith discerns the sacrifice Christ is the sacrifice the Sacrament no sacrifice but the commemoration and communication of a sacrifice and here the Reason must be Observed why God did institute their Passeover and our answerable Sacrament to consist in meat and drink eating and drinking and I conceive thus that it being the most proper way to partake of a sacrifice for how else can it be Therefore we eat and drink in way of participation of our sacrifice Hence the phrase Living upon Heb. 13. 10. the Altar eating of the Altar and thus if we carry our eye to the earthly part in the Supper and to the heavenly part that is to the Sacrament and the sacrifice represented and feed upon the sacrifice represented as well as the Sacrament representing we then discern the Lords body This is the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de hoc plus intra 2. Their Passeover was instituted as an Ordinance for ever for a memorial of their Deliverance in Aegypt and their eduction out of it a commemoration it was and to be Observed for ever that is in all succeeding generations whiles their Polity and Religion stood Exod. 12. 14 24 42. and therefore we read in Jewish Writers and there is some foot-step or original of it Exod. 26. 27. What mean you by this service that in every company of Passeover-communicants there was some one that rehearsed and made commemoration Haggadah shet pesuch the history Buxtorf Chal. Lexic of the Passeover and so God that would have the sacrifice of Christ for our sinne that greatest work of his and our deliverance thereby from worse then Aegypt or destroying Angel to be Observed and kept in minde by a lasting trophy or monument viz our Supper The Apostle in allusion to their custome Useth a word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11. 26. Ye do shew As often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the Lords death till he come or ye do commemorate and with affection and thanksgiving set it forth and as theirs was for ever till Christs first coming so ours is for ever till his second coming so long as their Church continued they were charged with this Ordinance so long as the Gospel-Church continues they are charged with this and therefore neither of the Doctrine of the Gospel nor of the Sacraments shall there be any removal or alteration till Christ come 3. Their Passeover in Aegypt was eaten in their several Families or societies A Lamb for a hoUse except it were too little Exod. 12. 3 4. and in after times when this was repeal'd Deut. 16. 6 7. and was confined to the place that God should chUse and so to Jerusalem then though the Lamb might be slain in the holy Court and the bloud sprinkled on the Altar yet they did carry it home to their hired chambers and there did eat in companies not less then ten in a fraternity Joseph de bello lib. 7. cap. 17. nor above twenty but no man alone Solum epulari non licet saith Joseph Christ and his company made one society so though Christ be our Sacrifice once offer'd up upon the cross a sacrifice to God yet doth our Supper bring him home to us into our Churches and into our souls There is an application of him to be made the bloud sprinkled on our doors the Paschal brought home to our own hoUse Take ye Eat ye Drink ye God comes to particulars with us and the application of the sacrifice is the life of the Sacrament we must eat and drink at home in our own souls Christ comes home to us and yet this Supper ought as the Passeover to be eaten in societies I know no Reason for one alone there must be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a company for it is a communion one makes not a communion The Apostle 1 Cor. 11. 20. When you come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a meeting v. 33 34. when you come together tarry one for another hence it hath been anciently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meeting a Congregation It 's Gods Ordinance saith a learned man that the Lords Hildersam Joh. 4 p. 122. Supper be administred in publick Assemblies How can there be a Communicant without a Communion sed de hoc infra not that the wals of a Church do make it a communion but a meeting of believers 4. Their Passeover was eaten with unlevened bread and sowre or bitter herbs Exod. 12. 8. There are many circumstances and ceremonies found in the Jewish Authors about the searching out of all leven yea with candles at noon-day and an execration of all leven if any should remain unfound and the bitter herbs were in constant Use the unlevened bread remembred them what haste they went out of Aegypt in Exod. 12. 34. and the bitter herbs what affliction and bondage they had suffer'd and further they saw not The Apostle interprets leven malice and wickedness unlevened bread sincerity and truth 1 Cor. 5. 8. and so it teaches us how Christ is to be received by us and what manner of persons they must be that apply and receive Jesus Christ They must remember their bondage under sinne not with delight but bitterness and feel the sowr taste of their former wayes as sinners contrite and broken bitter herbs are good sauce for the paschal Lamb sinne felt sets an edge on the stomack as vinegar Christ relishes well to such a soul When thou comest to eat his Supper bring thy own sauce with thee bitter herbs and refresh on thy self the memory of thy old wayes and former lusts that 's the sauce the bread is unleavened bread you cannot eat the Lamb and leaven togegether a secure hypocrite a filthy swine not purged from sinne to think to have Christ and his sinne too to be pardon'd and not purged to be saved and not sanctified Away and never think to eat this Lamb with leaven'd bread come with bitter herbs thou maist contrition for sinne but come not with and in thy sins for that 's eating with leaven'd bread therefore search it out and let thy sinnes be searcht out as with a candle and let them be execrable to thee that God may see thy hatred of them and thy loathing of thy self for them 5. Their Passeover in Aegypt was to be eaten with loyns girded in procinctu shoes on feet and staff in hand and ye shall eat in haste Exod. 12. 11. and therefore standing as ready to be instantly on their march to leave the Land of Aegypt and go to seek their promised countrey which signifies to us that we must receive Christ and his bloud with intention and purpose to leave the dominions of Pharaoh the Kingdom service and bondage of sinne and the Devil and
the time of celebration § 11 Obs 3 This Ordinance we receive from the Lord. That the Apostle received from the Lord what he delivered to the Church This high and honourable Ordinance the Passeover of the Christian Church we can receive from no higher hand than the Lord we may receive from no lower our faith can be resolved into no lower authority than the Lord. I believe and receive this and Use it and expect the fruit not becaUse Paul delivers it to me but becaUse he receives it from the Lord and so the Apostle leads our faith to the original the first authority and higher we need not we cannot go It was the dignity of an Apostle to be a receiver from the Lord or else he could not have had the authority of a deliverer to the Church See the difference between Christ and Paul in this matter of delivery to the Church in Matth. 5. 21 31 33. Ye have heard it hath been said of old thus and thus But I say to you He speaks like the Lord But I say when Paul comes to speak Then I have received from the Lord he speaks as an Embassadour or a servant No other authority ought to take place in the Church but of Christ only § 12 The Apostles were of high authority in the Church of Christ first Apostles saith the Text 1 Cor. 12. 28. yet they were but receivers there was a higher authority which they advance I have received from the Lord See the scale or ladder of faith we receive our Doctrine from the Scriptures the Scriptures from the Apostles and others that were inspired they from Christ and Christ as Mediatour sayes He hath received his mission from God and here alone our faith stands and is quietly setled so in the Commonwealth you receive a warrant from the Constable a meaner man then you he from the Justice he from the Councel they from the supream power And what need or Reason was there that he should avouch his receiving the Doctrine of this Sacrament from the Lord Was it for that he wrote to the Corinthians a proud and stomackfull people that had his person in some contempt in comparison of their preachers who by their tinkling eloquence led them by the ears into captivity and were partners with or patrons of them in these abUses Therefore he brings the name of the Lord to bear down their naughty stomacks and the Lords institution to whip these corruptions out of the Temple Or Rather was it for a closer Reason He that believes to receive a soul-benefit from an outward Ordinance of eating and drinking bread and wine had need to see good ground for his believing for they are incommensurate and improper to the soul the body may more easily be fed with air than the soul with bread and wine Therefore he appeals to the Lord for the benefit is from the authour the vertue and fruit from the institution He that by a piece of brass heal'd a mortal sting can by bread as I may say feed the hungry soul He put clay in my eyes saith the blinde man He sent me to the pool of Siloam and I washt and do see Joh. 9. 15. § 13 Obs 3 That the Apostle delivered to the Church what he had received from the Lord also delivered unto you Et omnibus Ecc esiis meo ministerio fundatis and all Morton in loc P. Martyr Churches founded by my Ministry He did receive and deliver but not institute this Ordinance He that will institute a Sacrament makes himself a God saith Peter Martyr Had he not received he had wanted authority Had he not delivered he had wanted faithfulness and honesty as a messenger that keeps the God alwayes had officers in his Church Ring sent to a friend God hath ever had in his Church such as should be receivers and deliverers an office of men taken from among men and ordained for men in things pertaining to God as it 's defined Heb. 5. 1. but all are not receivers as Paul by immediate hand from the Lord Moses receives the Law and the pattern in the Mount he was a receiver and deliverer the Priests in their generations did receive and deliver but they were bound to the Law and to the Testimony So in the Christian Churches the Apostles receive the Word and Sacraments from the Law they see the pattern in the Mount then there are others in their generations that receive and deliver too but they are bound to the Law and Testimony Hear the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 2. The things that thou hast heard of me commit thou to faithfull men who shall be able to teach others also So that here is Paul that received from the Lord Timothy from Paul other faithfull men from Timothy and others from those faithfull men There is no government of any Commonwealth on earth but they have their Officers to receive Lawes and Commands from the highest and to convey and deliver them to the people § 14 The Apostle received from the Lord two things His Commission and his Errand His Commission to be an Apostle Rom. 1. 5. From Christ we have received our Apostleship and this he may show to the people as he doth to these Corinthians 1 Cor. 9. 1. Am I not an Apostle c. but he doth not deliver this to them His errand and that is the Doctrine of the Gospel and this he doth both receive and deliver I have delivered unto you so an Embassadour hath a Commission and that he may show but delivers not and he hath an errand and that he receives from his Lord and delivers to them to whom he is sent There were Prophets in Jeremiah's time that would be deliverers but they neither received Commission Jer. 14. 14. I sent them not nor errand Jer. 23. 16. Their vision was of their own heart The one of these being wanting made a false prophet I fear we have many moe deliverers then receivers from the Lord either they want one of these legs or both and yet which is the wonder they run having received neither Commission nor Errand from the Lord. § 15 He delivers that to the Church all that only that which first he had recived from the Lord the arrow flees with strength that is shot out of such a Bow He was a faithfull Embassadour or Steward we have all that and nothing but that which comes from the Lord a good depositary that fails not of his trust the losse of a little of Gods truth is as the losse of a Diamond out of a Ring Christ speaks of the least iota's or tittles of the Law as precious things and permanent It was the admirable wit of Homer to make in his Poems Embassadours to speak in the same words as they received their errand by the same spirit and the same inspiration that he received this Doctrine from the Lord he also delivered it to the Church How pure doth this Ordinance of the Supper come
hope erected faith strengthened lusts subdued which follow by consequence upon our union with Christ and our interest in the Covenant in the sense of which when a Christian walks he is in a good frame and posture of spirit CHAP. X. A four-fold Exhortation from the premises FRom what hath been said upon this point I would possess you with four things § 1 I. That you hold fast and stick to the true sense and right meaning of these words This is my Body This is the Blood of the New Testament which hath been so perplexed and depraved by superstition and the vanity of humane inventions especially since the rise of the Schoolmen whose itch of Disputation hath bred such a scab that there hath been left no soundness in the place which hath been tortured with such Convulsions Distortions and Absurdities that the sense which to a chast and simple ear is easie and smooth hath been raveld into knots inextricable and this Text of all other hath suffered infinite injuries and been made the stage of impudent fooleries which have brought and buried out of sight the true meaning of them and made our Saviour that Used to speak vulgarly and easily to delude the senses amUse the Reason nonplus the faith of sober Beleevers And though it be truly said The sense of Scripture is the Scripture and that the right understanding of these words carries you in a right line to the nature Use and benefit of this Or inance yet let me say this more to you as English men That the true meaning of them hath been conveyed to you by the blood of your own Martyrs who in Q Mary her daies were most of them put to the test upon the point of Reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament and bare witness against it and I do beleeve that if Popery do ever make another attempt upon you it will play upon you with his battery at this place §. 2. Extreams about Christs Reall presence and the middle way held by the Churches of our Profession § 2 The Churches of our Confession have warily and justly avoided the extreams on both sides 1. The first extream is that which some did fear in Zuinglius and others at first and yet is unjustly charged upon us by many viz. That the Sacraments are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 naked signes empty figures and shadows meerly representing the death of Christ as the Picture of Hercules resembles and represents Hercules which we disclaim and leave it to Socinianizing spirits and other Levellers of Divinity for we are taught that Sacramentall signes are more than meer representing signes being Seals which do confirm and make over unto us the spirituall benefit which they represent and exhibit also they are signs which God commands us to Use and in their right Use he conferres upon us the benefit as the Seal passes a Right to the Estate promised and conveyed as the Apostle saith Rom. 4. 11. He received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith and 1 Cor. 10. 16. 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 not representation only but communion or participation also for the picture of a loaf of bread feeds not the hungry nor doth the Ivy-bush refresh the weary and therefore there is not only a representation of the body of Christ broken by the breaking of the bread but Take and eat and drink which denotes participation of the body and blood of Christ 2. The other extream is twofold 1. That the very body and blood of Christ is as it were moulded up with the bread and wine or hidden under them which is the sense of the Consubstantiatists or Lutheran Churches and this though it be too gross an opinion yet is not liable to so many monsters and incompresensible absurdities as the other which is 2. That the bread and wine cease to be and are evoided being turned or change the substance of them into the very substance of the flesh and blood of Christ which is hidden under the species or outward accidents of bread and wine a monstrous Paradox holden stifly by the Transubstantiatists or Papists The middle way holden by the Churches of our Confession is That the outward Elements do represent as Signes and exhibit as Seales and morall Instruments to the faith of the receiver the very Body and Blood of Christ sacrificed as spirituall repast for our souls and spiritually given and taken but that they continue not as incorporated with them nor are converted into the very naturall Body of Christ as locally or corporally there to be received by the mouth of the receiver We hold a difference or change of bread and wine blessed but it is a change of signification not of substance a relative change not reall a change in regard of Use and esteem not of their naturall substance as the wax now a Seal to a Conveyance is wax still but not a Seal not of that value till now all the Rhetoricall flowers Used by the Ancients reach no further if they do we cannot keep them company We hold that the Body and Blood of Christ is really that is truly exhibited and present to the faith of the receiver and we might express the reall presence as reall is opposed to imaginary or chimericall were it not for caption and mis-understanding none of ours denies the Body of Christ to be really though spiritually eaten by a Beleever nay it is immotum axioma whatsoever is eaten in that it is Forbes p. 53◠eaten it must be present no man can eat a thing that 's absent but the presence with or under the Elements is one thing and the presence to the soul and faith of a Beleever is another We know no union of Christs Body with bread and Wine but with his members which is reall and mysticall not reall and corporall therefore Christ saith Take eat before he say This is my Body as if it were his Body to their faith not as in the outward Element §. 3. Arguments for the Protestants sense of the words This is my Body § 3 For attestation of this sense many Arguments may be mustred up together 1. Compare one part of this Sacrament with the other This cup is the New Testament in my Blood that is by Metonymy the Seal of the New Testament but not the New Testament it self so This is my Body that is the Signe and Seal of it but not it self 2. Compare the one Sacrament of the Gospel with the other In Baptism the water is water without reall alteration so here the bread is bread the wine is wine not changed into flesh or blood 3. Compare the Sacraments of the Old Testament with the New Circumcision is the Covenant becaUse the Sign or Seal of it the Lamb is the Passeover becaUse the memoriall or sign of it so the bread
