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teacher by his word and by his Spirit he brings us to God, and to felicities eternal, and that is the sum of all. For greater things than these we can neither receive nor expect: but these things are not consequent to the reception of the natural body of Christ, which is now in heaven; but of his word and of his Spirit, which are, therefore, indeed his body and his blood, because by these we feed on him to life eternal. Now these are, indeed, conveyed to us by the several ministries of the Gospel, but especially in the sacraments, where the word is preached and consigned, and the Spirit is the teacher, and the feeder, and makes the table full, and the cup to overflow with blessing.

SECTION III.

That in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, there are represented and exhibited many great Blessings, upon the special account of that sacred Ministry, proved in general.

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IN explicating the nature of this divine mystery in general, as I have manifested the nature and operations and the whole ministry to be spiritual, and that not the natural body and blood of Christ is received by the mouth, but the word and the Spirit of Christ, by faith and a spiritual hand, and, upon this account, have discovered their mistake, who think the secret lies in the outside, and suppose we tear the natural flesh of Christ with our mouths: so I have, by consequent, explicated the secret which others, indefinitely and by coujecture and zeal, do speak of, and know not what to say, but resolve to speak things great enough. It remains now that I consider for the satisfaction of those that speak things too contemptible of these holy mysteries; who say, 'it is nothing but a commemoration of Christ's death, an act of obedience, a ceremony of memorial, but of no spiritual effect, and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver.' Against this, besides the preceding discourse convincing their fancy of weakness and derogation, the consideration of the proper excellences of this mystery, in its own separate nature, will very useful. For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into this economy and dispensation.

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For the understanding of which we are to consider, that Christ, besides his spiritual body and blood, did also give us his natural, and we receive that by the means of this. For this he gave us but once, then, when upon the cross he was broken for our sins; this body could die but once, and it could be but at one place at once, and heaven was the place appointed for it, and at once all was sufficiently effected by it, which was designed in the counsel of God. For by the virtue of that death, Christ is become the author of life unto us and of salvation; he is our Lord and our lawgiver; by it he received all power in heaven and in earth, and by it he reconciled his Father to the world, and in virtue of that he intercedes for us in heaven, and sends his Spirit upon earth, and feeds our souls by his word; he instructs us to wisdom, and admits us to repentance, and gives us pardon, and, by means of his own appointment, nourishes us up by holiness to life eternal.

This body being carried from us into heaven, cannot be touched or tasted by us on earth; but yet Christ left to us symbols and sacraments of this natural body; not to be, or to convey that natural body to us, but to do more and better for us; to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body, and the effusion of that blood: which blessings, being spiritual, are, therefore, called his body spiritually, because procured by that body which died for us; and are, therefore, called our food, because by them we live a new life in the spirit, and Christ is our bread and our life, because by him, after this manner, we are nourished up to life eternal. That is, plainly thus, therefore we eat Christ's spiritual body, because he hath given us his natural body to be broken, and his natural blood to be shed, for the remission of our sins, and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance. For by this gift and by this death he hath obtained this favour from God, that by faith in him and repentance from dead works, by repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we may be saved.

To this sense of the mystery are those excellent words of

a. John, vi. 51.

the apostleb: "He bare our sins upon his own body on the tree, that he might deliver us from the present evil world, and sanctify and purge us from all pollution of flesh and spirit; that he might destroy the works of the devil; that he might redeem us from all iniquity; that he might purchase to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works; and that we, being dead unto sin, might live unto righteousness." "Totum Christiani nominis et pondus et fructus mors Christi." "All that we are, or do, or have, is produced and effected by the death of Christ."

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Now, because our life depends upon this death, the ministry of this life must relate to the ministry of this death, and we have nothing to glory in but in the cross of Christ: the word preached is nothing but Jesus Christ crucified: and the sacraments are the most eminent way of declaring this word for by baptism we are buried into his death,' and by the Lord's supper we are partakers of his death: we communicate with the Lord Jesus as he is crucified; but now since all belong to this, that word and that mystery that is highest and nearest in this relation, is the principal and chief of all the rest; and that the sacrament of the Lord's supper is so, is evident beyond all necessity of inquiry, it being instituted in the vespers of the passion, it being the sacrament of the passion, a sensible representation of the breaking Christ's body, of the effusion of Christ's blood; it being by Christ himself intituled the passion, and the symbols invested with the names of his broken body, and his blood poured forth, and the whole ministry being a great declaration of this death of Christ, and commanded to be continued until his second coming. Certainly by all these it appears, that this sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation: here is the publication of the great word of salvation, here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ, the food of our souls; much more clearly, than in baptism, much more effectually than in simple enunciation, or preaching and declaration by words: -for this

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b Rom. v. 10. Col. i. 21, 22. Tit. ii. 12. Heb. ii. 14. Heb. ix. 1 Pet. i. 18. 1 Pet. ii. 24.

e Tertul. lib. iii. c. 8. con. Marcion.