that they were discommended that hold to the Legall service 2. Heathens and Infidels are excluded from this Table becaUse they are extraneous and without so they are called 1 Cor. 5. 12. What have I to do to judge or censure them that are without they are without the gates of the Church not obnoxious to the Government nor allowed the priviledges of it and they that are without the gate cannot be admitted to the Table untill they come in and be members of the family 3. All unbaptized persons are excepted by the order of our Sacraments whereof Baptism is first for insition and implantation into the Body of Christ and the Lords Table for further coalition and growth this order is confirmed by the Use or business of the Sacraments the one being of Regeneration and so first the other of Communion and so the second See 1 Cor. 12. 13. By one spirit are we baptized into one Body and have been all made to drink into one spirit first baptized and then made to drink which order the Church of Christ hath held from the beginning as it 's said by Justin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apol. 2. After the new Convert is thus washed we bring him to our meetings where the Eucharist is 4. Those that are under a present incapacity of performing such antecedaneous acts of preparation or which are to be exercised in the act of communicating provided that this incapacity be visible as I may say or manifest unto us as in infants ideots stupid ignorants bruits in the shape of men who though baptized yet are not capable of discerning the Lords Body or of examining themselves who seem to be excepted ver 28. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat and drink And so I know a mad man may have lucid intervals and a poor ignorant soul may be brought to know the letters and spell the first syllables of Christianity against either of which I would not shut the door but if the ignorant cannot be gotten beyond sottishness and stupidity nor got out of his Obstinacy in blindness I should be very unwilling to let him runne blinofold down the precipice or leave the door open for him to fall into condemnation not that I envy him a benefit but pity his downfall which I ought to hinder or at least not to help forward and I may say of such an one as the Apostle of the Law Rom. 7. 13. Shall that which is good be made death unto him God forbid Especially considering that the Apostle having said Let a man examine himself and so let him eat doth in the next words come on again ver 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lords Body As for infants though the Churches of ancient time admitted them after Baptism to partake of the P Martyr in Musculus de caena Lords Supper for some hundreds of years and one or two of our Reforming Divines speak somewhat favourably of it yet the ground they went upon Joh. 6. 53. that otherwise they had not salvation is disclaimed by all both becaUse that Chapter speaks nothing of Sacramentall or Symbolicall eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood and also was delivered by Christ a year or two before this Sacrament was born into the world and becaUse there is so much activity and exercise required in a Communicant as viz. to remember the Lords death to shew it forth to discern the Lords body to examine ones self to judge ones self therefore is that ancient practise Obsolete and as by tacite consent deserted and in room thereof we admit now not by their years for a man of threescore may be a childe in understanding and a childe in years may be a man but by their discretion and knowledge in the mystery of Christ and if the Parents or Pastors care the blossoming of grace and pregnancy in the childe were answerable to my desires I should as I am for great reasons be for eatly admissions of them as namely that the benefit and refreshing of this Ordinance might curb the over-growth of the sins and lusts of youth and help forward the growth of their graces to an early maturity Those that are professed Christians baptized-Church-members whether they live in open practice or fall under the guilt of some gross and scandalous sinne are for that time as they be impenitent to be secluded from or not admitted unto this Communion and this is an adjudged case in Scripture 1 Cor 5. where one for terrible incest notoriously manifest detested by very Heathens remained in the Communion of the Church through neglect of their duty which the Apostle reproves and having shown what power they had of judging such as were within members of their Church enjoyns them to purge out the leaven and to cast out from themselves that wicked person and least any perverse gainsayer should restrain this power to this one sin the Apostle saith ver 11. If any that is called a brother be a fornicatour a covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or extortioner the Church hath power to judge them that are within But what is this to the Sacrament enough verily for he that is cast out of the hoUse is certainly cast out from the houshold table and the abstention from Communion so much named in Cyprian or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or seclusion Forbes 631. mentioned in the Canons and whatsoever word is Used for this casting one out of Church-communion here if any where it operates and works in forbidding the Use of the Table where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Church society and communion is as for instance Divorce though it extend further yet signifies nothing at all is no Divorce if not a thoro or mensa from bed or board so this restention is nothing it works nothing I speak not of a private avoidance of familiarity with wicked persons which lies on private persons if not to this seclusion from the Table I shall not further urge the example of the old Testament which debarres the uncircumcised and the unclean for the time from the Passeover and I deny not that under that worldly Sanctuary and those carnall Ordinances as they are called Heb. 9. 1 10. Legall uncleanness might debarre when spirituall and morall did not as now morall filthiness may when legall uncleanness is not for that uncleanness under the Law had a spirituall signification and though it was not alwaies sinne yet it signified morall pollution as the leaven which was held Hag. 2. 13. execrable and must be cast out at the Passeover is spiritually applied to another meaning by the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. Purge out the old leaven ver 7. for Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us the old leaven that is the wicked and incestuous person Beza Slater alii out of your society and malice and wickedness out of your lives ver 8. and
and demonstrate We know that in all Sacraments there is Analogy or proportion and so in this the elements broken bread and wine pouned forth or the body and bloud of Christ the actions of Taking Eating and Drinking the outward elements doe denote the acts of a Communicants soul receiving and feeding upon Christ and such acts there must be to answer unto the outward actions So as if you tell me of any sensible object it 's easie to shew what sense it belongs unto for if it be light or colour it belongs to the eye if it be any sound it belongs to the ear c. So this Sacrament being survey'd and studied it is not hard to finde what graces are to be set on work accordingly And this Rule that I may not guesse at randome I shall follow in the ensuing Discourse First It 's necessary that the Communicant have knowledge of the Nature Use and End of this Sacrament and that is demonstrate thus Here are outward elements and actions which do signifie some other thing as namely the body and bloud of Christ as himself expounds it offer'd by God unto and to be received by the Communicant and therefore there must be knowledge to discern and understand this mystery that 's hidden under a visible out-side to wit the Sacrifice of Christs body which is represented and the confirmation of the Gospel-Covenant by his bloud for without this knowledge a man comes blinde-fold eats and drinks as a bruit takes the dish for the meat and is no otherwise refresht than a thirsty man would be by eating and sucking a sign-post which doth but signifie that there is wine within It was a childes Question Exod. 12. 26. What mean you by this service And I would our ignorant people would so play the childe for they do but eat the shell and gnaw the bone of the outward service becaUse they know not the meaning of it So the carnall Jew knew not the meaning of the Rites and Types then Used nor saw both Law and Gospel in their Sacrifices both which they were full of I confesse the knowledge of this Sacrament draws with it the knowledge of our lost estate as Passeover is not understood without Egypt in sinne and misery For where Christ appears bloudy there sinne must needs appear deadly and those fundamentals and grounds of Christianity which are but the A. B. C. of Religion must be knowne but it is not the knowledge of a Scholar but the knowledge of a Christian which we plead for so much as may serve to look into the entrails of this Sacrament and may lead on the affections to value prize thirst after Jesus Christ whom if we see not we cannot desire or love Visus est prima amor is linea fight is the first line of love nor can we believe in him untill we see John 6. 40. Whosoever see the Sonne and believes in him shall have everlasting life I should not charge a poor Christian with any great rate of knowledge for the quality is more to be regarded than the quantity If he know both sinne and Christ by taste as well as by sight if he have a distinguishing and favoury knowledge of the things of the Spirit and there be as it is in embers a great heat though but little light then is it good though not great I know that Questions demodo in all points of Divinity are hard to answer It 's well if we can answer a Question aere I may know what sinne is and yet not tell how it enters and comes at first into my soul The Apostles took Christ at this time for their Saviour and Lord the true Messiah but how he should execute all the parts of his Office they did not clearly understand and yet did at and drink with him at his Table § 3 Secondly This is not all but it is first as light was at the Creation the first creature but all the world was not made when light was He is not wholly fitted that hath knowledge there must be a Christ-receiving or a Christ-taking faith and this is shown thus God offers the body and bloud of his Sonne which was shed for the remission of sinne and saith Take ye Eat ye Drink ye and that inward act which answers to this outward action whereby we do receive Christ that is exhibited we call faith when Christ is tender'd to us in the Word we believe ex-promisso when offer'd in the Supper we believe ex pignore There we have a promise here a pawn or pledge This faith is the taking hand which goes forth to the offering-hand of God This taking eating drinking are but faith appropriating and applying Christ You say you believe What believe you That God offers Christ to your faith What 's a poor man the richer for believing that one offers him a shilling What 's a condemned man the better for believing that a pardon is offer'd to him This is but a faith of the truth of the offer But doe ye receive Christ offered Do you close in with Christ Do you take him into you Here is the best Covenant sealed with the best blood that ever was You believe this to be a truth but come not in to this Covenant that saith doth but serve to your just condemnation It is the Christ-receiving not the truth acknowledging saith that brings salvation to you If men did but know what saving saith is we should have either more or fewer believers more for they would renounce that superficial thing cahed faith and buy gold tried in the fire Fewer for they would not count themselves to believe by that faith which they have A woman may believe a man to be rich and honourable and reall in his suit yet that belief doth not make a marriage but actual consent to take him for a husband For saith gives as well as takes it gives a man up to Christ as well as takes Christ to be a Saviour It is not true faith that blows hot and cold out of the same mouth and cries Hosanna to Christ a Saviour but yet I will not have him reigne over me This Sacrament presents Christ to faith thus It presents Christ himself his body and bloud not the benefits of Christ apart and abstract but Christ himself It presents Christ for intimate union with us as the nourishment is to the body It presents him really as the bread and wine is really taken and received It presents him crucified and suffering as if he was now dving and bleeding in whom faith findes reconciliation remission justification and redemption so is it acted and exercised in this Ordinance § 4 Thirdly The third grace that is freshly revived and set on work in this Sacrament is Repentance and that appears thus Here is represented Goes Justice against our sinne in bruising his own Sonne with fore and dreadfull breaches made upon him and this Justice is mixt with goodnesse in transferring and laying upon the Sacrifice
the delinquencies and sinnes which had they been charged on us had sunk us into the bottome of perdition and who that sees this shall not tremble at the fearfull wrath of God which Angels and men could not stand before Who shall not mourn over Christ whom we have pierced as it 's said of them Zech. 12. 10 Who can love the knife that slew his friend I meane the sinne that our Saviour bore in his body on the Tree This consideration here presented to you if you follow Christ from the Garden to Golgotha should me thinks affect the soul of a believer 1. With tender meltings of godly sorrow for sinne 2. With fresh purpose of amendment of life 1. With godly sorrow for sinne To hear the strong cries and see the streaming bloud of Christ for can there be a greater demonstration either of Gods Justice toward sinne or of his goodnesse to a sinner They say an adamant will be broken by bloud but alas the heart of man hath lost ingenuity or else the bloud of Christ would make us love sinne as bad as the terrours of Mount Sinai yea and to love it lesse and hate it more Fear may break a man but goodnesse melts him The terrours of the Lord may amaze and leave a man as hard still but godly sorrow makes tender and changes the disposition of the soul Revive then the sense of your sinne even pardon'd sins do revive godly sorrow and the more becaUse he tastes goodnesse and grace to him unworthy the sweet of the Passeover is lost for want of bitter herbs 2. With fresh purpose of amendment a needfull grace to be renew'd at this Sacrament we should eat this Passeover with shoes on our feat and slaves in our hand ready to march out of Aegypt We cannot eat the Passeover and stay in Aegypt still God confirmes his Covenant and we must restipulate with God to cast out and execrate the old Leaven Let 's carry wounded sinnes from this Table Bring wonded hearts and carry away wounded sinnes Let 's learne to die to sinne by seeing Christ die for sinne Mutet vitam qui vult accipere vitam saith Austine The Covenant of Grace is sealed Let us seal a Covenant of Obedience By the merit of Christs death we are purchased to be Gods not our own By the power of his Death we are slain dead to sinne But here I must break out to meet with our common purposers and resolvers which if ever in their lives do now when they come toward the Lords Table flatter God and themselves with a new beginning of a new life from this time they are resolved that the ear that hath heard them shall hear them swear no more The eye that hath seen them shall see them drunk no more c. I would these greene cords would hold but we finde this righteousnesse is but a morning dew their Sampson lusts when they awake break all these cords And why BecaUse these purposes arise from a fit of conscience not from a principle of life or love and so they prove but Lucida intervalla they returne to their madnesse againe when the fit takes them I would such men would resolve to be ashamed of these resolutions which so often leave them in the dirt that selfe confusion may carry them out of their owne strength which selfe-resolution doth but arme them with and therefore doth not stand For he that hath the Falling-sicknesse may resolve to fall no more but in vaine untill the disease be purged These are the principall the staple graces to be exercised in this Ordinance there are others which are included in these which I but name As § 5 Fourthly Spiritual appetite of hunger and thirst after Christ who is here offered as full nourishment for the soul under the form of bread and wine I account gracious desires to be the immediate products of regenerated graces and very comfortable testimonies of life spirituall 1 Peter 2. 2. but it is called vehement desire 2 Cor. 7. 11. in difference from the sluggards desires which are but wishes and which every man pretneds unto though it be plaine they are but of Balaam's temper who desired to die the death of the righteous but loved the wages of unrighteousnesse God helps his people much by giving them good desires both for that they make prayer warme and give great comfort in the midst of sad complaints yea they bring us to the Word and to the Sacrament where the want which occasions the desire may be supplied Keep them alive and they will keep you alive Sharpen and whet them as men doe indifferent stomacks with vinegar Sense of sinne and desire of grace are excellent preparatives to this Supper § 6 Fifthly Love to fellow-members of the body of Christ For we are all partakers of that one bread 1 Cor. 10. 17. If we eat together all of one loaf let us love them with whom we have this fellowship and Communion The Love-feaâ—â—s of the Primitive Church are read of but alas they are lost I mean not the feasts but the Love and in stead thereof In joelix lolium unhappy feuds quarrels divisions rents abound as if we were not children of one Table Corinth is come into England I hear that when you come together in the Church there are divisions among you 1 Cor. 11. 18. Ours are wider divisions we doe not come together in the Church one Table is prophane to another and yet the Apostle faith If I have all Faith If I suffer death without Charity I am nothing it profits me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 2 3. It 's almost Popery to speake of Charity By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another saith Christ And this was the old marke but truely it 's almost worne out Oh let us revive it at this Sacrament where God seales the pardon of our Talents Let 's learne to forgive the pence of our brethren Of all sinnes the Apostle interprets the Leaven to be purged out of malice 1 Cor. 5. 8. Purge out malice For Love is the cement of this Fellowship and Communion of members which are supposed to have one life becaUse nourisht with the same nourishment that is Christ § 7 Sixthly The last grace I will speak of which is here to be exercised or call it rather a duty if you please It 's Thankfulnesse without which the memorial or remembrance of Christs death is but a dry and fruitlesse commemoration Humility makes thankfull The Samaritane Leper return'd to give thanks He was more remote from expectation of cure and therefore the more thankfull The sense of our own unworthinesse and of the great disproportion between Christ and us may raise up our thanksgiving to a higher flame The lowest hearts rise highest in gratitude pride and merit are unthankfull And so I have showne you those graces which being exercised doe fit us to receive worthily and set the heart in tune to this Ordinance
Christ receive here the pardon of sin Question not the Seal or truth of it 3. That I may not divide into further particulars there is by this Sacrament a communication of a greater proportion of Gospel-Spirit For we have been all made to drinke into one Spirit 2 Cor. 12. 13. which Spirit plentifully bestows his severall fruits and graces for the growing up of a member into Christ the Head in all things Ephes 4. 15. from whence we have not onely those Auxilia actualia actual influences and aids of delight comfort evidence sweet tastes powerfull motions and impressions which Vasquez cals grace sacramental and saith That Gratia Sacramentalis non est gratia habitualis sed auxilia quaedam actualia which I conceive is an errour For though a man have a sweet taste and transient delight in meat or wine yet there is also a permanent and abiding nourishment proceeding from that he eats or drinks So here the very habituall graces are nourisht strengthened excited It may be a man at present doth not feele that strength he doth receive nor is sensible of the intention of his graces For the same Vasquez saith Intentionem habituum infusorum sub experimento humano cadere non posse And it 's true at present time But the growth of grace manifests it selfe in time We doe not see our selves or others grow but that we are growne is plaine enough nor doe we see how much the light incReases by every step of the Sunne rising higher for our growth is graduall and by imperceptible instances and degrees when power of resisting temptations mortifie lusts which before were too hard for us doth appear we may see our growth as we see our shadowes are shortened but how much in a minute we see not and may say That the graces which this Ordinance requires and excites are thereby strengthened and enlarged and therefore the Rule is good What Grace thou wouldest have strengthened by this Ordinance that doe thou set on work and exercise in it for that is Sowing to the Spirit as the Apostle cals it And I make no Question but a believer shall finde the benefit of this Sacrament in his obedience also for the fuller the Vessell is the faster it will runne out at the tap If the habits incRease the fruit of obedience will be proportionable We mend a barren Tree at the root sweeten the sap there and the Tree is more fruitfull When Jacob had seen the sweet vision in Bethel then he lifted up his feet Genes 29. 1. it put mettle into him So much for this Point the Benefit of this Sacrament which being dis-Used as at this time is a great losse to the improvement of Christians though they see it not The Christians in persecuting times when a storme was coming then were they most diligent to frequent this Table to lay in store for a hard Winter and fortifie their resolutions And let this Benefit be a Motive to the Use of Preparation which was the Reason I have handled it in this place for there is no Promise no Benefit to one that comes to this Table unworthily CHAP. XXIX The Sinfulness of Eating and Drinking Vnworthily § 1 I Have said concerning eating this Bread and drinking of this Cup of the Lord worthily Now I come to the other branch The eating and drinking unworthily What that is hath been sufficiently opened already The Antithesis or opposition between worthily and unworthily is such as if you know the one you know both as he that knows what a right line is knows what is a crooked or oblique Worthily to eat is in such manner as is answerable and suitable to the nature end and Use of the Ordinance and unworthily to eat is contrary that is without a sacramental or Supper-disposition and otherwise then is fit that these holy mysteries be handled and intreated as I have before proved The Point I shall take up is this § 2 To eat the bread and drink the Cup of the Lord unworthily is a sinne of an high Nature and of consequence dangerous It is a fearfull sinne and attended with fearfull effect It is of a high nature as appears by that peculiar guilt which is contracted he shall be guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord it is of fearfull consequence He eats and drinks judgement to himself Thou seest saith Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In loc what a terrible word the Apostle speaks speaks nay thunders so as may awake the secure soul into a trembling The example of Nadab and Abihu their being made Sacrifices themselves was enough to give warning to all after them against offering of strange fire and was the occasion of that excellent Rule which God gave at that time to be observed in all our near approaches to him I will be sanctified of all that come nigh me Lev. 10. 3. There are four things to be open'd 1. The sin it self viz. Eating and drinking unworthily 2. The caUse of the sinne Not discerning the Lords body 3. The aggravation of the sinne by the object and peculiar nature of it viz. A guiltinesse of the body and bloud of Christ 4. The danger that attends or follows upon it He eats and drinks judgement to himself § 3 1. The sinne is Eating and drinking unworthily and it is a peculiar sinne or transgression of the Law of this Ordinance One may do what the Law requires and yet sinne grievously if the manner of doing be vicious and corrupt Men may be content if the matter by their Law required be done whether with a good will or an evil but God is not so who values the disposition of heart when the thing in command sometimes is not done so he hearkned to Hezekiah his prayer for them that prepared their heart to seek God though not legally purified 2 Chron. 31. 19. and is highly displeas'd when the command Do this is Observed but it is done unworthily and therefore they say he is pleased with benè not meerly with bonum The Ordinance it self is the Index or Touchstone of unworthinesse Here is Christ offer'd and presented to thee and thou hast no faith Christ broken bleeding for sinne and thou hast no repentance Christ for spiritual nourishment and thou hast no appetite The Covenant is sealed and thou art no confederate strengthening and refreshing grace convey'd and thou art a dead man Communion of Christs body and bloud and thou art no member in Union with him How unsatiable art thou to the Ordinance and therefore eatest and drinkest unworthily § 4 This word unworthily may he taken two wayes Privative and Contrary Taken privatively it is as much as not worthily not suitably to the Nature and Use of the Ordinance Taken contrarily it is as much as wickedly so we say a man deals unworthily that is basely unjustly injuriously In the first sense He that hath no spiritual grace and therefore cannot exercise it or he that hath some but doth not exercise
unworthily to the Lords-Table and so I have set up a light in the entry by which you may finde the way into the better understanding of all that follows in this Chapter wherein he sets the Lords Supper to rights which was drowned in a feast Then he orders the address of the Communicants which through the aforesaid misdemeanours had come to it unworthily and then exhorts them to make it a Communion and not a Division as they had done Tarry one for another vers 33. and to prevent the intemperance of publick Feasts he bids them if they must eat before they come to the Lords Supper Let them eat at home vers ult and so clearly abrogates not the Feasts but the order of them as fore-going the Lords Supper and here we shall stand a little and make Observation § 5 The Apostle interdicts not all eating or drinking before the Lords Supper but this feasting and the abuses Obs growing thence he doth forbid Those words A man may eat before he come to the Lords Table vers ult If any man hunger let him eat at home that they come not together unto condemnation teach us That this Feasting was before the Sacrament and that a man may eat at home if occasion be before he come to the publick Assembly To put a necessity upon Fasting is to put Superstition into it for our Saviour at first celebrated it after Supper by necessity of the Law of the Passeover but bindes us not by his example to eat first nor by any rule to fast before it therefore it is of free Observation and Use yet the custom of coming fasting had spread over the Aug. Epist 118 Per universum orbem mos isto servatur Chrys in 1 Cor. 11. 26. universal Church in Austins time Per universum orbem mosiste servatur Chrysostem speaks too highly of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou mayest be worthy to receive for setting it aside as any piece of spiritual preparation and I know not why it may not stand Omnes jejuni celebramus saith that Light of France Chamier de Euch. lib. 6 cap 1. §. 13. All the French Churches celebrate the Supper fasting I hold to the Rule If any man hunger c. either of these is best which puts the body in best tune to serve as I may say the soul in a holy duty § 6 Obs 2 How soon abUse crept into this Ordinance of the Supper It was not above twenty or thirty year from the nativity or birth of this Ordinance when this Epistle was written it was nothing so long from the birth or foundation of this Church to this time The Apostle had sown good corn in this field by his Doctrine I have delivered unto you the naked institution of Christ and now it stands in need of weeding The Devil was not asleep in the very Apostles Errour and corruption sprung up in the Church betime times He raised up Simon Magus and after him a fry of Gnosticks or knowing people so they would be called but falsly saith Irenaeus to corrupt the Doctrine and it was betimes that the Devil set his foot in this most excellent Ordinance and from first to last there have been scarce any times wherein some soil hath not cleaved to this Sacrament every Age adding or declaring somewhat till it became a monster unlike it self in the Romish Masse which is a Masse of Idolatry and abomination a very abomination of desolation to this Ordinance the stamp of Christs institution being so defaced that he that minted it cannot own his own coyn for being an outward Ordinance consisting of outward elements and actions the fancy of men thinks this and that dressing would do better and so by putting on more ornaments as they call them they quite spoil the feature of the childe and if men would be tampering while the Apostles lived what would they do after If I should say that the unhappiest and oldest weeds have grown in this Garden I should not speak far wide I may say of it as Solomon saith of man Eccles 7. 29. Loc this have I found that God hath made man right but they have sought out many inventions § 7 Obs 3 The Apostle doth not command those that were pure from these abUses to separate from their Communion with the rest whom he reproves for their sinne of Of separation when sinful and when lawfull coming unworthily We know not who or how many were free but it may seem the poorest were the purest as commonly they are but he that reproves schism doth not command separation He assayes the cure another way 1. By setting the Ordinance right according to Christs Institution 2. By rectifying the Communicants from their unworthy coming and so gives both a purgation disallowing their schism not allowing any separation If Babylon become ahabitation of Devils then come out of her my people Rev. 18. 2 4. Yea flee out and deliver your souls Jer. 51. 6. If Christ must be coupled with Belial the Temple of God with Idols as it is when Christians participate in Heathenish Sacrifices and Idolatries then Come out from among them and be ye separate 1 Cor. 6. 16 17. You have an old and famous example in them that left all to go to Jerusalem when Jereboam set up his Calves and cast out the Priests of the Lord 2 Chron. 11. 14 16. For if Bethel turn Bethaven the hoUse of God become the hoUse of iniquity then Come out of Gilgal Goe not up to Bethaven Hos 4. 15. If any that 's called a brother a Professour of the Christian Religion be a Fornicatour or Idolater or covetous have no free familiarity with him with such an one no not to eat 1 Cor. 5. 11. Turn away from them 2 Tim. 3. 5. If they bring corrupt Doctrine hoUse them not salute them not Epist a. John 10. for that makes you partaker in their sinne vers 11. If their works be unfruitfull works of darkness be not partakers with them have no fellowship with their workes Ephes 5. 7 11. These separations are duty and unto duty but for a Corinthian to separate from Gods Church and Gods Ordinance becaUse some come unworthily to the Lords Table is no duty becaUse there is no command it is no duty and therefore we read not this word Come forth in any of those Epistles written to the seven Churches Revel 2. 3. against which Christ saith He hath such and such things they that lived in the impurer are not called forth into the purer Churches but there are promises made to them that keep themselves pure and duties enjoyned them toward the impure part for we may not make these Churches and Babylon all one nor make every disease the plague Shall the sons of God the Angels forsake the Lords presence becaUse Satan comes also amongst them Job 1. 6. Must Shem and Japhet leap out of Noahs Ark becaUse there is a Cham there Would not
First The Lord Jesus is Authour the Mediatour of the new Covenant the Testator of the new Testament appoints the seal of that Covenant and ratifies that Testament with his bloud He is the Lord to whom is committed the Soveraignty and Government of his Church therefore he makes Officers Laws and Ordinances The Lords day and the Lords Supper are particularly in Scripture called by Rev. 1. 10. 1 Cor. 11. his name The Lords The Lords day ex illius resurrectione festivitatem suam habere coepit took its festivity Epist 119. from his Resurrection as Austin The Lords Supper is the memorial of his death so his death and resurrection a Supper and a day to memorize them As he is Lord so his Laws binde whatsoever they be though Abraham be commanded to kill his sonne for the Laws of God have not their obligation from the quality of the Law but from the authority of the Lord the Law-giver As he is Jesus a Saviour so his Laws are benefits and liberties tending to salvation as the Laws of your City are freedoms and your freedoms laws so you obey them â—s Laws enjoy them as freedoms they are our benefit and our duty His invitation is to a Supper it 's the invitation of a Lord it 's the Supper of a Saviour § 2 Secondly There must be institution of a Sacrament The elements are cyphers till the institution make them figures Institution is as necessary to a Sacrament as superscription is to money for it is created 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of things that did not appear Sacraments are of that rank of things Quae nihil sunt sine institutione saith Chamier they were bread and wine Chamier de Euchar. l. 7. c. 10 indeed before but they were nothing to that relation which Christ put upon them a seal of a thousand a year is made of a peny-worth of wax What was a piece of brasse to the healing of a mortal sting Nothing till God put an Use upon it that all that lookt to it being bitten should be healed § 3 Thirdly There must be a divine institution to make a Sacrament The Legatee doth not seal the will but the Testatour the Granter seals the Deed not the Grantee the Delinquent seals not the pardon but the Keeper of the seal Sola divina institutio facit Sacramentum Montac origin part 1. pag. 73. saith a learned man Take that away and it ceaseth to be a Sacrament The Supream Power only can coyn money in other its câ—pitâ—l All the whole Church together cannot make a Sacrament then it should be the Churches Supper not the Lords and it is theirs to eat but not to make Ejus est signa Synopsis de coena §. 7. gratiae addere cujus est gratiamtribuere He may adde the signs of grace that can give the grace There is a four-fold word requisite to a Sacrament 1. A word of institution which appoints the matter and form 2. A word of Sanctification or blessing to set them apart from common Use 3. A word of Promise of some good to the Communicant and so we have here a promise of the Lords body and bloud The promises of Sacraments as is well Observed by the Centuriators are vestitae Centur. mag ceâ—t 1. promissiones cloathed promises He that believes shall be saved is a naked promise He that eats this bread c. shall have Christ as a cloathed promise 4. A word of Command as we have the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Buckler Prâ—t evidence in Baptism so hoc facite here as a learned man Let the Word be added to the Element and you have a Sacrament Austin § 4 Fourthly It 's the institution that gives the nature and efficacy to a Sacrament He that mints the money sets the value and price upon it A Sacrament is an outward and visible signe but it is not a natural but a voluntary sign nor yet a bare signe as the picture of Hercules is a signe of Hercules and no more we must not make the Sacraments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 empty names empty figures empty representations that resemble and signifie something and no more as the Sacrament was a crucifix and the Supper painted resemblances of meat and drink this is a hungry feast he must have his stomack in his eye that is fed with it but the Sacraments are signacula symbola seals and pledges or instruments offering exhibiting and making present to our faith the very benefits which they signifie the very body and bloud of Christ is not only represented but presente to a believer and brought home to his soul yet they are not natural instruments Montac orig part 1. p. 67. in which the inward grace is contained as in a vessel as the Romish Praesentialists and Schoolmen dream like plaisters which have in themselves a virtue or power to heal a wound or a medicine to expell poison but they are moral and voluntary means or instruments serving to the purpose ex destinatione by appointment as the brazen Serpent to heal the sting Bernard hath writ upon it As saith he in vestitures and possessions Bernard de câ—â—â—â—a and assurances do pass by the staff and ring Annulus non valet qnicquam haereditas est quam quaerebam The ring avails little I seek the inheritance that is confirmed and convey'd by it so we say the Lands Inheritance c. do passe by the great Seal for so I come to have and hold and they are mine by it Thus the Sacrament is a seal of confirmation and conveyance of the inward grace to the hand or faith of a believing soul And as really as the estate doth passe by the Seal into your right and possession not by any inward work or power of the Seal in it self but by the Use it 's of in sealing and conveying so really is Christ and all his tReasure passed over unto you that receive him by faith not in respect of any worthiness or vertue in the very outward Sacrament but in and by the Use it 's of by Christs appointment to seal confirm and convey that excellent place speaks my minde fully 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of blessing which we bless Is it not the Communion of the bloud of Christ The Bread which we break Is it not the Communion of the body of Christ He saith not barely representation as a signe but communion or participation as a conveying seal I declare this to you becaUse some believe too much and think the outward Sacrament works I know not how like a plaister by some vertue contained in them that is opere operato as they barbarously speak and others believe-too little as if they were meer and empty signs and resemblances of Christs body and bloud as if a woman should receive a ring meerly becaUse the picture of her beloved is engraven on it and not as a ring of espousals really sealing and confirming the contract and assuring