→ Figura est ergo præcipiens, passione Domini esse communicandum, et suaviter atque utiliter recondendum in memoria, quòd pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit.-S. Aug. de Doctr. Christ. lib. iii.

preaching is, in infants and strangers to Christ, to produce faith; but this sacramental enunciation, is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ; a glorying in it, giving praise for it, a declaring it to be done, and owned, and accepted, and prevailing.

The consequent of these things is this, that if any mystery, rite, or sacrament, be effective of any spiritual blessings, then this is much more, as having the prerogative and illustrious principality above every thing else in its own kind, or of any other kind in exterior or interior religion. I name them both, because as in baptism the water alone does one thing, but the inward co-operation with the outward oblation does save us, yet to baptism the Scriptures attribute the effect, so it is in the sacred solemnity: the external act is, indeed, nothing but obedience, and of itself only declares Christ's death in rite and ceremony; yet the worthy communicating of it does, indeed, make us feed upon Christ, and unites him to the soul, and makes us to become one spirit, according to the words of St. Ambrosef; "Ideo in similitudinem quidem accipis sacramentum, sed veræ naturæ gratiam virtutemque consequeris;" "Thou receivest the sacrament as the similitude of Christ's body, but thou shalt receive the grace and the virtue of the true nature."

I shall not enter into so useless a discourse, as to inquire whether the sacraments confer grace by their own excellency and power, with which they are endued from above,-because they who affirm they do, require so much duty on our parts, as they also do who attribute the effect to our moral disposition: but neither one nor the other say true; for neither the external act, nor the internal grace and morality, does effect our pardon and salvation; but the Spirit of God, who blesses the symbols, and assists the duty, makes them holy, and this

e Et tu qui accipis panem divinæ ejus substantiæ, in illo participas alimento.-S. Ambros. lib. lxvi. de Sacr. Hic umbra, hic imago, illic veritas: umbra in lege, imago in evangelio, veritas in cœlestibus. Idem de Offic. lib. iv. c. 48. Si quis vero transire potuerit ab hâc umbrà, veniat ad imaginem rerum, et videat adventum Christi in carne factum, videat eum pontificem, offerentem quidem et nunc patrí hostias, et postmodum oblaturum, et intelligat hæc omnia imagines esse spiritualium rerum, et corporalibus officiis cœlestia designari.— Orig. in Psal. xxxviii, Vide eund. hom. 7. in Levit. et Epiphanium in Anchorata.

De Sacram, lib. vi.

acceptable:-only they that attribute the efficacy to the mi nistration of the sacrament, choose to magnify the immediate work of man, rather than the immediate work of God, and prefer the external, at least in glorious appellations, before the internal; and they that deny efficacy to the external work, and wholly attribute the blessing and grace to the moral co-operation, make too open a way for despisers to neglect the divine institution, and to lay aside or lightly esteem the sacraments of the church. It is in the sacraments as it is in the word preached, in which not the sound, or the letters, or syllables, that is, not the material part, but the formal, the sense and signification, prepare the mind of the hearer to receive the impresses of the Holy Spirit of God, without which all preaching and all sacraments are ineffectual: so does the internal and formal part, the signification and sense of the sacrament, dispose the spirit of the receiver the rather to admit and entertain the grace of the Spirit of God there consigned, and there exhibited, and there collated. But neither the outward nor the inward part does effect it, neither the sacrament nor the moral disposition; only the Spirit operates by the sacrament, and the communicant receives it by his moral dispositions, by the hand of faith. And what have we to do to inquire into the philosophy of sacraments? these things do not work by the methods of nature: but here the effect is imputed to this cause, and yet can be produced without this cause, because this cause is but a sign in the hand of God, by which he tells the soul when he is willing to work.

Thus baptism was the instrument and sign in the hands of God to confer the Holy Spirit upon believers, but the Holy Ghost sometimes comes like lightning, and will not stay the period of usual expectation. For when Cornelius had heard St. Peter preach, he received the Holy Ghost; and as sometimes the Holy Ghost was given because they had been baptized, now he and his company were to be baptized, because they had received the Holy Ghost. And it is no good argument to say, the graces of God are given to believers out of the sacrament,ergo, not by or in the sacrament; but rather thus, if God's grace overflows sometimes, and goes without his own instruments, much more shall he give it in the use of them: if God gives pardon without the sacrament, then

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