shadow represented so shall this continue in the Church till the person come alive which is here represented dying and then an end of this too 2. At the end of the paschal Supper to shew that Jansen Harm p. 105. in this Sacrament there is no bodily repast intended for they had already supped but a spiritual refection of the soul The rosted Lamb might afford the guests a belly-full so the Religion and Ordinances and Promises in the Law were more outward and bodily but this Sacrament of the Gospel is an after Supper modicum full of spiritual signification but not so stuffie for outward matter that we may prepare not as Austin saith our months but our faith and expect to satisfie not the hunger and thirst of the body as they might but the hunger and thirst of the soul which in this little model may finde enough and over-measure The Temple-service among the Jews was an Heb. 9. 1 10. Rom. 2. penult outward Religion and as their Ordinances were outward so they generally were Jews outwardly we wonder that they so little saw and tasted the marrow and kernel of them and stuck in the rinde feeding on the crust of most Ordinances as if a man should think the cloth would heal the sore and not the plaister spread upon it but if we take estimate of them by our selves we shall finde that most of us should have been as they in that case for God having ordained for us outward Sacraments for number few for Observation easie for signification excellent as Austin speaks Epist 118. we are for the general but outward in them though we be clearlier taught what is within them yet we are in the Use of them but outwardly reverent as they and do not spiritually and inwardly enjoy the kernell of them which the Apostle took notice of when he said Not discerning the Lords body and so they are seals indeed but rather seals of a Letter which shut it up than seals of a Deed or Covenant conveying the Estate to us 3. Though it be not a Reason why this Ordinance was appointed after the Passeover-Supper yet I may Observe it to you in this place that hence it is called The Lords Supper from the Author it 's called the Lords and from the Time it 's called a Supper being celebrated in the night and at the close of Supper Some later Maldonat in Mat. 26. 26. Estius in 1 Cor. 11. 20. Jesuites do tax the novelty of the name and affirm Nullus in Scripturâ locus c. No place of Scripture cals it so for the term in this Chapter refers say they to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Feasts of Love Used with it they may say as well that Lords Table 1 Cor. 10. 21. refers to them too which we believe not it is a spiritual feast that which Matthew cals a dinner Matth. 22. 4. is called by Luke a Supper Luk. 14. 16. but we call it the Lords Supper though it be received in the morning or any other time of day with reference to the time of the first institution as the Passeover in after-times was called the Passeover not becaUse there was any destroying Angel past over their hoUses every year but in respect of the first Passeover in Aegypt and in memory of that wherein there was a passing over the Israelites hoUses and a destroying of the Aegyptians first-born I could name to you many other names that this Sacrament bears in Scripture and ancient Authours farre more ancient then their Missa which is but once found in Ambrose and in none before him or the Sacrament of the Altar as they call it but I insist not now on names He that will may see them in Casaub Exercit 16. § 2 Secondly Why the Lord Jesus ordained it a very little before he was betrayed 1. He now seals his will which men Use to do Paraeus in loc when they are in sight of death This is the New Testament saith he in my bloud when men make their Wils they bequeath their body to the earth Christ bequeaths his body and bloud to us He bestows his body natural on his body mystical the Church The Testatour is Christ Heb. 9. 16. The Legacy bestowed is himself and all spiritual benefits with him My body and bloud The heirs are all believers Disciples The Executours for the outward part are those to whom he saith Hoc facite do this execute this my Will The Witnesses are the Evangelists and Saint Paul Here is a perfect sealing then of a Testament which is of force by the death of the Testatour and nothing must be added or taken away for it is a Will sealed and Gal. 3. 15. publisht 2. To leave it as his ultimum vale or last memorial Aug. Epist 118 of precious relish and esteem when men are going then they give memorial gifts unto their friends then they give their pictures Keep this for me Remember me when you see me not When men are dying then they pull their ring off their finger and leave it with their beloved Oh what impression have the verba morientis the word of a dying man As if a man saith Chrysostome should say to children These were your fathers dying words This was his last charge This he spoke and died and there is nothing that is remembred with more awe more affection than the last words the last gift of dying friends 3. To testifie his dearest love to his Church and people that when death was in sight and all the unspeakable sorrows shame and suffering were now ready to invade him when injuries from men were ready to load him and the justice of God upon sinne to be demonstrated on him all these did not make him forget his love His love to his poor people overtop'd all He loved them to the end Joh. 13. 2. and exprest it at the last and when he was in expectation of utmost sorrow he forgets not his love to his 4. To fortifie his Disciples against temptations which were now rushing in upon them when they should presently see their Lord led away as a prisoner to be arraigned and themselves scattered and discouraged Peter denying bloudy enemies insulting then to fortifie their hearts Let not your hearts be troubled Joh. 1◠1. He administers this Sacrament to strengthen the Union and Communion between him and them and to tie them to him so fast that the gates of hell might not prevail against them that their faith might not fail though it fainted as was said to Peter and though they fall yet they might not utterly be cast down as the Psalmist saith They had before eaten the body which they after saw broken and drunk the bloud which they after saw shed The broken body was not theirs that broke it The bloud shed was not theirs that shed it but it was theirs that had before eaten it and drunk it so God underprops his weak servants before
the winde blow and seasonably antidotes the hearts before the bitter cup that they may stand fast though for fear they runaway 5. That when we iterate this Sacrament our hearts may be prickt with remembrance of this dismal night Chrysost in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom that he might exceedingly prick us for a wounded heart is a good preparative to the receiving of a wounded Saviour He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities Isa 53. 5. Let a man survey this night how his blessed Saviour was for him betray'd into the hands of bloudy men This right he was plunged into most dolefull sorrows He was amazed and loaden with grief exceeding sorrowfull in a wofull agony sweating like drops of bloud running down to the ground without any comfort from any man his chief Disciples could not pray with him all fled and ran away from him betray'd by one of his own denied by another sending forth loud cries and tears God smit the Shepherd scatter'd the flock an Angel from heaven strengthening him an Angel that had not the benefit of Redemption by him but not a man for whose Redemption this was Oh the dark eclypse that now seized on this Sunne of righteousness Who can express the anguish and dolour of this night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though he was a very stone saith Chrysostom it would melt him wound him Therefore I exhort you all when you come to this Sacrament bring this night with you bring this night with you in which he was betray'd It is a night of Observation to be remembred as was said of the first Passeover in Aegypt Exod. 12. 42. so it may be said of the night of this first Supper read read again or get some body to read to you this History related by Matthew or St Luke and water your meditations with sorrowfull tears not as he that wept when he read the History of Dido in the Poet out of an imaginary compassion but as beholding in this glass both your sins and your redemption This do in remembrance of him CHAP. VI. Of the outwards of this Ordinance of the Supper 1 COR. 11. 23 24 25. He took bread and when he had given thanks c. § 1 IN the Sacrament of Baptism there is but one outward element water in this of the Supper two bread and wine which though they distinctly signifie the one the body the other the bloud of Christ yet becaUse they set forth one nourishment of the body by bread and drink of the soul by the body and bloud of Christ and make but one commemoration of Christ and his death This do in remembrance of me vers 24. Drink it in remembrance of me vers 25. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the Lords death vers 26. Therefore as several dishes are but one Supper so these several signs are the parts of one Sacrament To avoid tautology and coincidency I mean to open the parts distinctly and yet to take together element with element rule with rule action with action as fitly yoked together joyntly and so be as soon at the end of the one as of the other which course of handling that word in Luke 22. 20. whom of all the Evangelists Paul doth nearliest agree with and vers 25. of this Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Likewise or After the same manner points me unto and if there be any word in the three Evangelists that write the History of the institution whereof one that is Matthew was present at the action that may serve for the beautifying or clearing of any point as we go along we shall take it also into the contexture of our Discourse The Method and order is to handle 1. The outward Ordinance of this Supper 2. The inward thing signified or represented 3. The mandate or command Do this 4. The end For remembrance of me § 2 The outward Ordinance is properly called the Sacrament the inward kernel or thing signified is called Res Sacramenti the thing of the Sacrament for the Sacrament is the outward visible sign and therefore it is very absurdly said of Bellarmine and other Lib. â— de Euch. cap. 24. Papists who have lest nothing but accidents and shadow of bread and wine that Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is the figure and remembrance of himself as if one should say that the King is the picture or image of himself for as Dr Whitaker Observes The De Sacram. pag. 616. body and bloud of Christ is no Sacrament but the thing it self whereof the Sacrament is taken As the contract is no ring but that whereof the ring is a pledge The Covenant is no Seal but that whereof the Seal is though in vulgar speech when we take the Sacrament and the thing of the Sacrament in complexion we Use to say that the Sacrament consists of two parts Terrena and coelesti as Irenaeus saith an earthly Iren. l. 4. c. 34. Whitak de Sacram. 626. and a heavenly an outward and an inward a visible and an invisible Ut duae naturae in Christo. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper or the outward Ordinance consists 1. Of materials or elements bread and wine 2. Of rituals or actions about those elements and they are 1. The Rites Used by Christ or some other in his name He took bread he blessed c. 2. The Actions of the Communicants They take and eat they take and drink And so ye have a Sacrament consisting of several elements and sundry outward rites and actions all concurring to the essence or integrity of this Sacrament §. 3. Of the Elements Bread and Wine § 3 I begin with the Elements and they are 1. Two viz. Bread and Wine Our Melchisedech entertains the children of Abraham as that Melchisedech did Abraham himself Gen. 18. â—8 He brought forth to him bread and wine Christ did not take these two by accident becaUse he found them then on the Table but by choice and election for their Use in signifying The old Church of Israel had a Table-Sacrament the Passeover and Christ will have the Gospel-Church to have a Table-Sacrament too this Supper but as before Christ their Sacrifices and Sacraments were all bloudy So when Christ the substance of all Sacrifices and Sacraments hath suffer'd the Sacraments of the Gospel and Sacrifices are unbloudy Many Divines shew the conveniency of Bread and Wine to be the materials of this Sacrament Vide J nsen Harm p. 626. and some with too much fancy The representation of his Body broken and of his Blood shed The participation of his Body and Blood for soul-strength and soul-refreshment could not be better shadowed forth than by the staff of Bread and chearfull Wine which as they are the most common so the most necessary and prime materials that are Used at our tables answering both our appetites of hunger and thirst weakness is strengthened by bread
it were a knife set in the Text to cut that intricate knot that makes such a garboyle in the Text when you take and eat by faith then is the Body and Blood of Christ present to you but not latent and hidden in the Bread or Cup The union of Christ is not otherwise with the Bread then as the thing signified with the sign but it is with the Communicant the Hooker Eccles Polit. p. 359. believer really though spiritually the sacramental signs do exhibit Christ but not contain him under them they contain not the grace which God bestows with or by them §. 12. Of Spurious Rites and Gestures § 12 So have I opened to you the outward Elements the outward Rites or Actions of this Sacrament whether those of Christ or of the Communicant and these are genuine and proper by which the Sacrament is sutable to the Institution as for other Rites which time or superstition have introduced without example or command they are adulterine and spurious especially the adoration of the Eucharist upon opinion of the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and bloud of Christ which whether it be performed at the elevation or lifting up of the host by the Priest in the Masse or at the circumgestation or carrying it up and down in procession in the streets as is usual in Popish countreys is no better then abominable Idolatry even by their own confession For Costerus saith That the bread-worship was the greatest Idolatry that ever was in the world If the bread be not turned into the true and natural body of Christ as saith a learned man Dr J. Burgesse Lawf of kneeling p. 113. upon my soul it is not and if the perswasion of Christs real presence in the Eucharist will by no means excUse their adoration from Idolatry much lesse excusable is any Protestant who is perswaded of the contrary As for other circumstances of the action as the time viz. at night in the close of the Paschal Supper the place an upper-room or chamber Mark 14. 15. The guest twelve in number Matth. 26. 20. The gesture which was discubiture or lying on couch-beds fitted to the Table which the Jews were at the Passeover by custom fixed unto as appears by the ritual In other Scaliger lib. 6. De emend pag. 534. nights we sit or lie on couches but in this we lie along These I say are moveables and not of the freehold of this Ordinance Nor shall I say any thing of the D. Burgess ubi supra p. 112. gesture which as it was Used in England hath been an apple of contention and much written pro and con The Reformed Churches vary some sit at some about the Table some receive this Sacrament passing by the Table in order as in a Marah as in the Reformed Churches in France and I condemn them not and for those Divines of the Reformed Churches that disliked our gesture Used here in England they did not many of them pronounce it simply unlawfull but inconvenient becaUse it was a gesture of adoration and did not serve to pull the bread worship out of mens mindes nor was so sutable to this Ordinance which is a Table Ordinance nor to set forth that fellowship and communion which is exprest in eating and drinking with our Lord these were their Reasons and I do not know that I have any occasion to debate the point but to leave it determinable by the Churches of God as may be most sutable to the Decorum and nature of this Ordinance for if I should some of you might haply say that I made a Funeral-sermon for meeting at Sacrament Having laid open the parts of this Supper let us upon the whole matter stand still a little and make Observation CHAP. VII Some Observations upon the precedent Discourses § 1 NOte here the simplicity of this high and excellent Ordinance the feast is drest out in plainness and simplicity answerable to the simplicity of the Gospel as the Apostle cals it 2 Cor. 11. 2. Here is no outward pomp or ostentation no stateliness to take the eye for as gaudy attire becomes not mourning so this Sacrament setting forth the passion and sufferings the death and bloudshed of our Lord had not been sutable to him in his lowest estate and darkest eclipse if it should have shined in outward lustre It was Tertullians Observation Nihil obdurat c. nothing Lib. de baptisme so hardens the mindes of men as the simplicity of the works and yet the magnificence of the promise that great and glorious things should be found under so plain a dresse as a rich diamond in a plain case to the end that the eye of faith might be more exercised then the eye of the body and that the spiritual and inward part might be looked after and intended Is not this the Carpenters sonne was a great stumbling block and so may the simplicity of the two Sacraments be to us The Temple Utensils and Service were rich and stately Christ was prefigured in golden Types But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Joh. 1. 17. But we have a better Covenant and better Promises Heb. 8. 6. And if that which is done away was glorious much more that which remains exceeds in glory 2 Cor. 3. 7 8 9 10 11 c. but that was an outward this an inward glory that was in Moses face this in the face of Christ that the carnal Jew might see this the spiritual Christian seeth We saw his glory Joh. 1. 14. or rather there the glory was veiled But we with open face behold the glory of the Lord 1 Cor. 3. 13 18. The glory of their Ordinance was a stumbling block to them for they rested in the cabinet and looked not for the jewels The meannesse of our Ordinances are a stumbling block to us for we look not for the tReasure in such earthen vessels God doth great things by poorest meanes Jericho's wals fall at the sound of Rams-horns the fiery sting is healed by a piece of brasse the sight restored to the blinde by the Use of spittle and clay The figure in this Sacrament is poor the thing signified heavenly and rich the Seal is mean the inheritance or estate is great but why were the types so rich and our memorials so poor You know Spectacles are for divers sights they had finer Spectacles we better eyes They had lesse spirit stirring in the Ordinances then than we now if their Tree had more shadow we have more fruit § 2 Secondly Take along with you alwayes the Analogy proportion and similitude between a Sacrament and the thing of a Sacrament between the signe and the thing signified It 's Austin his Rule If Epist 23. alâ—bi a Sacrament should not have similitude and resemblance with that whereof it is a Sacrament it should not be a Sacrament and from this similitude or resemblance it is that the signe is called by the name of
the thing signified as the bread Christs body the wine is called Christs bloud The Rock was Christ Circumcision called the Covenant The Lamb called the Passeover and in common speech When we look on a Picture we say This is Casar this is Augustus this is Hercules nothing more ordinary In the Sacrament this similitude is a similitude of proportionality saith Bonaventure consisting of four termes You are most of you Arithmeticians and you have a golden Rule called The Rule of Three becaUse three terms being given the fourth is given and this sets forth to you the Analogy of a Sacrament in four termes As water in Baptisme washes the body so the Spirit by his grace or the bloud of Christ cleanseth the soul As the bread and wine nourish and refresh the body so the body and bloud of Christ nourisheth and refresheth the soul As by the hand we take and with our mouth we eat and drink the bread and wine so by faith we receive the body and bloud of Jesus Christ If you destroy the similitude you destroy the Sacrament as the Papists do by their Transubstantiation for they destroy the Analogy Thus the accidents of Bread and Wine or the Species doe not nourish the Body say we Nor the very Body and Bloud of Christ doth not passe into bodily nourishment say they for it was horrible to imagine it therefore there is no resemblance the similitude is destroyed and so the Sacrament § 3 Thirdly It is a most true most firm and golden Rule That a Sacrament out of the Use appointed Chamiâ—r de Luchar l. 7. c. 4. §. 11. l. 8. c. 3 Forbes Hist. Theol p. 550. by God hath not the nature of nor is any more a Sacrament It is not a Sacrament extra usum out of the actual Use There must not onely be Bread and Wine but Blessing and Taking and Eating and Drinking or else to us there is no Sacrament The Bread and Wine upon the Table are no Sacrament but the eating and drinking of Bread and Wine As in Baptism the water is no Sacrament but the washing with water is The Papists confesse this of every Sacrament and of Baptism but not of the Lords Supper which for Transubstantiation-sake which troubles the whole Scaene they hold to be a perfect Sacrament by consecration whether it be received by the Communicant yea or no and this is the Doctrine of their Schoolmen and Aquin. part 3. Qu. 80. aliis Scholasticis all others of their confession We appeal to the Text Take Eat This is my body It 's so being taken and eaten and not otherwise The remains of Bread and Wine are no Sacrament it is the Use which gives the Reason and nature of a Sacrament and when and where the Use is not the Sacrament is not It 's true in our vulgar speech we call it the Sacrament as on the Table as the beast might be called a Sacrifice before it was slain being destin'd and appointed thereunto 1 Sam. 13. 9 Whitak deâ— acram p 621 624 c. as Whitaker saith but it is no Sacrifice till slain and offer'd nor was the Lamb a Passeover but as it was eaten and rosted so a meer stone is a stone wheresoever it be but not a boundary but in the Use and an earnest is money but not an earnest except taken upon agreement Bread and Wine are Elements but not a Sacrament till all the Rites and Actions be Observed which God hath appointed viz. in the participation and Use 1 Cor. 10. 16 17 18. The Cup of blessing and the bread are the Communion of the body and bloud of Christ being partaken and received not else There is some kinde of Argument urged against this Rule from the reservation of the Bread especially and of the Wine which is read of in Antiquity and that was either private reservation when the Communicant carried home the Bread and kept it in his chest for his private Use to eat of privately or else it was by the Ministers to give to lapsed Christians in time of extremity or sicknesse that were debarred of publick participation The first is mentioned Cypr. de lapsis by ancient Authours and by some commended as Ambrose de obitu Satyr Nazian Epitaph pro sor This is excUsed by Jewell against Harding As in time Forbes Hist. Theol. p. 553. Col. 1. of persecution when Christians might be deprived of the publick Ordinance and by others on other grounds Burgess of knealing The other hath one onely example in true Antiquity and that is Serapions case EUseb Histor lib. 6. cap. 34. and is excUsed by Chemnitius as if Chem. de coena Examen p. 93. it was to oppose the Novatian opinion of not restoring the lapsed though penitent unto the Communion of the Sacrament Of both these I see no clear warrant in the Institution of Christ and therefore say with Cyprian Non quod aliquis ante nos c. We are not to look what any hath done before us but what he did and commanded that was before all even Jesus Christ § 4 Fourthly It is the peoples right to receive the Cup as well as the Bread Drink ye all of it Matth. 26. 27. Moulin Buckler p. 529. They all drank of it Mark 14. 23. As often as ye eat this bread and drink of this Cup saith Paul 1 Cor. 11. 26. Nothing more plain and yet whether it be the ambition of the Priests that would exalt themselves above the people or whether it be the fruit of Transubstantiation or both this Cup is taken from the people in the Romane Churches but it was not taken away by publick Decree till the Council of Constance Anno 1416. since which time there was great petitioning to the Council of Trent for the Cup but Chem. Exam. de coena p. 134 135. Concil Trid. Sess 6. they referr'd it to the Pope in whose hands it lies and it seems will lie till God put another cup into his hand to drink And so you see that that Council of Constance that burnt John Husse and Jerome did let out the bloud of good Christians and shut up the bloud of Christ from them I conclude Let us follow that which is simplest and purest according to Christs Institution and neither superstitiously reserve nor impiously mutilate the holy Ordinance CHAP. VIII Of the Real Presence NOw I draw on to the Anatomy of the viscera the entrails and inwards of this Ordinance under the outside whereof if you take off the cover you shall finde such cheer as never was in any other feast This is my body saith Christ which is broken for you saith Paul Which is given for you saith Mat. 26 26 27 28 Mark 14. 22 24. Luk. 22. 20. Luke This Cup is the New Testament in my bloud saith Paul Which is shed for you saith Luke Or as Matthew and Mark This is my bloud of the New Testament which is
himself 2. The New Testament or the New Covenant confirmed and ratified by his Blood with the contents of that Covenant viz. Remission of sins and other benefits by consequence flowing from it § 1 1. Here is Christ himself sacrificed for you with the Fruits and Benefits accruing from his death presented and set before you The efficacy of his Hooker Eccl. lib. 5. pag. 360. Body and Blood is not all that is here presented to be received as is consist by the true Protestant Churches of our Confession but first and principally Christ himself as the influence of heaven is in plants beasts men but there is not such a thing only here set forth but a Divine and mysticall Union with Christ himself for here is a participation saith the Apostle of the Body and Blood of Christ who is exhibited as really and truly present not opposing reall to spirituall but to chimericall or phantasticall nor intending his presence in the Elements as contained in them but to the faith of the receiver who hath union with him The very Body and Blood of Christ that Body which was fastened Peter Martyr in 1 Cor. 11. 24. Calvin in 1 Cor. 11. 24 25. to the Cross that Blood which was shed was a Sacrifice as offered up to God is meat and drink as offered unto us and therefore our Divines say that Christ is truly and really but yet spiritually given to us as he was given for us This is my Body which is broken for you given for you saith the Text and that which was given for you is given to you He was given for you in the Sacrifice he is given to you in the Sacrament with those blessed fruits and benefits that flow from his Death § 2 2. Here is presented to you the New Testament a Covenant ratified and confirmed in his Blood with the benefits and priviledges thereof It is called New either from the excellency of it as the word New sometimes signifies or for the durableness and perpetuity of it as the Apostle explains it Heb. 8. ult in opposition to the Old made with Israel Cameron in Myreth Matth. 26. which was to determine and vanish away as to the form of dispensation This Covenant is That God will be our God and we shall be his people That he will forgive our iniquities and remember our sins no more c. and the Blood of Christ is the sanction of this Covenant for without Blood is no remission the blood of Christ is the Seal which ratifies the truth and validity of this Covenant The Wine in this Sacrament represents that Blood of Christ and is not so properly a Seal confirming the Covenant in it self as conveying the comfort and participation of it unto us or if you will it is a Seal of Remission of sin to us which is an Article of the Covenant that is sealed by the Blood of Christ and therefore it is said This is the blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for Remission of sins § 3 And so you have here presented to your Faith Christ himself sacrificed for you the New Covenant confirmed by Christs Blood shed for the pardon of sinnes which are the highest and most glorious things of Gods gift to mankinde who hath in the dishes of this outward Sacrament set before you such good cheer to feed upon as all Sacrifices under the Law and Feasts were but the meer shadows of Take heed of thinking meanly of the furniture of this Table God hath no better provision to set before a sinner than his Sons flesh and blood and his Covenant of grace sealed and confirmed our Socinian likes not this that word My Body broken for you my Blood shed for remission of sinnes makes him bestirre himself to turn off the Body broken to the bread and the Blood shed to the wine and so you see two extreams the Papist turns bread into Christs Body and wine into Blood the Socinian on the other hand that which is spoken of the Body puts off upon the bread and that of the Blood upon the wine that the death of Christ might not be a proper Sacrifice for us §. 4. II. What the faithfull do receive in the right Use of this Ordinance § 4 What the faithfull do receive in the right Use of this Ordinance and this is easily answered For as guests at the Table receive the meat and drink set before them so having seen what God presents to them we shall easily finde what they receive at this Table and that is 1. The faithfull communicant receives Christ himself or his Body and Blood Faith is a receiving of Christ himself we cannot receive the benefits that come by him without receiving of himself as in Marriage the consent is I take thee not I take thine and yet this is consequent upon that our union with Christ is strengthened and more closed and this union with Christ is one of those great mysteries Eph. 5. 32. resembled by man and wise who are one flesh though a thousand miles asunder and as she is under covert and free from arrest of Law for debt so a Beleever by his union with Christ is under coverture and the curse and condemnation of Gods Law cannot touch him or as members knit or branches united to the tree receive influx of life and spirits from the head and root so Beleevers united to Christ by his Spirit receive influences and spirit and life from him by vertue of their union I in them saith Christ Joh. 7. 23 26. The inhabitation of Christ in his people seems to be exprest by their eating and drinking of his Body and Blood spiritually and that inhabitation cannot be without a presence of him such as his inhabitation is such is his presence both reall and yet both spirituall he dwels in our hearts by faith Eph. 3. 17. § 5 2. The faithfull communicant receives the confirmation of that Covenant which is his only comfort He takes hold of the Covenant by the Seal of it the Blood of Christ the severall articles whereof as that God will be our God and that in Christ he will forgive us all our sins c. are particularly sealed up for our better evidence and peace and security that we may be inabled to make a personall and particular claim of the benefits and priviledges of it which are called The unsearchable riches of Christ § 6 And from hence ver 12. the receiving of Christ himself and of the Covenant made in Christ and confirmed in his Blood doth follow that which is usually said to be the benefit of this Sacrament the strengthening refreshing sustentation of the soul by those graces comforts hopes which flow by consequence from Christ or the Covenant so that whatsoever a man may expect for bodily strength or reparation from bread and wine the like he may expect from Christ or the Covenant for his soul life maintained graces quickened deadness enlivened resolutions enabled
that there is length and nothing long breadth and nothing broad thickness and nothing thick whiteness and nothing white moisture and nothing moist sweetness and nothing sweet that is a long broad thick white moist sweet Nothing The Priest pours out nothing but lines and colours when he pours out the wine for these accidents of bread and wine are not in the bread becaUse that is avoided and vanisht and they are not in the Body of Christ as themselves say and yet it is plain this bread and wine do nourish the body and is the body nourishable by meer accidents Can there be plainer contradictions 4. Can the same body at the same time have his just dimensions distance of parts symmetry proportion as the Body of Christ hath and yet not have these becaUse all parts yea the whole Body of Christ say they are in one and the self same point or crum of bread 5. Can the Body of Christ which is much greater be wholly contained in a wafer or piece of bread in his full dimensions and that as many times as there are points crums drops in the bread or wine 6. Can the bread be turned into the very Body of Christ and yet not anything of that bread become anything of Christ nor the matter nor form nor accidents of bread be made either the matter or form or accidents of Christ 7. Can the same thing as Christs true Body at the same time be wholly above it self and wholly below it self within and without it self can it be moved and yet be still be carried from one place to another and yet not move be brought from heaven to earth and yet not come out of heaven who then can assure me that when he hung upon the Cross he was not walking somewhere else crucified and not crucified eaten and not eaten alive in one dead in another place as in case the Apostles celebrated this Supper while Christ was in the grave 8. What dishonour do these men render the Body of Christ obnoxious unto to be eaten by wicked men by bruit creatures by mice by other vermin to be cast into some unclean place for so long as the form of bread remains so long the Body of Christ is there though it be in the mouth or belly of a moUse saith Ales and the rest of the Schoolmen who do one where or other acknowledge the most of these monstrous absurdities and go about to heal and salve them I surcease from raking further into this ingratefull sink whose name Transubstantiation is but of yesterday in comparison and which dishonours the Body of Christ into a monster destroies the nature of the Sacrament and fils the world with dreadfull contentions and broils and let us but observe 1. What grievous impositions the Romanists lay upon the faith of them that are devoted to her communion 2. What contradictions and absurdities the common people do ignorantly and implicitly beleeve 3. What strong delusions even to believe lies God gives up Learned men unto that refUse the simplicity of the truth for interests and politick ends 4. What a mercy of God it is to deliver us from that tyranny which leaves us no other choice but to swallow and digest such impossible things or to be sacrificed in flames and the Lord forbid the re-entrance of that Religion among us which in all likelihood will cost us our souls or our lives § 5 III. Having past the most rugged and craggy part of my way now we shall have a sweeter and smoother way and the third thing that I commend to you is To keep fixt your eyes and hearts upon the inward of this Sacrament which Christ himself doth anatomize and unfold to you saying This is my Body This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood teaching all Ministers to explain the outward Ordinance what it means and all communicants to set their hearts upon it for as the Parchment and Wax are little worth but the Estate conveyed so the Bread and Wine do but convey by their Use the Body and Blood of Christ and the Covenant of grace and peace confirmed unto us and as we Use to search and pick out of every corner of the shell that 's broken as of a Wallnut the kernell that is in it so we should study the marrow and kernell of this Ordinance to lose the sight and Use of nothing here presented God loses honour and praise and we benefit and com ort when we look not to the inwards of an outward Ordinance especially when Christ himself and all the great and capitall benefits that accrue by him are not only represented but confirmed and to be participated They that look upon a meer representation of Christs death in this Ordinance reduce it to a pretence or shadow and look for too little for it 's a sealing Ordinance They that look for his very Body to be eaten look for too much we may expect from Gods institutions the grace or benefit which God appoints them to exhibit and in the way wherein he so appoints Then have we the benefit of his death when we have him and here is offered to Calvin in 1 Cor. 11. you not the benefit only but the Body in which he suffered his body was a Sacrifice here it is spirituall food we feed upon that Sacrifice as the manner was the Covenant was confirmed by his Blood here we feast upon it the Blood was shed that he might reconcile to God it 's drunk that we may be partakers of that Reconciler and that reconciliation He shall confirm the Covenant with mercy is Daniels phrase Dan. 9. 29. The memoriall we celebrate the benefit we participate here and the great Question Whether I have remission of sins whereat we stick is here answered to a doubting soul that beleeves in desire not in comfort as sure as God can devise by outward Ordinance The Word answers that Question by description of qualification of the person a Believer The Spirit answers it by witnessing and sealing it up to our spirits that we are children The graces of Regeneration do answer it as fruit doth to the life of the tree by demonstration This Sacrament answers it by exhibition and offering Christ to me that I may appropriate him for the blood was shed for you saith Christ Luk. 22. 20. for you that take and eat and drink § 6 IV. The communicant should be one that seeks union and communion with Christ for he that is not a Jew inwardly eats but outwardly Finis non intus dente non mente as Austin expresses the inward of Ordinances are enjoyed by them that inwardly are Christians the Covenant is sealed to them that come to the terms of that Covenant those that bring inward graces receive inward benefits Sed de hoc plura CHAP. XI Of Christs mandate or charge for the celebration of this Ordinance in remembrance of Him 1 COR. 11. 24 25 26. This do in remembrance of me This do ye
it and a good part of preparation in our selves to the due and orderly receiving of it the childe is either very fullen or sick that cries not for his bread §. 2. The Occasions of the Eclypse of this Ordinance in our dayes § 2 If we look upon the Reason or occasions of that great eclypse which hath befallen this Ordinance for so long a time and in so many places of this Land we might be long upon so unpleasing a subject but I shall but touch and so away 1. As I look upon God without whose hand this could not come to passe I acknowledge that when he brings a man or a Church into an incapacity of Sacraments as Israel in the wildernesse or as in that case then that a man was unclean by Reason of a dead body or in a journey far off Numb 9. 10. and such like cases now There is a relaxation of this command for the time and either necessity or duty may dispence with our forbearance And I further say That God is just in punishing us with this losse or stroke for our abUse and contempt of this holy Ordinance in former times by shutting out those that were fit to be admitted meerly upon a ceremonious inconformity and compelling in upon penalty that by this test they might finde out Recusant Papists such as were contrary to their own rules sottishly ignorant notoriously wicked and therefore I conceive this storm may be upon us and this breach in this Ordinance for the Lord tels Israel that when in good intention they sought to bring up the Ark of God and laid it on a Cart which should have been carried on the shoulders of the Levites he made a breach upon them for that they sought him not after the due order 1 Chron. 15. 13. For God is severely holy in exacting of us the due order of his Ordinances as we may see in Nadab and Abihu and in that great rule Numb 10. 3. I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me When we take hold of mis-shapen Ordinances put out of forme by us we take a knise by the edge and not the haft we cut our fingers 2. As for them of the Separation whose advantage it was and of some of them the design to have us broken that they might thrive as the people on the Sea-coast do by the wrack They I say while some were labouring and all were waiting for to have Gods order stamped by civil Authority not to give esteem or value to that which is of God but to make it more currant with us As the stamp makes not the gold more precious but more currant in common Use While I say some were endeavouring this or haply some of you will say While men slept the envious man sowed his tares and took his opportunity of that long vacation as Israel did of Moses his absence in the Mount and they planted their battery here upon this Sacrament and cried down promiscuous Communions with all their might laying a good foundation That onely visible Saints are fit Communicants which is true as to the Churches Admission That real Saints only are worthy Communicants which is true too as to the inward grace or benefit but then as alwayes in such cases it is the superstructure was hay and stubble That Saints are only such as are of their making and judging And That they that are of their opinion or party though vicious in life and empty of true grace are Saints and thence come the several Communions and divisions moulded up together into several bodies for and by interests passions and worldly ends which I speak not of all for some godly souls might be carried away to enjoy this Sacrament in a Communion more pleasing to them as Aaron was in the businesse of the golden Calf and others were mightily taken with it who hardly passing for honest men at home in their own Churches were presently canonized for Saints All the Congregation are Saints every one of them saith Corah Numb 16. 3. 3. When I look upon the standing Ministers who should dispense the Sacrament I must plead this for them that while it is their intention and practise to make the door of this Sacrament no wider no narrower than Christ hath made it they cannot be condemned It may be so wide as to let in the uncircumcised to the Passeover and bring Greeks into the Temple as they said of Paul It may be so narrow as to shut out fit and worthy Communicants for circumstances for meer ceremonies as in former times There is great difference between Christs real members and guests at this Table and as I may say the visible Churches members or guests If he be a visible Professour of faith unshipwrackt of capacity to discern the Lords body of life without scandal he is a guest of the Church and yet not haply a true member of Christ but a Jew outwardly in letter a Simon Magus a Judas an hypocrite We are not Domini but Dispensatores Lords of the Sacrament we are not Stewards we may be but the Steward cannot invite to his Masters Table whom the Master will not have his guest nor shut out any whom the Master hath invited The Priests that were partial in the Law did God make base and contemptible before the people Mal. 2. 9. and their partiality was in admitting the blinde lame and blemisht Sacrifices of the rich or of their friends Such partiality will embase the Ministers of Christ and the Lord taxes the Prophetesses for like partiality Ezek. 13. 19. For handfuls of barley and pieces of bread they slay the souls that should not die they save the souls alive that should not live These are the two extreams which as applied to our purpose is to shut the door against them that should come in and open the door to them that should not enter which if any do for handfuls of barley c. for partial respects and carnal ends their sin is great 4. If we look on the generality of people in this Land they are not prepared and which is worse they will not be How many are bruits for their knowledge and beasts for their lives The onely way to bring them and the Sacrament together is either to stoop the Ordinance to them and being so set on tilt I fear it will runne dregs or to elevate and lift them up to the Ordinance and that 's the only way to be attempted God grant successe When the ignorant superstitious prophane are weeded out the Garden will hardly look green These are they that hold up old corruptions Religion is nothing with them but an ancient custome or tradition received from father to son The high-places were not taken away for as yet the people had not prepared their heart to the God of their Fathers 2. Chron. 20. 33. For the frowardnesse of those places where security senslesnesse of spiritual things opposition is predominant this Rule would be laid That there
the Apostles did not herein vary for they sung a Hymn at the close as Matth. 26. 30. which example I need not stand to improve against the Anti-psalmists of this age There are severall pertinent meditations that may fully take up the time of the action with great advantage and benefit to our souls as namely 1. The dreadfulness of Gods justice which with a terrible stroak did smite the great Shepherd for our sins the least dram of it would have sunk us to all eternity 2. The cursed nature of sinne that so exasperates the holy God and makes such a breach between God and the creature as can never be made up but by the broken body of the Lord of Glory 3. What it cost to redeem a soul a mass of gold as big as the whole earth not valuable with one drop of this blood 4. What an infinite love broke forth that God rather than let our souls be lost would send his eternall Son and make him sin for us 5. What a great work it is to reconcile a sinner to his God all names of men and Angels are nothing to it all their sufferings would not pay a penny of this debt which is not dissolved by any blood but of the Lord of Glory 6. That God would not only pardon sin by giving forth a generall pardon as a King pardons rebels but so pardon as might even melt the hardest heart and for ever humble and silence and satisfie it by the love of God and the sufficiency of that Sacrifice whose vertue extends to thousands and lasts alwaies 7. That the gratious Covenant of God made with all that beleeeve in Christ is sealed and ratified with such blood as there needs no doubt of the validity of the Covenant though one man bad as many sins on him as all the world 8. That Gods way of saving man by a Mediatour the death of a Mediatour doth oblige man to be the thankfullest creature in the world Angels that sin'd not have need of no Mediatour Angels that sin'd have none man that sin'd and therefore needs one hath one given to him The man Christ Jesus 9. That as God gave Christ for you so he gives him to you that he that was your Sacrifice offered up to God might in this Sacrament be offered unto you as meat and drink as spirituall repast that as we live by Christ so we may live upon him being entertained as confederates to feast with God upon the Sacrifice offered up unto him It is a fruitfull field of Meditation through which ye may walk the time of celebration and then breathe out your Meditations in a Song of praise as the close and musick of this heavenly Feast Concerning which Hymn wherewith the Jews did usually close the coenam apolyticam or dimissory Supper calling it the Hallel from the first word of it Hallelujah you may consult not only the Jewish Writers but our Learned men Cameron Myroth in Matth. 16. 30. Drusius in Matth. 26. 30. Hugo Broughton in Dan. pag. 46. beside Paulus Burgensis Gerard Harm Fol. 178. col 3. who do also point out to us the 113. 114. Psalms as that Hymn for though some others do rather conceive it a new Hymn composed by our Saviour Grotius in Matth. 26. and the 17 Chapter of St John to be it we finde no Reason to go with them in that opinion both becaUse our Saviour did not easily vary from the Rite or Custom received nor could the Disciples have sung with him in consort except we imagine such a praelection of it to them as is Used by us now a daies which will not be proved CHAP. XIII How much it concerneth Ministers to Teach and all to Learn the true meaning of this Ordinance 1 COR. 11. 26 27. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the death of the Lord untill he come Wherefore whosoever doth eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord c. VVHen this Ordinance of the Supper is suitable to the Institution and the Communicant is suitable to the Ordinance then all is right Of the former I have acquitted my self by setting forth the nature Use end of this Sacrament according to our Lords Institution recited by the Evangelists and by St Paul in this place § 1 Now I am to proceed unto the later which is to render the Communicant suitable to the Ordinance of which our Saviour did not in the Institution directly speak but the Apostle in this place speaks more fully and directly unto than in any other place is found the abUses and distempers of the Corinthians leading him most properly to it and though in Popish Churches the grand errour and abUse lies in the unsutableness of their Mass to the Institution yet in Reformed Churches who endeavour to imitate the pattern in the Mount the common sin lies in the unsutableness of the Communicant to the Ordinance and so the point of worship stands between us and the Papists much alike as it stood between the Samaritans and the Jews of old The Samaritans Used a false worship Ye worship ye know not what Joh. 4. 22. The Jews had a true worship but were carnall and for the most part formall worshippers The Feast is prepared drest and ordered according to the Institution of Christ Now the guests are to be surveyed and tried whether they come worthily or unworthily by the test or ticket of the Apostles Doctrine following to the end of the Chapter of which I shall say this in generall 1. That the Apostles Doctrine in this place is properly calculated for the rectifying the abUses and unworthiness of the Corinthians as ye may see at the 33 34 verses but so also most other Scriptures occasionally written are of generall Use their latitude is greater than their particular direction 2. That the Apostle spends the most of his Doctrine upon eating and drinking unworthily setting home the sin and danger of it for the occasion viz. the sinne of the Corinthians required it and yet doubtless the point of worthiness should in order of nature be first stated before unworthiness can be understood for how should I know sinne except first I knew a law of duty how a crooked line except I know what is straight and therefore to attent consideration the Apostle will be found to begin there as I shall shew you afterwards 3. That the Apostle in setting home the sinne and danger of eating and drinking unworthily speaks thunder and lightning in very pertinent but yet new and unusuall phrases which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have no brother in any other part of Scripture as guilty of the body and blood of the Lord eating and drinking judgement or damnation c. full of terrour and fit for compunction These of the 26 verse are the words of St Paul who having recited what Christ did and said at the first celebration and institution of this Sacrament goes about to set
That 's the best corn-field that hath fewest weeds or tares but as I conceive the Church is to proceed by an infallible Rule not a judgement of charity Charity gives a good temperament unto our judgement and holds the balance mercifully but God hath set a Rule to judge by If one that is named a brother be a fornicatour or Idolater or a railer or drunkard 1 Cor. 5. 11. It is the visible Rule of his own word who may and who may not be debarred our fellowship or society Charity may hold the scales but the scales are Gods word which tels us who are inter Commoners and Covenantors and Sacramento tenus Communicants whether they be truly regenerate or no for I have no Rule to judge that and he may have right in foro externo becaUse he answers to the visible Rule of judging for he is a brother called he is as the Apostle saith within and not outwardly scandalous The Kingdom of heaven is likened to ten Virgins whereof five were foolish The Bridegroom might shut out the foolish but the wise could not forbid them to attend or trim their Lamps Mat. 25. 3. No secret sinne that lies in the bosom of the heart is a sufficient ground of a mans being debarred or prohibited by the Church to come to this Table It may be a caUse of a mans eating and drinking unworthily but of his debarment to come it cannot be It may be a caUse of forbearance to come not of prohibition and the Reason is De secretis non judicat Ecclesia secret sins are without the Churches cognizance Our Saviour tels us Matth. 5. 28. He that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in his heart but that adultery is not punishable by any but him that knows the heart The Schoolmen teach That if a Priest have mens Durand l. 4. Dist 9. Quaest 5. §. 7. Ales part 4. Quaest 49. num 1. secret sinnes under seal of Confession he may not forbid the person in the face of the Congregation for then he is not Corrector but Proditor Christ knew Judas his rottennesse his theft was acted his tReason intended and now in hatching yet he suffer'd him I know it 's a great Question Whether Judas received the Lords Supper But that indeed is not the Question but this Whether he was debarred or forbidden by Christ or no And there is no foot step of proof for it I say that 's the Question in this point and yet to speak a word of the other It runs currant by general vote of Antiquity ten for one That Judas Vide Selden de Synedriis lib. 1. cap 9. Vasquez Tom. 3. Disp 217. did receive the Lords Supper Hilary is quoted against it but he also as Vasquez truly Observes is against his communicating in the Passeover too Now we finde he sate down to the Passeover Matth. 26. 20. and was hinted by Christ at the very Table to be the Traitour One of you vers 21. and there is no mention of his deserting the company so early that word of connexion Luk. 22. 21. But behold the hand of him that betrayes me is with me on the Table speaks very fair for it that the connexion may be preserved with former words Those that are against it as some learned men are answer the Text by anticipations Muscul de â—â—na multi and give their Reasons That it 's not likely Christ would eat with such an hypocrite c. But Reason is no demonstration in matter of fact as a learned man saith The great stresse lies upon one word Joh. 13. 30. Judas taking the sap went out immediately This sop say they was given at the Paschal Supper before the Lords Supper whatsoever it was it was an index of the Traitour and given to distinguish him therefore not a common giving it to all as the common custom was and wonder it is that the Apostles should interpret Christs words Do it quickly of buying things for the feast which is a sign they dream'd of no Excommunication by those words nor yet wonder'd that there should be such haste to provide and cater as that he must rise from the Table while the Paschal Supper was eating which Paschal Supper and the Lords Supper was as it were all one to them not distinguisht but by the signification put upon the bread and wine just when they were delivered being indeed the Paschal Rites and no other viz. materially and therefore I see not but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here may signifie as it doth Matth. 13. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The seed in stony places sprung up forthwith not so soon as sowed but by Reason of shallownesse of the earth and heat of the rock sooner then ordinary seed and so Judas went out forthwith not before the end of the Paschal Supper which was also the end of the Lords Supper both being at once and concluded by one hymn but before the long speech Vasquez Tom. 3. Disp. 217. cap. 2. which was continued after Supper by Christ John 13. Joh. 14. for he left Christ and the other together in the room and before that last Sermon was gone about his intended plot and this as it is the common so also as I suppose the true opinion which is hinted as the consent of the Church of England in the Exhortation before the Communion where you finde these words If any of you be a blasphemer Confessio Belgica of God an hinderer or slanderer of his Word an adulterer or be in malice or envy or any other grievous crime bewail your sinnes and come not to this holy Table lest after the taking of that holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you as he enter'd into Judas and fill you full of all iniquities and bring you to destruction both of body and soul But this example pleads nothing for admission of openly notorious and scandalous sinners for though Christ knew Judas yet his sins had not yet scandalously broke forth and therefore he was present as a secret sinner of whom there could be no just accusation nor evident proof and so no object as yet of any ecclesiastical censure in an ordinary and orderly Tom. pars 3. Qu. 81. way as Aquinas saith 4. No private trespasse against a private scandal given to a Christian brother is the immediate object of this debarment from publick Communion for in such cases there is an order viz. The golden Rule of Christ is to be Observed Matth. 18. 15. Go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he hear thee thou hast gained thy brother if not then take one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be establisht If yet he hear not or neglect Tell it to the Church The businesse here to be done is not so much to resarciate the damage or injury done to thee or to make him pay what he owes that
Church be beautifull for all that The Scripture gives us a perfect delineation of the Church as it ought to be in Rules of faith and holinesse but yet shews us plainly that it being Gods pleasure that the Net should gather both good and bad and the servants inviting to the marriage did bring in both good and bad it must needs be consequent that many of those that are called are not chosen That all that are of Israel are not Israel Had not this mixture served more to Gods glory even the glory of his inwardly discriminating grace it is likely it had not been So that as they say of the Hebrew Greek Latine these Languages may be pure in books but hardly to be found purely spoken by any Nation now in the world so are the rules of faith and life pure and perfect in the Word and yet not so perfectly Observed by the visible Church And if a man suppose that a number or Colony of really holy persons might be pickt out of the Churches and embody themselves into a Church Are they sure this would be answerable to their fancy Did not the Donatists dream so of themselves And what may one think of their children in time Doth not the purest seed we sow come up with straw and chaff If they hold Communion with the visible Church Is it not all one If they do not Is it not worse and more clearly without warrant § 5 The Church may be corrupted many wayes in Doctrine Ordinances Worship and this I account the worst becaUse it is the corruption of the best as the corruption of bloud that runnes thorow all the body the poisoning of Springs and Rivers that run thorow a Nation is worse than a sore finger in the body or a ground of thistles in the Nation and there are degrees of this corruption the Doctrine in some remote points hay and stubble upon the foundation the Worship in some rituals or rites of mens invention or custom How many Scripture Churches do ye finde thus corrupted and yet no Separation of Christ from the Jewish Church nor any commanded to the godly of Corinth in the Provinces of Galatia or those of Asia in the Revelation I must in such case avoid the corruption hold the Communion Hear them in Moses chair and yet beware of their leaven but if corruptions invade the fundamentals the foundation of Doctrine is destroyed the worship is become idolatrous the leprosie is gotten into the wals and substance of the hoUse and which is above all If the Church impose such Laws of their Communion as there is necessity of doing or approving things unlawfull or I am ruin'd and undone then must I either break with God or men and in that case Come out of Babylon The Churches of Protestants so separated from them of Rome it was a necessary and just Separation the Lawes of their Communion were ruinous to the soul if we hold it to the body and life if we held it not § 6 In summe then and in conclusion of this part about Doctrine or Worship which is but upon the bie to the Question If a corrupt Church as Israel was have their Ordinances according to the patern in the Mount If it may be said as Peter to Christ John 6. 68. when some Disciples separated themselves Thou hast the words of eternal life If as Christ said in matter of Worship John 4. Salvation is of the Jews than as he said Whether shall we go Why do we separate And yet I would not be mistaken by the simplest man as if I accounted it separation if a Christian hear a Sermon or receive the Sacrament in another Congregation For he that takes a meal at another Table doth not thereby separate from his own hoUse or if a Christian at liberty to dispose his dwelling shall remove and sit down under more fruitfull Ordinances I account not this secession a Separation no more than if being sickly and having not health in the City he remove his seat into the Countrey for purer air becaUse in so doing he removes from the City but renounces not his freedom therein nor disclaims in like proportion the Communion of the Church §. 7. Of Separation § 7 But now to the point of Separation becaUse there is found not kept in the Communion of the Church but not cast out of it some scandalous for life and conversation visibly unworthy of the Ordinance of the Supper For let it be granted that in Adams family there be a Cain in Noahs a Cham in Christs a Judas and if Cain go forth yet Adam doth not Noah doth not Christ doth not Let them be separated let not me separate my self Let the wicked be discommon'd not the godly for the godly are in the right and may stand in it as a man at his own table in his own hoUse or in his own ground If others that ought not do intrude it 's they that must be excluded for they are trespassers not he that 's owner and in his right It 's very true say you but they are not cast out I answer There may be sufficient caUse to cast out Obstinate sinners and yet not sufficient caUse for me to leave the Church I finde that God accepts of such that sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in Jerusalem Ezek. 9. 4. That God commands us To have no fellowship with the unfruitfull works of darkness but reprove them rather Ephes 5. 11. That he wils us To withdraw from them that walk disorderly and commends it 2 Thess 3. 6. That he bids his people Plead with their mother plead Hos 2. 2. These are duties for private Christians to performe in this case but I finde not that they must separate from Communion in Ordinances upon that caUse For I pray you consider 1. Haply there is no Rule in the Word or no proof by sufficient evidence of the fact or no competent Authority by which such a sinner as thou instancest in may be cast out And shall this be done disorderly Shall one disorder be rectified by another 2. Thou for thy part hast no power to cast him out and every member must not usurp and snatch the power of Excommunication to himself for then as he usurps the Sacrament so thou usurpest the Keys he unworthily thou unlawfully 3. It may be the sinne of the Church that such are not cast out but is that sinne a just caUse of thy Separation I have a few things against thee thou hast them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam thou hast them that hold the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans saith Christ to the Church of Pergamus Revel 2. 14 15. Thou sufferest that woman Jezabel to seduce my servants and commit fornication saith he to the Church in Thyatyra vers 20. but upon the rest that are free I put no other burden Hold fast till I come But where is any separation commanded in this case Not any And for the Church of
familiarity with scandalous sinners is often commanded ut supra The flying of Gods people out of Babylon where Idolatry is maintain'd by force and tyranny is called for and required The Separation of heretical and vitious members from the Church is branded with a black coal Jude v. 19. These be they that separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit which above all men they pretend unto But the Separation of the godly from Gods Ordinances becaUse of the corrupt lives of some in the Church is no where by any syllable of Scripture allow'd or countenanc'd being contrary to the example and not warranted by command of Christ or his Apostles and it 's a vain pretending to a holinesse above their Rule or their example All that I would is an order in the Church I should rejoyce to behold as saith he your order and the stedfastness of your faith Col. 2. 5. which too many too much slight and undervalue for as one said Order in an Army kils no body yet without it the Army is but a rout neither able to offend or defend so haply order in the Church converts no body yet without it I see not how the Church should attain her end or preserve themselves in begetting or breeding up souls to God CHAP. XXI Whether the Lords Supper be a converting Ordinance Quest 3 § 1 THe third Question is Whether the Sacrament of the Lords Supper be a converting Ordinance There is a conversion of a regenerate man from some Luk. 22. 32. fall or sinne as in that saying When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren and so a man that 's godly may be often converted that is raised up from lapses and backslidings Of this the Question is not for this is but as the blowing in of the candle when the flame is gone out by exciting or wakening the fire that yet glows in the weeck of the candle which may be done by this Sacrament But the Question is Whether God doth offer or exhibit the first grace for conversion of an unbeliever or unregenerate man for as Davenant rightly saith The first faith must be given to an unbeliever as the first light is that which comes into meer darkness This Question is but an upstart among us which hath risen on occasion of seclusion of some from this Sacrament and indeed quite overthrows it if the Sacrament be a converting Ordinance for upon this ground we may invite the most wicked to the Table as well as to the Word namely for conversion and it were a great sin to prohibit any from the appointed means of their conversion § 2 For answer to the Question I premise That it is the Doctrine of Whitaker that as the Word is the mean and instrument of grace so is the Sacrament in general the one is applied to the ear the other to the eye This is the difference The Word begins and works grace in the heart For faith comes by hearing but the Sacrament is objected to the eye and doth not begin the work of grace but nourishes and incReases it for faith is not begotten by the Sacraments but only augmented Thus he The Doctrine of physical operation is exploded by all the orthodox Sacraments do not work grace as a plaister cures a sore that 's a blinde conceit of ignorant souls but God by them or in their Use imparts grace as he did healing by the brazen Serpent Now God by Baptism solemnly represents and seals to his people their planting into Christ We are planted by Baptisme into the likenesse of his death Rom. 6. 3 4 5. And by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12. 13. and therefore Baptism is called the Sacrament of our implanting ingraffing incorporating into Christ and so is a Sacrament of initiation Ye are all children of God by faith in Christ For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3. 2◠God was pleased to have his Covenant sealed by Baptism as to the first grace of that Covenant as by Circumcision also under the Law and so we are solemnly listed and admitted to be his and called by his name But then as to the grace of education of his children up unto maturity and ripenesse by confirming them and strengthning and causing them to grow c. He hath ordained another Sacrament which is called the second becaUse it presupposes the first as Passeover did Circumcision and that is the Lords Supper of which learned Hooker saith The grace Eccles pol. l. 5. pag. 536. which we have by it doth not begin but continue grace or life no man therefore receives this Sacrament before Baptism becaUse no dead thing is capable of nourishment That which groweth must of necessity first live And to this purpose all our learned Divines have given their suffrage And the Papists though Concil Trid. Sess 13. c. 2. 7. Can. 5. 11. Bellarm. de Euch. c. 17. l. 4. Catech-sub fin Confes cap. de Sac. c. 29. they differ from us in denying remission of sinnes in this Sacrament in favour to their Sacrament of pennance yet they hold it to be an Ordinance of nutrition and so do all their Schoolmen and so doth the Church of England The strengthning and refreshing of our souls c. I need not number Authours or Churches It is so plain a case that I wonder they that have stood up in defence of it as a converting Ordinance have not taken notice of it There is an Army to a man against them and the ancient Christian Churches are so clear in it that they admitted no convert from the Heathen to either Baptism or Supper till they had testified their faith and repentance nor were they called fideles till they were baptized and admitted to the Supper whatsoever knowledge faith or repentance so ever they showed before Let me first clear the state of the Question and then give you the Reasons For the first First I do not deny that a man having some knowledge of the Gospel and visibly professing it for I do not think that any doth imagine that the very popping of the elements into a meer Heathens mouth may convert him may be truly and really converted at the Sacrament for who shall lock up the hands of the Spirit so as the Laver of Regeneration and the renewing of the holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. The work of the Lord and a mans eating and drinking may not be together Or do we think that this time and conversion are incompossible No I think not so Nor do I Question or doubt that the Word of God adjoyned to the Sacrament it being accompanied with the Gospel-promises and the lively painting forth of Christ may not work coversion for why the word out of a Pulpit and the word at a Table or in any other place should not have this same effect I see not You will say This is the cloathed Use of the Sacrament the administration
childe may receive a Ring as well as a Gyant and the least Candle points upwards as well as the greatest Torch Great Masters of Families as the Prodigal Observed allow the meanest of their domestick servants to come to the Tables end and eat of their bread Many sinnes many backslidings if there be contrition and godly sorrow serve for bitter herbs to eat the Passeover with Many wants and weaknesses may be accompanied with vehement desires hunger and thirst Low graces may occasion low hearts when God makes the disease a preparative why should we refUse the medicine If we set the pitch of this fitnesse too low in some empty formes of Religion or some eminent works and moral vertues or some conceited perfections which feed our pride we shall take in many that have nothing of Christ in them Gospel-qualifications are most sutable to a Gospel Ordinance We are not prepared for Christ by ostentation of works but sense of misery The sense of unworthinesse is our worthinesse A little vessel that is empty will receive more than a great one that is full A broken Christ requires a broken heart To be rich and full and righteous in the Gospel-Dictionary doe signifie Obstructions and impediments of our happinesse where the naked are cloathed the hungry are fed the ungodly are justified the weary are refresht the sick are healed the stung with fiery Serpents are recovered the returning lost childe is feasted and they that thirst do buy wine and milk without money and without price And hence it follows That no unregenerate man that lies dead in trespasses and sinnes without a seed a spark of Gospel-grace having no initials of true Repentance and Faith in Christ can be in capacity to eat and drink the Body and Bloud of Christ worthily and with effect for such a one is a stranger to the Covenant and uncircumcised and therefore expresly debar'd this Passeover Exod. 12. 43. Where there is no life there can be no reception of nourishment He that is void of the Condition of the Covenant cannot receive the benefit nor eat the Supper that wants the Wedding-Garment This is a severe point and disclaims the greatest part of men from eating and drinking worthily becaUse they have no ticket of grace renewing or regenerating they are not Disciples indeed they are branches in Christ by externall ingraffing John 15. 2. but have not the life of Christ in them They that are not in the body of Christ do not eat his body saith Austin They that are not members of him do not spiritually feed on him Panem Domin they do eat as Judas not Panem Dominum Ego hoc axtoma teneo saith Calvin that without the Spirit Christ is not received in this Sacrament The Papists go no lesse Catholici omnes saith Vasquez all agree in this That it 's necessary for a worthy Communicant to be in the state of grace and sanctification and therefore howsoever any person be furnisht with endowments of nature and education famous for eminent works and vertues adorned with civil and fair conversation yet without something of Christ some work of the Spirit some seed of Regeneration he cannot eat and drink worthily and with effect And this Doctrine is the rather requisite to be taught becaUse men may flatter themselves in that they have past the test are admitted with approbation to this Table and allowed the liberty thereof for all this may be and yet your case no better than Sauls that would needs be honoured before the people than Judas's who was not thrust out from the Sacrament than his who was let in by the servants to the feast but cast out by the King for want of his Wedding-garment You enjoy a priviledge to eat and drink but what judgement and condemnation to your selves Oh consider it The Lord of this feast will come to view his guests he will turn out some that the servants let in he will say Friend How camest thou in hither He answered not Lord I was called in I was admitted in by thy servants No He was dumb he had nothing to plead he had not a Wedding-garment For he is not a Jew that is one outwardly Rom. 2. penult §. 6. What is requisite to our Receiving Worthily § 6 The actual exercise of our graces is requisite to our eating and drinking worthily The instrument must be in tune before-hand as I shew'd you in the former but now the strings are stricken now they make their musick The activity and imploiment of our faith and affections is now required and our graces must be on their wheels now the sails are spread to catch the gale which sweetly breathes from this holy Ordinance for here it 's said Take Eat Take and drink and as the eye the hand the mouth are now in actual imploiment as to the Sacrament or outward part so faith which is the eye hand mouth of the soul and all the affections are to be actually imploy'd as to the inward thing the body and bloud of Christ Not the having of an eye but looking up to the brazen Serpent healed the biting It 's not enough to have faith but we must believe Now that the Sacrament is in Use now must our graces be in Use too Now that God actually offers and presents Christs body and bloud to my faith Now let the hand of faith go forth and take Christ in Awake my faith and see the atonement of my sins in the broken body of my Saviour Awake repentance and hear the strong cries and see the dolefull agony of him that bears our chastisement Awake my memory and call to minde that Aegypt wherein I was and the bloud of the Passeover which removed the destroying Angel from my soul Awake all that is within me to blesse and praise the Lord. Oh let this Crosse crucifie my lusts and passions Let this death stay my reigning sins as Joshua did the Kings of Canaan Now let the Altar smoak with the Sacrifice of a loving heart inflamed with holy fire of Gods love to me Now the wax is warm Oh let the Seal be stamped fair that I may see the impression alwayes after Now that God shews forth to methe death of his Sonne for me let me shew forth that death of Christ to God again as that which I stick unto and abide by for my righteousnesse and peace with God Alas if my graces be now asleep they are next a kin to dead We might have sweet we might have fruitfull Sacraments had we but lively graces Graces upon their wing not lying sullen and benum'd with cold therefore blow up your graces as the Apostle his phrase is blow the smothering fire the embers into a flame by pertinent meditation Be ye lift up ye everlasting doors that this King of glory may come in And that I may speak to the comfort of a godly soul Let grace run forth at what tap it will so there be but vent whether at the uppermost of
his and so bindes himself and doth as it were seal a counterpart to God again and not onely so but comes into a claim of all the riches and legacies of the Will or Covenant becaUse he hath accepted and here declares his acceptance of the Covenant The Seal is indeed properly of that which is Gods part of the Covenant to perform and give and is no more but offer'd untill we subscribe and set our hands to it and then it 's compleat and the benefits may be claimed as the benefit of any conditional promise may be when the condition is performed And least you should stumble at that word I must let you know That the Will accepting and submitting to the conditions is the performance of the conditions required and so the gracious God that might pro imperio require duty and allegiance of his creature condescends to us to enter into a Covenant of Grace with us and vouchsafes us the honour of coming into Covenant with him that so he might settle and maintain a communion and correspondence between himself and his people and there might be a mutual bond of engagement each to other which is solemnly professed as often as we meet with God in this Sacrament becaUse we are so apt to disbelieve and waver about his promises and to halt and decline from our obligations to him And this is the second combination of action according to that which is to be remembred at every sealing day the Sacrament is a sealing day Deut. 26. 17. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his wayes c. And the Lord hath avouched thee to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee So much for the first What is here done §. 6. What is here Received by the Worthy Communicant § 6 2. I come to the second What is here received and I do not mean to say what every believer doth sensibly receive but what God hath appointed by this Sacrament to convey and what may be received by a believer in the right Use of it not alwayes to his own sense but according to the nature of this Ordinance I will not say that which some affirm but it is Apocryphal of the Manna which the Israelites did eat that it had the taste that every man desired But this I may say that as Calvin of himself When I have Instit l. 4. c. 17. §. 7. said all I have said but little the tongue is overcome yea the minde is overwhelmed I say then in one word 1. Christ is here received the body and bloud of Christ into intimate Union as the nourishment of our souls What is more ours than the meat we eat What is more nearly joyn'd to us than that which becomes part of our selves The Scripture by the language it Useth hath even overcome our apprehensions A man may eat the fruit that hath no interest in the Tree but here the believing eater grows into the Tree he that drinks drinks the fountain he comes to a closer Union with the conduit-pipe of all grace the flesh of Jesus Christ You know the best meat and drink doth you no good except it be made your own nor is Christ of worth except he be ours he is as if he were not Tolle meum tolle Deum we must be happy by a Christ within us Know you not that Christ is in you except you be Reprobates 2 Cor. 13. 5. There was a croud toucht Christ but vertue went out of him to none but one that toucht him by faith So there is a throng about the Table but none receive Christ but those that by faith take and eat his crucified body If Christ himself be here received what spiritual grace is there that is not in him It is somewhat a grosse conceit to ask How Christ in heaven and a believer on earth can be united For man and wife are one flesh though a thousand miles asunder And we know that as the Apostle saith Col. 2. 19. there are bands and joynts whereby the Head and every Member the root and every branch are united and they in this mystical union are Spirit and faith He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. And so according to that strange expression We are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Ephes 5. 30 A phrase which signifies that the humane nature of Christ is the root of this Union but not to be exagitated by too subtill curiosity becaUse mysticall 2. A believer in Christ may here receive remission of sinne not veniall onely as Papists teach but deadly and mortall Oh but we may not come with such sinnes Yes with repentance and remorse for them We may bring our sinnes to the head of our Sacrifice and put them thereupon by Bellarm. de Euch l. 4 c 18. confession Bellarmine resolves all the difference between Papists and Protestants about the effect of this Sacrament into this That the Papists deny the Protestants hold remission of sinne to be given here and the Papists do it in favour of their Sacrament of Pennance that one Sacrament may not rob another but Scripture tels us Matth. 26. 28. This is my bloud of the New Testament which is shed for many for remission of sinne Shed for remission that 's true saith Bellarmine not given in the Sacrament a meer evasion for we drink the bloud that was shed even that which confirmes the New Testament which promises remission of sinne The great Argument wherein he triumphs before the victory is That a believer hath remission of sinnes before he comes viz by his faith in Christ and that 's true Nemo cibum Christi accipit nisi actu sanatus but in this Sacrament the pardon passes Obsignante sigillo before a believer is pardon'd by the Covenant and here that pardon is seal'd and sealed it cannot be except it be before for the pardon of forgiven sinnes is seal'd as Abraham received the signe of circumcision the seale of the righteousnesse of faith which he had before Rom. 4. 11. And this is needfull for reliefe of our doubts and fears and waverings For this is the great Question of anxiety which troubles the soul Are my sinnes pardon'd Are my sins blotted out And God hath saith Chemnitius instituted this Sacrament for solution of this Question to the weak faith Ecce signum Behold the Seal believe upon the Word believe upon the Seal of God Luther gathers it by a gradation The Cup is put for the Wine the Wine signifies the bloud the bloud is the bloud of the New Testament Matth. 26. 28. The New Testament containes the gracious pardon of sinne to a believer And if remission of sinne be an Article of the Covenant the Seale must reach it Therefore all that have wounded their souls with grievous sinnes be wounded again with sorrow put off the purpose of sinning bring repentance and faith touch the hemme of
believe these Corinthians men of such knowledge were such bruits for the Apostle 1 Cor. 10. 16. speaks to them as wisemen who knew this saying The Bread we break Is it not the Communion of the body of Christ c. Therefore §. 3. What it is not to discerne the Lords Body practically § 3 The practical discerning of the Lords body is when the body and bloud of Christ are so minded and intended as to compose the inward man and the outward behaviour of the Communicant into such a posture of spirit and carriage as is suitable to Christs body and bloud there offered and exhibited unto faith and the not discerning the Lords body is when the behaviour is so loose and rude the inward man so discomposed and carnal as that interpretative they may be said not to minde or not to discern the Lords body So we would say of one whose carriage is wanton and loose in the presence of his fathers corpse lying in presence in a coffin or beer you doe not minde you consider not who lies there becaUse if he did another countenance and carriage would beseem him and so the Corinthians are taxed here for such carriage of theirs as proclaim'd they had no serious thoughts no sad and fixed minde upon Christ bleeding and broken for that consideration would have bespoken another frame of spirit and forme of behaviour The result of this explication is The Apostle gives us a two-fold caUse of eating and drinking unworthily 1. If we understand not know not the Analogy or resemblance of the bread and wine to the body and bloud of Christ but stick in the rind or shell and feed only on the husks as upon common bread and common wine and resting in that as knowing not the Use or end which makes the difference which renders all bruitish ignorant people unworthy receivers And how should I make them know the danger that know not thus farre of the Use of this Ordinance Willingnesse to be taught would help it if they were not more willing to runne blindefold into the pit than proudly unwilling to discover their fillinesse and ignorance and if they be unwilling It 's no cruelty but charity to keep a blinde man from running into a pit 2. If we understand the meaning of the outward elements by rote or notional knowledge but do not seriously and with a fixed intention consider and look wishly upon Christs body and bloud represented offered and to be exhibited to our faith for this will compose our outward behaviour and inward spirit this bespeaks faith repentance affections suitable this composes us unto reverence and serious behaviour Imagine the very Body of the Lord Jesus was presented to your eye broken bruised bleeding for thy sinnes under the stroke of Gods terrible justice and so offer'd unto thee for thy salvation Would not thy soul raise up all affections and muster up all it's forces to receive him to open to him to thirst after him to admire and praise him And doth not God in this Ordinance really hold him forth to thee as such and so to be received The nature of the feast to which we are invited teaches us how to dresse our selves To a funeral we come in mourning to a marriage in a wedding-garment The very minding of the body of Christ teaches men to come worthily that is suitably and the not minding of it with fixed intention is the caUse that we come loosly carnally and so unworthily CHAP. XXXI The Aggravations of the Sinne of Vnworthy Receiving § 1 3. THe aggravation of unworthy receiving follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall be holden guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord or God will judge and repute him guilty of the body of Christ unworthily received and entreated or guilty of the unworthy handling or of the contempt and violation of Christs body and blood the memorial of whose death is prophaned by your irreverence and this appointed means of your participation of it is undervalued What a high sound is there in these words He shall be guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord and the eclypsis is left open to be filled with some fearfull word guilty of neglect of contempt of profane violation of and injury to this body the body of our Lord. For the right understanding of which phrase §. 2. What it is to be guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord. § 2 1. The Papists and no lesse the Lutherans doe hence infer That the very Body and Bloud of Christ is eaten and drunk by the mouth of the Communicant which they call Sacramentall eating and the reason is How else is an unworthy Receiver guilty of his Body We of our Confession that hold the Corporeal Presence of Christ under the Bread impossible as well as false do therefore inferre That that Body which is not corporally there cannot be eaten and therefore the guiltinesse of Christs Body is not by the oral eating 2. We expound it thus Whatsoever irreverence slightnesse neglect or contempt is Used by any in the celebration of this Ordinance is reputed and adjudged to redound to the very Body and Bloud of Christ As it's TReason against the State to embase their coin to abUse a Picture is dishonour to the person to hang a man in effigie or subvert ones Statue as the Romans Used are interpreted to the disgrace of the man whose they are And thus it is here by Reason of that near relation and analogy which this Bread and Cup have to Christ himself so the uncircumcised man-childe Gen. 17. 14. is said to have broken my covenant and therefore the Fathers reckon an unworthy receivers sinne to be like that of Judas the Jews the Souldiers that abUsed and dishonour'd the very Body and Bloud of Christ and this is a peculiar guilt that attends upon the celebration of this Ordinance wherein Christ condescends to come so near us by offering his Body and Bloud to us and this condescention to be neglected and refUsed Think of this and measure not the sinne by your own apprehension of it but by the account which God makes of it who accounts all them that come unworthily to vilifie the Body the sufferings of his Sonne our Lord and to despise the Seal of that gracious Covenant which we make our selves believe we doe not do The result from hence is § 3 1. The sins of wicked Christians against Gospel-Ordinances are of highest nature and incurre greater guilt It 's said of Christians That after illumination and taste fall away they crucifie to themselves again the Sonne of God and put him to open shame Heb. 6. 6. And they that sin wilfully after the knowledge of the truth are said to have trodden under foot the Sonne of God and counted the bloud of the Covenant a common thing and to have done despight to the Spirit of grace Heb. 10. 19 26. A meer Heathen is out of capacity of guiltinesse of these high sinnes He
the graces required but should by self-examination know that he hath them becaUse otherwise he might blindfold and at all adventures rush upon the Ordinance and eat and drink damnation to himself 3. BecaUse a man can only then be said to know he hath the graces required when he doth discern and distinguish them from all counterfeits or semblances that are like therefore is self-examination necessary For as gold hath copper a counterfeit of it self so have all true graces some thing like themselves and called by their name which are not right but some slighty ore lying nearer day As there is a faith called which is not faith a repentance not repentance a love of God which is not the love of God a sorrow for sinne which is not godly sorrow there is meeknesse not a grace but a moral vertue c. And therefore examination of our selves is both necessary and difficult that we take not Leah for Rachel and so come to the Lords Table to no more purpose than he that goes to the market with a brasse shilling which he thinks to be good money 4. Then we have this priviledge And so let him eat of this bread c. When we by examination finde that we have though but a seed or spawne of those right and genuine graces which are differenced and distinguisht from all semblances and counterfeits which are called by the same name If every faith confessing Christ were saving If every nollem factum I am sorry were true repentance If every mans saying dolet it grieves me were godly sorrow there are few or none that could be called unworthy but there is a difference that makes distinction between semblance and truth which few do finde in themselves becaUse they rest in generals and equivocals I have in a Sermon upon this point formerly given the Characters of true grace and need not say it over again at this time Let every man examine the truth of his graces by these Characters and so make Use of this priviledge Let him eat c. And if I might give you the Iliads in a nut-shell these are the differences and the characters §. 5. The Differences between true Grace and what is not such § 5 The Difference between Nature and Grace is 1. Nature begins all his actions from and refers all unto self pride profit pleasure glory common honesty of men to men Grace hath this Character it turns the face of and sets a by as on the heart whereby it intends aims to seek to please to know God and therefore discovers that we saw not that emptinesse of and enmity to God which is in us In a word it sets up Gods interest above self which nature cannot do 2. Between knowledge and knowledge There is a special knowledge of God and of the Word which is large and beautifull but the character of true knowledge is affection as the light that 's joyn'd with heat and assimilation of a man to that he knows forming 2 Cor. 3. ult and conforming to the image of God We are changed into the same image We shall be like him for we shall see him 1 Joh. 3. 1. 3. Between faith and faith There is a Christ confessing a Christ acknowledging faith Alii cogitant pij credunt saith Austin but the character of true faith is That it accepts of and closes with Christ himself both as a Lord and Saviour and that upon Gospel-terms to deny self and take up his Cross and be his and this faith is inseparable from holinesse or a godly life never to be found in a wicked or unregenerate man 4. Between Repentance and Repentance There is a Repentance like that of Judas full of anguish a tormenting anguish of spirit But the character of repentance unto salvation is the rise of it from godly sorrow which feels love the nature of it is a purpose to sinne no more but to cleave to God the effect of it is fruit unto holinesse Conviction contrition conversion make it perfect 5. Between Love and Love There is a love of God arising from self-love so one Publican loves another as a Benefactour But the character of true love is that it rises from sense of his first and saving love to us lost sinners and carries us on to desire him to delight in him to have fellowship to be in friendship with him and to be like him 6. Between Desire and Desire There is a desire of salvation to be out of hell a desire of grace meerly as a sign and security for heaven to ease our painfull anguish But the character of true desire is sanctification as well as salvation grace not meerly for a bridge to heaven but for Union Communion and Conformity with and unto Christ Jesus I will proceed no further this is a taste of what I before delivered These are the graces of a Communicant These are their Differences and Characters These lead you on to the priviledge granted And so let him come and eat c. Great Use may be made of this point and the Use is rather to be made by you than me for so the Text Let a man examine himself but I will point you to it in a word or two §. 6. § 6 You see your duty and you see the priviledge So let him eat Let me exhort you to perform this work carefully conscionably I have said enough to move you enough to direct you the benefit is great the danger great the means to obtain the benefit to escape the danger is this If you finde sinne labour to bring repentance If you need a Saviour come and take him as freshly bleeding but bring thirst and faith with you Have an eye to the Serpent on a pole rest your souls as the Dove did upon this Ark a crucified Christ but do not deceive your souls by a slight performance Call your lives and wayes to the bar Examine judge your selves Do not neglect becaUse no body sees you there is a God will search out your sinne and judge also You have great imployments make opportunity you are in suits one Ordinance of God doth not disable another you may lawfully pursue your right and yet pursue peace and keep charity If you suffer wrong forgive it 's glorious If you do wrong Leave your gift at the Altar and be reconciled first that 's more glorious Set apart time set apart your selves Commune with your heart in your closet in silence no man casts up his accounts in a croud or throng you need no other businesse while you do this Seek of God by prayer and fasting a self-searching heart and do it as if ye were to die make the accounts between God and your souls even and seQuester your selves to that purpose for so when you cast up your accounts you Use to shut up your shops 2. That Donatistical principle of separation from Congregations or Churches wherein there is a mixture of worthy and unworthy doth from hence receive